Dungeon Master Forum

Start small if you ever want to finish, is my advice.

why you to finisch ever the dungeons only to begin you? why ? Duckman ? all ?

RAF68 wrote:why you to finisch ever the dungeons only to begin you? why ? Duckman ? all ?

If you mean why i do not have completed any, i either got bored, went too long with something in the dungeon, or lost it to some crash or like that.

I am fairly sure i have made more than 10 attempts, those listed are just those
I can remember (i certainly know i could do better finishing some). Is/are there anyone lazier?

Ian wrote: @Duckman: OMG! You would create the World's largest dungeon if you connected all these things together!

well at least i have a fairly good dm dungeon making experince... Problem is that I only have the dungeons 8, 9 and 10 in storage and 8 is in different computer. But i may be able to complete the dungeon i am now making: i have already put more effot to it than into any other dungeon, i have much better resources (both better editor and sounds/graphics), and it has good basementation (story and end already planned, many graphics and sounds still to be used plus a very helpful brother: He is making a dungeon very similar, lets me use all his ideas and pictures, trough he also uses mine's.) If both of us were to complete our dungeons same time thay would be like made by same maker!

-->is there anyone lazier?
well, yes! Then again, you can never know !
My dungeon-building factory does not run yet.#
It´s bits here bits there but not a focussed effort.

I have started recently to collect my ideas (on mechanics) in a notepad file instead of paper.
(I use paper because I like to draw things and make quick room outlines with notes on traps, monsters, difficulty etc.
The problem I face is organisation of all the stuff I wanna make. A notepad file can get lost, but I have
the stuff in one file and can read it for reference much easier and to get into the mood of brainstorming etc.

Then I have too large a scope, innovation wise.
A small beginner dungeon would be the way to go first, and that is ok for me really.

I guess my plan is not sheer size of the dungeon but tweaks here and there and that is the thing that is immaterial so to speak, you cannot see this stuff and the result is not walls and floors.


If I redesign or make from scratch a monster, there are quite some things that need to be considered,
decided and then implemented and also adapted to the possible resolution. I has to please me, and it is not easy to start with(learn pixel pushing!) so yeah!

same but a bit different is with mechanics: I imagine something then you have to think it in mechanics and finally
try to do that with the editor.(learn editor, learn what can be done, how to do what you think to be fun or nifty things
steer accordingly) This (getting to know the capabilities of the editor) can lead to new ideas

What I lack most is regularity and familiarity with it.

A real show stopper is that I have no windows pc right now,
so I cannot even work on creating it. This has to get remedied someday.

Anyway sometimes there is loss of data (crashes,stupidity) so tips on how to save your dungeon files would be welcome.
I can only think of emailing myself or putting the files on a server(webspace which I do not have but probably could get).
CDs are not worth the trouble, i don#t want to burn a cd for 5 mbytes. anyway a portable harddisk would be really cool for backup purposes, quick to connect and easy to use and to use for other data, too

Real life distractions(to put it evil ) are in the way, too.
The real determination to produce a dungeon must be there. Then do it in one go, pauses are no good for remembering your plans..

zoom wrote:(I use paper because I like to draw things and make quick room outlines with notes on traps, monsters, difficulty etc.

Yeah, me too! The problem is that I have two jobs and I also live in two different places, so I have the papers scattered throughout the whole country. Another thing is that I don't have enough energy to transfer my ideas from paper to CSBuild.

zoom wrote:Anyway sometimes there is loss of data (crashes,stupidity) so tips on how to save your dungeon files would be welcome.
I can only think of emailing myself or putting the files on a server(webspace which I do not have but probably could get).

I use three different computers, so I spend a lot of time carrying data from one computer to another and making updates and copies. Sometimes I have problems recognising which version of a file is the most recent - so I had to develop a special system of file naming that also works as a cipher-system because nobody understands it but me .

Basically, I use USB flash drives because they are small and easy to carry (but also easy to lose, doh!), and I email the most important files to myself, so my email box is full of "self-sent" files, lol. I also create CD/DVD back-ups every month. I think I'll have to buy a portable HDD as well - all other cool kids around have at least one!

I have many ideas, but not necessarily more partially build dungeons to show for it

PC DM (DMute) - actually built one dungeon, but never completed the conversion to CSBwin (and in the process add stuff removed because of restrictions, and balance a few annoying parts)

PC DM (DMute) - did a couple of things for the team dungeon. That was never finished, and not converted to CSBwin either even though one of us could have done it

PC DM (DMBuild) - a five level temple dungeon 'furnished'. Got quite far with the basics, but ran into a problem with the text editing. Sadly, Sphenx never continued with his editor. Could have converted it into CSBwin, but never got back to it. The lower levels had all the ideas in my head, but not done.

CSBwin - a couple of text dungeons done - a fuse chaos or order test, a much tougher dragon test, and a cool forge test all got built. Oh, and one that had an intelligent text based counter that said things out loud. Though then Paul S created one too

CSBwin - a massive, massive dungeon idea that I barely started. Lots of mechanics were semi put in place. The hall of champions and first level were put in, but the champion mechanics were not finished (law and chaos and neutrality would have meant something, as would party, make-up). Tried to just have it demoing the mechanics I did,. didn't finish that (due to leaving it while half-doing the vampire mehcanics and not getting back to it before I forgot the main DSA layout). Also tried to just finish the castle level I had, but again some mechanics needed finished, the top needed finished, and more importantly some of the first mechanics were broken as I was doing later ones, so I needed to get back to fix them.

RTC - I had a pad filled both sides in the early days with a huge 'dungeon' idea more akin to the DMII structure but with schools of learning instead of shops and five towers and more wilderness/forest. So many cool ideas, never coded a single bit except for a rough layout in PC DM of the schools. Tried to write a story based on the dungeon, and it might still happen, but is currently on the backburner too A few ideas might see the light of day as flavour in the DM D&D game

RTC - an inn for the hall of champions, and as simple dungeon beyond. Nevre got beyond the inn graphics, etc, and that was simple stuff!

D&D - doing a DM based dungeon as a play by post. Weeeeeeeeeeeee. Early days yet though!

Umm, probably many other idea dungeons - shops, mazes, 'furnished' dungeons that were lived in, all sitting in odd places on my Hard drives.

As for me: I barely remember half the stuff I've started and not finished. I just found some CSBWin stuff the other day that I had totally forgotten about!

I'm finally working on a RTC adventure based on a gamebook. Slow going, but with an obvious objective to meet (replicate the gamebook), it's much easier to focus and actually build stuff because there's less tendency to go off on tangents when you get a cool idea...

I also think i have about 5 dmjava dungeons i do not remember at all

How much (about) you have started?
How long did ye manage to get them?

Probably 50 or more test dungeons where I've been trying out different techniques (in RTC). At least one over-ambitious project that I recently cancelled in favour of something smaller.

No complete dungeons, ever!

That will change

So ye have done at least twice as much them tham me.
How long did you get them before you stopped anyway? and how long they would have been if you done everyone of them?

Who knows? Months? Years? Most of them were just tests, not complete dungeons.

I just opened up RTC just now, and it ended up compiling a cave lay-out I totally forgot I had started

Since when do you bring order into chaos now ?
(*runs and hides*)

I'd like to reiterate that long breaks are bad. I often abandoned my dungeon for weeks or months, and when I came back, I needed a day or two just to get back into everything - and by then, my motivation to continue building was already gone again!

I only started one project so far. That was in late 2005, so it's about 4 years old now. I even published a demo of that. After a year or so, I re-started the whole thing in RTC (was using CSBWin) before, because I could use the DM2 graphics and it was easier for me to import other graphics and sounds (and music). New ideas were usually tried out in that very same dungeon. Now, after 4 years, it is nearing completion; only a few cutscenes, a few secret rooms, and some new items and spells need to be done, as well as some more playtesting. Expect my dungeon before the end of the year.

I have my dungeon on my desktop PC, but also carry it around on a USB stick and my laptop. I hope not all three will crash/be lost...

Aye trantor, thats right. I have experince too about that. two months might well be enough to cause that. It is possible to make the interest return by continue making the dungeon but thats hard.

Trantor wrote:Expect my dungeon before the end of the year.

Fantastic! I'm looking forward to it!

beowuuf wrote:Soft background music is ok (DM2). I prefer no music (DM).

I had forgotten about that. That wasn't bad. I liked the special effects 'outside' on Stonekeep.
I found that curious, it being a Dungeon Master game.

I wants to know prefere you the spell book or not for magic?

je voulait savoir vous prefere le spell book ou non pour la magie?

Depends on your story but i prefer having restric runes and the spell book to collect them.

Ca dépend de ton histoire mais je préfère avoir les runes limitées avec le spell book pour les collecter. (C'est juste mon avis personnel)

Depends on the story, but all runes at once

ok it is to note last thing to prefer you with a card in my dungeon or without card ?

ok c'est noter dernier chose vous prefer avec une carte dans mon dungeon ou sans carte ?

without map.

Agreed.

you want to have the possibiliter of reincarnate the champions or resurrect righteous man

Both to have replayability

Same as beo: both, except for special champions if you make them

I said nothing

Fireball!

EDIT: OK, then I said nothing too.

I said nothing

How far have you got?