A small (Maybe easy) request?

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Offline Emeraldfire7

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A small (Maybe easy) request?
« on: January 09, 2011, 19:49:29 »
Well after searching for extensive hours on the interwebs i havent found a decent freeware dungeon generator,  being a huge rpg fan (Pen and paper rpg)  i often find myself in a creative pickle when trying to make dungeons on the fly,  and often time my players complain about there not being enough dungeon exploring, so what does this all mean?

Well i figured theres no better place to come to ask for some nice programs then the nifflas support forums (Yay) Ive seen many great things come of this community and i figure a simple random dungeon generating program should be a piece of cake for some of the people on here :)  If anyone is willing to give it a try please go for it! or if you know of a good one thats also freeware then please point me in the right direction D:

A few things if your making one:

It needs to have a  variety of rooms (Big, small, square, round etc.)  along with corridors,  multiple levels possibly? (if its too complicated leave it out ;P)  and of course variations of boss rooms, Large caverns,  huge rooftops maybe?  anything you can come up with.  im not asking for some fancy 3D generator a simple 2d pixel art, or even just black and white will suffice :)

Another thing that would be good is to not generate a massive dungeon but rather let it generate depending on where/how we/I move through it,  example Room A has two exits (1 and 2) none of these exits are generated yet,  but if i navigate to room 2 then it will generate it and not 1,  if exit two leads to room B with 2 exits (3 and 4) and i go through exit three it will generate instead of four,  if this isnt making any sense feel free to omit it as im sure i can do without fancy stuff :P

Well thanks in advanced C) hopefully someone can solve my dungeon problem :D

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Offline LPChip

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2011, 22:21:29 »
Could you draw an example in paint of what you'd expect? I find it hard to follow what you exactly are looking for.
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Offline Emeraldfire7

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2011, 22:42:36 »
the attached file is a sortof example,  Think of it as a tileset for a top down type game (Where black are walls and white is open space,  So each tile is 5x5 pixels lets say, so randomely placing these tiles MAY work in the fact that you'd get some corridors, and some rooms,  some large rooms as the all white tile could connect to other all white tiles

If you want you could probably just make the program randomely generate the tiles in the tileset,  even if theres no room on the end of a corridor it could be a dead end... so it works out :D

I added an example using the tileset (Also attatched) This would be an ideal generation but even i the finished product is messier its fine (also the example i made is small,  id like larger areas)

Anyways hopefully this helps :)

EDIT:  This tileset is really small, i think id prefer a larger more detailed version, possibly with some nice textures,  but even B&W will work... (I took 5x5 pixels for time and simplicity)
« Last Edit: January 09, 2011, 22:56:06 by Emeraldfire7 »

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Offline Widget

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2011, 12:59:39 »
It's not exactly what you're looking for, as it appears to generate natural-looking caves rather than classic dungeons, but someone on TIGSource created something.

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Offline Emeraldfire7

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2011, 16:56:26 »
meh... your right its not exactly what im looking for, and it would be hard to navigate in it without adding/detracting a whole bunch of things from it,  but it is a nice find :)

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Offline Widget

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2011, 17:15:10 »
Google will provide;

The first one looks like the best of them.

Or, if none of those will do, the full search.

Edit: Changed the LMGTFY link to the google search itself. That was probably a little too passive-aggressive of me  <_<

Further Edit: Played around with the d20 generator a bit. Although it's the wrong ruleset, it generates a wandering monster list, descriptions of notable features, secret doors, encounters, treasures, and on, and on... with a little interpretation it's an instant dungeon kit. Really nice creation.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2011, 17:24:00 by Widget »

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Offline Emeraldfire7

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2011, 17:22:32 »
ive found all of these my main dissappointment with them is that the're not a standalone program :/  which id prefer,  i lke being able to bring my usb stick anywhere and still have access to all my tools...

If someone could make a simple program that would randomly place tiles in an area like from the tileset attached in the second post from a .png file that would be MORE than awesome,  if the tielset could be modified aswell would be even more awesome,  SO basically,  you hit generate, it randomly places tiles from the .png tileset in the same folder as it... 

Simple no?

 thanks for your help anyways widget :)

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Offline Widget

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2011, 17:38:12 »
I'm no coder so I have no idea if it's simple or not. There are plenty of versions of what you're looking for but they tend to be products people are selling.

In your position I'd buy some thin card, cut it into regular squares and draw dungeon components on one side (your rooms, corridors, whatever else). You just pick them out as you go along and there you are, randomly generated dungeons with minimal outlay.

I'm not sure what else I could suggest. When I DMed, the world design was the part I found most fun but, if I was rushed, I just very roughly sketched something out and made up the details on the fly

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Offline Emeraldfire7

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2011, 17:42:53 »
thats what i have been doing but its a real pain in the arse,  both the details on the fly and trying to cut out many little tiles :moody:

hmm...  i guess i could always draw out a good 10 sheets of dungeons and pull one out at random when we come across a dungeon...

To specify a bit more im looking for more of a 2D Random tile based map generator but instead f being an overworld, its a dungeon :P2

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Offline Widget

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2011, 17:54:57 »
Heh, I didn't mean little tiles, I meant make them big ones (not huge, but easy to handle and use*). So you specify the centre corridor's width of each tile as the connection points (so all the tiles piece together) and then each tile consists of an entire room, a length of straight corridor, a dead-end or anything else you can imagine that connects only to one or more centre-edges.

The further advantage is that if they're big enough you can write suggestions for encounters or objects of interest on the back (even as far as stats for creatures, if they're big enough) for any time you have an imagination-block.

It sounds like money's a concern so, although it's not ideal, it is at least a cheap option.

*say, 2"-or-3" to a side. Maybe even bigger, depnding on the size of grid you have on it.

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Offline Emeraldfire7

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2011, 18:05:34 »
yeah thats what i meant but its still a pain in the arse XD

I started but its really complex after a while... unless i just make rooms like the tileset... and copy them over and over... well anyways xD

I dont like writing suggestions and such, i prefer creating monsters on the fly, its always fun >:D which is another reason why i dont like the online ones, they're telling you all the details so im no longer the GM xD the site is lol... but anyways thats simply personal preference,  ill find something to do lol...

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Offline Widget

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2011, 18:10:00 »
Well, better for the generator to provide too much information than too little. You can always ignore what you don't want but fabricating stuff to fill gaps is what the tool's supposed to avoid  :P

Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't find a good solution for you. What my dad used to do was collect the premade adventures and cherrypick the mapped dungeons in them to fill any gaps... but that's much more expensive than buying a set of commercial DM tools  X)

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Offline Emeraldfire7

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Re: A small (Maybe easy) request?
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2011, 18:12:32 »
lol... XD i dont like taking from other games XD my rpg is actually all custom made, nothing has been stolen from DnD or warhammer and etc.  its all its own >)

so yeah ill figure something out lol