Mapless Dungeons

One of the most interesting ideas that I have come across in the ttrpg scene is the idea of the mapless dungeon. The first time I heard about this more narrative form of exploration was from this video by PaladinProse. The procedure itself comes from Runehammer’s Crown and Skull system, tho it does not depend on any of the systems mechanics. This makes it possible to lift this procedure and put it in any system without issue. I later saw another implementation of this idea from the book The Perilous Wilds.

In this post I am going to go over these procedures and give my thoughts about them and mapless dungeons in general.

The Similarities

Both of the mapless procedures above are fundamentally about rolling on tables to generate rooms as the party explores instead of having rooms with set locations and encounters in them. The starting location of an area might be keyed, but everything else is determined by checks that the group makes.

Crown and Skull Procedure

In Crown and Skull’s approach, a dungeon “area” is 2 tables of 4 items each. The starting location of the dungeon area is keyed and gives the players a chance get a taste of what they are getting into.

The first table is a room description and the second table is an encounter that is inside of the room. Generally, a higher number on the table is better for the party. So rolling a 4 for the location table might mean the party has stumbled on the area’s treasure room or primary objective. Conversely, rolling a 1 might mean they are in a derelict or barren room.

The second table is the encounter table. Rolling a 1 on this table would almost certainly result in a combat encounter. Rolling a 4 would result in finding the exit or other good encounter.

Each time players move to the next room, they roll some d4s and the GM describes what they find.

A dungeon might have multiple areas, requiring multiple sets of d4 tables with different themes. Players get to the end by rolling a 4 on the location table for all the areas.

Its a simple and elegant system. It does require some improvisation on the GM’s side if you only go in with the 2 tables. I would personally have a little set of notes for each of the areas to help with descriptions during play.

The Perilous Wilds Procedure

This procedure sees dungeons as 2 types of areas, Unique areas and common areas. Unique areas are special rooms that only occur once while exploring the dungeon. Common areas have the possibility to occur multiple times while plunging. When a party moves deeper into the dungeon, a single d12 roll against a table in the book is made. The result will determine if the party runs into a common or unique area, any discoveries that they might find in the room and if they run into any dangers.

Depending on the result from the table, the GM will choose or roll for a common or unique area and choose or roll for a discovery / danger if they came up. Each time a unique area is rolled, it gets crossed out. The party has fully explored a dungeon when they have encountered all the unique areas of the dungeon.

A dungeon’s size is directly related to the number of unique areas it has with smaller dungeon’s having 4 and larger ones having 12. The size of the dungeon can be chosen or rolled randomly.

The book contains many random tables and when prepping a dungeon before hand the book asks for the GM to use the tables to brainstorm common areas, unique areas and dangers for the party to run into as they roll on the plunging table. This gives you things to work with when running the session.

The system is a little more detailed than the Crown and Skull procedure. The book is also full of spark tables to serve as inspiration for dungeon brainstorming. It still requires some improvisation, but if you follow the steps in the book you will end up with a good amount of content to work with at the table.

Crossing the Streams

For best results when using mapless dungeons, I believe a GM should combine these 2 procedures. Using Crown and Skull’s d4 tables with The Perilous Wilds brainstorming.

This results in a nice blend of fast to prep and run dungeons with some notes to help with improve.

Make notes of the dungeon’s origin and history. Brainstorm some remains that would reveal these details. Then when players explore and make checks, you will have these discoveries at hand and can give them to players.

Mapless Benefits

The first and best benefit is that it saves a lot of prep time. No need to draw a map of any kind or worry about where the interesting things in your dungeon are located. Just list the interesting parts of your dungeon and let fate determine what order the party finds them.

This method also might feel a little more exciting to some players. The mapless nature of the dungeon means that no one knows for sure how far along into the dungeon the group is or how many more rooms and encounters they are going to have to deal with before getting to their goal.

Mapless dungeons are also extremely flexible. A GM can easily pull out a simple battle map when the need comes up and put it away again when the party goes back to exploring. The GM can also save unused results from the tables in future dungeons.

Lastly, I feel that mapless dungeons are uniquely well suited to Pathfinder 2e. In Pf2, there are certain actions that can only be done in exploration mode. These actions give players benefits when they go into encounter mode. However, most groups find it hard to use this part of the game because the book does not flesh out a good way to use these rules. I believe that mapless dungeons fill in that gap. Players can declare their exploration actions before rolling on the tables to delve deeper. Allowing them to use the systems already provided in the book to prepare for combat or learn about their surroundings. It also makes it very easy to track turns. Each time the group rolls, a turn passes. If the group searches a room or interacts with something that would take time, a turn passes. Simple and transparent for all parties.

Draw Backs

Map making can be fun. A mapless dungeon removes this step.

Online groups tend to like having something to look at. In a mapless dungeon, the group is not going to have the specific room they are in on the screen. They might have an image that represents the dungeon or a set of images representing the different areas of the dungeon but not the actual room. Having to depend completely on the mind’s eye in an online game can make it hard to stay focused.

When exploring an unknown and hard to navigate location, a mapless dungeon makes sense. After all, the group knows nothing about the place they are getting into and letting chance dictate where they end up and what they find is logical. When the group is in a known or well laid out area, a mapless dungeon makes less logical sense. Locations like these might be better severed with a point crawl instead.

A mapless dungeon might make players feel like they have lost some agency. They no longer choose what corridor to go down. The group simply declares that they are going forward and they roll on the same tables regardless. A GM might need to make special considerations to ensure that players can make choices and influence the results from the table. For example, a possible encounter in the dungeon could be a non hostile denizen that knows the way to the goal. However, they need to be persuaded to give that information. Or a helpful denizen warns the party of a dangerous monster that lives in the dungeon and the tell tale signs of its presence. After this encounter, if the party rolls that result on the table, the GM may allow them to reroll and avoid the monster.

The element of random chance means that its hard to know how long a mapless dungeon will take to clear. The group could enter the dungeon and get to the goal right away. They could also roll encounter after encounter and not reach the goal for the whole session even tho the GM had planned the dungeon as a small side quest.

Is it Worth?

You might have noticed that mapless dungeons have a good number of drawbacks. Some of you might even be wondering if the benefits are worth it. I believe, they are.

I think most groups will not mind the loss of getting to choose what corridor they get to go down. Most dungeons are circular or at least partially linear in nature. Especially if the dungeon is smaller in size. The choice of going left or right is not really meaningful. In fact, in a smaller dungeon like this, a mapless dungeon would make the location seem bigger. This is due to players not having a map as a frame of reference for the dungeon’s size.

Players might also find that a mapless dungeon will grant them more agency. Especially if the GM puts encounters on the tables that are neutral in nature and offer players the chance to reroll or learn about the locations on the table. Players can choose to seek out a result on the table outside of their main objective after learning about it. Or can choose to follow a dungeon denizen who knows the way to their goal, or claims to know…

“You can not have a meaningful campaign if strict time records are not kept.” Everyone knows this famous quote from Garry Gygax. However, most folks find time keeping to be fairly hard to do in game. Especially when groups are exploring. Mapless dungeons make time keeping very easy. Every time the party goes forward, a turn passes. After an encounter, a turn passes. I have yet to find a clearer system for time keeping. In a mapped dungeon, a GM needs to decide how many rooms a group can go through before a turn passes. Or simply not account for movement at all. A mapless dungeon makes time keeping easy. Making effect tracking easy and adding some tension to the delve.

The speed at which mapless dungeons can be made can also not be under stated. Making 4 general locations and 4 general encounters is pretty easy. Brainstorming some concrete locations and encounters from these general ideas does not take much longer. This makes it very easy to have many points of interest in your world for players to explore. Ideally, all these dungeons would also have very different themes, giving your game variety.

Manifest the Mapless

Ever since I first learned about this idea, I loved it and have wanted to try it. I think mapless dungeons can serve as an excellent tool to keep in a GM’s toolbox. Even for a GM that only plays online, like me, I think mapless dungeons can work out very nicely.

One of my annoyances with some of the published dungeons that I have played through is that dungeon maps tend to have cramped rooms. This is especially true in maps that are ment to be larger dungeon floors with many rooms. This makes sense, they can only make an image so large, and they need to fit in a lot of rooms. So, the rooms need to be small. This leads to cramped combats. With a mapless dungeon, when combat breaks out a purpose built battle map can be used. allowing for players to move around the battle field.

Mapless dungeons also make it easier to deliver information to the players about the dungeon back story. The GM does not have to worry about where clues are located or worry about players missing all the clues. As players explore, clues can be given naturally. No need to worry about players missing all the clues cause they choose a weird path.

Its a very cool idea. The next time that I am in need of a dungeon, I almost certainly will try to manifest the mapless. I hope you give it a try to.