Random Dungeon Generators Reviewed

Random dungeon generators go way back to the early days of computer games.  Text-based dungeon crawls like Hack and Moria randomly created their dungeon levels using ASCII characters, but even they have since been given graphics front-ends.

A dungeon generator can save you some time when you’re getting ready for your next game session.  Two of the generators below can save you even more time by listing the contents and some aspects of each room.  However, you may need to adjust these descriptions or throw them out completely to fit your needs.  One also lists the dungeon’s general description (type of rock, climb difficulty, lighting, etc.)

All of the generators below scored very well in at least one way.  It is not my intent to put down anyone’s work–I know from my own projects how much inspiration, effort and knowledge it takes to do anything like these.  But each also has room for improvement so hopefully my critiques will be taken constructively if the people working on these see them.

“The Demonweb” Random Dungeon Generator

The first search result I had was for “The Demonweb” Random Dungeon Generator.  (This also came up as a separate result with a different name.) The first page lets the user choose several options such as dungeon name, level, motif (undead, vermin, arcane, etc.), size, room size, room placement (sparse, scattered, or packed).  The user can click a “Random” button to set each of these randomly.  Or the user can set each and click “Construct” to build the dungeon.  The result is a much larger and un-cropped version of the picture to the right.

Importantly, the developer of this random dungeon generator now created images for all but the “HTML” dungeon motif.  Earlier versions had issues printing the maps, but this fix addresses those issues.

Below the dungeon map is short general description of the dungeon including the type of walls, temperature and illumination.

After that is a short description of each numbered location.  Each of the room’s entrances described: “Locked Stone Door (Open Lock DC 25, break DC 28; hard 8, 60 hp)” for example. Then the room’s contents are listed such as “Fireplace, Sconce, Winch and pulley.”  Finally, a trap or list of monsters (including their OGL 3.5-ish stats) is noted.  Of course, any of this can be modified or completely thrown out if it doesn’t work for the game master.

Scores: Customizability: B; Aesthetics: B+; Variety: C; Completeness: B; Printing: B;Text Descriptions: B

(Customizability refers to how many options are available to the user.  Aesthetics is how pretty are the maps the generator creates.  Variety is the number of styles of rooms and corridors and other things on the map. Completeness is how well does the generator aviod too many dead ends or other things that do not make sense. Printing notes how well the dungeon (particularly the map) looks when printed. Text Descriptions refers to the detail of the text descriptions created by the generator if the generator provides them.)

Myth Weavers’ Random Dungeon Generator

The next random dungeon generator search result is at Myth Weavers. As in the previous dungeon generator, the user can set the size of the dungeon, the sparseness, and level.  Additional options include percentage settings for secret and concealed doors and settings for the room sizes.  However, the Myth Weavers generator doesn’t include options for a dungeon theme/motif as The Demonweb’s generator allows.

Taking the default settings except for requesting “Many” rooms and allowing for rooms that are between two and seven squares high and wide instead of two to five squares creates a dungeon like the one to the left.

The Myth Weavers random dungeon generator also provides bullet-point style text details about the dungeon’s rooms.  However, because a user can’t set a theme to the dungeon it is hard to get a random dungeon with a particular concept such as a mad wizard’s labyrinth or an undead crypt.

Printed maps created with this generator look just like the on-screen maps.  You may need to select the map’s specific web page frame to print it. For very large dungeons, you may need to scale down the size you use to print the page or else the map will extend off the page.  You can easily save the map image to your computer so you may edit it with an image editor or print a larger version.  Although enlarging images usually loses some detail, since the Myth Weavers’ dungeon maps are very simple this is not an issue.

Scores: Customizability: B+; Aesthetics: C; Variety: C+; Completeness: B; Printing:C+; Text Descriptions: C

Gozzys’ Random Dungeon Generator

The third random dungeon generator search result is from a site called Gozzys.  Like the others, it gives the user several options then the user clicks a button and the next page is the random map result.

The Gozzys site actually gives the options for two different random dungeon generators on the same page, divided in two sections.

The first section is titled “Wandering Room Type” and it includes options for map size, density maximum room width, maximum room height, background, tile set, and randomness.  This represents fewer options than the other generators above offer.  The background and tileset offer nice color options, however.

The second section is titled “Random Room Type.” It offers options for just map size, density, background and room set.  The maps it generates have a similar look, but as the title suggests the rooms can vary greatly in shape.

It would be very interesting to see these two combined, but that may make for a rather complex algorithm to write.  In any case, neither of Gozzy’s random dungeon generators provide text descriptions of the rooms or the dungeon in general.

Printed maps created with these generators look just like the on-screen maps.  Like the Myth Weavers generator, you can easily save the map image to your computer so you may edit it with an image editor or print a larger version.  In this case enlarging the map may look a little bit worse if you chose the more interesting tile and background colors because some detail will be lost.  But the maps are still fairly simple so this is a very minor issue.

Scores: Customizability: C-; Aesthetics: B; Variety: C-; Completeness: B; Printing: B-; Text Descriptions: n/a

Hack/’s Random Dungeon Generator

The next random dungeon generator is offered by hack/. It generates dungeon maps in a graph paper style.  See the example to the left.

The inclusion of caverns and multiple elevations on the same level (see the example’s vertical corridor crossing over a horizontal corridor and room) make this generator worth a closer look. The generator relies on the dungeon being cut up into a number of 10×10 square tiles and each tile has a join corridor at the same spot along each of the four walls.  This constrains the dungeon’s design.  One improvement would be to allow for some tiles to have fewer of these join points and for the generator to know that some tiles can’t fit because a tile’s edge may not have a corridor to join.

A bunch of new dungeon tiles have recently been added to this random dungeon generator.

Unfortunately, the hack/ dungeon generator doesn’t allow the user to choose any options.  You simply refresh the web page until you get a design you like.  However, if you want a dungeon that is mostly caverns, is very labyrinthine,  has very densely packed rooms, etc., you probably won’t ever get a design you like.

Printed maps created with this generator look just like the on-screen maps.  However, because the maps are a set of smaller images, you can’t just save the map image to your computer.  You would need to get a screen shot and import that to your image editor if you want to edit or enlarge the image.  Once you do that, because the maps are fairly simple enlarging the image will only lose a small amount of detail.

Scores: Customizability: F; Aesthetics: B-; Variety: B+; Completeness: B+; Printing: B-; Text Descriptions: n/a

MapMage’s Random Dungeon Generator

Next up is MapMage.  It is a paid product, running about $25, that you download and install.  It seems to run only on Windows, but it has been “updated” for Windows Vista.  You can choose the room size, corridor types, dungeon size (in pixels), iterations (it seems the more iterations the “better” your dungeon will be–fewer dead-ends other things that make no sense), and some other options for a river, chasm, etc.

The generated map includes information about the contents of each room, but it is system neutral because it does not offer any game statistics.  This information is shown when you hover over a room.

The website offers a screenshot and a portion of one of those maps is to the right.  The MapMage site also offers several other random generators that may not have as many good and free alternatives for cities, caverns, whole worlds, buildings and more.

This review can’t include how well these maps print because a copy of the product is required.

Scores: Customizability: B; Aesthetics: C-; Variety: C+; Completeness: B; Text Descriptions: B- (Note: Windows only)

Skeleton Key Games’ Random Dungeon Generator

[I was under the impression that the Skeleton Key Games random dungeon generator was official or permissible.  But it was removed with a note that it was "taken down due to a request by the rightsholders of Skeleton  Key Games tiles." But I'm keeping this review in place because it may help others get ideas for creating or improving another random dungeon generator.]

The final random Dungeon Generator in my search results (that worked, was not ASCII art and was within the first few pages of results) was the Skeleton Key Games random dungeon generator.

The tiles used for the map creation look beautiful, and they can be enlarged up to 300×300 pixels each.  Larger versions are available as pdfs for purchase.

Customization is an issue however.  The generator lets you select between a number of different tilesets, but it does not allow you to set how frequent you want the rooms to be or how large or most of the other options the other generators allow.  In addition to the tile set and tile size, you may only select the dungeon’s number of tiles wide and high.

The dungeons this generator creates also often don’t make sense.  It has many more dead ends (actually, the dead ends here are worse–they sometimes end with an open wall) and rooms that are not connected.  The Skeleton Key games generator also does not provide text descriptions of the dungeon or its rooms. However, the tiles are so detailed that they somewhat make up for that.

If you want to print a dungeon created by this generator, you’ll need to adjust the number of tiles wide and high to fit a sheet of paper, or else adjust the sizes of the tiles or adjust the printing options.  Alternatively, you should make sure your web browser’s print function includes the ability to span multiple pages in width and you need to be comfortable pasting them together.  If you want to enlarge the maps, the built in option to change the tilesize works well.  Unfortunately if you want to get a copy of the dungeon (especially if you set a large tile size) you may need to do several screenshots or save each tile image individually, then paste them together in an image editor.  The largest tile size setting (300×300) isn’t designed to be printed such that each  square in a tile is one inch for minatures use, but it will look ok.  If you truly want to do that, you should consider purchasing the pdf versions.

Scores: Customizability: D; Aesthetics: A+; Variety: A; Completeness: D; Printing: C (B+ because good detail is possible, D because it is a difficult process); Text Descriptions: n/a

Wizards of the Coasts’ Mapper Random Dungeon Generator

Amazingly, the random dungeon generator from Wizards of the Coast didn’t turn up in my initial web search.  Based on suggestions from readers, it is now added to this set of reviews.

Despite being tagged “beta” (although Google has long betas for very usable software, and everything on the internet is evolving if it isn’t falling into disuse) it offers many features.  Dungeon size, room size, corridor size, secret doors and porticullises are some of the major map options.  Additionally, a user can request room descriptions.  For this feature the user can set the dungeon “level,” theme (although there are only three options for this–The Demonweb’s dungeon generator had many), simple adventure hooks, and one can turn on or off several things like wandering monsters and intro text.  The user can also set which Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 books to use as resources for stocking the dungeon.

As one would expect for an official D&D resource, this is one of the better dungeon generators, although others are better in at least some ways.  It is one of the few that offers descriptions complete with stocked monsters, but as mentioned above it has fewer themes to choose between.  The maps are nice looking, although a few other dungeon generators produce maps that are just as nice and the tiles used by the Skeleton Key games dungeon generator look even nicer.  Also lacking are any cavern options and like most of the other dungeon generators the rooms are basic rectangles and the corridors are pretty simple and don’t bend much or go in odd directions from rooms.

Printing is comparable to the Myth Weavers dungeon generator and this generator has the same issues.

Scores: Customizability: B; Aesthetics: C+; Variety: C+; Completeness: B+; Printing: C+; Text Descriptions: B+

Others

There are a few other random dungeon generators that don’t fit the focus of this article:

• How to Host a Dungeon: A pen and paper game that leads you through the construction of a dungeon over time.  In the end you have a usable role-playing dungeon.
• Central Casting Dungeons: Another pen and paper system to create a dungeon.  One review states that a large number of charts are used and the system suggests detailing each room on index cards.
• Age of Fable’s “Tunnels and Trolls” and “Labyrinth Lord Mutant Future” dungeon generators: Both of these generated very simplistic maps.  They did include good additional text information, but the maps simply showed how the rooms were connected.  The rooms were uniform in shape on the “map.”

Summary

Unfortunately none of the random dungeon generators stands out in every way.  Each category has a clear winner, but the winner of that category is average at best in some of the other categories.

Hopefully some of the people working on these generators will see what the others have done and improve their own such that one or more will score highly in each category.