Now, I know I said that I’d discuss dice and the random dungeon generation last time round, but I want to go more into the elements of roguelikes so those can be implemented into the TTRPG. I want to start off with Rogue because it implements a great use of Random Number Generation (RNG) System: Randomising items and enemies. Now, randomising enemies may not be that surprising, but items are much more intricate because their descriptions change alongside their abilities. For example, a potion might be described as “A crimson potion”, now this isn’t particularly interesting on its own, but these descriptions can be assigned to any potion, making it different every run. The same applies to spell scrolls, one might say; “ABRA KADABRA” which could be applied to any spell scroll in any run. These rules only apply in any given run, and change as soon as the next run begins.
Onto dice and random dungeon generation: dice are one of the key features of any TTRPG because they are what adds variety to the game itself. One of the most important things that randomness is used for in roguelikes is random dungeon generation which builds the very environment you play in. The other main of dice is of course randomising items and enemies, as mentioned before. Basing a random dungeon generation system around a grid, using movement to navigate tiles. This might seem rather board game esc but when we take what we learnt from miniature wargames and translate a single tile into a measurement, a metre for example it grounds it in a sort of semi-real world because of the scale alone. There are already so many systems for random dungeon generation, both in TTRPGs and roguelikes that you can base your own generation system off either one, or a combination of the two. Here, I’m going to give an example of a system based on a TTRPG’s random dungeon generator, just because I think It’s going to be easier to use in the long term.
Starting from point “A”, We first need to create a room, most random dungeon generators will have a selection of starting rooms to choose from, so I’m going with that option because It seems more user-friendly.
Here, I’ve used a ring of four “/” characters representing doors, around point A to represent a room, with four “#” characters at the corners of the room to represent walls. Now we need a table that we can use dice with or “roll on” to generate a corridor.
In this table, a four-sided die (or d4) is rolled to determine where the corridors lead. Say we rolled a “3” with the d4 on our table, using our diagram from before, we can add on a corridor to the left door.
Then, say we rolled a “4” on the table, we’d then add a “Door 1 tile ahead”, after our left turn from the previous roll.
These are just basic, conceptual examples and your system doesn’t have to be based off this one at all. If you do want to base it off a TTRPG system, I’d recommend D&D’s Dungeon Master’s Guide for more reference on random dungeon generation.
Enjoy creating!
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