A staple of fantasy movies through the decades, the vertical labyrinth is a hard one to pull off, but especially cool if you can do it with a physical model. This merely consists of a series of interlocking bridges, usually within a cavern or room to give some limitation, where creatures within can walk the stairs to navigate the maze and reach their destination. A variety of more dynamic routes can be taken, including jumping from place to place, or crawling along, down, or up surfaces. These bridges and columns can also be damaged or destroyed, allowing for perhaps more rapid transit than originally planned, such as in the Bridge of Khazad-Dum scenes of the Fellowship of the Ring.
But how can you effectively map and plot out something like this? Starting with a basic map is a good start- use a blank crossword, or generate something from a resource similar to Donjon. You want some fairly small sparse rooms (landings) and twisting corridors (stairs, bridges, and so on), to begin with- this is just giving you a framework. Once you've got a basic layout, work out heights- where your top is, where your landings touch the sides, and what's at the bottom- lava, bottomless pit, spikes, rough rocky floor. You may want to have some way for PCs who fall to save themselves by falling to safety or grasping on, because killing a character on the basis of one failed saving throw does not make for fun gaming, generally. Once you have your general levels, try to work out what additions are necessary to join them- a steep staircase, a switchback landing, or perhaps the stairs that once joined these levels are gone, and descent via rotting ropes, enormous spiderwebs, hanging vines, or a leap of faith are the only way to reach them, whether or not the journey will be able to be made in reverse. Lastly, populating your vertical labyrinth. While navigating challenging terrain can be exciting, if there's no pressure, it turns into a simple and laborious problem-solving measure, and half the players go to their phones while someone dusts off the "Explorer's kit" they've had on their character sheet since level 1 and starts plotting out piton use and rope. However, throw some marauding Spiderdrakes in, an army of Goblins chanting some kind of name as a fiery light follows them, or a few well-hidden snipers on concealed balconies, and suddenly you've got seat-of-the-pants decision-making happening, and tactical movement becomes important due to calculating how quickly you can get down to the next level, or how far you can fly or leap in a turn, or what weapon range you're in. And you can always spice this up with the usual dungeon-dressing- darkness, traps, crumbling architecture that can force plans to change, and throw in some time pressure for fun- can you reach the platform where the evil cultists are, before their ritual is complete? Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 4 November 2021. Comments are closed.
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AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
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