Steal this rule microblog: "How do you vanquish this foe?"

Here's a GMing tip. When a combatant reaches 0 HP (or 0 HD in His Majesty the Worm), ask the player who struck the final blow: "How do you vanquish this foe?"

This does three things. 

1. It helps share the spotlight! By driving the monster's HD down, players earn the right to narrate what they do to the antagonist. Players will feel cool when they describe a heroic finishing blow. 

2. If the monster has a condition to its defeat, this description is important. For example, vampires can only be truly killed in a specific way. If the players fail to fulfill these conditions, the GM can secretly use this information when restocking the Underworld.

By applying this procedure consistently, instead of only when such conditions exist, players don't get an inappropriate tip off that a creature needs a special approach. Smart players will bid lore to learn more about the monsters they're fighting.

3. If the foe the guild is fighting is sentient, this technique lets players define if they want to subdue it instead of kill it. Do they disarm it and let it run away? Tie it up? Knock it out? Not every fight needs to be to the death.

Building layouts with cards

Here is a technique I used to create the map(s) for my upcoming dungeon, The Castle Automatic. I think it has merit, and I think you should use it next time you have some rooms but no map. 

Important Note

Because of this project's nature, I used tarot cards as signifiers, but that is not the point. If you have a normal dungeon, write your room numbers/names down on index cards. Then, put them in the configuration you want them to be in. Then, move them around if they're not right yet. The important thing is that you have a signifier for every room. 

(You could also do this digitally by making a flowchart of squares in Miro! I just had fun doing it physically, and you might, too.)

---

OK, so I had 80-some odd rooms. But how to lay them out? Something I did was physically start laying out cards that represented the rooms. This was a really fun exercise. 

The kitchen should be close to the feast hall. It should close to the wine cellar. And the commode too, I guess. 

This room is a guardian room meant to prevent people from entering the royal suites. It's a choke point. 

The characters will need to get a sacred candle to enter the sanctuary. But the Page of Cups won't interact with them before they get knighted by the Knight of Cups, so his room needs to be before the sanctuary.

And so on.

By laying the rooms out on cards before I committed ink to paper, I could move things around really easily. Then, I could ask myself some essential questions about the map.

Is it Jayquaysed? Are there hidden rooms? Are there easy paths and hard paths? Are there connections back to the start? Are there multiple entrances?

By having physical cards I could look at while asking these questions, I could solve the problems I perceived in real time. I could scoot them around into different configurations and do another spot check. 

This technique worked for me. Maybe it'd work for you, too!

Moria in Tabletop Games

Moria: Through the Doors of Durin for The One Ring 2E recently won Gold for Product of the Year in the 2025 ENNIES. I am interested in TTRPGs based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. I thought it would be interesting for me to look into how Moria has been represented in roleplaying games. 

Gloin sighed. ‘Moria! Moria! Wonder of the Northern world! Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear. Long have its vast mansions lain empty since the children of Durin fled. But now we spoke of it again with longing, and yet with dread...'

Giving real reviews are hard. I tried it for a while and was defeated by the task. So this post is not a real review. It is a historical survey, followed by my impressions and thoughts as a GM who is approaching these games with a thought towards "How would I actually try to run this?" and "What does this edition offer that I could borrow?"

Note

Before reading this post, go read my survey of licensed Tolkien games to get a sense of the landscape. I'll wait. Finished? OK. Let's go.

In short, we have three game systems to talk about:

1. Middle-Earth Role-Playing (MERP), published by Iron Crown Enterprises (1982-1997)
2. Lord of the Rings RPG (LotR RPG), published by Decipher (2002-2005)
3. The One Ring RPG (TOR), second edition published by Free League (2011-present)

These games are the three main, licensed attempts to capture Middle-earth in RPG rule systems. And each of these games have large, significant books dedicated to exploring Moria using these rules. This post will look at each edition's attempt to represent Khazad-dum.

As you could see in my linked survey of licensed games, some of these systems align with my own preferences more than others. I'll try and judge each module by their own merits, and not let the system intrude on my commentary.

For the sake of thoroughness, there's possibly a few other products we could mention: 

a. Middle-earth Quest: Mines of Moria, published by Iron Crown Enterprises (1988): Middle-earth Quest was a line of Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks published by ICE that eventually led to their downfall. It does have a basic RPG-esque resolution system that you use to play the book. And solo roleplaying books are still roleplaying, right? But ultimately, the CYOA nature of this book made it feel that its inclusion wasn't merited. 

b. The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Adventure Game, published by Decipher (2005): A starter set for the Lord of the Rings RPG, the introductory adventure is actually set in Moria. But this isn't a real treatment of Moria as a space, just a small adventure designed to teach players the fundamental  rudiments of roleplaying. Doesn't feel quite qualifying, either.

1. MERP: Moria: The Dwarven City (1984) & Moria (Citadel Series) (1994)

Angus McBride's covers brought so much value to MERP

There were two Moria supplements for MERP. The first edition was Moria: The Dwarven City published in 1984. The second edition came a decade later as part of the Citadel series for MERP second edition. 

The second edition of MERP is not a significant departure from the first edition. Rather, it was a reorganization and expansion of the same rules. Similarly, the second edition version of the Moria supplement is mostly an expansion and reorganization of the same original content. However, it does introduce "six adventures and three episodes," giving prospective GMs a little more idea of how the module could actually be used at the table. The 1984 edition is 72 pages long. The 1984 edition is 168 pages. 

The 1994 edition cover says:

• FULL-COLOR MAPS of Dimrill Dale, the headwaters of the Sirannon, and the spires above Moria: Redhorn, Cloudyhead, and Silvertine.
• CROSS-SECTION OF THE STRONGHOLD depicting the core of Khazad-dûm, its sprawling mines, its Deeps and Levels, the Endless Stair, and the unfathomed Under-deeps.
• STONE MAPS portraying the complex network of avenues, roads, accessways, and mineways that connect Moria's myriad armories, ceremonial chambers, dungeons, gathering halls, and treasures.
• KEY LOCATIONS - the hidden West-gate, outside the enchanted doors of which Gandalf searched his ancient memory for the word which would open the portal; the Chamber of Mazarbul where Frodo stabbed a Cave-troll with his blade Sting; and the Unending Well bridged by the narrow span where Gandalf confronted the Balrog.
• FLOORPLANS for the Second Hall of the First Deep, the East- and West-gate, the Chamber of Records, the King's Armory, the Cold-forge, the Balrog's Lair, etc.
• SMITHIES where precise recipes for smelting, fire-forging, and cold-forging produce ingots, coins, and artefacts of unparalleled quality.
• TRAPS - the perilous devices with which the Dwarves guard treasured or sacred places in their cavern home.
• 6 ADVENTURES AND 3 EPISODES - confront treason amid the hotbed of political intrigue that comprises the royal court of Khazad-dûm under King Báin; accompany an aged Dwarf into abandoned Moria on an expedition seeking ancient treasures and heirlooms; learn the mystery of the Under-gates in the baffling Dwarven runes that hint at a Stone of Closing forged by Durin's Folk long ago. 

In addition, the second edition version contains several removable full color topographical maps. 

What's inside?

MERP modules have a very encyclopedic approach to their content. Every supplement covers its region like a textbook, outlining its climate and ecology, plant and animal life, and history of the region. Elvish names for animals are given parenthetically instead of scientific Latin names. Unfortunately, these are about as interesting (to me) to read as a middle-school textbook.

Information about dwarves of Durin's line is typical of supplements for the era. There's lists of how they're organized, with lists of units, number of warriors, number of divisions, type of commander, parent unit, and types of weapons and armor used. There's attention given to dwarven smithing methods (so GMs and players could roleplay these things effectively I guess?) as well as construction methods and minerals found in the region. Tons of flavor text about their lifestyle, their religion, their habits: nothing particularly interesting or gameable that stands out with a quick read--though, in my experience, there's usually a few gems hidden buried in all the cruft (heh heh). 

Example of the cultural overview of dwarves provided

Details of Moria depict some standard building blocks that are repeated throughout the dwarven areas: roads, mineways, lodgings, crypts, ceremonial chambers, gathering halls, guard chambers, etc. etc.

There's thorough diagrams of different types of traps, ranging from your standard pit traps and dart traps to more complex steam traps and wheel traps (where victims are trapped in halls bisected by rolling wheels of stone). 

There are high-level, partially-keyed maps of the different levels of Moria. Here's an example spread:

You can see the map shows a slice of one of the levels, with nodes and roads. Areas of note are keyed with short descriptions. Otherwise, unmarked nodes (and roads!) are randomly generated. Quote:

"The features are too many and too varied to discuss individually. Instead, we describe standard room designs in Section 10.0. ... The route maps do not show the countless smaller rooms, mineways, accessways, and natural phenomena found in Hadhodrond. (It is said, in fact, that no map can document the totality of the grand complex.) To determine the location of these spots, you should rely on the Random Feature Table in Section 19.1."

So, to traverse Moria, players would move along grid patterns. The GM will randomly determine at the table (or pre-roll) the sections, sights, and traps the party would encounter while dungeon delving until they get to a keyed location. Then, they would use the short description provided to tell the party what they find. Layered on top of this is a random encounter table (based on what region / time period you're in). 

Random room features and encounters

---

A problem: Layers of History

A brief aside, there is a persistent problem in design and information presentation throughout all of the texts we're discussing today: history. 

MERP enjoyed the most permissive license of all the games, and could include information from The Silmarillion. As such, its books took care to try and provide expansive options for campaigns in different ages. By contrast, the modern TOR 2E sets its adventures in a specific time period (2965 T.A.)

So, using this book, you might have to do a lot of double-think as you prepare your game. Are you setting the game in the Third Age? If so, all the dwarven redoubts and guard towers are unmanned. In fact, orcs might dwell there instead! The GM is expected to do this prepwork. 

But even TOR 2E with its crystalized time period and setting don't quite escape this problem, as I'll discuss later.

---

All in all, the expected dungeon generation and movement procedures aren't terrible, but many rooms will be somewhat dull or monotonous until you get to a random encounter. 

There's stats provided for a variety of orcs and monsters like the Balrog, as well as "cave worms" or "lake drakes" that might be dwelling below. They even have the stats rendered in Lord of the Rings Adventure Game format (my preferred system), which is a nice surprise! 

The book is rounded out by a series of "adventures" and "episodes" (sort of campaign seeds, where the GM is expected to do most of the work to build them out). The campaigns are simple hooks, really. An escort quest of a dwarf who wants to go to the Chamber of Records, but the players need to avoid alerting enemies. Find the Axe of Durin, which is currently held by a troll king in a deep level. Go X, get Y.

How would I use this?

Would I try to run this as is? Maybe, but definitely not without tweaking for my own sensibilities. The key concept of randomly generating routes in between sites of interest remind me of Nick LS Whelan's flux spaces. I'd probably automate this using a Perchance generator so I could do it at the table without slowing down game, but without making me pre-generate every room (which goes against the spirit of the thing). 

I think the NPCs - the various gangs of trolls (A gang of Dwarf Hunters! Skilled Trolls! A Troll King!) are pretty fun, really. I feel like I can definitely pick these up and steal them.

The different adventures could be picked up and placed as rumors in a sandbox-style game, allowing players to choose what sort of Moria-based fetch quest they want to pursue.

2. LotR RPG: Moria boxed set (2003)

In 2003, Decipher released the Moria boxed set. It was the largest release to support their Lord of the Rings RPG product that this edition had. The boxed set contained two books - Dwarves of Middle-earth (32 pages) and Khazad-dum (96 pages) - and a handful of folding dungeon maps to represent the endless sprawl of Moria.

The Decipher system was essentially a movie tie-in, and suffers for a lack of art

What's inside?

First, the maps are pretty bad. They're neither usable, nor beautiful, nor evoke a sense of "unmappable wonder." They just look random. 

I googled to find images of the book and this came up. It was my own picture.

So what about the books? 

Dwarves of Middle-earth contains descriptions and stats for each of the Seven Houses of the Dwarves. Each house has a backstory that expands on the names they sketchily get in ...The Peoples of Middle-earth? (Wait a minute, LotR RPG doesn't have that license. Shh! I won't tell the Tolkien Estate if you won't!) For example, one house of dwarves was called the "Stiffbeards." In this supplement, they're called "Thulin's Folk." Their stiff beards were because they migrated to the uttermost north, where their beards are often frozen. There, they have warred against and been plundered by the dragons who dwell there. And, since this was 3E D&D days, a few of the dwarven houses even had "prestige classes" (advanced orders, in LotR RPG parlance) you could get. 

(Selling a boxed set with one book for GMs and one book for players to drool over was pretty clever on Decipher's part.)

The actual Moria content is in the last book, Khazad-dum. It divides Moria into three basic sections (Dwarrowdelf, Western Deeps, Mines) with different target numbers for each section for travel. When traveling, players need to make Lore (Moria) checks to avoid becoming lost. They need to make Weariness checks to avoid status effects. They need to make Willpower checks to avoid becoming afraid, which makes the rest of their checks harder. They make Stealth tests to avoid being noticed/attacked by orcs. And if they have no light, they suffer -5, but if they have light, they suffer -2. So, you know, a lot of checks to move around. A grind.

Although a bit of a mechanical mess, I always thought the themes the writers of LotR RPG discussed were on point. This spread about chronicle elements and adventures seeds is an example of stronger writing in the book.

Sorry for the bad scan

Like the MERP version, LotR RPG's Moria book gives brief descriptions of some keyed rooms and some pictures of generic halls, mansions, or corridors. I think the writing is more successful in this adaptation as it's somewhat more inventive: a planetarium, singing chambers, crystal pillars, chamber of statues, Durin's Way, etc. And, like the MERP version, you're expected to randomly generate "the rest" using some generic random chamber tables and the ugly maps. 

As I mentioned earlier, there's Stealth tests to avoid random encounters with Shadow forces. The degree of success determines which random table you roll on, which I quite like. For example, a complete failure earns a roll on the "Massed Attack" table (where orcs hear you coming and plan an ambush or get you dead to rights in a shooting gallery) whereas a near miss earns a roll on the "Patrol" table (where neither you or the orcs were ready for combat). In a normal overloaded encounter dice situation, that level of granularity isn't represented. 

Overall, both the ICE and Decipher products hit much of the same beats: dwarf lore, keyed encounters, random dungeon building, monster stats, small adventure seeds. 

How would I use this?

For what it's worth, the lore of the Seven Houses of the Dwarves from this product is my "official" headcanon. Whenever I run games set in Middle-earth, I use this more or less wholesale. I think there's wonderful story telling here - far better than the outline of the House of Durin's boring religious practices and "pretending they're tall" from MERP. 

There are two things that I think are clever from the Decipher Moria module: 1) Nested random encounter tables. These could be based on Stealth rolls, but also region, group encumbrance, group light level, lots of factors. You could make an "engine" that determines the danger of Moria using this table structure. 2) Nested dungeon generation tables. Rolling to find that the next room is an armoury, then rolling again to discover that has been scavenged by orcs who tunneled through it into an adjoining room is an improvement on the previous module's structure. Setting these up to be actually good would take some work, but is a nice way to handle this sort of space.

3. TOR2E: Moria: Through the Doors of Durin (2024)

Let me assure you: this is a very beautiful book.

Moria: Through the Doors of Durin for The One Ring 2E is by far the most ambitious attempt to capture the scope of Moria across the three editions. It is a beautiful book, with excellent presentation and just lovely art. The book is 224 pages long. 

What's inside?

The first 30 pages talk about the framing of a Moria-based campaign: provides hooks for player characters of different backgrounds, rumours, and themes. 

Without unkindness, I find the text frequently lacks conciseness. These sections all feel very overwrought. I would have preferred the text to be shortened by 50%. (But this is a preference I commonly express.)

The next session covers how the system's Journey rules work in the underground context. (Really, the process is similar to the one I developed for an Isengard fan supplement I wrote during TOR1E days. I was surprised by the parallel development--but then it's probably a very expected evolution.) The party chooses an area they want to journey to. The GM measures how far away it is, which will determine how many tests they need to make between point A and point B. The Guide makes a Travel test to see if they make progress/how much progress they make. With either success or failure, the party encounters a random event, which might ask other people to make tests as well (the Scout must roll an Explore test if they get the "Right Way" event). Etc. I won't belabor my feelings about this procedure as this level of random rolling is standard for the system.

Parallel to this, as the party encounters foes and makes noise, their Eye Awareness score rises. Once they accumulate enough points, a revelation episode plays out. There's a variety of random tables for these, ranging from dire portents to orc attacks or even the balrog. The GM chooses which makes the most sense in the context of where the party is and what they've been up to.

And, like the previous two editions, the TOR module also includes a random chamber generator. Like the Decipher module, this one has a nested table to describe the state that the chamber is in. 

(I think LotR RPG has the most interesting chamber descriptions, and I think the TOR module has the best "condition" of the chamber.)

Stats for Moria-specific monsters are also given in the first chunk of the book. There's a random orc band generator, which is a cool thing to include. 

At the end of the book, there's a section on solo-play. 

A frequent theme of the text of the book is to forefront questions that the text leaves ambiguous or show places where the GM might decide to break with "canon." For example, Gandalf warns the fellowship not to drink the waters of Moria--so the book gives options about why that might be. The backstory of Durin's Bane is not told, so the text offers several suggestions--and even includes alternate foes that aren't balrogs that could be Durin's Bane. I think this general approach towards "canon" is good, even if I frequently wanted the suggestions to be shorter, punchier, weirder. 

Of all the three editions, this is the first one to really make Moria feel sprawling.

The meat and potatoes of the book is in the largest section: the Mansions of the Dwarves (pp. 68-175). Each landmark area has a rating of obscurity: famous, obscure, or hidden. Famous landmarks are known to players who pass a Lore check (hfff) whereas Hidden areas have to be discovered through play. Cool!

Landmarks exist in different regions: Dimrill Dale (outside!), Old Moria, Dwarrowdelf, Mountains of Moria, the Road, West Moria, the Deeps, and the Mines. Already, you can tell that this module has more granularity and sprawl than, say, the three regions of the LotR RPG. 

Each landmark looks like this:

An obscure landmark in the Dwarrowdelf region

Each landmark section begins with a Rumour (what the PC might learn from a Lore test). Then, Old Lore + Background, which centers the truth of the place for the GM. Then, several keyed locations with a cool isometric map. In the Chamber of Mazarbul, for instance, you have the Hall, the Corridor, the Well and Storerooms, the Chamber itself, and the Eastern Stairs out. The hall is currently held by an orc named Hagrot the Sneak, a nephew of Granny Goblin who rules the local Goblintown. 

Compare this to the keyed locations + random generation of the previous two modules. The content of these spreads is more gameable. It leaps off the page. 

The problem for this content is that it falls into a classic dungeon keying trap: telling the GM what has happened, could happen...and not what's there. Zooming in.

How many of these sentences are conditional phrases, or look forward and backwards into time. "Different bands of Orcs have struggled for control of the hall over the last few decades," "If the Player-heroes make a little light when it's dark," "On a clear morning." OK? The content is difficult to extrapolate at the table for play for the GM describing things to the players in real time. A lot of reading for probably a sentence of description to the players--the GM mining away wordstone to get at the silver lode in real time. And the lode has little to offer: a corridor, a hall with an orc band, a potable well, a library (partially looted) [<- the real interactable space...gated behind a good skill roll], a staircase. 

Yes, you can make a very cool encounter here. The books proved it! The movie proved it! But there's so much ink spilled for so little said. Coming from an OSR tradition, I want more interactable pieces of things for the players to tinker with. Dungeon rooms should have things to wiggle. And most of these rooms have histories--things that were or will be--but not things that are that impact play. 

In a lot of ways, Moria represents the culmination of the promise of TOR as a system: there's a huge world, and there's lots of content here. Travel by making rolls, and the GM will set scenes and stories in front of you. Then, you can interact with the scenes! Then, travel on. Moria is a good space for that model to play out. 

How would I use this?

The great benefit of the module is that there's so many of these landmarks and so many story ideas that you can get from them. OK, the dungeon descriptions aren't as tactile or parsable as what the OSR standard has established. But they could be, with a little work. And there's so many of them!

Not every dungeon room needs a weird puzzle. The Chamber of Mazarbul works as a keyed location -- an orc, a library, a well. That stuff can be gameable. I just need to put it into a format I can read and use. 

And combine it with my favorite procedures for travel and spice it with the bits and bobs from the previous decades' Moria supplements? Baby. You got a stew going.

---

‘I too once passed the Dimrill Gate,’ said Aragorn quietly; ‘but though I also came out again, the memory is very evil. I do not wish to enter Moria a second time.’

‘And I don’t wish to enter it even once,’ said Pippin.

‘Nor me,’ muttered Sam.

‘Of course not!’ said Gandalf. ‘Who would? But the question is: who will follow me, if I lead you there?’

A recurring theme for me is that there's no perfect game: there's only tools to use to make the perfect game because my preferences and predilections are unique and weird. And RPGs are a great medium because they allow me to create these bespoke experiences. 

Taking on the premise of Moria as a space in a TTRPG is as daunting a feat as ...I don't know, traveling through Moria, I guess. It's a huge task! 

Each of these modules, I think, honestly took a good run at the attempt. None are perfect. But all offer something to your toolkit. 

His Majesty the Worm, directed by David Lynch

 

Eraserhead, 1997

The Baby

Sorcerous Minion

HD 1/0 (but cannot attack it while In Heaven, Everything is Fine is in effect)

In Heaven, Everything is Fine: All who look at the Baby feel a continuous Control effect to carry it and protect it. The Baby is an Oversized object. Whoever is carrying the baby must feed it a ration during the Camp Phase.

Shut Up!: The Baby screams on every Meatgrinder result divisible by 3. The adventurer carrying the baby becomes Stressed.

I wrote this as a joke in the His Majesty the Worm discord but was actually a little compelled by the idea. Although I admit Warren had it first. 

Gygaxian Democracy: 100+ more reasons the guild has a partial map

I posted my blog post, 10 Reasons Why the Guild has a Partial Map, on Prismatic Wisdom's Discord (as is my wont). Then I went to go get a hair cut. When I got back, the channel had indulged in spontaneous Gygaxian democracy and had written over 100 other reasons the guild's map is serviceable but incomplete. 

I catalog them here, dutifully. A few of them have been editorialized or expanded for the sake of usability. 

Many are jokes. Some are genius. Some are both.

11. (Mothership) You scanned the ship/station. Your scanner isn't great.

12. CIA Stargate project - map provided by men who stare at goats (partially redacted)

13. The dungeons sends dreams of its layout, as a way to bait more adventurers in.

14. DIVINE REVELATION

15. The cosmic weaver is an abundant pest, but every spider knows what the others of the brood have seen. Keep it in a jar and feed it a golden fly, and within five minutes it'll spin a web-map of the location.

16. Woke up from a carousing bender with a portion of a map tattooed on your arm, you're not sure who gave you the tattoo.

17. (Modern day) You got it from a dark web leak.

18. (Fantasy day) You got it from a wizard.

19. It follows the same template as a number of other local dungeons, all built by the same property developer

20. Super-LIDAR has given you an imperfect view of the layout. See also, reason 11. 

21. Map is on a famous oil painting. It's one of those huge canvases. Hard to read from the angle it's painted. (I like this one a lot.)

22. You have access to the scale model in the Well of Souls.

23. Agaricus Cartographica: Eat a handful of these dried mushrooms outside the dungeon, go on an astral trip and come back with vague spatial reasoning of the dungeon.

24. You and your siblings each inherited parts of a map. But you are not on speaking terms.

25. Your hireling knows the layout by memory or so they confidently think.

26. The spirits of adventurers who died here will give you a map for a nickel. 

27. Haunted by the ghost of a goblin you slayed who remembers the area.

28. Parts of the map only accessible under moonlight while other parts only under direct sunlight. 

29. Your smart-orb can render the map but the connection to the Source is patchy at best in the dungeon.

30. The dungeon is described in detailed in a multi part series of kitchen sink crime investigation books. The last one is not yet released. 

31. You just HAVE IT, okay!?!?!? Jesus Christ its a game you freaks. (This is the official His Majesty the Worm answer.)

32. The fey folk like to play music foretelling certain events. Write it down on sheet music to get the dungeon layout.

33. You traded your memories to a faerie for the map. As you go to each room, you recover the memories you lost, yet the map fades.

34. (Cyberpunk) You can get access to plans of the house as the owners have a DNG account but you need an Ultimate account to see all the details. 

35. (Cyberpunk) You have an NFT of the dungeon. 

36. (Modern) The dungeon has a Zillow listing.

37. You printed the map but the printer jammed halfway in the process. 

38. It was drawn with invisible ink on a paper someone threw in the tavern fire. 

39. Map is a children's story that changes depending in what region you are. 

40. The cartographer rushed the map and didn't have time to rub out all their pretty doodles.

41. The map was found in a storage unit auction, partially ruined.

42. CENSORED. 

43. The map is the board of a niche board game that takes ages to fold out.

44. (Star Wars) The map is from the Legends canon.

45. A portion of the map is inscribed within the skull of any who die within the dungeon; the cartographer's guild contains a huge ossuary (I love this one). 

46. You got this dungeon tile board game. The dungeon manifests as you play it.

47. Got hungry, ate half. 

48. The map is inscribed upon the lunar surface. Details are speculated to be on the dark side. 

49. The map is for a different dungeon but it has to be rotated around.

50. Your father put secrets to defeat the dungeon in his old fiction novels. Unfortunately he was a shit writer. (See also, 30.)

51. Your map is from the future of a not yet build section of the dungeon. 

52. No map is ever complete. All maps are partial as the universe expands faster than cartographers can keep up. 

53. Male pattern baldness in this region manifests as a dungeon map.

54. The birds migrate in a pattern that lines up with the walls of the dungeon.

55. The map is a talking artifact a lá Dora the Explora but recently suffered a stroke leading to it being unable to render the left side of its display. 

56. The map manifested in your grits this morning, but you were really hungry. 

57. The dungeon lies partly in a DMZ and google doesn't display it. 

58. Part of the landmass depicted on the map resembled, by coincidence, the outline of a sensuous nude figure, and the map was censored by [if fantasy: religious zealots] [if sci fi: payment processor companies]. 

59. A slot machine shows the map but you have to keep hitting those three specific symbols.

60. It replaced a few pages in your POD book. 

61. You found half of it in the basement, and you don't wanna go back there. 

62. You got a fully indexed map of the dungeon. Each part is just written in a different language. ("Le Grille? What the hell is Le Grille?")

63. You were halfway through eating a pizza before you realized that the toppings were placed in such a way as to perfectly depict the NYC subway system. 

64. The proper map is subject to copyright notice so the cartographer had to change enough to be legally sufficiently different.

65. The map is always the cheapest thing in the dungeon vending machine.

66. Someone drew the map on your face while you slept. You better not start sweating. 

67. The map is very nearly complete, it is just missing a “you are here” sticker and is therefore unusable to you, a doofus. 

68. The cartographer was tired, they don't want to finish it, it's so much effort. Do you even need the rest?

69. Nice.

70. It’s a pointcrawl map of a hexcrawl region. It covers the most important stuff and the routes you’ll probably take but [Yochai has censored the rest of this message]. 

71. The map is of the last patch, they've changed the mob placement since then. 

72. Completing the tantra unlocks a hidden chapter with the dungeon map outline. Completing that would get you the details, but we're just not there yet.

73. It's a screenshot of a Questing Beast video, but his hands are blocking a portion of the map. 

74. When you approach the dungeon, a third eye grows on a random member of the party. If they close their eyes and open the one on their forehead they see a map of the dungeon.

75. The map of a mountainous region that includes no marking indicating elevation and is thus of only partial usefulness. 

76. The dungeon map is indexed for a different tabletop roleplaying game.

77. The map likes being touched, to a degree that's kind of uncomfortable.

78. When you arrive at the X marked on the treasure map, you realize the real treasure was the friends you made along the way, and yet said friends are not demarcated on your map. 

79. The map is in hexes??? Who the fuck puts a dungeon in hexes????

80. The map is covered in glue and YOUR hands are now stuck to it and they're in the way. 

81. The map is half remembered from a dollhouse you had as a child. 

82. The map saved successfully vs breath and is only halfway burned. 

83. The map was supposed to be printed on a 22” x 34” sheet of paper but you printed it on printer paper, rendering the notation that “1 inch equals 10 feet” hard to use. 

84. The map is a small furry creature and it wants to go for a walk.

85. There is no dungeon! 

86. I was copying it from the one at your mum's house but your dad came home. 

87. Someone wrote a d100 list on it, obscuring several landmarks. 

88. Anytime you take a look at the map everything fades to black and you awake as a prisoner on the back of a cart on the way to your execution site.

89. You pirated the map but don't have the CD key. 

90. The map looks realistic but was hallucinated by AI. 

91. The map draws itself but the magical imp that does so hates you. 

92. In the prime universe, where the resolution mechanics are more favorable to the players, this dungeon has already been explored. Your benevolent and competent doubles are happy to slide you their copy, multiversal variance unaccounted for.

93. Play Pathfinder instead. 

94. The map is painted on your own back and you can't... quite... see it. 

95. The map is exactly the same size as the dungeon. 

96. (Witcher 2) The map is tattooed on your ass and no one wants to look at it. 

97. It's a map generator that just keeps regenerating and doesn't save it's state. 

98. The map was painted on someone but it's been like 10 years and the painter didn't account for skin stretch/sag/wrinkling.

99. Generating the map is your Stand ability. 500 Miles go!

100. It's a perfectly functional map.

101. The map just keeps fucking going...

102. The map is much smaller than the dungeon! You couldn't fit all that detail in if you tried! (See also 95.)

103. It's written in metal band logo font. 

104. The map is WAY larger than the dungeon. Good thing it’s a small dungeon, but even so, yikes. (See also 95.)

105. This map is one of arbitrarily many valid outputs of the known map-generating function that most closely approximates the one used to design this dungeon.

106. The map is a metaphor for man's inability to comprehend his mortality. 

107. You used a spell to generate the map, but didn't have basilisk blood on hand and substituted snake blood. (Good one!)

108. The map is a connect the dots but the dots haven’t been connected. 

109. Fuck you, Josh, I stole your dungeon map. 

110. Your hair clippings at your haircut have fallen into the perfect shape of a map, but the barber is starting to sweep up. 

111. A dungeon haiku? / Can't fit a lot into there. / Less information.

10 Reasons Why the Guild has a Partial Map

His Majesty the Worm advocates for the GM to give the players a copy of the dungeon map. In my opinion, this is all positives and practically no negatives. 

But of all my good and time-tested advice, I've seen gamers balk at this frequently. "Why would the adventurers have a map and not know what's in it? How could the players possibly have a map and the dungeon not be conquered?"

As much as I beg on bended knee "Don't knock it till you try it," I wanted to give you some options for the flavor behind why the players start with a (mostly) complete map of the Underworld.

1. Legacy documentation

The map was made by the guild, but the original guild founders are no longer members. They died or retired, and the guild continues like a Ship of Theseus or an old band. The current members still have the legacy map, but don't have any descriptions of what each room contains (just a stale Jira ticket marked "Next sprint" from the original cartographer). And certainly, the original guild members didn't find every secret door or trap.

2. Watercooler talk

The map doesn't belong to any single adventuring guild, but is part of the collective learnings of each guild in the City. At the taverns, they swap stories about new sections uncovered, new passages that have recently opened, and everybody's maps are updated at the speed of rumor. A table in the back corner of the Tavern of Lost Loves has a map scratched into the wood, and serves as the single source of truth for each guild to update their maps.

3. Spell

There's a relatively simple spell called "Magic Map" that conjures a map of any building or underground level the sorcerer is currently in. Practically speaking, any sorcerer could get the reagent and cast it as they travel. But, luckily, this work has already been done for them for all discovered dungeon levels. It's easier to just trade the a few coins to get pre-conjured maps before descending.

4. Cartographer's guild

The hard work of mapping the Underworld is done primarily by the cartographer's guild. Buying their latest updates is just part of upkeep.

(Any of the other mapping technologies in this list might be employed by the cartographer's guild.)

5. Psychic snails

It's well known that psychic snails will chew patterns in moss resembling crude maps of their immediate environs. Guilds make maps using these trails.

6. Bat lore

The bats of the Underworld are acquainted with the nooks and crannies of each level, mapping them methodically using their sonar. They're willing to trade these impressions to (demi)humans in exchange for certain narcotic sounds, for meteoric iron, and for dream honey.

7. Ancient history

The Underworld is newly come to this iteration of the City, but it is by no means new. Each layer of the Underworld is a stolen civilization: a previous City pulled underground by His Majesty the Worm. There exists reliable records of these ancient Cities. Go to the library and read these maps. You can see their basic outlines reflected in the labyrinths below. 

8. Mall maps

The Underworld provides you with a map of itself, like a shopping mall does. "You are here" it reads, on certain obelisks and plinths throughout the Underworld. 

9. Daemonic revelations

The Tower Gnostic conjures and tasks genii (spirits of a place) with mapping the mausoleums, grottoes, and fountains that they call home. Such work is subsidized by the City. The maps are distributed to guilds upon the signing of their guild charter; it's the reason they pay taxes.

10. Earth elemental haruspexy

Earth elementals look like charming old men made of stone. However, the shape of its intestines are reflective of the caverns they call home. Take an earth elemental into the mouth of a cave and kill it. Disembowel it and study the pattern of its entrails. Make a map from the results.

---

And if all of the above is unsatisfactory, maybe you'll get a kick out of making a scratch-off map.

Design thoughts sidebar

In the early iterations of Worm, I used the "Spell" explanation above. But there were problems with this: when the players went into a new section of the dungeon, preparing the "Magic Map" spell was a non-choice--they always did it. And once they had the map of that level, it was never a choice to prepare--they never did it. Making non-choices felt like bad game design. 

Then I realized: it didn't really matter why the players had a map, just that it was a standard operating procedure. Like the maps the characters had in Dungeon Meshi, never really explained and never really questioned. So we just said "You have a map." And it worked! Huge quality of life improvement.

Information Architecture in Non-RPG Books

Technical writing is a profession that is literally hundreds of years old at this point. Interestingly, the essential techniques and fundamental best practices haven't changed very much over the years, even as we have transitioned into digital-first media. 

Good information architecture tells the reader:

• Where they are
• What they'll learn here
• Where to go next if they want X, Y, and Z

I am a technical writer as my day job. On my weekends, I write RPG nonsense. 

This post is about good technical writing and information architecture that I draw on to write RPGs from sources that aren't games at all.

Show maps, list destinations

A table of contents is different from an index. When a person first opens a book, they use the table of contents as the "map" of the book: the different regions, short descriptions of what they might find there, the relative spacing of these regions within the text. They learn the lay of the land.

If you're looking for dessert recipes, you can see they start on page 120, and last about 10 pages. You understand that the last few pages of the book are dedicated to this space. 

Alison Roman, Nothing Fancy, 2019

Once you've flipped through the book once, you have a different understanding of the text. Now that you're familiar with the space, you might be looking for a specific location. Instead of looking for "desserts," you might be looking for the recipe of a trifle. 

An index is an easy way to find specific locations on the map. Whereas you can intuit desserts > trifle, the index places it directly under T, with a page reference. 

Sometimes, it makes sense to put an index in the front. Medicare & You: The Official U.S. Government Medicare Handbook is a guide to a complicated subject where users probably are coming to the text with specific questions. By putting the index in the front of the book, it serves its users well by making every topic easily accessible.

Medicare & You 2024

Provide reference materials first

Cookbooks understand that recipes (how-to guide) are different from learning how to cook (tutorials). Both are different from a glossary of terms (reference). 

Cookbooks tend to follow the successful pattern of putting tutorials and references in the front of the book. As readers explore the book space for the first time, they note their presence and realize they can come back to them as needed. 

For example, Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen begins with an explanation of the terms used in Cajun cooking (étouffée, courtbouillon, etc.) and then procedures for cooking techniques that are referenced in the recipes later in the book (how to create a roux). When a recipe says to create a roux, those instructions are not repeated later. The reader knows they can flip back to the initial reference materials for these procedures.

Paul Prudhomme, Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, 1984

Cross your references

You cannot control the way that a user moves through a book. They might have a specific question and use the table of contents or index to find it. They might just flip through it, hoping to find a likely-looking space to begin reading. Because of this, you must cross-reference the information throughout the book, without an expectation that a reader has read any section before or after that page.

Medicare & You uses bold, blue text when they have defined the term in the glossary at the beginning of the book. Whenever there is information on another page that is important to understand the topic being discussed, a bold page reference is provided.  

Speak the user's language

Medicare & You is a masterclass in a text that knows its audience. Its large font size is supportive of a population with likely accessibility needs. It aggregates new information into a "What's new & important" section, giving a high level view for people already used to the system before going deeper.

Medicare & You 2024

Information hierarchy

Alison Roman, Nothing Fancy, 2019

Information hierarchy is a way for the reader to make sense with their eyes (or assistive devices) of what should be read first, second, third. What is most important on the page. 

Tools like a page title (H1), explanatory text above the how-to guide, a sidebar for reference material, notes, page numbers, and a running footer help orient the user on every page. The reader can easily find the information they need when they need it because each section always has the same type of information in that space. 

In digital spaces, having clear information hierarchy with header levels is especially important, as assistive devices will use the header level (H1 -> H2 -> H3, etc.) to determine what to present to the user first. Don't skip header levels for aesthetic purposes. 

Semantically meaningful headers

Medicare & You 2024

It's important to orient readers to the content of the page. In Medicare & You, headers are either imperative or interrogative. 

• Imperative headers are active: Get help. Sign up. Learn about.
• Interrogative headers are questions that users want to know. Will I have to sign up? If I didn't get B, can I get C?

These headers help users understand the content of each page. Even if they don't need the answers to these questions yet, as they move through the text, they'll understand what exists and what doesn't. 

And above all, each section is centered on the user's experience. What they need to know. Compare the page above to a section called: "Services within scope of program." That section might contain the same basic information, but by making the header about the user (and not about the program, abstractly), the reader can better understand why they would read that section.

While I have you

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