Things I like
1- Fresh stuff that I haven't seen before
2- Dungeons easily plopped down into a campaign that has "dungeons"
3- Respect for player agency and skill
MY TOP THREE
E41-Andrey Plisko Caged in Stone. Also I hate the way they labeled the entries because I'm not gonna remember E41 or Andrey Plisko, I'm gonna remember 'Caged in Stone.' Anyway it's a straightforward linear walk with a bunch of funhouse dungeon elements and puzzles that require problem solving to bypass and has implied 'set' solutions but they're suggestions rather than railroad tracks, I think it's great.
E50 by some guy at Save vs Hollowing- Did I mention it's annoying to copypaste ID info as well?
The Akhronoton-This is one room that you travel 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future depending on how you exit it, ending in the same room. The shenanigan potential is sky high but the premise and challenges are bog simple, I love it.
E96_CarlosPascualTorres_TheTomboftheDonkeyGod.pdf- The presentation of the dungeon is great, the tricks and puzzle are humorous but intelligent, and it uses its resources well by doing the 'ok you got past all this stuff, now you have to do it all again backwards carrying the treasure. That sort of conservation of detail is great design.
ALSO GOOD
E02- For some reason there were a ton of 'giant robot' dungeons, this was my favorite.
E04-A slimy, nasty, mutation filled hole. Simple but evocative.
E10- Weak dungeonwise, but strong OSRwise. Cannibalism, cultists, and unbalanced catastrophic design of having a really huge giant serving the players or their enemies.
E130- Too wacky for some, but easily reskinned into a fun little time-loop puzzle with the aesthetic trappings of your choice. I really liked this one.
E11- Nice gimmick of a rotating dungeon with lava-waves. Lost some points for having an impenetrable force shield.
E19- Gets points for being unabashedly mad. You're in hell, demons are everywhere, and you're probably gonna play matchmaker for some.
E20- Jam packed with weird monsters and fun magic items, in a fantasy brewery dungeon.
E32- A monster inn, which I just think is a blast to roleplay weird, weird things and what they want.
E39- Actually 4 minitombs for quick play- nothing too amazing on their own but they accomplish that goal and look nice.
E40- Stupid puns are my jam, your mileage may vary
E46- use of sound management as main activity makes for an interesting heist
E53- You go up through a tower, do the thing, then it flips upside down and you gotta do all the old things but now they've changed due to gravity. I love it when designers do tricks like that to double their content.
E54- Needs work to be usable, but has novelty and nice high concept descriptions that make me WANT to put in that work.
E55- Funhouse design, NPCs with clear, gameable motives, art you can instantly use as map, good.
E61- No bias here, nope
E74- Simple dungeon with a fun gimmick of rotating rooms around a vertical axis of rotation
E79- Fantastical terrain is less of a dungeon, but works as a ocean setpiece
E97- A simple but satisfying tree as dungeon that can be a lair for any wilderness witch
E99- I like it because it's similar to mine, really. "A dungeon appropriate for a prudent and clever party of any level, possibly deadly for a sloppy party of any level." It has one 'puzzle monster' and that's all it needs baby (Well, actually it could use some extra complications I think)
E102- Doesn't look like much, but has a nice design and lots of good ideas despite a lack of 'flash'
E105- takes forever to load for some reason, but a fun array of themepark rooms.
E108- stick a spider cult under your local inn, done.
E110- rooms are dreams that are little OSR style problem solving challenges. Sounds like it's straight out of The Nightmares Underneath.
E113- Uses Gelatinous cubes as complications to otherwise rote problems to great effect
E116- Not really a dungeon but a great thing to throw into your ocean. Skerples if you read this put this one into your wavecrawl.
E118- Tidal based prison break with some high-concept stuff.
E123- Requires a strong plot hook to get the players in here, but is a fun defended fortress dungeon with interesting things and simple NPCs to play with.
E134- Great gimmick and theme of conquistadors, messy lichdom, and salt mines. Honestly I'm not sure why I didn't put this in my Top Four
E148- More flash than substance, but slimy fun anyway.
E153- The other 'Giant Robot' dungeon I liked, but it's a giant ant colony golem.
E159- Demon business firm. Fun, simple, split of roleplay, combat, and puzzlings.
HAS SOME GOOD IDEAS
E03- Cute art, fun ideas, genre and scenario needs adjusting from Sci-Fantasy mountain climbing maybe
E14- As E03 but less cute and more combat focused but easier to drop into a typical D&D game
E15- First half is kinda just monsters trying to eat you, but it improves vastly.
E16- Cute text map of goffik mansion, needs detail work to make it playable
E17- Lava gnome fortress style dungeon. S'aite
E18- Nice idea for a level 0 funnel, but that's a bit limiting
E23- If you need a fast prison break adventure
E35- Good if your players are fans of MUDs, otherwise a bit too meta and strange without being superbly interesting to make up for it
E59- Decent but useless art, steal the social dynamic of dungeon and put it in a better dungeon
E62- Looks like a kung fu monk bashing session but is actually better, but not too much better.
E63- basically '1d12 rooms to randomly stock a different dungeon with'
E66- Good for weird real world inspiration, not so good if Russia doesn't exist in your game
E76- needed a jayquayed dungeon design to use its ideas properly but ideas were good
E77- Simple and usable, just not remarkable
E81- Weird sea stuff but not weird enough if you ask me, but usable as a lair for bad seafolk in a pinch
E85- great idea of a reflected dungeon affected by ripples in water, execution was a letdown
E91- more like a blueprint of a dungeon or even a megadungeon, but a promising blueprint
E92- interesting variable room connections policed by a gimmick that in practice I think wouldn't work, and low on details
E100- Goblins v kobolds tribes on either side of a chasm. Good introduction to factional gameplay to newbie players
E101- Basically a single monster summoning puzzle. A bit 'read the GM's mind' but if the monsters weren't hostile, could be a zany good time.
E111- Dungeon is whatever, but it has a good 'timeline' for what happens without the players intervening- a good tool to inform tracking your own world
E112- a lot of decent ideas that don't necessarily mesh to form much of a theme
E117- A good 'hag spotlight' if you ever need a lair for such a creature fast
E119- Good ideas sort of shackled to yet another clunky in media res ritual scene
E124- mapped on surface of d10 for cave mapping, but this gimmick doesn't improve content
E125- Some good puzzles, some meh ones, an ok mapping challege
E133- a resource for stocking large abandoned buildings/urban crawlings
E140- Cute hedge maze adventure, but a bit lacking in adventure.
E144- A solid place to throw people if they're banished to some foul dimension. Sorta empty though.
E147- Hooray crazy mutants
E149- Giant tree adventure. Decent ideas and abstract map, lack of 'rooms' makes it feel more like wilderness.
E151- Interestingly but overwhelmingly science fantasy, space wasted on encounter reaction table unnecessary
NOT A FAN
All the rest. Some are old dungeon bad with 'here is a random set of rooms with really boring encounters, traps, and treasure' that could probably have been rolled up on a random generator, some are new-school bad in that they railroad the players aggressively through 'balanced' encounters and puzzles with one solution and forcefields and shit blocking other paths or ideas, some are just like, a wilderness encounter table with high or low concept stuff, some are like 'Ok here is a starting scenario for your post-apocalyptic Gamma World game" some are embarrassingly missing the point of using other people's content with their optimistic and naive anti-content of 'ur the GM u can put ANYTHING U WANT HERE' and some had really unforgivably useless maps and some looked nice but were direly low on content and some are just blatantly someone's vore fap fantasy...
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| In this dungeon you've already been swallowed by a dragon yourself at this point by the way And the nymph is the dragon's lesbian girlfriend and she got swallowed consensually so I think you're actually cuckolding the dragon if you agree to the above request |
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| http://gunshowcomic.com/471 |
HALL OF SHAME
That's right, the turducken double-stuffed vore cuck dungeon was TOO GOOD for this category.
E43- There's essentially no content here. It's like, an implied backstory and someone describing a cutscene of opening the dungeon door in which everyone but the wizard is useless. That's all.
E71-Walls and walls of text with overwrought riddles and simulated scenarios of characters saying the answers or not saying the answers and emoting and thinking and basically hopping aboard the railroad train. I'd tell the author to write a novel but they just did
E38- Town of Rydell, which is very loose outline of a 50's high school graduation drama in a modern-day fantasy setting with an undercurrent of cultists doing something with zombies, 20 teens with love problems, a local gang and useless cops. Which was pretty much my impromptu plot for the Monsterhearts game I ran, coincidentally. See the following vid for my reaction to this actually winning the entire 2018 One Page Dungeon Contest. It's like a camel winning a horse race.
E87-S̵͚͈̈̓͆̏̈́͆̂̂̎̀̚͘͝͝ͅĘ̴̡̧̹̱͚̰̪̭̖̰̖͌̂͛́̈́͗̿̐E̴̡̨̡̺̩̯͉̮̗̤͒͜ ̶̛͇̠̜̥̠̭͚͙̤͎̰͌́̎̋̈͗̆͘̚W̶̨̦̘̩̣̫̺̙͙̗͋͗́͘͠H̶͔̭̹́͒̐̄͂̉͌̌̐͊̕͘̕Ä̵͈̪̽̈́̌͝T̴̨̨̞̫͖̮̦̹̗̣͛̓̓͐̓͜ ̶̢̛̰̪̣̗̳̈̎̈́̐͛͒̿͊̃̆̚I̵̡͈̥̳̙̘̬͈͆̽́͌͐̔́̔ ̴̗̓Ş̷̢̛̻̙̭̩̳̱̫͉̽̃͛̅͆̐̆̓̐̕̕͜͠ͅE̴̛̳͆̋̑̋̇̌͛͘E̴̛̗̘̮͚̗̦̙̓̈́̃̆̏̈́̔͠͝
̴̦̘̺̝͕̞̟̗͓̬̲͛͒̍̒̌͌Ķ̷̤̖̱͈͈͈͇̓̏̕N̷̙̬̹̆ͅƠ̵͚̠̈́͒̃́̔̋̆̕W̸͕̻̣͈̱̩̔̂̈́̈́̂͘̚͠͝ ̵͖͉̖̰̃͑̄̉͑̀̉͑͊͊W̴͎̖̘̣͆̒͊̿̍̍́̀͑̿̎H̶̢̛̛͍͍͓̃̓̀̓̌̑̽̌͒̕̚͝A̸̧͈̲̤͙̠̤̯̰̺̳͔͈̘̥̓͗́͝͝Ţ̵̡͙͓̹̞͇̮̣͓̗͖̤̗̐̿̑͆̾́̽̆̓̃̕͘ ̸̺͉̱̹̦̤̮̝̳̥̈͋̌͂̓̈́͊̈́̑̈́̕̚͠Ị̵̧͈͕̰̯̉͗̈́͌̄͛̕͝ ̵̢̢͕̣̗̮̖̣͕̪̬̠̗͒́̾̒̂̍̂̅̎͛͘͝Ḱ̷͔̥̈́̽̀̉̿́̈́̔́̔͌̃̍̕Ņ̸͗̐̑̎̋̉͐̕͘̚Ǫ̵̛̞̼̬̓͜͝W̷̡̢̛͕̪͕͓̮̬̟̦̞͙͂̈́̌̚͝
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