Software

ProcGen Tools for Dungeon Generation

Alex does a short intro to two online procedural dungeon generation tools.

Alex Ward

May 29, 2024 • 4 min read

So! We're back again for another bi-weekly mapping / solo / tools post. In a recurring theme, I've been absorbed in getting some other projects out the door and haven't had a bunch of time to work on this post series, so this time I've taken that "I don't have a lot of time" theme and run with it.

Let's talk about two online tools to quickly generate some dungeons / worlds / things that are free and available for you to use for your home game use.

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I think by now you all know how I feel about the Generative AI hype cycle. As such, I'm going to only focus on procedural generation (which is not generative AI) in this post.

Watabou's Procgen Arcana

This is the gold standard for procedurally generated content. At the time of writing, there are 6 generators up on that page (and it's been that way for a while) that can help you build villages, cities, dungeons, etc.

Let's have a quick look at the Dungeon Generator. When you run it, you're greeted with a new dungeon with all of the default options. Here's the one it made for me:

Now, that's a mighty big dungeon! If you want to see it for yourself, you can append the seed to the end of the URL (there's a link to copy if you right click) and you can share it online. Here's the Link: https://watabou.github.io/one-page-dungeon/?seed=9304116

Now, just as a "refresh the page, get dungeon" this is already fantastic. But there are so many more options for how you can modify its behavior to generate a nice dungeon.

First thing, you can change those annotations. Turn them off, have the rooms be numbered, and so on:

You can change how the map appears, complete with themes and custom colors:

You can enable/disable layers, like removing the decorations so you can add your own:

You can even select a series of "tags" to influence the generator's behavior. For example, if you want a "small" or "large" dungeon, you can add those tags and hit "generate":

Overall, it's super intuitive to use, you should go have a look at it and play around.

You can even use these maps in commercial products, though just trying to sell a generated map is super unethical. Including it in a module complete with you keying the rooms with your own content - cool.

Watabou’s Procgen Arcana: FAQ

Free procedural map generators for tabletop role-playing games and worldbuilding

Watabou's Procgen ArcanaOleg Dolya aka Watabou

Donjon Generators

The other one I want to shout out is the pile of generators that Donjon has created:

There are so many tools in there, but the one I want to look at is the 5e dungeon generator. Here's the one we came up with:

When you first look at the dungeon generator, you're presented with a bunch of options up front:

Which let you modify the dungeon before you generate it, and it has a similar number of features to Procgen Arcana, though presented through a different interface. If you provide a particular seed, you can get the same dungeon multiple times, so if there's a preview that is to your liking, you can take note of it here.

The other thing that Donjon does for you is it keys and provides entries for every single room:

Now, a lot of this is going to be incongruent since it's randomly generated, but it can form a good starting point if you don't have a lot of time to prep ahead of time.

Wrap Up

These are but two free online tools to quickly generate the structure of a dungeon and a bunch of other tools.

If you're interested in some analog (or, offline, if you prefer) dungeon generation methods, I've got a full series of posts on the subject over yonder:

See ya next time!