Dungeon Master: Random Terrain

There are many different kinds of terrain that the Dungeon Master can place to make a location more dynamic than a flat stretch of land. Some of the terrain and hazards can be random in nature and it is this type that I wish to write about today.

Risk vs. Reward

Whenever making anything based on randomness, it is important to keep in mind the risks and rewards of using the feature of the location. If there is too much risk for too little reward, it simply won't be used. If there is too much reward for too little risk, you can be sure it will be used commonly. Unless the players use an ability check to try to get more information about the features, they will have to learn about them through trial and error. The context the terrain is in can also help the players guess its function. The previous terrain can also have a large impact. If the last terrain they encountered was high risk and low reward they may approach all other terrain in the same way.

Internal Consistency

You may have to reuse terrain you created for a different location. When you do, keeping it internally consistent with what you have shown in the world so far is important. They will expect it to act a certain way since they have already encountered it before. If this expectation is broken, it should be for a good reason and also make internal sense.

Examples

Short Range Portals

It is easy enough to add a few rifts or portals that allow creatures and players to jump around the area. When doing so, it is important to consider what happens to objects when they enter. Do they go to the other side (you will need to decide how to handle it, especially for spells)? There are also two major choices to make: how are they connected? Are the portals always linked the same way or will it randomly link to all of the other portals in range? Since I'm focusing on randomness, I will choose the random option. If you don't, you can think of the portals as inputs and outputs. This means that if the first portal takes you to the second, the second may not take you back to the first.

We can just make a table for mapping the portals to each-other to handle the decision (numbering the portals will help here). If desired, there can be a random chance that the portal won't take us anywhere if we enter it, forcing the player to leave and re-enter.

This kind of terrain can also be combined with cover to make all kinds of weird motions and attacks. It also gives melee characters a chance to quickly close the distance if the area is quite large.

Wind Squares

Enter the square and get thrown 30 feet into a random direction. We can also add damage if we hit an object (1d6 per 10 feet, minimum of 1d6 even if we hit no object). Putting these into an area with other hazards that enemies can be thrown into further enhance the randomness (this also gives the players a reason to grapple).

Concussion

There we have 2 random terrain features that can be added to your D&D games. As always I hope it helps and feel free to give feedback.