Free Maps: 10 Dungeon Maps with Seed Ideas

Pros

• 10 Maps
• Story seed ideas

Could Go Either Way

• Overall features aren't very detailed (this gives the Dungeon Master an easier time to twist it into what they want but also means more work)
• Too small to print for battle map use (you'd need to use your own tiles)

Cons

• Maps are so small it's hard to add details to the rooms by hand
• No legend for scale (makes tiles harder)

Introduction

Maps are good. Maps are fun. You can also never have enough of them. Naturally, I couldn't resist looking at 10 free maps when I saw 10 Dungeon Maps with Seed Ideas on the Dungeon Master's Guild. If you need some maps, I'd say it's worth taking a quick look.

The Maps Themselves

The maps are quite simply drawn and aren't big enough to use as a battle map. You can scale them, but it's easier if you just use some tiles that you already have. This simplicity is a strength and a weakness. Don't except to be able to run people through the map after simply placing an item they need to retrieve. The rooms are generally barren and need to be filled. I really do mean barren because the map itself only includes staircases, doors and rooms.

There is no grid or scaling on the map. This makes replicating the rooms through dungeon tiles harder than it really should have been. The rooms themselves are quite small too, meaning adding the missing details is hard to do by hand. The easiest thing to me seemed to take the maps as given, make changes with a pen, and then number the rooms. Having the map set up this way, I could then on another piece of paper write quick descriptions of the rooms along with sketches of the layouts of the room. You only really need to do this for rooms that have features that influence tactical combat. Otherwise, a description is good enough. The good side to this is that it meant the drawing of the room is right beside its description when you are done. The downside is that it takes a significant amount of time. Remember, none of the features of the map (light, sounds, etc.) are filled out so you will need to do so. You are really creating the entire dungeon based on a vaguely drawn map. For a lot of people I know (especially those who like making maps), it just wouldn't be convenient enough because of the changes required and difficulty of adding features.

If you use grid maps usually (or print tiles and tape them together for one time use), converting the maps in this pdf pack is just as much work as creating your own map and then filling it. In these cases, these 10 maps are really just a source of inspiration. You might see a couple you really like and want to mostly keep intact, but it becomes far less valuable in this case and far less of a time saver.

Other Stuff

The story seeds are a couple of sentences that help inspire an adventure. They are not nearly enough for a story and often times don't even have a goal. Don't expect the adventure to write itself. You will need to populate the dungeon and come up with the adventure yourself.

Conclusion

The best way to describe the maps here is making your own dungeon with a bit of help and inspiration. If you aren't a good artist and see a map here that you generally like, it gets one of the more time consuming parts of creating dungeons out of the way. Even if small changes are needed, you can quite easily do so. However, if a lot of changes are needed it simply isn't worth it. Due to the small sizes of the rooms on the map, populating them with features and with tactical choices by drawing them on the map isn't very practical. If the room has features elements that contribute to combat, you will probably want to sketch it beside the description you write for it on another page. This is all well and good if you play using theatre of mind, but not if you draw out the entire map on sheets of grid paper. In that case, you could draw a map you liked on your grid paper (possibly inspired by one in this pack) just as easily as populating the dungeon and sketching out the rooms. The result is that it's less useful for grid paper maps. For people who prefer to lay down tiles as the group walks through the dungeon, you will probably want to do the same as for theatre of mind but lay down tiles as you go through the dungeon. Since it's free, it's at least worth a quick skim if you are in need of maps or are new to tabletop role-playing and the idea of coming up with your dungeon from scratch is daunting (in this case, don't be afraid to make changes or add rooms).