Saturday, November 14, 2015

Commentary & Review Of Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator From Griffon Publishing Studio For Your Old School Campaigns

Once again I'm really late to the party on this title, Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator From Griffon Publishing Studio  This is a 'pay what you' title that basically allows the Dungeon Master to set the parameters of the dice, the dungeon & room elements and generate an entire dungeon easily almost effortlessly. Almost is the key word here. This application takes some practice and getting used to this is not a short cut at all for generating a quick paint by numbers dungeon. Instead this a two page generator that allows the DM to fill in their own details and create a dungeon or even a campaign.


Basically this is an application piece that can be filled in with elements to create either solo adventures or full blown campaigns. But its very much an exercise in dungeon design and patience as it is in execution. Its not bad at what it does but I was hoping for a bit more variety in the product piece. Its good, its solid but it needs something more in the finally dungeon design that it spits out. This is a good piece of work if you like A. designing your own dungeons and B. like to design them with regularity to fit an over arching campaign ideal. Basically if you want to create a DYI D&D world with solid themed dungeons that fit together like puzzles this is a product that could work for you.


Overall this is a good product that can help to fill in a gap point for a dungeon master looking to create central themed dungeons. The fact is that this is a plug and play product that generates the parameters and elements that you want in the world that your creating. This is going to give you exactly what your looking for. In other words garbage in and garbage out within boundaries of dice and numbers. This isn't a bad thing at all but does create some challenges for those who are easily frustrated and don't want to spend the time it takes to create dungeons in this manner. If your expecting speed and quickness this isn't that style of product, this is one that assumes intelligent design from the ground up. Your elements and ideas are stuffed into two pages and churned around into a dungeon of  your own creation.
There is another possible use for this style of dungeon generator, Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator could be used to create massive solo dungeons. These sorts of generators have appeared from time to time in the Eighties and Nineties but I haven't seen too many of them as of late. Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator could be used to create sprawling complexes of this style and generate enormous locations to run through for solo play. Simply add your own monsters and go to town!
Because of the generic nature of Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator it could be easily used to generate weird or completely strange science fiction or science fantasy locations for post apocalyptic or weird science fiction dungeons or ruins. There are a myriad of uses for this product. The problem is the uniformity of these creations unless that's what you the dungeon master are  looking for.


So is Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator good or bad? Well, its sort of hard to say, to really snap this product into a test would take a solid half an hour to two hours to generate the styles of dungeon worlds that I personally like there's plenty of room for improvement and ideas within this product but it needs a bit more time in the oven to really shine in the light of day for a dungeon master to get the maximum utility. That being said if you like this sort of from the ground up approach to the creation of your own adventures and dungeon locations within them. Then grab this one and go for it. 

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