Cave Generator Mark 1

Every cave has one way in, that’s how you get there.

The DM never just tells players how many exits there are. They have to go in and search. One might be hidden and none are necessarily obvious.

This cave has		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
This many exits	D4	None	One	Two	Three
In	D6	Walls	Walls	Floor	Roof	Hidden	Blocked
This exit is a	D8	Walk	Walk	Climb	Chimney	Traverse	Crawl	Squeeze	Pitch

You roll a d4, d6 and d8. You can always bring in the result from a smaller die if you need it to create results on a line.

I’m thinking three dice is the most you can comfortably use at once, again and again and again. And it needs to be fast to read and understand.

Lets try it out.

D4 -3
D6 – 2
D8 – 3

First line; 3 means two exits.

Second line; d6 rolls a 2, so one exit in the walls, need a second result, so bring in the d4 from above. Second exit is in the floor. None are hidden or blocked,

Third line; d8 rolls a 3 so first exit, from the wall is a climb. Need a second exit, bring in the d6,  this reads two so the one in the floor is a Walk.

What if I get three exits but only have two results forthe second line. First result has two exits.

I hope that works. I think I broke my brain figuring it out. I'm sure you will let be know by tomorrow what is wrong with it.

If we want to bring in strange caves or wierd caves we can say, get a double and roll on the strange shape generator, get a triple and roll on the d100 strange caves table.



An example of the boiling down

This cave is shaped like	Created by
A bannana	Vertical torrent
a bagel	plunging maelstrom
a droplet	slow,seeping river
the number '8'	easy curving river
a water slide	fast slender surge
an inverted tortoise shell	oceanic sink hole
first letters of players names	dried up river flow
capitalised vowels	bioluminescent river
the letters B, R and S	mildly acidic river
fat little snakes	irregularly surging river
the letters of your name	leaping fish
a traffic cone	occasional logs
a barbed hook	whirlpools
6's 0's and 9's	seasonal
an american football	squid-haunted
a fat pitchfork	memory-eating
a bent wrench	murder-rapids
a horizontal fire extinguisher	tomb complex
the numbers 2,3,5 and 8	dry-fault system
2 to 3 allen keys on a ring	low-roofed-river
zigzags	howling continual wind
half-closed eyes	cold, dead fungus farms
crooked whilwinds	endless dripping
toblarones	ruined mine, unexpected falls
insides of bell peppers	rushed and abaondoned diamond mine
pillbugs, sometimes curled	propped coal mine
letters x,y and z	coal mine-bad gas
broken boxes	poorly ventilated
crushed egg cartons	still-active mine
barbells	fought-over mine
letters F,G and H	just re-discovered mine
straight numbers 1,4 and 7	ghost haunted slave-mine
broken backed books	insane folley of a despot
letters J, K and T	forgotten imperial expansion
Tierd cakes, upside down	war-relic countermines
gothic arches	product of unknown science
arrows stabbing arrows	sulphuric bloom
bubble froth (lots of little circles)	tendrils of infiltrating sulphur
upside down nuclear cooling towers	forgotten lava tube system
irregular crescent moons	arterial ichor splatter
pint glass on its side	abandoned inverse wizards tower
spray of a spilt drink	vast ichor pool
house-rooms	deep dragon warren
fallen trees	cast of a gigantic worm
letters M,N,P,Q and W	tarresque burrow
snapped pipes	coronal suphur ejection
sharp-edged flopping fish	compressed city ruins
curls of rising smoke	stone to mud battleground
polyhedral dice
deflating baloons