“I just read an article by Yora of Spriggan’s Den about extrapolating a scheme for an eighteen-room dungeon from the procedural generation rules in B/X (1981). As Yora points out, eighteen rooms is a great size for a mid-to-large dungeon or for a floor of a multi-level dungeon, and the checklist of rooms makes it easy to make sure that the final product has a variety of interesting play interactions. But, being as large as it is, it can still be a tall order on the fly.
My first thought was, having read nothing but D&D (1974) for over a year, the procedural generation rules for dungeons must be simple enough compared to its successor that the number of rooms would necessitate [sic] be smaller. It turns out that this is not the case but, hey, if you could condense the typical D&D experience into just a handful of rooms, why not? It would help make dungeons in a jiffy, and it would make it easy to make large locales out of modular parts.
This approach is superficially similar to the Five Room Dungeon method created by Johnn Four, but it is distinct. I agree with my friend Gus L.’s assessment of the 5RD, namely that the method is not centered on designing locations, but on writing a short narrative [2]. Each room of the 5RD is not a room to explore, but a scene to play through. The 5RD is, in this respect, a railroad module to guide the players through a session, with challenges that play to characters’ strengths or fulfill narrative goals.
In contrast, the method I suggest here is geared towards making a compact but fleshed-out location to be explored and investigated. It is predictable enough as a structure to feature mainstays of D&D gameplay, but the possible contents of the place are completely variable as are the possible ways in which players will choose to interact with them. Here’s hoping, anyway!”