Can 5 Room Dungeons Ameliorate Writers Block?
By Eri Broke-Ears
An Introduction
I like the word “Ameliorate” because when I read it, I breathe easier. It gives me room to fail forward. It means “to make better” or “to make more tolerable” and I like this because it appeals to my sense of spectrum. It keeps me away from the false-choice binaries that seems to be drowning discourse everywhere I turn. A-thing-is-maximally-optimal-or-it’s-garbage just isn’t the world I want to live in. It’s not the world I work, vote, eat, fuck, or dream in.
I’d like a side of nuance with my joy burger, please.
I wanted to title this thing “Destroy Writer’s Block with 5 EZ Dungeons” because Youtube is rewiring my brain to think like a yellow blogger with front row tickets to the Jerry Springer show or whoever is filling his shoes, these days. Joe Rogan? Well, I hate it and this is my curmudgeonly attempt to rectify that particular kink in my creative identity, such as it is, so here the fuck we go.
I want to talk about the 5 Room Dungeon concept as I have come to understand and utilize it because there is a nucleic power to this thing that seems to have energized my recent projects and nothing solidifies a process in my brain like writing it out. Or typing it. Whatever.
The five-room dungeon has become a powerful concept in my little goblin brain. It feels like a replicable tool that operates at the cellular level in game design and, honestly, I could use the muscle memory. Having built out a few of these at this point, I am reminded of way back when I used to write songs with 10to7 where we needed a small clutch of simple song structures within which we could sonically Jackson Pollock the hell out of Paul’s garage and maybe drip over something worth listening to. Maybe take it down to the bar and see how the drunky Sues take it in. While we never got a record deal we did play one hell of a set and I’m still proud of our work.
God I miss those days.
I’m going to try this blog/newsletter/designer diary/journal thing for a minute in the hopes that it will help me create a creative habit I let languish years ago when I started getting older and lawn leshies began waging war against all but my lovely wife, darling schmupp, pain-in-the-claws schmitten, adorable roommate, and maybe the Amazon guy. Oh, and the Doordash guy…he can stand on my lawn too without fear of being Tanglefooted.
::Deep breath::
Here the fuck we go.
Inspiration & Concept
The subject of today’s pitter-patter chatter of brain matter splatter is based on a 5RD I created as a proof-of-concept for a Patreon offering Rob and I did a few months back…Gobblinati Rangok, the Thief of Skytombs…he’s a Druid tree goblin with the Undead Slayer archetype and a really big bird.
The biome selection for the month was temperate forest and I wanted Minnesotan levels of lakes strewn about the landscape with teams of human Lake Hunters that set out every day to beat back Bessie and all her spooky lake frenz. Above are floating islands that a cranky dryad scooped out of the earth a bunch of years ago that houses the dead. Funerary rites play a large role in the community et cetera et cetera. I want each of these 5RDs to illustrate a specific in-world Goblin Salvage Rite but I’m not there yet. Soon. In the redraft.
Development Process
I tried to keep it simple:
Title/Background/Room Name/Room Features/Room Encounter/Statblock.
My hope was that, in the spirit of Keep It Simple Stupid, I could just complete a bunch of these and come back and clean up the ones worth keeping.
Here’s an excerpt from one of them:
GSR 5-Room Dungeon #2: Drowned Reliquaries
Background:
Lake Hunters report strange sightings near an uncharted islet on Ten Lakes—ghostly lights, phantom vessels, and an unnatural stillness in the waters. An heirloom Skiff Rune has gone missing, rumored to have been taken by a spectral crew. The Shorewardens have tasked the party with investigating the area, recovering the rune, and uncovering the source of the disturbance.
Room 1: Shattered Shore (Entrance and Guardian)
Features: Broken remnants of boats, eerie silence, and patches of blackened, brackish water. Encounter: The party is ambushed by Spiked Otters twisted by a local magic source. They fight fiercely to protect a half-submerged skiff concealing baby otters…and etched with faint runes—a clue to the missing heirloom.
Encounter 1: Spiked Otter (Level 3 Creature)
Small Aberration, Aquatic
Perception: +8; darkvision
Languages: ---
Skills: Athletics +9, Stealth +10, Survival +6
AC: 19; Fort: +7, Ref: +10, Will: +5
HP: 45 (regenerates 2 HP/round in brackish water)
Speed: 20 ft., swim 40 ft.
Melee: Barbed Bite +11 (agile, finesse), Damage 1d8+4 piercing plus 1d4 persistent bleed
Melee: Raking Claws +9 (agile), Damage 1d6+3 slashing
Special Abilities:
Twisted Frenzy (1 Action): Makes two claw attacks against different targets.
Brackish Ambush: Gains +2 circumstance bonus to attack rolls when attacking from water.
Now, I don’t know if the math holds up in this stat block but that’s not a first-draft problem. Balance and clean up come later.
Key Design Decisions
There is a Campbellian quality to these rooms that just reeks of Heroes Journey thought process and maybe that’s what drew me to it first?
Room #1: Entrance & Guardian
Room #2: Puzzle or Roleplay Challenge
Room #3: Setback or Twist
Room #4: Climax - Major Battle
Room #5: Reward & Revelation
As soon as I saw this I just knew I could I could replicate the hell out of this. I remember one of the developers from the Halo team in an interview saying that you don’t need to create an entire game…you just need to create thirty seconds of play that you can repeat over and over. This is that to me. I created first drafts for 20 5RDs set in our GSR campaign setting based heavily on the assorted Patreon offerings we’ve been spitting out over the past year or so. All of them using this template. Finished first drafts. For me, that’s an unbelievable win.
Lessons Learned, Future Ideas 7 Conclusion
I dig it. It’s not reinventing the wheel or ever going to win any awards…but it’s completed. And I plan to complete many more.
That’s the battle for me: completing things.
Dan, Robert and JP independently shared a bit of old Voltairean wisdom that Perfection Is The Enemy Of Good. It wasn’t until many years later that I came across the much-needed second half of that expression:
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Good is the enemy of done.
Seems like a good place to stop.
Keep it weird,
Eri
