How to: freely explore between different maps

dndneverwinters · May 2013

Okay I'm rather fresh to this, so I don't know much.

I have made 3 maps representing the 3 different floors of my dungeon.

The dungeon is too large for a single map (technically it's 6 or 8 levels, I'm just referencing three for my question)

Map 0 Dungeon, Map 1 ground floor, map 2 floor two.

Now I want pit traps in floor 1 that send the player into the dungeon level cells...
Once fallen into the trap they then have to find their way back to floor one and continue their quest.

Any idea's how to accomplish this? Is it even possible?

shorlong · May 2013

It's possible with a little bit of play...but not really. Basically, you would have to have them click on something, which would send them to the map for the second level. Then, when they found their way back to the first level, you would have to make a duplicate of that map and have them go to that one...you can only go to a map once.

eb2013 · May 2013

To do this flawlessly you would have to create all the levels of the dungeon on a single map and use teleporters to go between them. That is what I'm doing in the quest I'm currently working on. The drawback is that if you have 3 levels, you can only use a third of the total map area for each one and they all share in the allowance for placeables.

dndneverwinters · May 2013

That is what I feared... thanks. I'll have to figure out some way to shrink or an alternative for my quest.

thestoryteller01 · May 2013

The following is just my personal opinion!

I always hated it in SP games when my character was forced to do something "stupid" to continue. Rogue characters wont like this "you overlooked a trap" part at all. Without wanting to interfere with your story how about this:

There is indeed a trap door but its allready been triggered and down there is a wounded NPC. The party valiantly jumps/climbes down to help, knowing that once down they'll have to find a way out or die - and so enter a new map. The NPC might or might not follow the player but he could give additional infos about the place and/or even provide a side quest.

dndneverwinters · May 2013

You misunderstand the design, I never said I was forcing the progression into it. I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate progression through it should they fall into it, and allow exploration back and forth between the levels outside of progression. Essentially non golden path dungeon crawling.

notaurious · May 2013

Try mucking with invisible walls and ledges. There are some rooms that have space beneath the main path (caves come to mind). Have the player do some action that they could have otherwise avoided and then drop invisible walls/rubble around them to force them into a lower area. That might work for your purposes. However, I do not know of a way to seamlessly connect two different maps. To transition to another map requires objectives, I believe, which I think would foil the intended purposes of a trap.

I have yet to discover conditional objectives (outside of dialogue/inventory requirements), but I hear there are some people out there doing it. More research/tinkering required!

thestoryteller01 · May 2013

dndneverwinters wrote: »

You misunderstand the design, I never said I was forcing the progression into it. I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate progression through it should they fall into it, and allow exploration back and forth between the levels outside of progression. Essentially non golden path dungeon crawling.

In that case you could still "dare" the player to deliberately jump down into a level where there is clear that he'll have to look for a different exit.

Alternatively you could incorporate a side area in which a trigger blocks the way back (portcullis closing or rockfall p.e.) so the player is forced to find another way.

yospeck · May 2013

dndneverwinters wrote: »

You misunderstand the design, I never said I was forcing the progression into it. I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate progression through it should they fall into it, and allow exploration back and forth between the levels outside of progression. Essentially non golden path dungeon crawling.

When they fall down the pit have the area at the end that they fall into be an enclosed room in itself with a door, hole in the wall, etc. and then when they leave that room it skips to the next map.

For going back and forth between levels you will have to restrict the amount of freedom so they can't continuously do it, but realistically you could duplicate each level a dozen times if you wished... but things are going to get complicated pretty quickly. If you do things like closing off an area (collapsing roof, locked doors, forcefields, activated kill traps, etc.) then you're basically giving the illusion that "you can go back that way and explore, but unfortunately you can't get there right now, but the level still exists, honest!". So when they pull a lever and fall down a pit trap in the lower level, have that trap to be considered "activated" and the level resets, but the floor has gone back to its original position (ready for the next unwary adventurer) then if they go back to pull the lever again make it a description "You go to pull the lever but quickly remember what happened last time and think against it".

The biggest issue is that right now duplicating levels really screws up when you have interactable objects and NPCs on them prior to duplicating (makes EVERY item interactable when duplicated). Also, if you have multiple routes then your players may kill there way through mobs, leave the map and then when they return all those mobs are back in the duplicated version.

Personally I would limit the amount of freedom to go back and forth all the time because it will be a real headache to orchestrate, instead give people no reason to turn back or make it impossible. However, if you decide to keep pushing through with it... Tymora's luck with you

How to: freely explore between different maps

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