Megadungeon Hall of Fame: The One-Page Dungeon

The One-Page Dungeon idea captured my heart back in 2008-2009 and its influence can be seen in Michael Curtis' (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) Stonehell dungeon (which is actually a composite of two-page dungeons). The One-Page Dungeon approach is a great way to design a dungeon and I have used it quite a bit myself. The One-Page Dungeon template (by Michael at ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog) is a great way to get a playable dungeon area created, as it enforces the discipline of not creating too much extraneous material that either becomes a time suck (if you are a perfectionist) or simply won't be used in play.

You can see the key posts by Dave (Sham's Grog & Blog) here and here. Michael (ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog) had an important post in between Dave's two posts, which you can find here. Michael Curtis (The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope) wraps up this class of Hall of Fame inductees with his post on the same topic here.

Free Stuff: "The Ancient Academy"

I like free stuff for cheap. I also like one-page dungeons. So when there is a one-page dungeon for free, I am a happy little doggie. I just downloaded The Ancient Academy, a free one-page dungeon PDF from Robertson Games, after seeing it mentioned in a post on Dark Corners of Role Playing.

What I like about The Ancient Academy is that it presents a nice challenge to low-level characters--combat, exploration, and role-playing--yet the dungeon is generic enough that you can drop it almost anywhere in almost any campaign setting. Here is the back story and location information: 4 Leagues from the village of Thorn, the ruins of a monastery sit atop a rocky hill. Inside the last intact building is a staircase to the dark dungeon below. Very short and sweet. Just add water and heat for 10 minutes.

It is also system neutral, so you can use it with any early D&D edition or retroclone. You could also use it for GURPS DF or Pathfinder without modification (although you would have to add some ruleset specific information).