With this method, you create the cavern by obscuring sections of the original random dungeon map.

Sure, you could just draw the cavern — but if you don’t have much time, then having the dungeon map could be pretty handy.

(and, in a shameless act of self-promotion, i like my random dungeon generator better than jamis buck’s. =)

Good point! It would be pretty easy to whip up a quick random table for depths and slopes, too — if there isn’t one out there already.

One thing it doesn’t show is any vertical change, which is almost always present in caverns. Even areas that might be considered all on one “level” often have slopes instead of flat paths, or short drops from one area to the next. That ought to be easy to add to a map like this, and would give it a little more realism in play.

For people who hate preparation, Tabletop Adventures wrote a product just for natural caverns. “Bits of Darkness: Caverns” has 100+ descriptions of cave formations, rocky slopes, etc. In the areas between encounters, your party can discover some delicate rock form or underground pool. It keeps their interest and makes them realize there’s more down there than just dark. You can go here: http://www.tabletopadventures.com/Products/Caverns/caverns.html to grab some examples and a free demo.

A few issues later they covered a very neat but very complex system for something similar to the relationship lines.

Like I said, I hadn’t seen these two tools put together quite like this and the streamlining he puts into it to make them quick and easy to use really makes it useful instead of cumbersome.

The random dungeon generator is nice but unless your game is 1st eddition flavor, kick in a door, fight random moster, move on, it’s largely useless without some work. (I would have liked it better if they had used a system similar to that used in TSRs random dungeon boxed set in which your end dungeon contained a hierarchy of monsters rather than a completely random set.) The article on relationships (and responsiveness) within a dungeon was really fantastic but would add hours to dungeon prep, not streamline it. (though that’s not the article he sites, just a similarly themed one)

This system, by virtue of it’s very simplicity, is fast and useable but still produces great results. For someone that hates prep as much as I do, that makes it a winner.