Design notes on new dungeon rooms for the Lost in the Shuffle project this past month.

I’m writing 52 rooms in 2026 (one each week), usable for any dungeon. In this blog, I record my thoughts for the rooms made. Previous entries:
January + February
March + April
May + June
July + August

33. Digging a Grave

Sometimes a weird situation is enough to power an entire dungeon room. In this case, digging up bodies is generally a weird thing to do. But someone might have a reason for it? It’s something to approach with caution, especially with someone as uncommunicative as this undertaker.

34. Blinded by Fire

I really wanted to add a dragon to the dungeon. But how do you make such a majestic encounter interesting for lower level play? How do we sufficiently handicap a dragon? I think blinding adversaries is an underutilized way to make a difficult situation more interesting. It makes a terror, like a dragon, someone you could walk away from or maybe even pity.

35. Elemental Crystals

This room is a full-on puzzle, but pulling in two directions: one possible challenge is getting the crystals unshattered to a vendor or other destination. Especially the air crystal may prove difficult in this regard. The other possible challenge is figuring out you need to shatter them all. Here, the fire or earth crystal might prove challenging. Which direction would your players take?

36. A Spark

Zelda, Breath of the WIld has one of the more interesting implementations I’ve come across. Triggering on (worn) metal objects feels intuitive and manages to provide an interesting conundrum as well; often the most valuable gear is made of metal. In this dungeon room, I’ve added a second twist, where charging your gear with electricity might actually prove beneficial, given you manage to do so safely.

37. Bowstring Tower

“Put a treasure chest in a hard to reach place” is always good advice, and advice I’ve followed for some of the rooms. Putting adversaries in hard to reach places is just as interesting. It has the opposite effect, but poses the same question: how do players deal with it?

38. Aquarium

Underwater travel is a fascinating topic, yet also a difficult thing to do in TTRPG design. There’s a lack of small-scale underwater challenges in my opinion. Underwater locations often go all-in. That’s why I think having one of the random dungeon rooms be a simple underwater scenario poses an interesting variation to the formula.

Now Get Lost!

That’s it for the past months’ rooms. Follow me to tag along with the project. If there are any specific rooms you’d like to see, don’t hesitate to comment down below! Otherwise, I hope to see you around next time

Cheers,
Willem-Jan

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