[mlangsdorf]

One thing I found useful in Castle of Horrors was to standardize room descriptions:

* Immediately obvious things of great importance (the floor is on fire)
* Other threats
* Other major and minor details
* Visible exits, always listed clockwise from the center of the north wall

It was useful for me when writing the dungeon, because I could easily check if I had missed anything important. It was also useful for the players, because we were gaming online and I could put little info markers with a persistent description of the room so people could go back and check if they missed the narration.

One of the things the earlier D&D3e adventures did but that seems to have dropped from later adventures was to have a breakout box describing common features of a dungeon level: the ceiling is X high, the walls are made from Y material, all doors are ironbound wood and open into hallways with hinges on left side, and so on. It was a really useful little feature.


As far as DF dungeons go, things I would like to see:
* Plentiful and useful rumors and research - stuff that if the PCs find out, they can use to prepare better. "there is a mana dead chasm half-way in, so bring ropes" and such.
* Wilderness encounters on the way to the dungeon.
* A variety of physical obstacles in the dungeon, with places to perform acrobatics or climb to get to the better loot. At least some of which should be in no-mana zones, so the acrobatic types don't get upstaged by a wizard with Air-Walk.
* Limited magic zones in general, so the non-magic types have an advantage.
* Traps, tricks, and riddles. Hidden doors and cursed objects. Every skill on every template should be useful at some point, even if it just gives better loot than a party without.
* Similarly, a variety of foes. There's rarely a reason to not to stock a dungeon with mundane foes, undead, demons, some faeries, dire animals, and a slime or two. At least some encounters should involve weird terrain, which can be anything from concealed pit traps to an anti-gravity room.
* Encounters of varying difficulty. Nothing needs to be an effortless walk-over, but it's okay to just fight 2N of giant rats some times, in between dealing with 4 sword-armor golems guarding the stairs to the brainwarper that's going to blast the delvers to oblivion.
* Treasure comeasurate with the difficulty.