Corridor Width (In Dungeons)

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Humabout

Narrow corridors end up being exactly the width of the builder (think hallways in modern houses).

IME the narrow hallway in a more modern building is more likely to be 1.5m rather than 1m - because you need to pass people, and you need to carry things like laundry baskets. And because sometimes people are fat or pregnant and it's even harder to do these things when you're one of them in a 1 meter hallway.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

While that is true, presumably the corridor is 3d.

I was talking about the corridor cross-section: 1 or 1.5 yards wide by 2 yards high. In order to reverse the spear (etc.), it has to fit through this, the most restrictive profile. The length of the corridor can be arbitrary, because it doesn't matter once it ceases to be the smallest dimension.

You could get around this by having a higher (3 yd) ceiling, but then why wouldn't you make the corridor 3 yards wide from the start? You might also try to reverse the orientation at a T-junction or in a room, but counting on having one handy just when you need it seems like a poor life choice.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Bruno

IME the narrow hallway in a more modern building is more likely to be 1.5m rather than 1m - because you need to pass people, and you need to carry things like laundry baskets. And because sometimes people are fat or pregnant and it's even harder to do these things when you're one of them in a 1 meter hallway.

Not untrue, but I was speaking to dungeons, which tend toward medieval architecture in my experience. I was also just tossing out my personal baselines. The halls in the hospital I worked in were a solid 4 meters wide, but I wouldnt calkll that typical of normal buildings, let alone medieval castles and dungeons and such.

[scc]

Originally Posted by sjard

Well, there are these, if you don't mind print your own.

Cardboard Heroes Dungeon Floors
Cardboard Heroes Cavern Floors

I picked up a couple sets of each while they were available in print, and they're not too bad for at table use.

Print your owns are fine, but I have to wonder why these weren't included in the DFRPG promotion. And from looking at the W23 page, it look's like these are intended to be cut straight, which raises problems on things not meeting head one.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Game Night Life seem to be on the verge of selling quite good ones. Their Kickstarter was quite successful, but they've had production problems.

These seem to be normal mats and nothing else.

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's going to depend on who or what regularly uses the corridor, but 1 hex corridors are inconveniently small for anything larger than SM-1, as it's usually desirable for two people to be able to comfortably pass (in the same or opposite directions). This doesn't mean you won't get things that narrow, but not by preference.

I'd put a 1.5 yard corridor down as a single hex wide to avoid problems

Originally Posted by talonthehand

While that is true, presumably the corridor is 3d. With a height of 2 yards this becomes 3 or 3.2 yards. With a height of 2.5 yards this is 3.3 or 3.5. It's easier to move a spear around than a couch.

Huh, this does raise another question, doesn't it? How tall are the ceilings? Well given how often SM+1 beings seem to venture into them, I'd say at least 3 yards tall, maybe even 5

[Humabout]

Again, I set ceiling height based on who built the corridor. Typical modern ceilings are 8 feet tall, and average humans (in the US, at least) are 5'8" for males, with examples regularly reaching 6'. Call it 133% the builder's height.

That said, medieval buildings and especially tunnels in general tend to be as short as possible since it reduces building expenses. Only structures and tunnels meant for their grandeur would likely be bigger.

This gives a range of just above average height to about 133% regular height.

So if a 9' tall ogre builds a house, the ceilings may be between 9' and 12'.

[Kromm]

If you want "What was the designer thinking, anyway?": On average I tend to think, "Big enough for two humans to pass in opposite directions while doing work" (carrying toolboxes, trundling wheelbarrows, bearing coffins, etc.) "and tall enough for a hulking ST 14, 6'2" warrior with a helmet on." Not just 2 yards wide × 2 yards tall, but something akin to that plus a 10% margin in both directions, or 2.2 × 2.2 yards . . . though it might show up as just two hexes wide on a printed map. That sets the diagonal at 3.1 yards (and where two such corridors meet at 90°, there will be room to clear 3.8 yards with a little moving-day mambo).

Which isn't to say that narrower or wider corridors don't exist, only that they always exist for a reason. Behind-the-scenes maintenance tunnels for traps, secret passages used by one bad guy who won't be bringing friends, hastily burrowed escape routes, corridors designed to funnel attackers into a trap, or anything built by an SM -1 or smaller race might be narrower (treat as one canonical hex, regardless of actual width in yards). Huge ceremonial hallways, routes intended to enable massive numbers of troops to deploy quickly, galleries built to allow carts to pass, corridors likely to be used for storage as well as passage, or anything excavated by an SM +1 or larger race might be wider (at least three canonical hexes, again regardless of actual width in yards).

If you have the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, turn to the map of the dungeon (I Smell a Rat). Areas #3 and #8 are "average" corridors. Areas #2 (a hastily excavated, concealed tunnel) and #5 (a secret passage intended to endanger unwelcome visitors) are "narrow." And area #15 (blasted by monstrous energies) is "wide." Worrying about the exact diagonals is a bit too much worrying for the DFRPG, but the information is there to work them out: area #2 (3' × 6', 2.2 yard diag.), area #3 (6' × 6', 2.8 yard diag.), area #5 (3' × 8', 2.8 yard diag.), area #8 (6' × 8', 3.3 yard diag.), area #15 (10' × 10', 4.7 yard diag.).

For convenience's sake, I'd allow all weapons to thrust and weapons no longer than the corridor width to be swung. Which means that dungeons are okay for knives, axes, clubs, maces, morningstars, picks, one-handed swords (even rapiers, which are stabby), etc.; occasionally a little limiting for spears, staffs, and two-handed versions of axes, flails, maces, picks, and swords; and regularly a rotten place to try to maneuver battlefield-length pikes and polearms.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by scc

Ever since DFRPG launched I've been wanting something like the Dungeon Tiles that WoTC released, but in hexes for use with GURPS.

One thing this has made me think about dungeon design and probably the most important one is how wide are the corridors? Or maybe more simply and accurately, assuming that I'm using a hex gird or simply the situation in a non-DF game comes up where corridor width is important (like the PC's need to block a corridor): Should 1 yard corridors be the norm or should 2 yard ones be?

Now yes, I acknowledge that corridors could be between these values, or even wider, using these two for most corridors is useful because of the way the rules work, a 1.5 yard corridor raises lots of questions if someone tries to squeeze past you, so I'll say that these widths are actually an abstraction to ease game play. And how often are you going to find a corridor wider then 2 yards?

My assumption is that for ordinary corridors that they would be wide enough to walk at least two abreast (so that they can accommodate traffic in both directions). So two hexes. Secret passages would be a single undersized hex.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

For convenience's sake, I'd allow all weapons to thrust and weapons no longer than the corridor width to be swung.

That's pretty generous but probably consistent with the dungeon crawl genre. Realistically you probably can't swing properly if you don't have open space on your weapon hand side. This includes formation combat, there's a reason close infantry formations have historically used stabbing weapons.

[Kromm]

Well, the downward swing with a big gravity assist, usually aimed at the head, seems to be the favored attack of warriors in bad fantasy art everywhere, so I'm not going to get too bent out of shape over clearance to the side.

[Humabout]

I like using the rules from Underground Adventures to limit swinging melee attacks in tight corridors, but I tend to not mind slightly fiddlier combat in dungeons. It also makes it fun to arm the inhabitants with stabbiness for a home turf advantage.