I’ve long been dissatisfied with maps of 3D spaces more complicated than a few storeys. Maps for things like TTRPG dungeons are usually split into levels (assuming all the rooms and corridors fit neatly into separate floors, with stairs and ladders the only signs of a third dimension), isometric (i couldn’t find a good example. These look nice, but have to exaggerate the vertical dimension a lot and large maps have rooms hidden behind rooms), or everything as a single top-down map (very messy).

Digital maps should be able to solve all of these problems with things like a moving camera and transparent rooms, but in my experience they don’t. The Elder Scrolls 3-5, for example, use that third kind of messy top-down map. TES II: Daggerfall has very complicated dungeons, and its map is the best map design i’ve seen for a 3D area too expansive to be isometric and not vertically neat enough to be split into levels. It’s still terrible,¹ but i’ve still never seen anything else come close to how much of a complex dungeon it lets you see. I guess video game developers have decided that making simple areas is easier than figuring out how to navigate complicated ones.

I could try to design and produce a line of translucent building blocks for physical models of complex structures, or make big Blender models for every city with an underground area bigger than a basement, or go learn how to mod Daggerfall and use its map for custom structures, but surely there must be a better option.

So how do you all handle it? Do you keep your dungeon maps neat enough or small enough to use layers or an isometric perspective? Accept the mess of a top-down view of everything? Is there some tool or drawing technique that’s perfect for this sort of thing, and i just haven’t found it? Am i really best off using Blender or Minecraft for this?

¹Part of the tutorial dungeon from that game: