As you may have deduced from my handle (or not), I'm a fan of the old Planescape setting. I would _like_ to have a map that wasn't so tied to geometry as this would be. Being able to map the hideous contours of the Abyss would be, while inessential, distinctly nice. This comment, of course, also goes for any Cthulhu implementation, wherein the Dreamlands and other curious locales might exist.Consequently:

Desirable properties of a 'room':

• Type - dungeon passage, dungeon chamber, tavern, etc. Possibly to be used as the superclass of the room, so that properties can be generalised.
• Description - optional, but desirable. If the description is undefined, it gets inherited from the type. Description should decompose into Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, Tactile and several Ranged components, not all of which are needed. The Ranged components are my preferred answer to the sightlines query, consisting of a distance (for comparison with fog and darkness) and a nice description of the object visible at that distance.
• Lighting effects present
• Susceptibility to weather
• Latitude and longitude, for determining weather. Possibly also a 'planitude' to determine whether the rain is likely to be water, frogs or blood.
• Exits. Abstract links to other rooms, identified by direction, and possibly also by location in the room (see below) and/or some kind of subsidiary descriptor. Whilst it might not be fair, I'd like to use this section to describe any locations accessible with fly, passwall, etc, here, rather than risk the players breaking the system by indiscriminate use of travel spells.
• Liquid nature and depth, if any.
• Contents. Well, duh. :-)

I hope that lot helps to clarify how I've been thinking thus far.

Tiefling

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GAT d++ s:- a-- C++ UL P++ L++(+) E? W+(++) N+ o? K w+(--)
!O M- V? PS+ PE- Y PGP- t+ 5 X+ R+++ tv- b+++ DI++++ D+ G+ e++ h!(-) y
+?
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
[download]

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.