If you've ever sat down to map out a session and felt like your players were just walking through a series of boring, connected hallways, you need to start jaquaying the dungeon. It's one of those techniques that sounds complicated when you first hear the term, but once you get the hang of it, you'll never look at a piece of graph paper the same way again. The concept is named after the late, legendary designer Jennell Jaquays, and it basically boils down to making your maps feel like real, lived-in places rather than just a linear "funnel" where the party moves from Room A to Room B until they hit the boss.
The problem with a lot of modern dungeon design is that it's too predictable. You enter the front door, you fight some goblins, you find a key, and you move to the next room. There's no real choice involved. But when you start jaquaying the dungeon, you're opening up the architecture. You're giving the players multiple ways to reach their goal, which in turn gives them actual agency. It transforms the game from a guided tour into a genuine exploration.
Breaking the Linear Habit
Most of us start out drawing dungeons as a tree. There's a trunk (the main path) and maybe a few branches that lead to dead ends with a bit of loot. That's fine for a first-time DM, but it gets old fast. Players start to realize that their choices don't actually matter because they're eventually going to end up in the same spot anyway.
To break this, you have to think about connectivity. Instead of thinking of your dungeon as a sequence of events, think of it as a web. Every room should ideally have more than one way in or out. This doesn't mean every room needs four doors, but it does mean you should look for ways to link sections of the map that wouldn't normally be connected. If the barracks are on the west side and the kitchen is on the east, maybe there's a small servant's passage or a ventilation shaft connecting them. Suddenly, the players have a choice: do they kick down the front door of the barracks, or do they try to sneak through the cramped tunnel from the kitchen?
The Magic of the Loop
The "loop" is probably the most important tool in your kit when you're jaquaying the dungeon. A loop is exactly what it sounds like—a path that circles back on itself. When you add loops to a map, you create tactical opportunities.
Imagine a party is being chased by a group of angry orcs. In a linear dungeon, they're trapped. They have to stand and fight or find a dead end to die in. But if the dungeon has loops, they can double back. They can lead the orcs around a corner, circle through a side passage, and end up behind their pursuers. It makes the environment a tool they can use. It also makes the world feel much bigger than it actually is. When players realize they've looped back to a room they visited an hour ago, it creates a "lightbulb" moment that makes the space feel cohesive.
Multiple Entrances and Exits
One of the easiest ways to start jaquaying the dungeon is to stop giving your players just one way into the complex. Why is there only one front door? If it's a ruined castle, maybe there's a collapsed wall in the back. Maybe there's a well that leads down into the flooded basement. Maybe there's a balcony on the second floor that a rogue could climb up to.
Giving players three or four different entry points completely changes how they approach the session. They'll spend time scouting the perimeter. They'll weigh the risks of the "obvious" path versus the "hidden" path. This kind of prep work gets them invested before they even roll initiative. Plus, it lets them bypass encounters they might not be ready for, which is a key part of that old-school RPG feel where survival isn't guaranteed.
Thinking in Three Dimensions
We often get stuck thinking in 2D because we're drawing on flat paper or a digital grid. But real buildings and caverns have height. Verticality is a huge part of jaquaying the dungeon. You should be looking for ways to move the players up and down, not just side to side.
Pits, ladders, spiral staircases, and even elevator buckets can change the flow of a map. Think about "window" moments—where players on a high ledge can look down into a room they'll visit later. Or maybe there's a hole in the ceiling of a cave that lets them see the forest above. This kind of design rewards players who think outside the box. If they have a 50-foot rope and some clever ideas, they might skip half the dungeon by rappelling down a chimney. That's not "cheating" the game; that's the players being smart, and your map should allow for it.
Secret Paths and Shortcuts
A good dungeon shouldn't reveal all its secrets on the first pass. Secret doors are a classic trope, but when you're jaquaying the dungeon, they serve a specific structural purpose. They aren't just hidden rooms with chests; they're shortcuts.
Maybe there's a hidden rotating wall that connects the third level back to the first. Once the players find it, they no longer have to fight their way through the "easy" encounters every time they need to go back to town to rest. It rewards exploration and makes the dungeon feel like a puzzle they're slowly solving. It also adds a layer of "meta-knowledge" to the party. They start to understand the "logic" of the architect who built the place, which makes the world feel grounded and real.
Why This Matters for the DM
You might think that jaquaying the dungeon sounds like more work. And yeah, it takes a little more brainpower to design a non-linear map than a straight line. But it actually makes your job easier during the session.
When a map is non-linear, you don't have to worry about "railroading" your players. You don't have to come up with excuses for why they can't go a certain way. You just present the environment and let them poke at it. It also makes the dungeon more replayable. If they only explored 40% of the map before finishing their objective, the rest of those rooms are still there for a future session. They might come back later from a different entrance and see the place in a whole new light.
Wrapping It Up
At the end of the day, jaquaying the dungeon is about respect. It's about respecting the players' intelligence and their ability to make interesting choices. It moves the game away from being a series of combat encounters and toward being a living, breathing adventure.
Next time you're sketching out a map, look at your dead ends. See if you can turn one of them into a staircase. Look at your main hallway and see if you can add a parallel service tunnel. Add a hole in the floor. Add a second entrance behind some brambles. It doesn't take a lot of extra lines to transform a boring crawl into a complex, "Jaquayed" masterpiece that your players will be talking about for weeks. Just remember: if they feel a little bit lost, or if they're arguing about which of the three paths to take, you're doing it right.