How did you play back in the day? - forked from Q's Leveling Comparisons

[Doug McCrae]

I've never played in or run a mega-dungeon. My early D&D experiences were short dungeons or modules such as G1-3.

Our two longest campaigns (something like 10 sessions would count as long for us) were both Villains & Vigilantes, because we liked superhero. They consisted of separate adventures with some overarching features such as recurring villains, mega-dungeons aren't terribly appropriate for the superhero genre.

 

[Chainsaw]

Well, I suppose I'm not an old timer (started with Black Box/Red Dragon in 1991, then moved on to 2E a little later), but I answered the poll before reading your post, so I might as well elaborate.

We always made up our own dungeons, usually only a few levels in depth and able to be finished at a single sitting. These were very loosely connected by some sort of quest-giver NPC in town, but we "started over" pretty frequently and only a few times developed anything remotely resembling a campaign. We'd play for a while, unintentionally quit becuase of whatever (exams, family vacations, being grounded), then start up again (new characters) after seeing some inspiring movie or reading a good book.

Honestly, in the beginning, we were too poor and game stores were too inaccessible for us to buy any official modules. Eventually we bought a few campaign boxes, but we never really used them except for the maps. We were all too lazy to read through someone else's campaign, I guess.

 

[catsclaw227]

I voted other. At first we did modules serial style, but by 1980 or so, we were playing in home-made dungeons populated with beasties, like B1 - In Search of the Unknown, (not B1-9 In Search of Adventure, which was a mini - AP as well).

Then, around 1981 or 1982 we went with sandbox style games and our house-rules list went through the roof. After that, it was mostly sandbox style games until 3e.

 

[Bullgrit]

I voted "Something else."

In the first years of my D&D gaming, we had dungeons no bigger/deeper than two levels (and we rarely explored more than the first level before all dying off or loosing interest in it). There was never any connection/link between one dungeon and another.

The closest I've ever come to adventuring in a mega-dungeon was playing part of ToEE, and then we only played through about 1.5 levels of it.

Bullgrit

 

[gizmo33]

I voted "other". Both the GDQ style adventure path and mega dungeon were pretty intense events IME. I ran those kinds of things once in a while (the I3-5 Desert of Desolation another example) but mostly stuck to single adventure modules or sites. It was campaign style. Also some sandbox type stuff where PCs would just meander around a city or work on issues related to their strongholds, etc. GDQ was much more involved and extensive than what I would consider the "typical" 1E adventure. In fact, I think it has as much in common with a megadungeon as a single adventure.

 

[Storm Raven]

At the outset we played modules when they were available (and we had characters the right level to play them). When a new module came out, it was usually snapped up and thrown into the mix by one of us acting as DM. If an adventure appeared in The Dragon, that would get played too, and some of the early adventures from there were awful, or bizarre, or both.

Usually we rotated DMs, based upon who had completed something, we had different characters in different DMs games, so we usually had someone the right level to play just about anything. One constant was that every DM had a world map (most of which bore more than a passing resemblance to Middle-Earth), but that mostly served merely as a place to locate various adventures.

We played three to four times a week at least, and more during summer when school was out, so we went through most published adventures really quickly. The interstitial periods were spent playing home grown adventures. Some of the DMs went to far as to completely emulate published adventures in the design of their own: putting covers with bad art on them, writing introductions and so on. That was rare. Often it was a couple pieces of graph paper, a spiral notebook, and a lot of pencil.

No one used megadungeons. I think the "deepest" complex anyone made for use was four levels in one dungeon. I remember sitting around with my friends looking at the side view of dungeons in (if I recall correctly) the Red book that had a huge dungeon complex and everyone agreeing that (1) the side view was silly, and (2) the concept of the ultradeep complex was sillier.

 

[Jack7]

Sort of a combination method, I guess you could say. Originally with my setting the idea was to resurrect the ancient nation of Pesh which had been destroyed hundreds of years earlier, and had led to the disappearance or possible destruction of almost all of the elves and dwarves. It also involved finding several relics that had been involved in the same set of events.

So most of the adventures were serial dungeons related to that single campaign idea, though also many of the adventures didn't seem to be about that at first, and the characters were initially unaware of their real objective. That only became more obvious as they recovered things like parts of the Rod of Seven Parts and the Fables of Burdock.

But there were also interspersed throughout the campaign a number of "resting adventures" not related to the main campaign, smaller things only tangentially related to the main quest, if at all. These were small stand alone, get away from it all (rest from the grueling nature of the real campaign, sort of relaxation, diversionary, sometimes comical side-adventures) type walk-abouts. Many of the main campaign adventures involved mega-dungeon, ancient Peshian ruins, buried complexes, that kind of thing.

The "get-aways," though still often dangerous usually involved wilderness adventures, urban adventures, vadding, river and sea trips, mountain climbing, outdoor survival, puzzles or mental games, competitions and duels, etc.

Then again I often adapted and adopted-in some modules (I think many modules back then were particularly good and entertaining, with a little change-up) into the main campaign, or occasionally used them as stand-alone get-away adventures.

Overall though I guess we mostly played one huge, inter-connected campaign, for a long time, until several relics were recovered, some surviving Elven clans were found (who had gone underground into hiding), Pesh was resurrected, several of the main characters were killed and the main Paladin had sacrificed himself in combat to defeat a demon who was trying to prevent Pesh from being revived.

After that the main characters went into hiding or into retirement or became leaders (such as Chief Temple Priest or government leaders) and their children and friends briefly took up where they left off. Then I went off to college and didn't play again for a long time.


Now it's Terra-Ghantik which is kinda hard to classify because you have more than one party with inter-linked interests, and sometimes interlinked adventures and even campaigns.

 

[Voadam]

Modules or made up adventures. Sometimes just random encounters in the city or wilderness. "All right, your six second level characters come across . . . ghouls. 12 of them with 3 paralyzing attacks each. Get ready to roll up some new characters."

 

[kitsune9]

The current discussion is whether or not old time gamers (say 1e and earlier) mostly played in mega dungeon campaigns a la Greyhawk or in more serial style campaigns with linked (or barely linked) adventure locations a la the G-D-Q series of modules.

So, which was it for you?

Made up my own adventures using a barely linked style.

 

[Hussar]

Well, I'm off to bed. It's late. As I type this, it's 3% played in Castle Greyhawk style mega dungeons and 97% didn't. Unless there is a radical reversal, I'm gonna say that I've made my point.

Thanks guys.