Which Edition for a Megadungeon Campaign? Why?

[Reynard]

Delving Deeper is a mostly faithful clone of white box OD&D. S&W takes liberties, the most important few being the reduction of five saving throw categories to a single save number (that increments by +1 per level for, IIRC, all classes) and a total re-write of the treasure tables and allocation methods. One might say that Delving Deeper is the "OSE" of white box, and S&W is its "Labyrinth Lord."

(Editing to add: If I were to run a white box based game, I'd actually look to either "White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game" or Chris Gonnerman's "Iron Falcon." Both are even clearer presentations of the original material, with the main difference being that Iron Falcon is a very faithful rendition of original D&D + Greyhawk, while WB:FMAG is a S&W-derivative clone that sticks to the first three booklets but does add a thief class that uses a beautifully simple single d6-based "thievery" progression for all thieving skills.)

Thanks. I'll check both out!

 

[timbannock]

Thanks. I'll check both out!

Yeah, the biggest changes are thieves, saving throws, and treasure/encounter tables. Therein lay the answers you seek as to which one will do what you want best!

 

[Orius]

I would recommend a version of the classic D&D game of your choice, B/X or RC. BECMI is also a possibility, but RC has the advantage of being one volume instead of spread out and you can ignore the optional stuff like general skills and weapon mastery. Companion is more important for domain play and the War Machine which you probably won't need. Masters rules mostly sets up the divine ascension to Immortals and you don't need the Immortals rules for megadungeoning. Go RC primarily if you don't want B/X's level 14 cap and you want access to the Companion and Masters level monsters and magic, but be aware that thieves get hurt with skill progression stretched out to 36 levels. You can also do any of the retroclones that copy the various classic D&D rules.

Another possibility is running 2e without getting into the various options. A core or near core game of 2e is simple enough to do a megadungeon and it's a more organized game than 1e. Just don't go heavy into optional stuff stuff like NWPs, kits, Player's Option and so.

The thing with the classic megadungeon is that it works best with some classic rules elements like XP for GP, resource management and so on. I'll say right off that 3e is a really bad choice for running a megadungeon. You'd have to do a good deal of work tweaking things first. 3e is structured with a lot of assumptions that aren't the same as the balances of previous editions so there's a lot of fiddly things to look at and adjust to make it work.

 

[S'mon]

2e de-emphasised sandbox play and made gold for xp non-core, so it's not ideal.

OD&D has the most support for megadungeon play (in The Underwold & Wilderness Adventures), followed probably by B/X - nearly all in the B though. AD&D 1e oddly assumed the reader already knew about megadungeons and the GM advice is much more about wilderness play. BECMI model is much more 'lots of dungeons in a wilderness' rather than a single megadungeon.

My current favourite clones are BFRPG and S&W; especially BFRPG with the S&W single save mechanic.

 

[Orius]

2e de-emphasised sandbox play and made gold for xp non-core, so it's not ideal.

Which is why I mentioned it as a secondary recommendation. XP for GP is optional in 2e, but a DM could go with it and ignore the individual XP awards which I think would be the best approach. 2e doesn't cover the traditional dungeon crawling experience as much as earlier rules, but the elements are there for the DM who recognizes them. But again, I mentioned a low option 2e after classic D&D which I still feel is the better out of the box option.

 

[cavalier973]

I always wonder why people sell hard on OSE when Labyrinth Lord was first and does everything OSE does.

LL gives clerics spells at first level. That is suspicious to me.

 

[Stormonu]

2E because it is both simple and complex enough for what I'd be doing.

As far as the megadungeon, that'd be my old mountain campaign, Tsre Vestu and its 100 levels, but with new maps.

 

[Reynard]

2E because it is both simple and complex enough for what I'd be doing.

As far as the megadungeon, that'd be my old mountain campaign, Tsre Vestu and its 100 levels, but with new maps.

2E is interesting because I don't associate it mentally or emotionally with those kinds of campaigns (based on what I was doing with it at the time) but ultimately it is mechanically similar to other Old School versions of the game that you can do a megadungeon just fine with it.

 

[Jer]

I am currently running a megadungeon campaign using 13th age (Eyes of the Stone Thief) so I'd actually use that.

But since this is an "Older Editions" forum if I have to pick an edition of D&D I'd use 4e.

And the reason for that is because of what my theoretical megadungeon would be. Because if I had the time to design it it would be a megadungeon set within the corpse of a dead god floating in the Astral Plane. Different factions in the dungeon would be attempting to harness the divine power still stuck within the corpse for their own purposes, and on the surface of the dead god would be a number of settlements as well as its own ecosystem (giving a form of "wilderness exploration" as well as the potential for city adventures). I feel like 4e (and 13th Age) gives the right feel for that kind of exploration. (Eyes of the Stone Thief does have some of these elements, though I think it has a different feel than what I'd be going for given the nature of the dungeon).

As for the random monster question in 4e - random encounters could be resolved as either combat or skill challenges depending on the encounter. Back in the day we often tried to resolve random encounters without combat since wandering monsters rarely had treasure anyway. But these days I like to make my random encounters springboard for narrative events, so I'd probably write up my random encounter table to allow for all sorts of encounters and if it turns into a combat encounter, well, it'll be a cinematic one because that's probably what my players would be wanting.

 

[Nikosandros]

I always wonder why people sell hard on OSE when Labyrinth Lord was first and does everything OSE does.

I like LL and I gave a hand with the translation in Italian, but I think that an advantage that OSE has is that it is more organized and more clearly written. It is also a much closer clone of B/X, but whether this is an advantage or not, depends on personal opinion.