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Are megadungeon still a viable play experience?
- Thread starter Pog
- Start date
Hussar
Legend
Loves me the megadungeon.
I ran The World's Largest Dungeon a few years back and had an absolute blast. I think there are a few key things a mega dungeon needs:
1. Factions that are not all hostile to the PC's. If you look at the module The Lost City, there are three factions in the dungeon, and the PC's can join any one of them, which then makes the other two hostile. But, it does give the PC's a base of operations from within the dungeon. Very cool. Not everything in the dungeon has to want to eat the PC's. Having neutral, or heck, just for a change, even friendly groups within the dungeon changes things immensely. It also has the added benefit of adding a lot of player buy in to the dungeon. If they join some faction and start to care about that faction, then they will be more willing to do stuff in the dungeon related to that faction. Makes for all sorts of plot hooks.
2. GIVE INFORMATION. This cannot be stressed enough. Drop maps, hints, whatever, to the players as often as you possibly can. Every prisoner will give information (although it might not be 100% accurate, of course
) and there should be journals and whatnot scattered liberally. This allows the players to make informed decisions about their actions. Instead of a blind, "Should we turn left or right", getting information into the players hands means that they can actually plan ahead. You will find your players far, far more engaged if they can make decisions that are not just random.
3. Have some sort of mechanism in place to replace fallen PC's. There's a number of ways to do this. Possibly promoting henchmen or NPC's. The aforementioned factions. In the case of my World's Largest Dungeon, because the prison was 100% cut off from all the outside planes, the spirits of the dead would fight to reincarnate the newly dead PC and the dead PC would return, sort of Doctor Who style, within a few hours of death. Whatever works for you. But, you will need some way to bring players back into the game so they aren't sitting around on their thumbs when their PC gets eaten.
I ran The World's Largest Dungeon a few years back and had an absolute blast. I think there are a few key things a mega dungeon needs:
1. Factions that are not all hostile to the PC's. If you look at the module The Lost City, there are three factions in the dungeon, and the PC's can join any one of them, which then makes the other two hostile. But, it does give the PC's a base of operations from within the dungeon. Very cool. Not everything in the dungeon has to want to eat the PC's. Having neutral, or heck, just for a change, even friendly groups within the dungeon changes things immensely. It also has the added benefit of adding a lot of player buy in to the dungeon. If they join some faction and start to care about that faction, then they will be more willing to do stuff in the dungeon related to that faction. Makes for all sorts of plot hooks.
2. GIVE INFORMATION. This cannot be stressed enough. Drop maps, hints, whatever, to the players as often as you possibly can. Every prisoner will give information (although it might not be 100% accurate, of course
) and there should be journals and whatnot scattered liberally. This allows the players to make informed decisions about their actions. Instead of a blind, "Should we turn left or right", getting information into the players hands means that they can actually plan ahead. You will find your players far, far more engaged if they can make decisions that are not just random.3. Have some sort of mechanism in place to replace fallen PC's. There's a number of ways to do this. Possibly promoting henchmen or NPC's. The aforementioned factions. In the case of my World's Largest Dungeon, because the prison was 100% cut off from all the outside planes, the spirits of the dead would fight to reincarnate the newly dead PC and the dead PC would return, sort of Doctor Who style, within a few hours of death. Whatever works for you. But, you will need some way to bring players back into the game so they aren't sitting around on their thumbs when their PC gets eaten.
Quickleaf
Legend
[MENTION=6703903]Pog[/MENTION]
I can only relate my experience running Dragon Mountain (updated for 4e) for a mixed group of players in their mid- to late- 20's and early- to mid- 30's, with vastly varying experience with D&D.
We made it thru 13 sessions of dungeon-crawling before we skipped ahead (probably ~2 sessions) to reach the dragon at the end. Lots of fun was had be everyone, but I'd say by session 10 or 11 a bit of dungeon-crawl fatigue had set into the group. YMMV.
Oh yeah, mapping I used pre-drawn maps on 1" gridded gaming paper. It took time but it was a huuuuuge time-saver at the table.
I can only relate my experience running Dragon Mountain (updated for 4e) for a mixed group of players in their mid- to late- 20's and early- to mid- 30's, with vastly varying experience with D&D.
We made it thru 13 sessions of dungeon-crawling before we skipped ahead (probably ~2 sessions) to reach the dragon at the end. Lots of fun was had be everyone, but I'd say by session 10 or 11 a bit of dungeon-crawl fatigue had set into the group. YMMV.
Oh yeah, mapping
I used pre-drawn maps on 1" gridded gaming paper. It took time but it was a huuuuuge time-saver at the table.Is there a need for a tool to make Megadungeons? If so, what features would people consider a "Must have"? It might be possible for me to be convinced to write one...
A few tips you might find useful:
1. Have the site be interesting. Give it a history. Give it secrets.
2. In the surface world (the nearby settlement, base of operation, whatever...) have places where the characters can interact with NPC's, especially to make friends and encounter enemies. Having the characters interacting with the setting will make the dungeon trips all the better.
3. In literary terms, plot is just "characters + circumstance =" In other words, something happens. So have things happen. The characters are walking down a corridor and they hear a scream. What happens next? Do the same thing on the surface world -- have things happen. An interesting side effect is that players who want to know why things are happening will make an effort to do so.
1. Have the site be interesting. Give it a history. Give it secrets.
2. In the surface world (the nearby settlement, base of operation, whatever...) have places where the characters can interact with NPC's, especially to make friends and encounter enemies. Having the characters interacting with the setting will make the dungeon trips all the better.
3. In literary terms, plot is just "characters + circumstance =" In other words, something happens. So have things happen. The characters are walking down a corridor and they hear a scream. What happens next? Do the same thing on the surface world -- have things happen. An interesting side effect is that players who want to know why things are happening will make an effort to do so.
For the most part I hate long dungeon crawls. They usually become tedious and lack the ability for much role playing.
That being said there was one that I totally enjoyed. The DM made a complete world underground with all kinds of races both good and evil. We were trapped and had to find a way to survive which meant making alliances getting involved in local intrigues and politics. We were motivated to keep exploring because we were looking for away home. So we had sessions with your standard dungeon crawls and other sessions with a lot of puzzles, role play and intrigue.
The best advice is to take your clue from the players if they start acting bored and make it plain they want out then make sure you have a way to get them out.
That being said there was one that I totally enjoyed. The DM made a complete world underground with all kinds of races both good and evil. We were trapped and had to find a way to survive which meant making alliances getting involved in local intrigues and politics. We were motivated to keep exploring because we were looking for away home. So we had sessions with your standard dungeon crawls and other sessions with a lot of puzzles, role play and intrigue.
The best advice is to take your clue from the players if they start acting bored and make it plain they want out then make sure you have a way to get them out.
Hussar
Legend
This is pretty key right here. The megadungeon isn't a single adventure, it's a campaign. You wouldn't want to play in any campaign that was just fight after fight after fight. At least, I wouldn't. You need something of a story, something to draw the players in and get that all important buy in.
Unlike say, something like a lair, where you have a big critter and maybe a handful of other critters, designing a megadungeon is closer to designing an entire city or even world. Sure, it's a small world, but, it is an entire one. The players are going to be spending a heck of a lot of hours in here, so, make it interesting. Again, sure, it's a megadungeon, so, it's going to have a pretty high hack factor, but, even then, the combat has to lead somewhere. Killing and looting is fun, but, gets stale after a while.
You could draw things out, or use something like Maptools and a computer screen just to show the players where they've been and where they can go.
Oh, and another piece of advice, have about 25% of encounters outside of rooms. Don't have every encounter behind a door or through a doorway. Have the players bump something while they're going from A to B. It makes the setting far more dynamic, for one thing, but also makes the players much more attentive, because now they're not just "unfogging the map" between doorways. Sometimes things can pop up in unexpected places.
And, one more thing, add verticality to your dungeon. Do NOT have everything on a level on a flat plane. It's boring. Put some stairs in, maybe a ramp or three. A room with a 30 foot ceiling where the exit corridor on the other side of the room is 25 feet off the floor. Again, this will add a lot of interest to the game. It seems so simple, but, it's surprising how much more the players pay attention when you start changing up the verticality.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Very, very good point, all too often forgotten in normal adventures never mind mega's.
And to add to it: have more than one access between levels. Yes this makes it a pain having to line up the maps, but it's worth it. Also, have some vertical accesses skip levels or pass through them - you came in on level 1 and have got down to level 2...on level 2 you find five stairways or ramps (plus the one you came down) and a vertical shaft: one stairway goes up through level 1 to a level 0 you didn't know about, three other stairs/ramps go down to level 3, one of the stairs goes down right through level 3 and arrives on level 4, and the vertical shaft goes down through level 3, has a secret door to level 4, and finishes with an obvious exit to what turns out to be level 6.
Lan-"and that's just a start"-efan
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I'm of an opinion similar to [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION]. The Lawful dungeon needs to be as big as the Chaotic dungeon or one side is going to overwhelm the other. Think Keep on the Borderlands & Caves of Chaos.
If you want a massive Castle Greyhawk dungeon of crazy proportion, then include a massive magical metropolis like the Free City of Greyhawk to balance out the game.
Otherwise one side will simply overwhelm the other. No one questions a city sending a patrol to wipe out some orcs in a cave within their domain. Why would we expect a village outside Rappan Athuk would be any safer?
In general, I think these things can be balanced without going all Waterdeep/Undermountain. That's only one design. Temple of Elemental Evil is sizable, a real big dungeon. Somewhere there should be a Verbobonc reasonably close by. Hommlet's just there because of Nulb.
If you want a massive Castle Greyhawk dungeon of crazy proportion, then include a massive magical metropolis like the Free City of Greyhawk to balance out the game.
Otherwise one side will simply overwhelm the other. No one questions a city sending a patrol to wipe out some orcs in a cave within their domain. Why would we expect a village outside Rappan Athuk would be any safer?
In general, I think these things can be balanced without going all Waterdeep/Undermountain. That's only one design. Temple of Elemental Evil is sizable, a real big dungeon. Somewhere there should be a Verbobonc reasonably close by. Hommlet's just there because of Nulb.
