D&D General Ars Megadungeon

[Hussar]

Riffing off the recent Dungeon of the Mad Mage thread (D&D 5E - Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Adventure or Setting Book?) I thought I'd give a few thoughts as to how to make a mega-dungeon campaign work. Or, at least how I make it work for me. I'm an inveterate dungeon crawler. I LOVE megadungeons and I look forward to the next time I run one. But, having done it a few times, there are a few things that I think will really help DM's engage the players and keep them from zoning out. Because, let's face it, it's easy to make dungeons boring. Investigating a room for potential traps is fun. The first time. Maybe even the third time. But, after the fifteenth time, it's enough to make me want to dig my brains out with a spoon through my left ear. So, with that in mind, here are my tips and tricks for running a mega dungeon.

1. Give information to the players. This is an absolute must. If the players don't have any idea about what is potentially to the left or right, then it's all just random choice. That's boring. Drop maps. Drop maps with mistakes on them. Have prisoners give directions and information about what's ahead. Give the players enough information to let them make a (semi) informed decision.

2. Give goals. "Clear out the level" is a good goal. Once. After the third time, again, repetition kills the game. Endlessly slogging through the dungeon just to "clear things out" is one option, but, remember, there should be many goals. "Find the Macguffin" "Find the NPC", "Talk to this or that NPC", "Escort duty", "Hunting a specific NPC" are all great goals that you can mix things up with. Imagine being hired by the Temple of Gond to delve into the Undermountain to find a specific fresco. They know roughly where the fresco is, but, they need an exact rubbing of it for some bit of knowledge. Whatever. Go nuts. Heck, if you're doing Undermountain, have Jarlaxle contact the PC's to go talk to the Drow enclave to broker some sort of deal. So on and so forth.

3. Factions matter. Having different groups also in the mega-dungeon with their own goals, that might be conflicting with the PC's, is a great way to really make the dungeon pop. Here's a place where you can just sort of have a bag full of semi-random encounters that you can plug and play as the PC's are wandering around.

4. Not everything has to be combat. If the PC's try to talk to stuff, talk. Again, you want to get as much information into the PC's hands as possible and they're helping you do that when they try to talk to stuff. Maybe offer to guide them somewhere. Leave the straight up combat encounters for the monsters and the mad cultists. If it's got a language and isn't automatically trying to murder anything that comes near, talk to the party. It will really move things along. You can always drop in some combat later.

5. Move encounters into the corridors. This is one of the biggest mistakes mega dungeons make. All the encounters are in a room/chamber. My favorite tactic was to start drawing circles around encounter locations. Whenever the party entered that circle, they spotted some or all of the NPC's in that encounter outside of the numbered chamber.

There's a few of my tips and tricks. What are yours?

 

[LordEntrails]

You've detailed a lot of the essentials. But there are more;

Factions and power groups. Make sure the place is living. That their are different factions in different parts, and they have border lines between them. Give each faction a goal or three, and have them respond accordingly. The party may go to, or pass through the same place two or ten times, and yes their should be familiarity, but their also needs to be change. Maybe the first time it is controlled by goblins, the next they might have a few hobgoblin allies, but then the whole region has been overrun with drow, or something else. And some of those changes should reflect the actions of the PCs.

 

[Mordhau]

I've found with more modern styles of gaming that megadungeons work best if there is a world outside the megadungeon that interacts directly with the megadungeon.

So a megadungeon underneath a city would be a classic set-up here. All the stuff going on in the city, factions, poltics etc, relates to the megdungeon in some way.

So rather than spending all their time exploring the megadungeon, the PCs are often pursuing other threads and leads above ground that constantly lead them back into the megadungeon.

 

[Charlaquin]

Excellent advice!

Another good one, if you’re creating the map yourself or modifying it, make sure there are many entrances to every level. The players will likely be in and out of the dungeon countless times, so shortcuts will help keep it from getting too tedious.

 

[pogre]

An old gaming trope I use on occasion in delving adventures is to have a little competition. Usually it is another group of adventurers, but it can be almost any sentient creatures. Racing for a McGuffin or a hidden location can add a fun additional element.

 

[Hussar]

Another thought occurs. Do not shy away from the weird. Part of the appeal of the mega-dungeon is that it doesn't really have to make any sense. Extra-planar incursion, sentient rooms, doors, floors, walls, pools that do random things, that sort of thing. Dungeon "worlds" (for lack of a better term) might have their own logic, but, certainly aren't limited to being realistic.

Maybe the Dungeon is some sort of extra-planar incursion. A sort of magical "cyst" in reality. Things that die in the dungeon are absorbed and then repurposed by the dungeon itself as it tries to spread itself further and further, like a cancer in reality. Or, maybe there are multiple portals to other worlds/dimensions within the Dungeon that trap various things inside, "mists of Ravenloft" style. Whatever the reason you want to use, don't shy away from the really, really weird stuff.

You're playing with the biggest "A Wizard Did It" playground there is. Go nuts. This is definitely the place to start breaking out those 3rd party monster manuals that you've picked up a while ago. Or those 3rd party magic items that you saw on Reddit. Whatever you like.

Speaking of Reddit, I did see a cool idea about a Gold Disease. Basically, the Dungeon spawns Gold that causes those that pick it up to take it out into the world. Those that handle the gold have no real interest in keeping it - they'll spend it freely - but, anyone who handles the gold starts becoming addicted to returning to the Dungeon to bring out more gold. IIRC, the longer you handle the gold that you bring out, the less it "hits", so, just like an addiction, people keep getting drawn back into the Dungeon to bring out more gold into the world.

 

[LordEntrails]

Speaking of Reddit, I did see a cool idea about a Gold Disease. Basically, the Dungeon spawns Gold that causes those that pick it up to take it out into the world. Those that handle the gold have no real interest in keeping it - they'll spend it freely - but, anyone who handles the gold starts becoming addicted to returning to the Dungeon to bring out more gold. IIRC, the longer you handle the gold that you bring out, the less it "hits", so, just like an addiction, people keep getting drawn back into the Dungeon to bring out more gold into the world.

Eh. I don't like this idea. In effect you are taking free agency away from the players. It is very common for players to get tired of megadungeons before they are "all used up". Coming up with a mechanic or geas to keep the characters coming back when the players don't want to, imo, is a bad idea.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I've recently started a sandbox campaign that includes a combination of hexcrawling and many dungeons, including several well known megadungeons (with serial numbers filed off in some cases). My big word of advice here would be to not approach dungeons and megadungeons from a "Diablo" style point of view of level-clearing, or like contemporary adventure modules with a clear end goal, but as environments not unlike a town - exploring and interaction should be emphasized along with combat and treasure, "restocking" should take place between adventures, and characters should have their motivation for going to a particular dungeon - whether it's fighting a sect, rescuing a lost uncle, trying to get rich, finding the McGuffin, etc...

This way every journey into the deeps can be it's own experience. The Fellowship wasn't trying to clear every level of Moria or loot the place - they just wanted to get to the other side! Others might want to reclaim it. Or grab a few choice pieces of treasure and run. Or defeat the Balrog.

The dungeon is a landscape, a world unto itself, as well as part of a greater world.

 

[Voadam]

I've found with more modern styles of gaming that megadungeons work best if there is a world outside the megadungeon that interacts directly with the megadungeon.

So a megadungeon underneath a city would be a classic set-up here. All the stuff going on in the city, factions, poltics etc, relates to the megdungeon in some way.

So rather than spending all their time exploring the megadungeon, the PCs are often pursuing other threads and leads above ground that constantly lead them back into the megadungeon.

The Banewarrens did this really well. A big sprawling multiple level adventure that ties a beneath the city megadungeon in with city adventure and politics and factions of the city of Ptolus and keeps the PCs going back into the dangerous dungeon repeatedly.

 

[Voadam]

From the title of the thread I thought this was going to be about applying Ars Magica stuff to D&D megadungeons or D&D in general, either troupe style play or something else from the game (magic/divine/diabolic/fey regions or who knows what).