But I don't *want* to stock the whole dungeon!

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, yesterday, I took a crack at generating a megadungeon on the fly, sort of.

I used one of @Dyson Logos's megadungeon maps, decided what was in each quadrant, generally speaking, created a bit of lore for each, created wandering monster tables for the quadrants, made some custom monsters (so fun to do, in Shadowdark) and then set some characters loose.

I had printed out the dungeon in 11 x 17" format, laminated (via FedEx/Kinkos) and wrote room numbers on the map as the PCs explored, jotting down notes in a Google Doc as they explored. I now have about 22 rooms (out of ... 70-ish?) at least lightly detailed. The next expedition this Friday will start at the same entrance (I count four on the map) and thus have a little more detailed experience, although I'll add more details to the doc as they go through, and likely add a few more rooms to the map.

(If/when I have time in a very busy week, I also intend to improve what's in there now, based on the first group's feedback.)

Eventually, when all of the rooms have been visited, I'll open up the map in Affinity Photo, put the numbers on there and put it all in one doc for future use.

This is an experiment, but so far, it's definitely better than me sitting down and plotting out all of a 70 room complex before play ever begins. (For me, that is. I know others would love doing that.)

 

[Mannahnin]

I made a dungeon with just set pieces and random encounters. I divided the dungeon into areas where various things lived and roamed and made a few location in each followed by a random encounter table for each location with some bleed over to the other sections. It worked fine enough and we just handwaved the tracking map and getting lost part.

I found it easy to describe large area of nothing much and then you enter something. This also allowed for monster backup as another group comes to the first fight to help out, but then leaves a large area of rooms empty to explore, search, or rest. Forge of Fury has a bit of this with the first level having orcs and the lower level having troglodytes and duergar before the dragon. I still have a chance a wandering monster could be orcs on the lower level with the trogs.

I just made maps for the set places like the forge or the intersection stairs. Wandering monsters I just grabbed some tiles and ad-libed.

This is how I ran Thunderspire Mountain back in 4E, and basically how that megadungeon is designed to be run- more abstracted rather than having full level maps.

 

[Mannahnin]

So, yesterday, I took a crack at generating a megadungeon on the fly, sort of.

I used one of @Dyson Logos's megadungeon maps, decided what was in each quadrant, generally speaking, created a bit of lore for each, created wandering monster tables for the quadrants, made some custom monsters (so fun to do, in Shadowdark) and then set some characters loose.

I had printed out the dungeon in 11 x 17" format, laminated (via FedEx/Kinkos) and wrote room numbers on the map as the PCs explored, jotting down notes in a Google Doc as they explored. I know have about 22 rooms (out of ... 70-ish?) at least lightly detailed. The next expedition this Friday will start at the same entrance (I count four on the map) and thus have a little more detailed experience, although I'll add more details to the doc as they go through, and likely add a few more rooms to the map.

(If/when I have time in a very busy week, I also intend to improve what's in there now, based on the first group's feedback.)

Eventually, when all of the rooms have been visited, I'll open up the map in Affinity Photo, put the numbers on there and put it all in one doc for future use.

This is an experiment, but so far, it's definitely better than me sitting down and plotting out all of a 70 room complex before play ever begins. (For me, that is. I know others would love doing that.)

Sounds awesome.

 

[aco175]

This is how I ran Thunderspire Mountain back in 4E, and basically how that megadungeon is designed to be run- more abstracted rather than having full level maps.

Agreed. I found that using large sections of rooms for just one encounter allows for the battle to not attract monsters from nearby. It also allows for cool things like having reinforcements come from another areas nearby or for a troll to break down a wall and suddenly be in the fight. Not to mention allowing for one group to circle around the PCs or monsters.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

How are you handling factions? To me, it's what makes a megadungeon interesting