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Designing Adventure: Can a Megadungeon... not be a dungeon at all?
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<blockquote data-quote="J.Quondam" data-source="post: 8317485" data-attributes="member: 7030100"><p>To me, a "megadungeon" (as a design term, anyway) implies a great degree of <em><strong>confinement</strong></em>, both as a limitation on movement and as a limitation on access to information about the place. That's why it's easy to conceive of megadungeon as big underground complexes: you just can't see very far! But I can also envision a dense forest working as a megadungeon, though not an expansive plain or the ocean. Likewise, a towering, hard to navigate megalopolis might be structured as a megadungeon; while a cluster of villages and farms probably couldn't be. </p><p></p><p>This notion of confinement obviously changes as PCs become more capable. The floor of a basic hedge maze is sufficiently confining for a a handful of zero-level newbs. Otoh, it's a lot harder to confine 20th level PCs with access scrying and planeshift, so it's harder (for me!) to envision what a megadungeon might look like at those highest levels.</p><p></p><p>Additionally, I tend to think of a megadungeon as something that spans multiple experience levels-- perhaps an entire tier or two. For this reason, a party tends to revisit them as they level up. And it's not uncommon for PCs to abandon the megadungeon for several sessions before returning to it-- possibly even stumbling back into via a different entrance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="J.Quondam, post: 8317485, member: 7030100"] To me, a "megadungeon" (as a design term, anyway) implies a great degree of [I][B]confinement[/B][/I], both as a limitation on movement and as a limitation on access to information about the place. That's why it's easy to conceive of megadungeon as big underground complexes: you just can't see very far! But I can also envision a dense forest working as a megadungeon, though not an expansive plain or the ocean. Likewise, a towering, hard to navigate megalopolis might be structured as a megadungeon; while a cluster of villages and farms probably couldn't be. This notion of confinement obviously changes as PCs become more capable. The floor of a basic hedge maze is sufficiently confining for a a handful of zero-level newbs. Otoh, it's a lot harder to confine 20th level PCs with access scrying and planeshift, so it's harder (for me!) to envision what a megadungeon might look like at those highest levels. Additionally, I tend to think of a megadungeon as something that spans multiple experience levels-- perhaps an entire tier or two. For this reason, a party tends to revisit them as they level up. And it's not uncommon for PCs to abandon the megadungeon for several sessions before returning to it-- possibly even stumbling back into via a different entrance. [/QUOTE]
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