I only just heard of this on Wednesday when I came across Questing Beast’s video about it, but count me in! I might not be able to start mapping on Sunday, since I just ordered a notebook from Amazon on Thursday, but if I need to do a couple two-room days in the first week or two, no big deal.
My initial idea was actually not to make a single megadungeon but a handful of smaller dungeons and maybe one large-but-not-MEGA-dungeon. Wanted to theme them all as abandoned mines in a sort of fantasy Appalachia. But, as I started brainstorming around that idea, I quickly realized what others in this thread have already pointed out: the idea was too narrow, I would have run out of steam too quickly. So, I’ve decided not to overthink it. I will probably need to do some pre-planning to make the dungeon or dungeons cohesive enough for my liking, but probably just one week at a time.
One thing I do know I want to do is stick to a consistent 7 rooms a week, 1 level a month, with the additional 2-3 days each non-February month being hidden rooms. Whether any given months’ levels end up as standalone dungeons, or connected to a few other months into a super-dungeon, or all together as a single megadungeon, I guess I’ll decide as I go, but right now I do think I want at least the first three months’ levels to be interconnected to make a nice beginner dungeon. Oh, and I’m going to do levels 0-11 instead of 1-12.
For stocking rooms, I plan to use the B/X formula of one third of rooms being empty (with one sixth of those containing unguarded treasure), one third containing monsters (with half of those carrying treasure), one sixth containing a trap (with one third of those protecting treasure), and one sixth containing a special feature. I’ll probably roll all the rooms for a week at the beginning of the week so I can have a rough plan for how to fit together whatever I roll. That’ll serve as good inspiration for the week’s theme.
