Familiar with the mega-dungeon?

[Bumbles]

Parsing doesn't work for me in polls because summations of such creatures is always...vague. I mean sure 50% of something say this...but are they actually truthful? Just my .002 cents.

I'm afraid I don't get where you're concerned about 50% of anything, I was just reducing the poll options to some simple terms. I can see how my words might have been a bit brief and how that might have confused you, but I don't see where truth is coming into it.

And as for the super-dungeon on graph paper, I'm not sure where we got the idea either. I'm not even sure if I didn't play Rogue first, let alone whether or not the person who came up with the idea had.

Whoever that happened to be.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I voted the first option. However, that needs to be clarified. I was aware of dungeon campaign playing, but never did it myself. Not sure where I first heard about it, but it was something that popped up in gaming mag lettercols from time to time, so that's where most of what I knew about them came from. Of course, our original group didn't actually play much D&D until 1E came out. Mostly we tinkered with various rules for Melee and Wizard to turn them into a real RPG. Good times!

 

[Korgoth]

Yes. I heard stories of a truly great sounding one (so large that it contained whole kingdoms), and I played in one of smaller scope (a reverse dungeon... or perhaps an obverse dungeon actually... we started the campaign trapped in the dungeon and had to fight our way out over numerous levels, at least a dozen but probably many more... it lasted a long time!).

 

[Storm Raven]

I voted 2, but I think that El Laprade's response demonstrates that the questions are not worded very well. At the time I was familiar with the idea that megadungeons could exist and Gygax may have used one, but never DMed, played in, or heard of a group actually using one.

The way the poll is written I could have answered either 1 or 2, as even though I didn't ever see one actually being used, I knew that the concept was out there. The clarification in the first post makes it clear that my answer should be 2, but if I'd clicked on an answer before scrolling down, it would have been too late.

 

[Bullgrit]

If you started playing during the OD&D or 1e era, were you aware of the "campaign dungeon" or "megadungeon" as a normal feature of campaign play?

I started D&D in 1980. My first dungeon experience was In Search of the Unknown -- a 2-level dungeon.

During my BD&D and AD&D1 days, these modules were what I thought was the standard format:

In Search of the Unknown
Keep on the Borderland
Palace of the Silver Princess
Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
Village of Hommlet
Secret of Bone Hill

When I and my friends created our own dungeons, they fell into the pattern set by the above.

At some point, I learned of the mega-dungeon concept, and I thought it a cool idea. I even started a couple of what I intended to be mega-dungeons, but we never played more than a few game sessions in them. It seemed like a normal style of play, but not the standard style of play.

To me, mega-dungeons were like one-on-one or two-on-two basketball -- a perfectly normal style of play, but not the standard.

Bullgrit

 

[Ourph]

I was aware of the concept and I think almost everyone in my circle of gaming friends worked on their own megadungeon at some point, but we rarely played self-made adventures. Most of my gaming involved running or playing in published adventures.

I think the only adventure we ever played that would qualify as a "megadungeon" is Temple of Elemental Evil, and I can't say I was particularly enamoured of the experience (although this may have more to do with the fact that I find that particular adventure fairly mediocre rather than the megadungeon concept as a whole).

 

[The Ghost]

What I am curious about is (1) how many of us where aware of this at the time, and (2) afterwards, how did we learn this?

Let's see... we started playing in 1989 with the Red Box / Blue Box that we got from a friend's older brother. We picked up some 1st Edition books at a yard sale in 1991 or 92. We played until 1997 when we all left for various colleges. In that time I never encountered a mega-dungeon; or even heard of that as being the assumed style of play. Our games were mostly wilderness adventures a la Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Braveheart, Sword in the Stone.

In 2003 I started playing again with some new friends when the 3.5 Edition rules were released. It was then that I learned about Castle Greyhawk and Undermountain, etc.

 

[kitsune9]

If you started playing during the OD&D or 1e era, were you aware of the "campaign dungeon" or "megadungeon" as a normal feature of campaign play?

RC

The first megadungeon I remember were those mammoth dungeon maps that you could buy from the advertisers from Dragon magazine. That was back in the days of 1st edition, but the only dungeons that I was really familiar with were the mods.

 

[jensun]

We started in the early 80's, initially with Basic then moving on to Merp before jumping to 1e. After a while we alternated RQ and 1e games.

We did not use published modules for the most part. I do recall one or two small press UK ones, the Rod of Serallion springs to mind but nothing from TSR as far as I recall. Our games focused a lot on political stuff and warring factions as our main GM was a history buff with a huge interest in 14/15th C European history.

The concept of a megadungoen would have been completely alien to us.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I voted 2, but I think that El Laprade's response demonstrates that the questions are not worded very well.

Not so; El Laprade answered what I was asking. I am not wondering how widespread the campaign dungeon was. I am wondering how I became aware of it myself, and trying to gain clues by finding out who else was aware of it, and how they became aware of it.

At the time I was familiar with the idea that megadungeons could exist and Gygax may have used one

But you had no idea that they were what the original players considered to be a normal part of a campaign milieu?

That's all I want to know.

It doesn't "prove" anything one way or the other.

It isn't a point in some kind of contest.



RC