Familiar with the mega-dungeon?

[JeffB]

as somewhat related to the topic- do others consider B4 The Lost City a "mega dungeon"?

I personally would never consider B4 a megadungeon in the same sense as Castle Greyhawk or Undermountain.

 

[Ariosto]

For the record, I started with Holmes Blue Box and Keep on the Borderlands ...

Does the "skull mountain" cross-section in Holmes ring a bell? Maybe that lodged the idea in your head?

As an introduction to dungeon design, B1 -- which came with my set -- had a splendid upper-level map. It had some other strengths as well, but considering the weaknesses I think B2 outshone it on balance.

 

[teitan]

Not that I remember. We basically used the adventrues that were published and none of them that I saw were what I would call a megadungeon. The first mega dungeon I remeber seeing was Underdark and that was in my 2e days.

Temple of Elemental Evil was waaaay before Underdark...

 

[Storm Raven]

Temple of Elemental Evil was waaaay before Underdark...

I think most people here would not consider ToEE to be a megadungeon. It was only four levels, and the levels weren't overly large.

 

[Ariosto]

When you have a world with many possible adventure sites you no longer need a single massive dungeon to cover the D&D level track.

Before you've put in that much work, you don't need to cover all levels; and you never need a single massive dungeon.

A campaign dungeon is a convenience, and in my opinion a brilliant concept for a game.

given the trends towards more realism

Yes, that was quite the thing for a period! "But where are the toilets?" Ah, nit-picking realism -- just the thing for a game of fantasy, eh? So much for the ilk of Utumno, Angband, Khazad-dûm, Menegroth and the Halls of Thranduil.

 

[dbm]

I started playing in '83 with Red Box DnD from the BXCM line of sets. My initial introduction was through a friend who saw me reading one of the 'Fighting Fantasy' game books and told me about DnD. He played with his older brothers and sister IIRC.

The only modules we ever played were the ones which came with the box sets, and only the first of those was a plain dungeon adventure. Yet we definitely played mega dungeons. We used to build huge dungeons filled with monsters, traps and puzzles. I distinctly remember building and playing 20+ level dungeons. One of them was set inside a giant statue.

I never played Rogue (until later when I played Angband) and I hardly ever read Dragon, though I might have read quite a few issues of White Dwarf back when it was a 'proper' magazine. I didn't really know anyone who played and wasn't part of my group, plus I was the main DM for us. So something in the BXCM books must have made me focus on dungeons.

I think it was probably a two pronged phenomena. Firstly, you start with dungeons, and as the PCs level up you just build ever bigger dungeons to challenge them. If you enjoy that aspect of the game (and we did, we were only in our early teens) then you stick with it. Secondly, dungeons are easy to build. You can spend hours planning them in advance and the players have a very difficult time subverting your adventure (and we were very adversarial at the time, as I say, we were young ).

When I went to college I met a new crowd of players and got in to a much wider range of campaign types.

Cheers,
Dan

 

[Stoat]

Yes, that was quite the thing for a period! "But where are the toilets?" Ah, nit-picking realism -- just the thing for a game of fantasy, eh? So much for the ilk of Utumno, Angband, Khazad-dûm, Menegroth and the Halls of Thranduil.

I've always enjoyed mapping out the various larders and cesspits found in dungeons. Not just for the added realism but also as a way of adding character and detail to an area.

On topic. I started playing in 1988. I was aware that larger dungeons existed, but my playstyle was primarily influenced by modules from Dungeon magazine. Consequently, my games revolved around small castles, tombs or caverns that the players could clear out in a few sessions.

 

[Desdichado]

I was vaguely aware of the concept theoretically, but I never played in one or ran one.

 

[jdrakeh]

(1) Don't confuse spin-off conversation with original intent.

I didn't. I just noted that you specifically say you want to know the answers to two questions, yet you ask neither. If you want those questions answered, I suggest asking them. That's all.

 

[MerricB]

Temple of Elemental Evil was waaaay before Underdark...

It's not really a megadungeon. It's big, but compared to true megadungeons it's rather small.

Cheers!