D&D 5E Megadungeon delving as a campaign’s core; is it compatible with modern play?

[MNblockhead]

See, this is where I have something of a problem with the idea that there is no pre-authored story in your campaign. If the timeline is pages long, there are entire stories going on in your game. Have to be. Without any sort of story, you can't have a pages long timeline. Now, these aren't complete stories, obviously, but, they are stories, IMO.

But, I do think that where these conversations go off the rails (heh) is that people have different definitions of "story". Which makes the conversations somewhat difficult.

Okay, yes. There is a lot of story/lore/flavor. But it is more like a setting guide. It is not like most adventures by WotC where you you have pretty clear objectives and story beats.

So, yes, it isn't like Caves of Chaos where you simply have a keyed map with a few lines of what monsters, treasures, and traps are there and rules for determining how the situation changes through time as different factions fight each other.

 

[Hussar]

Okay, yes. There is a lot of story/lore/flavor. But it is more like a setting guide. It is not like most adventures by WotC where you you have pretty clear objectives and story beats.

So, yes, it isn't like Caves of Chaos where you simply have a keyed map with a few lines of what monsters, treasures, and traps are there and rules for determining how the situation changes through time as different factions fight each other.

Again, that depends on the WOtC adventure you're looking at. Curse of Strahd is pretty open world sandbox. As is most of Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Sure, Horde of the Dragon Queen is pretty linear but Ghosts of Saltmarsh certainly isn't. So, it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Like I said, the definition of "story" is likely what's tripping things up. To me, if you have a DM authored plot - there are cultists over here trying to open a Hellgate and it's up to the PC's to stop them - that's a story. A timeline is very much, to me, a story.

But, OTOH, I'm probably being too pedantic and nit-picky here, so, I'll stop.

 

[Lanefan]

Meh. I don't do math on an abacus, I use a calculator. So, I don't rely on decades old play styles. Sure, mapping and tracking all that stuff is fun... for a session or three. Then, it becomes tedious accounting that, frankly, the players stop caring about because it's tedious accounting.

So, I don't bother with a lot of it when doing mega-dungeons. Exploration can be abstracted into a group skill check which reveals differing levels of information depending on the difficulty that the players decide upon.

This is exactly the thing I'm trying to fight against here: taking the whole exploration piece and beating it down to a skill check (or skill challenge, in 4e).

Might as well not bother with exploration, if that's how it gets handled.

Failure still reveals information, although that information might be flawed in some way or the scouting might result in getting ambushed. Because spending hours and hours of the scout player going off ahead to gather information, then come back to the group, then group gets to go forward, is just the Decker problem writ large. It's mind bogglingly boring to force 3/4 of the players to warm the pines while that one player gets to actually play all the time.

Well, most character types/classes can be scouts if they like: Druids via shapeshift, Rogues etc. via sneakery, Rangers ditto, Mages via any number of spells, even Warriors if they have the right items for it. End result: either people can take turns scouting or everyone can advance together, stealthiy.

And, again, as far as "years" go, well, we do not agree on this. I can honestly say that I have zero interest in running or playing a campaign for more than two years. There are just so many other ideas and campaigns that I want to run that anything more than two years is just not on the table for me, either as a player or a DM.

I have loads of ideas also, but IME I can shoehorn many of them into one big campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

Again, this isn't a 4e thing. This started in 2e and then really ramped up in 3e. Never minding that in 3e, you could heal to max naturally in about 2, maybe 3 days and, again, healing wands (which aren't dispellable, cannot break from fireball and are never lost in 3e) give you a battery of about 450 HP for 750 gp. Healing stops being a tactical resource. Sure, you could probably make it so again, as @Oofta mentions, slowing down natural healing and having a player that refuses to heal ((Good grief, I would expect the group to beat that player with dice bags for being such a collosal douche for doing that)) But, the point is, if you're playing baseline 5e, HP are not a tactical level resource - same as 3e and 4e.

I did a 7-year tour in 3e and I don't think I ever saw a wand of CLW.

As for the player of the non-healing character, that's good stuff. Love it! And on realizing this was how that character was going to be, if the PCs in-character didn't then go and recruit an NPC or hench as a dedicated in-party healer the blame falls squarely on them.

I just don't really understand this incessant need to make HP a logistic resource. There are so many other things that actually are logistic resource. You have the exhaustion rules right there. Spell slots, maybe? Although, again, by higher levels, that becomes less of an issue. But, why bother using HP? All that does is enforce 5 minute work days.

If 5-minute workdays are what the characters would do I've no argument against it.

I'm not saying h.p. should be the only logistic resource, merely one more of many.

The more you tie HP as a long term resource that is only regained over longer time, well, why wouldn't I just use longer time frames to regain those resources if possible?

You would. However, in so doing you're also giving the setting longer time frames to move against you should doing so make in-fiction sense at the time.

 

[Lanefan]

Gimme SOMETHING I can use to tie your character into this setting and campaign.

No. As a DM all I want is your character to enter play. I'll give you the setting, and it's then on you to - over time - find ways to integrate your character into the setting and campaign through play (assuming said character lasts long enough).

Put another way, I want that integration piece to come from play at the table, not be baked in before play even starts.

Hell, I don't usually bother working out a character's family, history, etc. with the player until said character has stuck around long enough to prove it's more than a one-hit wonder.

Anything. I don't care what it is. You give me the tiniest little corner of your character sheet to add to and I will bend over backwards to make your character the star of the setting. To give a current example in my Candlekeep game:

Character 1 - Dragonborn warlock from the Faewild. Very interesting character but entirely self contained and there's practically nothing I can use here to tie it into the campagin.
Character 2 - Owlkin Artificer - again, great character, lots of personality, but, again, entirely self contained, with zero ties to anything in the campaign.
Character 3 - Tiefling Bard -from Baldur's Gate whose family has made repeated appearances over the course of the campaign, including being the central element in one of the adventures.
Character 4- A living dream of an Aboleth - encounters the Raven Queen and becomes the central figure in the adventure culminating in the Raven Queen capturing the dreaming Aboleth for its memories and freeing the Living Dream to pursue its own goals.
Character 5 - A mysterious Warforged Cleric with a randomly chiming countdown clock inside it. - becomes the central figure in several quests resulting in the Shadowfell being restored when the Cleric turns out to be the key to releasing the primordial Zargan from its prison that was using the light of the Shadowfell to destroy it permanently. ((It makes a lot more sense that I'm telling it here, just work with me))

THAT'S why I want characters with ties to the setting. THAT'S why I loathe the "man with no name" characters that I see over and over again from players who think that parking their butt in a chair for three hours a week is enough of a contribution to the game and are just here to passively consume whatever the DM spoons up each week. Never, ever again will I play with players like that. Nor will I ever play with DM's who don't want my input into the campaign.

I've learned to never, ever, tie adventures to characters the way you've done with characters 3, 4 and 5 here. Why? Because I run high-turnover campaigns, where players are allowed to cycle characters in and out based on any number of factors (including which ones they feel like playing this season) and characters can also die permanently. Too many times have I set up an adventure for a particular character and had that character either not go on that trip or (more often) die at the first opportunity.

Tie adventures to the party or company as a whole? Hells yeah. All the time. But not to a single character.

 

[Hussar]

This is exactly the thing I'm trying to fight against here: taking the whole exploration piece and beating it down to a skill check (or skill chalenge, in 4e).

Might as well not bother with exploration, if that's how it gets handled.

Well, most character types/classes can be scouts if they like: Druids via shapeshift, Rogues etc. via sneakery, Rangers ditto, Mages via any number of spells, even Warriors if they have the right items for it. End result: either people can take turns scouting or everyone can advance together, stealthiy.

I have loads of ideas also, but IME I can shoehorn many of them into one big campaign.

What is the point of exploration? I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean this as an actual question. Why are you exploring?

Isn't it to gain information so that you can make informed choices? Exploration isn't done for its own sake. It's done with a purpose. What is down this or that corridor, what opposition or opportunities are available in what direction. So on and so forth. IOW, it's the information that matters, not really how you get it.

So, why not abstract getting the information. Instead of forcing everyone in the group to play a stealth character just so that they don't have to sit around and watch everyone else play for extended periods of time, why not just make it a mini-game that everyone can participate in, get the information into the hands of the players and then move on from there?

No. As a DM all I want is your character to enter play. I'll give you the setting, and it's then on you to - over time - find ways to integrate your character into the setting and campaign through play (assuming said character lasts long enough).

Put another way, I want that integration piece to come from play at the table, not be baked in before play even starts.

Hell, I don't usually bother working out a character's family, history, etc. with the player until said character has stuck around long enough to prove it's more than a one-hit wonder.

I've learned to never, ever, tie adventures to characters the way you've done with characters 3, 4 and 5 here. Why? Because I run high-turnover campaigns, where players are allowed to cycle characters in and out based on any number of factors (including which ones they feel like playing this season) and characters can also die permanently. Too many times have I set up an adventure for a particular character and had that character either not go on that trip or (more often) die at the first opportunity.

Tie adventures to the party or company as a whole? Hells yeah. All the time. But not to a single character.

No thanks. I absolutely hate this style of play. IME, it leads to completely passive players who contribute nothing that you couldn't get from a dice bot to the game. No family? No history? That's not a character to me. That's just a couple of numbers on a sheet. I want to take it even further and force the players to have connections to each other through a variety of mini-games, but, I know when I'm beat on that one. The players don't like it.

But, yeah, the most interesting, memorable characters are the ones that actually are tied to the campaign. Cycle out characters? No thanks. I am totally not interested in that style of play anymore. I've had my fill of the kinds of characters that you are talking about here and I just won't play that way anymore. Make the campaign about the characters at the table, or I'll go play somewhere else because I will not enjoy the game.

I've become a lot less willing to compromise on my play experience as I've gotten older.

 

[Sabathius42]

I did a 7-year tour in 3e and I don't think I ever saw a wand of CLW.

As for the player of the non-healing character, that's good stuff. Love it! And on realizing this was how that character was going to be, if the PCs in-character didn't then go and recruit an NPC or hench as a dedicated in-party healer the blame falls squarely on them.

If 5-minute workdays are what the characters would do I've no argument against it.

I'm not saying h.p. should be the only logistic resource, merely one more of many.

You would. However, in so doing you're also giving the setting longer time frames to move against you should doing so make in-fiction sense at the time.

I'm pretty sure in 3e we had one CLW wand in every character and NPCs pack, and the clerics had 4-5 of them in theirs. The CLW creating cleric was an absolute must.

 

[Vaalingrade]

We didn't start packing CLW's until deep into 3e when we had a cleric-less party facing down the barrel of weeks of recovery and absolutely not wanting to deal with that noise.

After that, we started packing the CLW just in case because we never want that to happen again.

We were using wands of lesser restoration way more previously due to 3e's... proclivities.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

We didn't start packing CLW's until deep into 3e when we had a cleric-less party facing down the barrel of weeks of recovery and absolutely not wanting to deal with that noise.

After that, we started packing the CLW just in case because we never want that to happen again.

We were using wands of lesser restoration way more previously due to 3e's... proclivities.

IIRC, the best choice was lesser vigor, so long as you could wait for the full 1 minute duration. 10 HP per charge. This meant a wand of lesser vigor could restore 50x10 = 500 HP for 750 gp if crafted rather than bought, meaning it costs 3 gp per 2 HP restored. It's a bigger investment than a single potion, but that potion only restores 1d8+1 (average 5.5) HP for 50 GP. Even if you could somehow maximize it, you'd still be paying more than 5 gp per 1 HP restored, clearly a much less efficient deal.

 

[Hussar]

In any case it was certainly a common enough strategy in 3e. There’s a very good reason why 4e and 5e have gone the way that they have. It’s simply a reflection of how a lot of groups played 3e.

But to be fair, if you never played that way, then sure 4e or 5e would be rather jarring.

It kinda goes back to what I said about not rowing against the flow. I’ve found that I enjoy DnD so much more when I’m not constantly fighting the system.

 

[Lanefan]

What is the point of exploration? I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean this as an actual question. Why are you exploring?

Isn't it to gain information so that you can make informed choices? Exploration isn't done for its own sake.

Ah, there's the disconnect.

In my case exploration is done for its own sake, along the same lines as real-world me walking down a new trail in the woods just to see what's around the next corner. Except in an RPG setting, instead of just a new trail I've a whole new world (or more!) to explore.

It's done with a purpose. What is down this or that corridor, what opposition or opportunities are available in what direction. So on and so forth. IOW, it's the information that matters, not really how you get it.

So, why not abstract getting the information. Instead of forcing everyone in the group to play a stealth character just so that they don't have to sit around and watch everyone else play for extended periods of time, why not just make it a mini-game that everyone can participate in, get the information into the hands of the players and then move on from there?

If all you care about is the information then yes, I can see what you're getting at. But there's more to it than just information; mostly the whole "what's around the next corner" piece, even if around the corner is only some empty hallway. And that's what exploration is - finding out what's around the next corner, or behind the next door, or over the next range of hills.

No thanks. I absolutely hate this style of play. IME, it leads to completely passive players who contribute nothing that you couldn't get from a dice bot to the game. No family? No history? That's not a character to me. That's just a couple of numbers on a sheet.

To begin with, perhaps; but after a while IME the characters develop connections to each other, to the specific campaign, and to the setting as a whole...for those players who want such. Some don't care as much, and this is fine too.

And believe it or not, this can go too far. I've one active character of my own, for example, who has so much on her plate in the greater setting (spell research, political ambitions, a family and manor house to look after, a party-company base to help with, etc.) she really hasn't got time for adventuring any more, but still keeps getting hauled into the field regardless as she's our company's most experienced mage.

I want to take it even further and force the players to have connections to each other through a variety of mini-games, but, I know when I'm beat on that one. The players don't like it.

Why not just let those connections develop as they will, organically during play?

But, yeah, the most interesting, memorable characters are the ones that actually are tied to the campaign.

My experience begs to differ.

In my current campaign that's seen over 950 sessions, the most interesting and memorable character was around for a mighty 17 of them.

He had no connection to the campaign other than he'd randomly met one of the then-current party members at some point in their adventuring past. He had no connection to the setting other than he lived in it. He had no family history, no background other than what roll-up forces you to determine (languages, age, secondary skill). But the party needed a mage, so they took him in, and his player quickly made him utterly unforgettable.

Cycle out characters? No thanks. I am totally not interested in that style of play anymore. I've had my fill of the kinds of characters that you are talking about here and I just won't play that way anymore. Make the campaign about the characters at the table, or I'll go play somewhere else because I will not enjoy the game.

I'd rather make the campaign about the party, with individual characters as sometimes-interchangeable parts of that greater whole. Just like a sports team is (or should be!) bigger and longer-lasting than any of its then-current players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What is the point of exploration? I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean this as an actual question. Why are you exploring?

Isn't it to gain information so that you can make informed choices? Exploration isn't done for its own sake. It's done with a purpose. What is down this or that corridor, what opposition or opportunities are available in what direction. So on and so forth. IOW, it's the information that matters, not really how you get it.

So, why not abstract getting the information. Instead of forcing everyone in the group to play a stealth character just so that they don't have to sit around and watch everyone else play for extended periods of time, why not just make it a mini-game that everyone can participate in, get the information into the hands of the players and then move on from there?


No thanks. I absolutely hate this style of play. IME, it leads to completely passive players who contribute nothing that you couldn't get from a dice bot to the game. No family? No history? That's not a character to me. That's just a couple of numbers on a sheet. I want to take it even further and force the players to have connections to each other through a variety of mini-games, but, I know when I'm beat on that one. The players don't like it.

But, yeah, the most interesting, memorable characters are the ones that actually are tied to the campaign. Cycle out characters? No thanks. I am totally not interested in that style of play anymore. I've had my fill of the kinds of characters that you are talking about here and I just won't play that way anymore. Make the campaign about the characters at the table, or I'll go play somewhere else because I will not enjoy the game.

I've become a lot less willing to compromise on my play experience as I've gotten older.

I don't think I've encountered two people with more different playstyles who both play 5e than you and @Lanefan . Strength if the system I guess.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think I've encountered two people with more different playstyles who both play 5e than you and @Lanefan . Strength if the system I guess.

I play and run a variant on 1e; but most of these issues are edition-agnostic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I play and run a variant on 1e; but most of these issues are edition-agnostic.

Big fan of 1e! That's where most of my pre-5e experience came from, and where my idea of what D&D should be (for me) was formed. Everything I've done since has tried to make other versions of the game more like that.

I love your percentage of max hit points healed per long rest houserule, and will be instituting into my game. I've been toying with that idea for a while.

 

[Lanefan]

Big fan of 1e! That's where most of my pre-5e experience came from, and where my idea of what D&D should be (for me) was formed. Everything I've done since has tried to make other versions of the game more like that.

I love your percentage of max hit points healed per long rest houserule, and will be instituting into my game. I've been toying with that idea for a while.

I'll PM you a link to the details of how it works.

 

[Hussar]

In my current campaign that's seen over 950 sessions, the most interesting and memorable character was around for a mighty 17 of them.

Again, this is why we don't agree here. In 950 sessions, I've played over ten different campaigns, either as a DM or as a player. My longest, ever, campaign, is about 80 sessions. I have no interest in playing a campaign that's even remotely that long.

Edit to add

That sounds harsh and like I'm criticising. I'm not. I'm absolutely in awe of what you've created here. But, while I can stand back and think, wow, that's really impressive, I still would not want to participate.

 

[MNblockhead]

@Lanefan With the longest-living/participating character lasting only 17 sessions of a 950-session campaign, I'm wondering whether your campaign is more of a living world in which you have run a series of campaigns that influence and have lasting impacts on the world. I generally use "campaign" to mean a series of adventures that are tied together either by some over arching plot.

For example, my first 5e "campaign" was in a homebrew world that I made. Each session was mostly a stand alone adventure (some adventures lasted 2, 3 sessions at most -- a session being 8 hours long). It was often a situation of "after several months of travel, you reach..." or "two years have past, and you are called again to bring the party together once again to...." I used milestone leveling and ran from 1st to 20th. If I would have keep running games in that setting (became two much work as real-life demands grew too heavy), the next group would be playing in the same world, which had been changed by the actions of the prior group. While individual characters die, unless their is a TPK, the party would likely continue. So even if I ran this setting for many years, I would still see it as a series of campaigns in a living world.

Though, I realize other people use the word campaign differently. When I read articles about say the record for the longest-running campaign, it seems to be used to mean running regular games in the same setting with various links to prior PCs (their actions changing the world, PCs being the descendants of past PCs, etc.). Is that how you are using "campaign"?

 

[CreamCloud0]

@Lanefan With the longest-living/participating character lasting only 17 sessions of a 950-session campaign, I'm wondering whether your campaign is more of a living world in which you have run a series of campaigns that influence and have lasting impacts on the world. I generally use "campaign" to mean a series of adventures that are tied together either by some over arching plot.

For example, my first 5e "campaign" was in a homebrew world that I made. Each session was mostly a stand alone adventure (some adventures lasted 2, 3 sessions at most -- a session being 8 hours long). It was often a situation of "after several months of travel, you reach..." or "two years have past, and you are called again to bring the party together once again to...." I used milestone leveling and ran from 1st to 20th. If I would have keep running games in that setting (became two much work as real-life demands grew too heavy), the next group would be playing in the same world, which had been changed by the actions of the prior group. While individual characters die, unless their is a TPK, the party would likely continue. So even if I ran this setting for many years, I would still see it as a series of campaigns in a living world.

Though, I realize other people use the word campaign differently. When I read articles about say the record for the longest-running campaign, it seems to be used to mean running regular games in the same setting with various links to prior PCs (their actions changing the world, PCs being the descendants of past PCs, etc.). Is that how you are using "campaign"?

Just throwing my own definition in of ‘campaign’ here, a campaign should be an adventure or series of adventures (depending on how smoothly you transition between individual arcs/modules) that have a consistent through-line that connects them together in some significant way (with some leeway, typically the first adventure is more about cementing the party and there may be a personal sidequest or two irrelevant to the main plot), I generally expect a campaign to have some sort of build up and eventual pay off so you can look back at how all the smaller pieces came together, to see how being sent to stomp that chicken-thieving goblin pack who had that weird rock in their cave lead to you standing at the gates of the underworld ready to stop overlord blackhelm from completing his apocalypse ritual.

A series of unconnected adventures with the same party, while fun, I would not call a campaign.

 

[Hussar]

A series of unconnected adventures with the same party, while fun, I would not call a campaign.

Now that I disagree with. The connection is the party. For example, Ghosts of Saltmarsh has virtually no connection between most of the modules. The three that are based on the original Sinister Secret series, sure, they are tied together. But, the other six or seven adventures aren't connected in any way. Yet, I would certainly call that a campaign.

Heck, my current Candlekeep Adventures campaign has next to nothing connecting any of the individual adventures. It's very episodic. What happens in one adventure is largely self contained and has no impact on the next adventure. Yet, again, I'd certainly call it a campaign.

Or, back in the day, running Keep on the Borderlands and then transitioning to Isle of Dread was a pretty typical campaign. Again, nothing connecting the modules.

 

[jgsugden]

I never found megadungeons interesting, even back in the 1980s. They got repetitive real fast. But I see nothing in the 5e ruleset that impedes playing megadungeons if that's what floats your boat.

Just investigating here: Do they have to be? Or have they just historically been so?

Here is an adventure I ran 15 years ago that went over well (tweaked to work out my homebrew elements). Would this be interesting to you? If not, what could you change to make it interesting?

Let's say you've joined a campaign playing a 1st level half-orc paladin that has been entrusted with an artifact in a sealed box by the last member of an Ancient Sacred Order that was charged to protect the artifact - or destroy it if necessary. The order was wiped out by agents of evil and the last member of the order handed you the box and told you that it had to be destroyed to avoid a great evil from returning. Destroying it will require you to venture to the core of the Maelstrom Hive, a Cenobite (Hellraiser) inspired nightmare dungeon filled with Traps, Demons, Devils, Aberrations, Undead and a variety of other evils. Unfortunately, with his dying breath, the last member of this order revealed that the exact method of destroying the item was not known to him - but he knew that it had to be done in the heart of that complex.

You get a chance to find allies (the other PCs) to join in your quest and then set off on a series of low level adventures to discover more about the artifact, learn about the complex, and figure out what you can about how to destroy it. As you do, you discover that the agents of evil that wiped out the sacred order come from the Maelstrom Hive, and are hunting you and your allies now - but you've discovered a way to sneak into the Hive. You've also discovered it floats in a pocket dimension accessible from the Astral Plane, but the pocket dimension was formed by mashing together pockets of Elemental Planes, Hell Dimensions, Abyssal Diemnsions, the Shadowfell and the Far Realm. The Cube is 3 miles tall, 3 miles has served for time untold as a prison for entities that the Gods and Powers of existence determined to be too dangerous to allow to exist free. Just as your group is about to sneak into the Hive, you discover that the agents of evil have taken several of your allies' family members and friends as prisoners in an attempt to force you to hand over the artifact.

You'd be 5th level PCs headed into enemy territory to explore a gigantic complex with the MacGuffin in your grasp - with a clock on your exploration as the people you care about are prisoners of the enemy that has been lurking in the background over the first 15 sessions of your campaign... And you have a feeling that once you enter the complex, you may never be able to leave it as it is a prison.