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

[Vaalingrade]

The important thing is that none of us is offering suggestions for marrying the megadungeon setting with modern playstyles like the OP is asking for and just rehashing all our old talking points in a new battleground.

OP: to go a little further than what I said earlier, take an old megadungeon, such as the World's Largest Dungeon and go over it. The map can be the starting point, and since it uses EVERY MM1 monster from 3e, there are pre-existing groups of intelligent humanoids already there for you to flesh out into intra dungeon societies.

The other monsters and features you can go over on a case-by case basis. WLD in particular tries to create ecologies, but for some monsters (outsiders and aberrations in particular) just gives up and has spawner rooms because they HAD to have every monster. You can keep or kill these. Maybe the appearance of spawners is the key to the main plot you're driving; upsetting the ecology and society inside the dungeon.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

The important thing is that none of us is offering suggestions for marrying the megadungeon setting with modern playstyles like the OP is asking for and just rehashing all our old talking points in a new battleground.

OP: to go a little further than what I said earlier, take an old megadungeon, such as the World's Largest Dungeon and go over it. The map can be the starting point, and since it uses EVERY MM1 monster from 3e, there are pre-existing groups of intelligent humanoids already there for you to flesh out into intra dungeon societies.

The other monsters and features you can go over on a case-by case basis. WLD in particular tries to create ecologies, but for some monsters (outsiders and aberrations in particular) just gives up and has spawner rooms because they HAD to have every monster. You can keep or kill these. Maybe the appearance of spawners is the key to the main plot you're driving; upsetting the ecology and society inside the dungeon.

The biggest issue with running World's Largest Dungeon as written is that there isn't an ability to "go back to town" even with magic at higher levels. I introduced a "Pocket Town" in a portable hole (similar to the Army In A Bag from Knights of the Dinner Table) almost at the entrance to allow the PCs to do trading, loot sales, buying spells, etc...

It was VERY VERY artificial in feel, but in a way it also was a bit more interesting than an actual by the books small town.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The biggest issue with running World's Largest Dungeon as written is that there isn't an ability to "go back to town" even with magic at higher levels.

As someone who’s never seen WLD, is there some inherent factor of the dungeon that prevent safe civilisations forming within or is it just that the dungeon as written lacks a town location to retreat to?

Personally I think alot of modern players(although I can’t really say I’m basing this off much) might really enjoy a townbuilding aspect where they build up a secure location, rescuing and directing survivors or lost adventurers to their budding town and adding new professions and stores that way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As someone who’s never seen WLD, is there some inherent factor of the dungeon that prevent safe civilisations forming within or is it just that the dungeon as written lacks a town location to retreat to?

Personally I think alot of modern players(although I can’t really say I’m basing this off much) might really enjoy a townbuilding aspect where they build up a secure location, rescuing and directing survivors or lost adventurers to their budding town and adding new professions and stores that way.

That is a wonderful idea! I may need to finally crack open my copy of WLD and see where such a town could be founded...

 

[Thomas Shey]

There’s a lot of style of play issues that appear here with this topic. You could have created/bought tons of CLW wands, but, at your table culture, making magic items wasn’t embraced. And 3e was enough of a toolkit to handle it.

You can make a pretty good argument with what's known now that the tendency to buy and make CLW wands universally was kind of a failure state in how the people designing 3e expected it to be played, but its very clear that the emergent common play of 3e era D&D was vastly divergent from those expectations in all kinds of places. Its one of the signs there was some serious problems with however they conducted playtesting during its lead up.

 

[Maxperson]

I ran and played in two 3E campaigns that totaled about 10 years. Not only did we never see a CLW wand. No one ever made even one magical item!

Same here. Initially some players tried, but when I kept playing with the others wandering through town while their character was stuck back at the inn working magic all day, they gave up on it so that they didn't lose out on play time. The world doesn't stop just because your character wants to create an item.

 

[Maxperson]

As someone who’s never seen WLD, is there some inherent factor of the dungeon that prevent safe civilisations forming within or is it just that the dungeon as written lacks a town location to retreat to?

There are a number of factions that the party can become allies with on the various levels. Most, if not all levels had multiple factions on them.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Same here. Initially some players tried, but when I kept playing with the others wandering through town while their character was stuck back at the inn working magic all day, they gave up on it so that they didn't lose out on play time. The world doesn't stop just because your character wants to create an item.

We would all party in the town and then fast forward the creation bit. I doubt anyone would have much PC item creation in a campaign that punished the player by making them sit out the game to use that function if their powers.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

We would all party in the town and then fast forward the creation bit. I doubt anyone would have much PC item creation in a campaign that punished the player by making them sit out the game to use that function if their powers.

yeah, we would all agree to down time and just quickly (5-10 mins) say what we did for X time. I can't think of a reason why a DM would make players sit out playing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

yeah, we would all agree to down time and just quickly (5-10 mins) say what we did for X time. I can't think of a reason why a DM would make players sit out playing.

Passive-aggressive discouragement of using the enchanting mechanics or a desire to reflect "realistic" time taken in a game that isn't realistic in any other way to a noticeable degree.