Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 4545022" data-attributes="member: 16574">This is a very good idea and (I think) how things were done BITD -- players hear rumors about or find incomplete maps to such locations, which gives them a goal for their explorations (another possibility is that they stumble across the place while lost, and then need to figure out how to get back to it). If you're running multiple groups (not likely nowadays, but very common in the 70s) this can even occur organically -- group A finds the Library of Skulls but are run off before they can explore all of it; group B catches wind of this and decides to try and find the Library themselves before group A can get back to it...In designing my dungeon levels I've taken to keying them with two different keys -- the "lettered areas" (A, B, C, ...) are the iconic locations (permanent features is what I called them) that are always going to be there and that players can visit multiple times or multiple groups can visit -- there may be monsters or NPCs there, and there may be treasure, but that's secondary to the location itself. There are a handful of these per level (depending on the size of the level, but no more than 1 for every 20 or so rooms) and they're either very easy to find (everyone knows where The Black Gates are on level 7, they just choose not to go there!) or very hard to find (e.g. the Tomb of the Dread Emperor is behind a secret door located 20' down the wall of a 40' deep spiked pit) making it plausible that the PCs could actually be the first set of adventurers to discover the place.In addition to these areas, which get most of the attention and detail, I've got a second key of "numbered areas," which are the standard monsters and treasures. These are transient -- once one group of adventurers encounters them they'll either be dead or likely have moved to a different lair -- and periodically re-keyed, even if they haven't been encountered yet (monsters move around in "the living dungeon" and adapt to what adventurers are doing elsewhere in the dungeon -- the idea that the monsters are just infinitely sitting around their lairs waiting for someone to come along and kill them is anathema to the "megadungeon" concept -- when the party routs the goblins on level 1 they'd better bet that next time they enter the dungeon the kobolds will have done something to react (moved into the old goblin lair, fortified their own lair, posted more guards and alarms, gone to the hobgoblins on level 2 and asked for help, etc.)). These encounters usually get a minimal write-up of 1 or 2 lines, and any other details that are needed can usually be improvised on the spot.I think it's important to have both types of encounters, and to recognize the difference between them -- if your dungeon doesn't have the unique and detailed letter areas then the players will get bored exploring it and realize they could just as easily be playing Diablo, but OTOH if it's nothing but lettered areas, if even the minor encounters with giant rats and such are fully and uniquely detailed, then you'll never be able to achieve the scale that a megadungeon needs because you'll run out of steam and won't be able to keep up with your players -- they'll be exploring faster than you can create.</blockquote>

Verification