OD&D example of play

[Philotomy Jurament]

I love the concept of the persistent mega-dungeon, but it was a rare thing in the reality. There were very, very few ever officially published -- and some of those were published during D&D3, (perhaps ironically).

Very few published is damn right. I think megadungeons are not very well suited to publication. (I also prefer the approach of creating the megadungeon through play, in any case.) Smaller and more self-contained "lair dungeons" or tournament-style dungeons fit the publication model better. I suspect that many people have missed the megadungeon approach because the tournament and lair-type modules became the prominent example of what a dungeon looks like and how the game was played. Even many of the published dungeons that are often viewed as megadungeons tend to be more like "lair dungeons writ large" in their design, in my opinion.

 

[Chainsaw]

I think you're right. Reading Knights & Knaves Alehouse one sees a lot of talk about 'working on my mega-dungeon' but not so much 'running my mega-dungeon'.

I played in three different ones at NTRPG Con (Mythmere, grodog and Philotomy's) and regularly play in a fourth here in Charlotte..

 

[Jhaelen]

In order to have a discussion about what roleplaying game should be about, first we'd have to define roleplaying. It's been tried. It fails every time.

mhmaybe I think, I see what you mean (and I don't really want to try defining it).

I still think that later editions of D&D did a better job at explaining roleplaying (in the way I understand it)

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Reading Knights & Knaves Alehouse one sees a lot of talk about 'working on my mega-dungeon' but not so much 'running my mega-dungeon'.

I'm running my Cromlech Tor dungeon (with several of the local Knights-n-Knaves guys being regular players). Some of the other guys have been running theirs, too. In my case, I decided I wasn't going to do session reports (too much work). Some of the players started doing session reports, but eventually that petered out.

One solution may be to do what Gary did and start fairly small, adding more levels etc as needed. In OD&D Gary says start with six maps, which I assume means six levels, but I think you could easily get away with half that.

Starting with the first few levels and diving into actual play is the best approach, in my opinion. I started with three levels, and have been expanding as I go, (mostly) keeping ahead of the PCs.

Mind you, most of the contents are supposed to be randomly generated, which makes things easier. You could randomly generate the whole thing but imo the quality level would suffer too much.

I wouldn't say the contents are supposed to be randomly generated. I use random rolling as tool for filling in areas that I haven't already keyed and for generating ideas, but I don't hold myself to the rolls.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Cromlech Tor dungeon

Nice one. Makes a change from a castle.

I wouldn't say the contents are supposed to be randomly generated. I use random rolling as tool for filling in areas that I haven't already keyed and for generating ideas, but I don't hold myself to the rolls.

I was just referring to the recommendation to roll most of the contents randomly in Vol 3 of OD&D -

The determination of just where monsters should be placed, and whether or not they will be guarding treasure, and how much of the latter if they are guarding something, can become burdensome when faced with several levels to do at one time. It is a good idea to thoughtfully place several of the most important treasures, with or without monsterous guardians, and then switch to a random determination for the balance of the level. Naturally, the more important treasures will consist of various magical items and large amounts of wealth in the form of gems and jewelry. Once these have been secreted in out-of-the-way locations, a random distribution using a six-sided die can be made as follows:

 

[Bullgrit]

For all the mentions of Knights-and-Knaves around here, the KnK admins don't seem very interested in adding new members. There's no direct way to register, and emails are apparently ignored.

Bullgrit

 

[ExploderWizard]

Mind you, most of the contents are supposed to be randomly generated, which makes things easier. You could randomly generate the whole thing but imo the quality level would suffer too much. People might even call it videogame-y!

I don't know if I would say "supposed" to be randomly generated. The random tables were included to fill out areas that the DM had no particular plans for. I guess the amount of content subject to random generation depends on the amount of such space the DM has to fill.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I think you're right. Reading Knights & Knaves Alehouse one sees a lot of talk about 'working on my mega-dungeon' but not so much 'running my mega-dungeon'.

Yeah that would be my follow-on question. How common was this approach? Anyone here run or play in an OD&D game where it took place entirely inside one massive dungeon?

 

[Ariosto]

Very few published is damn right. I think megadungeons are not very well suited to publication.

Well, just what are you going to publish?

The whole thing is always in flux, maps and keys, so all you can ever get is a snapshot.

Notes to oneself are a long way from making great reading for anyone else (even if they are not simply cryptic).

Oh, but that's just the dungeons used in actual campaigns, eh? Why not pay someone to design one specifically as a text for publication?

At most, that would be just the start of the work of making a good dungeon. The mise en scene before play is in a sort of sterile vacuum, as opposed to the fertile soil that produces organic growth once players start to interact with it. Personally, I think that even half a dozen levels may be too much preliminary construction unless they are going into the context of a campaign already well underway (so that none will be long awaiting action).

It would be sort of like offering a still photograph as a movie. It might be nice, but it's not the same thing. An old-style dungeon is a process, and -- unlike the dynamics of a movie -- a point of it is spontaneity.

Another point is mystery. D&D very basically started as a game of limited information, and the dungeon game is that in spades.

What becomes of that when DMs are running the same danged dungeon? Not a one-shot "module", but a full campaign dungeon?

The ratio of work to value is pretty low here, I think. How many people are really going to buy Standard Issue Dungeon, and how much will they pay, versus how much you had to invest to produce it?

Given the basic selection pressure of the game itself in appealing to creative types, probably not enough.

From a business standpoint, "enough" basically would be at least as profitable as making the same investment in small scenarios or in rules supplements. Has that situation ever emerged?

 

[Ariosto]

Anyone here run or play in an OD&D game where it took place entirely inside one massive dungeon?

Not I. That's not at all the description of D&D.

The "massive" dungeon is just part of the campaign. One goes into it and comes out of it. In that, it is like a forest, a sea, or a town.