Raven Crowking
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Raven Crowking's Nest
- Thread starter Raven Crowking
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Raven Crowking
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Raven Crowking
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john112364
Explorer
You know it just dawned on me the other day while I was reading your blog that your style of writing is very similar to some guy named Gygax (I'm not sure if you've heard of him or not 
).
But seriously, your cadence, the way you "speak" to your readers, just the way you get you points across in general reminds me of Gygax when he was writing in Dragon magazine waaaaay back when. Is this on purpose or is it just your way of writing. Either way, still enjoying the blog.
). But seriously, your cadence, the way you "speak" to your readers, just the way you get you points across in general reminds me of Gygax when he was writing in Dragon magazine waaaaay back when. Is this on purpose or is it just your way of writing. Either way, still enjoying the blog.
Raven Crowking
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Raven Crowking
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Raven Crowking
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Raven Crowking
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The Shaman
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Oh, RC, you magnificent bastard. Why must you tempt me to pull out my megadungeon notebook that I keep telling myself I will never run?
The idea of the megadungeon reflecting the history of the setting is something that I've incorporated into the background and layout notes for my megadungeon.
The classic megadungeon gets more challenging the deeper the adventurers explore. The question I put to myself is, why? The answer in my example is that the megadungeon charts the rise and fall of a nearby city-state. The upper-most levels reflect the city-state's origins as a strictly local power; as the dungeon goes deeper, the levels reflect the city-state's growing influence, first as the center for an influential cult, then a regional power, and a civil war. At lower levels, the city-state has become the center of a small empire which is later destroyed rather abruptly, ending the story behind the upper two-thirds or so of the megadungeon.
In this scheme, the lower levels are actually 'younger' than the upper levels until the fall of the city-state. After that, there's a profound switch in the dungeon, and the lowest levels revert to a deeper-you-go-older-the-level, in two very distinct periods unrelated to the history of the city-state.
I imagine that will bring out the usual chorus of, "Players don't care," "Wasted effort," "fapfapfapfapfapfap," or whatever. To those folks, please, save it. It helps me to organize my thoughts to hang what's in the megadungeon on some kind of framework. It suggests ideas to me for challenges and hazards. It helps me make levels distinctive, which I think is important in a megadungeon. And it adds to my creative enjoyment.
The idea of the megadungeon reflecting the history of the setting is something that I've incorporated into the background and layout notes for my megadungeon.
The classic megadungeon gets more challenging the deeper the adventurers explore. The question I put to myself is, why? The answer in my example is that the megadungeon charts the rise and fall of a nearby city-state. The upper-most levels reflect the city-state's origins as a strictly local power; as the dungeon goes deeper, the levels reflect the city-state's growing influence, first as the center for an influential cult, then a regional power, and a civil war. At lower levels, the city-state has become the center of a small empire which is later destroyed rather abruptly, ending the story behind the upper two-thirds or so of the megadungeon.
In this scheme, the lower levels are actually 'younger' than the upper levels until the fall of the city-state. After that, there's a profound switch in the dungeon, and the lowest levels revert to a deeper-you-go-older-the-level, in two very distinct periods unrelated to the history of the city-state.
I imagine that will bring out the usual chorus of, "Players don't care," "Wasted effort," "fapfapfapfapfapfap," or whatever. To those folks, please, save it. It helps me to organize my thoughts to hang what's in the megadungeon on some kind of framework. It suggests ideas to me for challenges and hazards. It helps me make levels distinctive, which I think is important in a megadungeon. And it adds to my creative enjoyment.
