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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 5608467" data-attributes="member: 26473">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.</blockquote>

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