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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9873666" data-attributes="member: 7026594">I have read both and played in both and read reports of play from both, but not yet run either. So grain of salt there.Stonehell is best-in-class among megadungeons for lightness of burden on the DM to absorb the material. It keeps the level descriptions and room entries short and light enough that you're not overwhelmed.  Other megadungeons (like Ardun Vul, for example) often have a LOT more detail to learn. Thracia has more complexity. More detailed entries, more complex and interconnected maps, with a lot of the verticality, hidden passages, and variety of ways to navigate through it which Jaquays became famed for.Easier to run for a first experience, and lighter on prep, both almost certainly go to Stonehell.Pitfalls: For Stonehell the main one is that the first couple of levels are under-treasured. Doubling it on level 1, at the very least, will really help with advancement and avoiding player frustration.  Especially if you're going to run it with an open table and not always have the same characters there, so xp is being split up even more.  Maybe triple the treasure or more for the first couple of levels, in that use-case.For Thracia, especially if you're using an older printing, print errors and some confusion in the text about where certain secret doors and stairways connect at different points is one of the trickier bits. The scenario also isn't really written/scaled expecting a first level party of 5-6 PCs.  Even early encounters can be quite deadly if you're not talking more like 6-8 2nd or 3rd level PCs, or 10-12 1st levelers.What's the better choice, and is there a better option? Honestly I think these are two of the very best.  Thracia is arguably not a "true" megadungeon the way something like Castle Greyhawk was or Stonehell is.  It's "only" four levels, and if you were playing a full old school campaign all the way to "name" levels (9th+) it's not going to provide enough content for that.  But that can be a virtue, in terms of being something your group can "finish" in a year or less of play and feel that accomplishment from. And the design is really special.Overall I think Stonehell is the easiest one for a DM to run and learn on. And that's its own kind of superlative achievement. The scale of the dungeon also truly drives home the sense of a "mega" dungeon.  It's one of the only ones in my decades of play that I've actually been concerned during a session about getting lost in.</blockquote>

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