What Edition/Version for my Mega-Dungeon

[Odhanan]

This is one way in which 3e puts me in mind of RuneQuest. RQ seemed more often than D&D associated with relatively intimate settings depicted in finer detail. Even Snakepipe Hollow somehow gave me that impression, and the Big Rubble was more like a wilderness with multiple small dungeons within it.

It's interesting because though the games do have commonalities, the reason why RuneQuest goes into these sorts of setting has to do in part with the lethality of the system. Sure, if you're a skilled player, plan your explorations etc etc you can manage relatively well, but if the crap hits the fan, then it really does and may end up straight with TPKs, permanently maimed characters etc. The parallel you're presenting here is very intriguing to me. Even in terms of thematics, I can see how one game can evoke the other in some ways.

Of course, RuneQuest was born out of the Perrin Conventions, which themselves lead us back to the original D&D game. But still. The parallel between 3rd ed in particular and RQ is interesting to consider.

 

[Chainsaw]

Just out of morbid curiousity, was there a reason 4E D&D was left off the poll?

Maybe the Reynard doesn't want to play that edition, so he left it off the list..????

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, Rappan Athuk is a very old fashioned dungeon. You almost expect to run into Tucker's Kobolds.

The Auld Grump

I've always wanted to read Rappan Athuk but it is not easy to find and reloaded is quite expensive these days.

 

[Reynard]

Make that "do whatever you have chosen to do" (which certainly could be a service to someone else), and you have the OD&D/AD&D 1st ed. version.

I like to think of the mega-dungeon as an adventurer prospecting site, complete with a "boom town" that pops up nearby once it's discovered (to squeeze every looted copper out of the adventurers). Once it's location is revealed to the world at large, the PCs aren't the only ones interested in making a gold off it -- it's just that most folks aren't going to want to do the hard part (going in and not dying).

I once conceived an entire setting built around this concept, a New Zealand sized island found by the fantasy europe littered with underground vaults and tombs that is something analogous to gold rush California.

 

[Reynard]

Personally, I'd use Labyrinth Lord. But no matter what edition you use, you should design it like it's going to be in oD&D. Don't rely on nifty combat powers or DCs of 50 or whatever, but rely on original and intelligent descriptions and incredible design.

Between the results of the poll, asking some other folks and my own preferences, I am leaning very heavily toward Labrynth Lord with the Advanced Edition Companion.

 

[IronWolf]

This is a curious statement to me - why do you think they take "mega-long" to play? If it's because it takes forever "to finish" them, then.. you're doing it wrong, heh. A megadungeon is an organic thing that grows and changes and isn't supposed to be finished - it doesn't have any "terminus" that marks winning or anything. It's an entire subterranean world. In that context, my experience has been that they're extremely flexible to party size/power level and available session play time (assuming it's built right - specifically, in this case, that each level has multiple accesses up and down as well as accesses to levels multiples below).

I think there is a wide spectrum of mega-dungeons from those that are there simply to go in, go room-by-room and combat a large variety of creatures and then there are those that are much more like the subterranean world with a large number of organizations working with or against each other in an underworld microcosm.

And then to layer on top of that, how well the DM can pull off showing the underpinnings of those societies. And then of course player preference as a factor on top of all that!

But I agree with you. If by mega-dungeon the first thought is the room-by-room clearing of a massive complex that seems to have little rhyme or reason then I can see why folks want to avoid those. If the first thought for mega-dungeon is more of the microcosm of life in a large subterranean world then I tend to enjoy those.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I would go Basic (BECMI, LL, or BFRPG, see sig). Its the proper mix of "old school" exploration (puzzles, traps, and general weirdness) without OD&D's rough edges or AD&D's myriad of confusing corner-case rules.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I've always wanted to read Rappan Athuk but it is not easy to find and reloaded is quite expensive these days.

The PDFs for the original three books for Rappan Athuk are fairly inexpensive - the first is just $4US. Drive Thru had that first one available for free several times.

The Auld Grump

 

[spectresghost]

I was torn between suggesting OD&D/Swords & Wizardry and Basic/Labyrinth Lord. I think an old-school mega-dungeon is easiest to play with old-school rules. I ended up choosing LL because that's what I'm going to use to run the Keep on the Borderlands and, eventually, my own mega-dungeon.

I like LL because it's got all the ease of the old B/X system, but it's easily expandable with old B/X supplements or things from OD&D or AD&D through the Advanced Edition Companion and Original Edition Characters for LL, S&W and the other retro-clones, and all the various old-school mags. Being in the middle, it's fairly easy to convert anything from these other systems to LL.

You can even bring in stuff to do some science fantasy by including material from Mutant Future. If you want to have an area that uses crazy technology and mutants like the old Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, you can. There are other supplements that include rules for other periods, as well. The other day I was looking at a campaign setting with variant rules for playing a Victorian-era steampunk game using the LL rules.

Basically, although there are tons of different ways to adapt 3.0/3.5/4.0, I don't think they're as playable in a dungeon crawl. I tried running a 3.5 dungeon crawl a few years ago, and it failed miserably because the players were too concerned with the skill checks to actually roleplay exploring the dungeon.

I think that the old B/X rules through LL give you the most simultaneous adaptability and playability. It's very easy to modify or import new things, and it's a much simpler and faster game to run. Although it can be a lot deadlier, you can mitigate that by encouraging the players to get hirelings and henchmen to go with them. You can also give them a fairly reliable source for healing potions or put a lot of healing or defensive items into the treasure. Or you can just have a lot of extra pre-generated characters on hand, if you want to really go old-school.

 

[Mark]

Joseph Bloch’s Castle of the Mad Archmage is now finished and free -

http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2010/07/castle-of-mad-archmage-final-release.html