D&D General What's your favorite beer'n'pretzles dungeon?

[Reynard]

Tomb of Horrors is an excellent "beer and pretzels" dungeon. It's like golf: you aren't playing against a Big Bad or a faction, you are playing against the course.

The players are too familiar with it, I think. A bunch of fogies, us.

 

[Cadence]

In my experience, KotBL is too much work for what I want right now -- there are lots of factions to consider, among other things.

I've run it several times as just a dungeon crawl, and it wasn't too bad then. It's been a while though...

 

[Monayuris]

Stonehell Dungeon.

It is super easy to run because of the way it is formatted. Its great for going in, getting some exploration done, and getting out, without a whole lot of preparation ahead of time.

 

[GMMichael]

This one is customizable to accommodate your choice in beer and pretzels:

donjon; 5e Random Dungeon Generator

A collection of random generators for Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games

donjon.bin.sh

 

[not-so-newguy]

Stonehell Dungeon.

It is super easy to run because of the way it is formatted. Its great for going in, getting some exploration done, and getting out, without a whole lot of preparation ahead of time.

I was going to suggest this. P!us it's relatively cheap, iirc

 

[Fenris-77]

The original Keep on the Borderlands. It's my Ur module.

 

[Reynard]

This one is customizable to accommodate your choice in beer and pretzels:

donjon; 5e Random Dungeon Generator

A collection of random generators for Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop role-playing games

donjon.bin.sh

I had totally forgotten about this thing. Good call.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm very much partial to Dyson Logos' Dyson's Delve, the "mini-megadungeon". 11 levels, including a couple of sub-levels which are on the same map as a full level, but can only be reached by a separate connection from a higher or lower level. But the levels are small- each fits within a 20 x 20 grid of 10' squares. Super simple statting originally for Labyrinth Lord, but that's obviously perfectly compatible with B/X, and can be re-statted to your edition of choice with minimal effort.

Inspired by Paul Siegel's running of it in two epic long weekends in 2018 & 2019, and the Wandering DMs' broadcast (the videos are on Youtube; about 24 hours of play) of the second half of that play online, plus Paul's simple faction analysis and the rumors he created for it which are available on his website, I've been able to run a really straightforward beer and pretzels dungeon crawl since about the end of March. I've had a couple of small dungeons for side-treks and stuff, but (especially stealing liberally from Paul) most of the work was done for me, and I've kept two small groups of players entertained with it as the campaign tent pole for several months now. As of Monday night the players are right in the middle of the climactic final level, and it's been a ton of fun.

I had kind of wanted to do this for a while, but being able to download the maps from Dyson's site and upload them to Roll20 was how I taught myself to run on Roll20 and make it manageable, when directly adapting my existing 5E game seemed like too intimidating a prospect.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Rather than a megadungeon, I'll propose shorter, adventure-themed dungeons:

• Forge of Fury. You said you've played through Tales from the Yawning Portal, so maybe this is already off the list? Regardless, it's a challenging and well-executed dungeon crawl for 3rd or 4th level characters.
• Pharoah. The1E classic set in a pyramid. This will definitely challenge player skill as opposed to character skill.
• Thunderspire Labyrinth. A highlight from 4E. There are a few factions, but nothing overwhelming. The conversion from 4E might be slightly challenging, but it's mostly a matter of dropping the AC and attack bonuses.
• Storm King's Thunder. I see you consider Against the Giants to be a slog. Having played through SKT, I don't think it's a slog. There are 5 giant lairs that are each uniquely evocative and take about 2 to 4 sessions to complete. A solid option for Tier 2.

 

[Mannahnin]

I'm also enjoying playing in an online game of Barrowmaze in OSE. The mix of simple tombs to dig in and more elaborate ones, some of which connect into the main dungeon, is great. And there's a ton of interesting content in there.