Would these maps make for a fun dungeon adventure?

[Buttercup]

My players have no interest in extended dungeon delving. And honestly I have no interest in DMing a large dungeon. Hack & Slash for it's own sake is boring to me.

 

[grodog]

I find it interesting all of the positive and negative assumptions being made about what style of encounters these maps seem to imply, since most of us don't actually know anything about the encouters that take place on these levels, at this point:

Dungeon that big needs a really good explanation for existing. My group doesn't like dungeon-crawling for the sake of dungeon crawling. Justifiying the existance of that monstrosity wouldn't be easy. Even harder to give the characters a good enough reason to go through all that.

As a player I would love it. I like a huge ol slash and hack once in a while.

I'd use them. I develop a hankering for the relatively non-sensicle mega-dungeons of my youth from time to time, and the maps are just the kind of of layout I prefer.

I can tell you that todays 3E adventures just don't need or want the kitchen-sink style of dungeon excepting the mega-dungeons

Hack & Slash for it's own sake is boring to me.

While to some degree I agree that a map can suggest a certain style of play (I didn't highlight generic "dungeon crawling" or "mega-dungeon" comments above, for example), if you compare the complexity of these maps to those from Erik Mona's "Whispering Cairn" in Dungeon #124, you'll see that the maps in "WC" are designed to be more complex: WC has lots of vertical challenges, and hidden sublevels accessible from only a single point of entry. "A Gathering of Winds" is an even better example of a complex, extensive map from the Age of Worms AP (issue # 129). Both sets of AoW maps are available on Paizo's site at http://paizo.com/dungeonissues/124/DA124_Supplement_LRes.pdf and http://paizo.com/dungeonissues/129/DA129_Supplement_low.pdf (both files are about 5 MB FYI).

In general, would we make the same assumptions about the AoW maps as we did about the ones Quasqueton posted?

 

[the_dwarf_is_drunk55]

well........

well... what if we did a rp session?

then wed know

 

[Melan]

These maps, unsurprisingly given their origins, exhibit a lot of the characteristics of "proper" old school dungeon map design. Observe: they are built for continuous and repeated forays by multiple groups of explorers. Instead of presenting a "straight line" the player characters must walk to get to an "objective" (as found in many contemporary dungeons, as well as some tournament modules such as Tomb of Horrors and the first two Slaver adventures), they are chock full of mazes, circular routes, presumably inter-map connections (grodog, care to verify? ) as well. They collectively form an open environment for dungeoneering. The maps also present an answer to another one of your threads (about dungeon mapping): in this case, mapping is required since the chances of getting lost are great otherwise, unless you have a photographic memory (as a famous explorer of this dungeon demonstrated).

I like these maps because they could concievably hide a lot of cool secret stuff without getting ridiculous like the late Dave Hargrave's dungeons, where there were literally hundreds of secret doors. No two expeditions into the dungeon would need to be the same, the experience would be individual for every seaparate group, unless they shared and compared notes.

What we don't know about these maps are the encounters they were populated with. Are they good? Are they engaging? Or are they just 2d12 gnolls with a class B treasure? Who knows!

 

[Melan]

Sure - why not? But I agree with Umbran in the sense that as a player OR as a DM I would have not find some sort of reason why such a thing would exist. Dungeon crawl for the sake of dungeon crawl always kinda puzzled me. I like some rhyme or reason behind things. It doesn't take much rhyme or reason ... I'm willing to stretch my imagination for the sake of the game, after all. But the more of it there is I generally find the more I enjoy the game - again as either the player or the DM.

I think it makes sense when you look at the game from the following viewpoint: dungeon crawling for the sake of dungeon crawling is a great idea when the group likes dungeoneering. The campaign should satisfy the wishes of the participants; if they prefer a game of weird and improbable challenges, there is no overwhelming reason to "ecologize" or provide justification. A big dungeon just is. It is there because the people sitting around the table like to crawl dungeons. Not their PCs, not the inhabitants of the fictive world surrounding the dungeon.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Maybe, dungeon crawls have issues, level of monsters in an area, types of monsters, and the explaining of it all; things like why did the gaint spiders of this area attack those wounded ork that ran this way or how does a gaint get here with only 10x10 hallways.

I just think there is a lot of work yet to be done.

 

[Ravellion]

Sure, I'd use those. Classic maps from a classic dungeon . You should put all your cards on the table, though, Quas - it might make for a more informed discussion once the context is made clear...

Seconded. The curiosity is killing me.

Rav

 

[Melan]

To stimulate further discussion, here is another dungeon map from a previous auction (same authors). It is clearer to see what it is about. It depicts the sewers and other mazes below a large city.

 

[Arnwyn]

I would love to adventure through a mega-dungeon. These maps look like my early experiences with D&D. But something struck me about them – all the maze-like corridors of 3 of them (top, fifth, and sixth) with no encounters (maybe some wandering monsters) and dead ends that just waste time. 20 years ago, I would have thoroughly enjoyed such dungeons. Finding our way through the labyrinth, hoping (or fearing) running into wandering monsters, and generally just fooling around in the dungeon would have been fun.

Now, though, those labyrinthine dungeons would annoy me. I don’t think I’d enjoy the “plotless” navigating and mapping. The second, third, and fourth maps look like they’d be more fun – plenty of actual rooms with potential encounters (monsters, or traps, or tricks, or something other than just empty dead-end tunnels).

Oh. Were we supposed to look at those maps with that much detail, and make some unfounded assumptions? If so, my answer on the poll might have been "no".

But I don't think that's reasonable. By giving those maps a quick look-over and not making any other assumptions, those maps looks pretty darn cool. I'm a fan of dungeon-crawling, so what I see there looks like it could be pretty fun.

So my vote is a definite "yes". It looks like a blast, to me.

 

[Joshua Randall]

As others have said, maps alone do not make for a fun adventure. Perhaps some really extreme maps can make an adventure more or less fun on the margin, but it's the DM and players who really create the core of the fun.

Umm, did that make any sense?