Today's gamers rarely have time for such foolishness. Jobs, kids, life in general keep us to one session a week if we're lucky, though more often expect twice a month.
Will your party explore the whole of whatever megadungeon you've created? Almost certainly not. But more important is the knowledge that they could go off in many different directions; that the whole living breathing potential sprawl of the place is there around them.
To achieve this feeling, and the feeling of meaningful exploration, the dungeon must be more than an infinitely repeating wallpaper of passages, rooms and random filler. Three desirable things:
1. The sub-areas of the dungeon must show differences in design (wide passages, narrow passages, orthogonal, diagonal, curved, irregular, etc.) and decoration.
2. The areas of the dungeon should relate a meaningful history for the players to discover. This can happen on a micro level - "this was once the kitchen of the Minotaur Lord but now it is the lab of a crazed alchemist" - and a macro level - evidence related to what the Minotaur Lord was doing, how he got on with the other power groups, what his place was in the rationale of the dungeon.
3. The areas of the dungeon should refer to each other, both in terms of architecture (a multiplicity of stairs, chutes, teleporters giving the sense of freedom of movement between safer and more dangerous places) and features ("this lever opens the portcullis on level 3"..."in this room is an ambassador from the troglodytes on level 4").
Now, life is short not just for players but GMs as well. The temptation is to make it up as one goes along, but this risks missing out on the epic sweep and overarching plan implied in criteria 2 and 3. Recently, JDJarvis over at Aeons and Auguries has suggested a modular, crowdsourced approach, in which people contribute individual sections but the exact geographical connection between them is up to the individual GM. I like this, because it takes a lot of the burden of effort from the individual GM while still allowing creative input and personalization. But question number 2 and 3 remain - how to convey an overarching theme and plot?
Next post I'll address this issue, explain why I can't stand geomorphs, and offer a better solution.
I just recently meditated on a similar concept in context of how easily adaptable Matt FInch's Demonspore is:
ReplyDeletehttp://bloodofprokopius.blogspot.com/2011/12/review-demonspore-and-challenge-for-osr.html
This, of course, was primarily aimed at published modules, but the concept is similar — publish levels and sub-levels rather than entire dungeons. By giving the end-user several means to connect to an existing dungeon, it allows published material to easily become a megadungeon of the user's creation.
I want to like geomorphs - Dyson and others do such good ones - but I just can't. Actually, the last time I did a dungeon, I started with the old TSR Geomorphs, but I worked and reworked so much that it kinda lost the point.
ReplyDeleteWe've been mulling similar desires in our group as we have a rotating referee but want to get a Megadungeon going.
ReplyDeleteWe've decided that each referee will have a level to begin with and we'll have to collaborate on connectivity - you'll know where the entrances are, but unsure how you get there from above. Each referee is also free to create whatever sub-levels they like that may have unique connectivity.
As for plot, we're still working through how to manage that. Certainly levels will have their own plots, but the overarching 'secret' and workings of the dungeon may have to be agreed upon before hand which kind of diminishes the impact.
As for who referees that night - the party will have planned what level they're going to work on for that week's dungeon expedition.
Just wanted to say here, as previous threads not accepting comments - I teach IP & Contract Law in the UK; if you have any specific questions I'm happy to discuss (briefly :)) how UK Law works.
ReplyDeleteThese are neat ideas, all - S'mon, thanks, I'll take your lack of comment as a sign I'm not doing anything terribly wrong and will look you up if more detailed questions arise!
ReplyDeleteI'm just now stumbling upon your site, but this is a good post! You have a great idea in allowing other people to create their own subsection of the dungeon and letting the DM decide how it all fits together. This would also ensure that each member of the party has some reason to want to go into the labyrinth. Everyone has at least a partial idea of the dungeon, but nobody has a complete understanding. This also keeps party cohesion in place because nobody wants to kill the rogue and lose valuable information.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff!
ReplyDeleteAdded to the Blog Database.
https://jonbupp.wordpress.com/blog-database/for-dungeon-masters/chapter-5-adventure-environments/dungeons/megadungeon/