Greetings! Long time reader, first time poster.

I've been running an online D&D V game for a year using Roll20, but because we all have careers and kids our sessions are regular but short. Standard megadungeon crawling hasn't been as rewarding as I had hoped, which I attribute to the snails pace of our play resulting in very little progress into the dungeon. We'd been playing for months and were still on the first level. All the fun monsters, traps, and story elements I'd spread across the levels were never going to see the light of day.

We've had a bit of a summer hiatus and are starting to think about getting the game going again, so I've been thinking about our experience, and I think a ruined city crawl might be more successful. One of the main elements that makes a city different is that the players have immediate access to more entry points (resulting in more meaningful choice) and it lends itself to shorter sessions since they can clear block by block.
I've got a concept for a ruin crawl and I want some feedback from the community.

The setting is the early Roman Empire, but with the magic turned up. The legions include battle mages and clerics, and many of the monsters of D&D roam the lands.

The PCs are members of the Roman Army that are garrisoning a recently conquered territory. Garrison work is both boring and doesn't pay well compared to the conquest campaign (which they missed since they're new recruits). Fortunately the city they're posted in has a Necropolis nearby and on their days off they go tomb robbing.

Elements of this campaign that excite me:

• Being members of the Army, there is a constant supply of replacement PCs.
• The ruined Necropolis is sacred to the locals, which the Romans don't care about too much.
• Undead! Grave goods! Random encounters with other tomb robbers! Random encounters with locals trying to protect their honored dead!
• Being bronze age I can tone down the armor; high AC for PCs has been a bit of an issue in our past game.
• A primarily horizontal megadungeon with vertical elements (tombs, pyramids).
• I can borrow heavily from Barrowmaze.
• I've always felt that Rome + Magic lends itself to many of the D&D class and culture assumptions better than medieval cultures.

Questions for the community:

• Is this a cool idea?
• How can it be cooler?
• Will it lend itself to fun, short tomb robbing sessions?
• Where should I set it: Egypt (maybe Thebes?) or Britain (barrow mounds filled with Saxon, Cymri and older tombs)?

Thanks!

Quote from: Lauguz;848705

• Is this a cool idea?

Yes.

Egypt and Britain are both cool. Go with the one that seems the most exciting to you.

This is a cool idea.  Couple random, tangential thoughts:

Part of game play is making meaningful choices, and making meaningful choices requires information.  It's okay to start the players off with information!  I don't mean start them with all the information, there's room for secrets to be learned in play.  But resist the temptation to make them learn everything during play, as well as the temptation to tag half or more of the rumor chart [F].  Give the players a few pieces of actionable information to start, preferably suggesting a few alternate courses of action, and seed more leads early rather than late.  (If you're doing this already, my apologies, just carry on.)

Benoist had a piece of advice in his mega-dungeon thread; paraphrasing, "front-load the awesome."  If you've got a few ideas for a cool encounter or set piece, put a couple right on the first level, and more on the second.  It engages the players, and in terms of real time in play you'll have time to think of more cool stuff by the time they get down further.  It sounds like you were up against that in your first run, and you've already identified a solution, but I'd still bear it in mind.  Magic fountain in the courtyard of a pyramid instead of at the lowest level, something else cool two rooms in, and let the lowest level take care of itself when the players get close.

Barrowmaze feels more Brittanic than Egyptian to me, but I guess it depends on how much re-skinning you feel like doing.

This sounds really groovy. It reminds me of some of the elements of a heartbreaker I half wrote.

Egypt sets itself up more easily to a Necropolis setting that isn't an underground tomb complex (ie a city revealed under the sands or something).

The Britain setting has a lot of potential - Roman Fighters, Priests, Rogues, and Mages against Celtic Barbarians, Druids, Bards and Rangers.

I'd play the hell out of either one.

Welcome Lauguz!!!

This is a rocking idea!

Do you own a copy of Mordheim by Games Workshop? Lots of good ideas for a ruined city crawl in the core book.

Making your idea cooler?

* Politics within the legion. Superiors want a cut of the loot.

* Politics with the locals. Looting the necropolis leads to an uprising, and rebellion, perhaps aided by the undead ancestors.

* Rival looters. Roman deserters? Foreigners? Locals?

* Awakening ghosts. The more the Necropolis is violated, the more the undead begin to communicate with each other and join forces. Perhaps there are even factions among the undead...some even willing to help the Romans in exchange for being raised from the dead?

After you run this campaign, consider developing it into a Supplement. If it was on Kickstarter, it would have my attention.

Welcome to theRPGsite, lauguz!