I saw there were a couple of recent threads about megadungeons on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about megadungeons?

They are a setting consisting of a maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure. Like all settings they can be good, bad, or so so. Recent years have seen an uptick because the variety has grown to the point where many can say "you know I can see how to make and or us one."

The same thing with hexcrawl formatted setting or how to an leer edition of a RPG in a campaign.

As a general rule, megadungons tend to get tougher as you go deeper. This gives players control over their own fates to a degree you don't find in small dungeons (which are almost always around their own level) or hex crawls (where difficulty is more or less random and players have no idea what to expect).  A good sandbox might have a large area and several smaller dungeons that are differing levels that required players to do scouting and observation before entering, but a lot of them were either just all over the place incoherently or compressed the level range of the game to about 1-6 or so, which means missing out on a lot of fun (IMHO). (As an aside, a number of modern OSR games do that, most notably LotFP, they try to make hex crawling easier by making all characters suck and thus all monsters suck too)

There's also a degree of pressing your luck. How far do they go? There's tension involved as the party goes farther in, the fewer resources they have on the way out.  Again, in small dungeons they can probably clean them out in one session and a mid sized in 2-4. In hex crawls, they generally move a fixed number of hexes a day then rest, like a board game. But you can't really clear out a megadungeon.

There's also more room for strange and interesting stuff that wouldn't make sense elsewhere. Little dungeons often have to cut out that. Hex crawls are usually just random incoherent stuff that bears no relation from one hex to another, or maybe the occasional tenuous connection.

And lastly, you don't see this anymore, really, but back in the day dungeons weren't so static. Your DM might be running the same dungeon for 15-20 people and various times. You could run into their traces (or bodies) and sometimes they would alter the dungeon to interact with other players (the magic mouth spell for instance, was basically for this)

The best thing about megadungeons is that no one can truly 'defeat' them (go everywhere/beat everything). So, no matter how long you play in them, you will always have the sense that there is more you couldn't reach. This creates a sense of mystery and yearning that is the source of all the real excitement in the game. Everyone who has a soul and likes table top fantasy rpg's remembers the moment when they first visualized a character entering a dangerous, dark, mysterious dungeon. Megadungeons keep that feeling alive even when you've played the game for years. Moria is still Moria even after Gandalf's been through it a dozen times - it still confuses and scares him, and always will. 'Normal' 30 room dungeons can't do that. You empty them and move on.

Quote from: Dumarest;998008I saw there were a couple of recent threads about megadungeons on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about megadungeons?

I used to quite dislike & never use them - I'm a bit claustrophobic IRL and I hate the idea of being stuck in a dungeon for a whole campaign.  I still don't much like the idea that "the dungeon IS the campaign" - I like a lot of wilderness exploration and politics/war. But I've come to really appreciate the power of what James Maliszweski called the "tentpole megadungeon" as default activity in a sandbox campaign - it's always there, it always offers adventure, risk & reward. Neither players nor GM need ever be stuck for what to do now - the dungeon always beckons.
Justin Alexander discussed the importance of a default activity in a long term RPG, and I find it's extremely true. It takes a lot of pressure off the GM to come up with plots; it takes pressure off the players to 'find the fun' - if they're not sure what to do now, they go to the megadungeon.
The design with stacked levels suitable for PCs from 1st to say 10th level also works well; giving players a lot of choice in the threat level they choose to face, and allowing for smaller & larger PC groups - eg 2 3rd level PCs may choose to stay on level 1, where 6 PCs might go to level 3 or 4. This works best with gold for xp & more gold on lower levels, though killing bigger monsters on lower levels also gives more XP. DMDavid just posted a good discussion - http://dmdavid.com/tag/the-story-of-the-impossible-luck-that-leads-dd-parties-to-keep-facing-threats-they-can-beat/

So currently my ideal sandbox game has a detailed wilderness with multiple seeded dungeons and at least one megadungeon within a half day of the starter town. My Ghinarian Hills Wilderlands sandbox actually has three big dungeons (Dyson's Delve, Caverns of Thracia, Stonehell) within 8 miles or so of the starter town Selatine.

I find you can't have too many megadungeons.

Quote from: estar;998015They are a setting consisting of a maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure. Like all settings they can be good, bad, or so so. Recent years have seen an uptick because the variety has grown to the point where many can say "you know I can see how to make and or us one."

The same thing with hexcrawl formatted setting or how to an leer edition of a RPG in a campaign.

So, no answer from Estar then.:rolleyes:

Quote from: Dumarest;998008I saw there were a couple of recent threads about megadungeons on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about megadungeons?

I never found them appealing... I don't like the sense of claustrophobia, odd puzzles, treasure hunting, non-sensical (sometimes) and constant killing. That's not to say they aren't fun or bad. It's just not my thing.

But I suppose they are pretty easy to GM and everything is laid out for you. So the prep time is minimal. Of course you can tailor them to suit the players style. I'd probably feel a bit better with a hex crawl.

Quote from: Dumarest;998079So, no answer from Estar then.:rolleyes:

My point is that there nothing special about a megadungeon other than it a maze with rooms filled with monster & treasure. What makes it interesting is as varied as drawing landforms on a piece of hex paper or graph paper. It is distinguished from something like Steading of the Hill Giant Chief by it's scope. Just like there is a difference between a fantasy setting like Greyhawk or knowing what in Hex AA29 or what in the village of Hommlett.

To me it is not a great mystery, there are numerous example of how to make megadungeons work as the sole setting of a campaign. Enough that is more likely for people today to go "mmm, you know, I can do that myself."

But maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure is not going to impart any type of specific feel to the campaign. Nor it will make the campaign inherently interesting. No more than a bunch of random green and brown blogs on a hex grid will make a campaign inherently interesting.


The work one has to do to make any fantasy campaign interesting is the exact same prep you will need to make a megadungeon interesting. That the point I am driving at here.

Obviously because the setting is predominately a maze with rooms the axioms of making a good dungeon layout weighs more heavily then a more traditional setup. I.e. linear layouts are more boring than branches which are more boring than loops which are more boring than multiple loops.

It is the same type of answer I would give if the question was phrased like

QuoteI saw there were a couple of recent threads about desert setting on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about desert settings?

Quote from: Dumarest;998008I saw there were a couple of recent threads about megadungeons on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about megadungeons?

Well, I hate the term "megadungeon," but that's personal taste.

Greyhawk and Blackmoor dungeon were "The Fun House From Hell."  It mixed the gonzo, the frightening, the claustrophobic, and the constant tension of never knowing what was next.  We'd finish a three hour session and I'd be wringing wet from nervous sweat; one wrong move and you could all die.

And the dungeon was where you got the exotic; the lost artifact, the bound demon goddess, the forest where gems grew on trees.

Outdoor adventures for XP, dungeon crawls for interesting/bizarre stuff and magic.

Quote from: JeremyR;998021As a general rule, megadungons tend to get tougher as you go deeper. This gives players control over their own fates to a degree you don't find in small dungeons (which are almost always around their own level) or hex crawls (where difficulty is more or less random and players have no idea what to expect).  A good sandbox might have a large area and several smaller dungeons that are differing levels that required players to do scouting and observation before entering, but a lot of them were either just all over the place incoherently or compressed the level range of the game to about 1-6 or so, which means missing out on a lot of fun (IMHO). (As an aside, a number of modern OSR games do that, most notably LotFP, they try to make hex crawling easier by making all characters suck and thus all monsters suck too)

There's also a degree of pressing your luck. How far do they go? There's tension involved as the party goes farther in, the fewer resources they have on the way out.  Again, in small dungeons they can probably clean them out in one session and a mid sized in 2-4. In hex crawls, they generally move a fixed number of hexes a day then rest, like a board game. But you can't really clear out a megadungeon.

There's also more room for strange and interesting stuff that wouldn't make sense elsewhere. Little dungeons often have to cut out that. Hex crawls are usually just random incoherent stuff that bears no relation from one hex to another, or maybe the occasional tenuous connection.

And lastly, you don't see this anymore, really, but back in the day dungeons weren't so static. Your DM might be running the same dungeon for 15-20 people and various times. You could run into their traces (or bodies) and sometimes they would alter the dungeon to interact with other players (the magic mouth spell for instance, was basically for this)

All of this.

RE the Magic Mouth -- one of my groups of players spent about four hours of game time going around the dungeon, starting with the main stairway at about the third level, putting up Magic Mouths.  One was triggered by the presence of a certain player, and then others would be triggered by one of the other Magic Mouths.

SO that a month later, on the third or fourth level, a Magic Mouth suddenly starts screaming "ATTENTION ALL MONSTERS!  ATTENTION ALL MONSTERS!  DICKIE HURTZ IS IN THE CASTLE!" repeated twice.  Then sixty feet away, some other magic mouths started repeating it.  And on and on...

Quote from: estar;998098My point is that there nothing special about a megadungeon other than it a maze with rooms filled with monster & treasure. What makes it interesting is as varied as drawing landforms on a piece of hex paper or graph paper. It is distinguished from something like Steading of the Hill Giant Chief by it's scope. Just like there is a difference between a fantasy setting like Greyhawk or knowing what in Hex AA29 or what in the village of Hommlett.

To me it is not a great mystery, there are numerous example of how to make megadungeons work as the sole setting of a campaign. Enough that is more likely for people today to go "mmm, you know, I can do that myself."

But maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure is not going to impart any type of specific feel to the campaign. Nor it will make the campaign inherently interesting. No more than a bunch of random green and brown blogs on a hex grid will make a campaign inherently interesting.


The work one has to do to make any fantasy campaign interesting is the exact same prep you will need to make a megadungeon interesting. That the point I am driving at here.

Obviously because the setting is predominately a maze with rooms the axioms of making a good dungeon layout weighs more heavily then a more traditional setup. I.e. linear layouts are more boring than branches which are more boring than loops which are more boring than multiple loops.

It is the same type of answer I would give if the question was phrased like

Right, so no answer to the question but instead a brief nonresponsive lecture about different types of gaming. Put away the soapbox. Nobody's forcing you to answer what you like about megadungeons.

Quote from: The Exploited.;998083I never found them appealing... I don't like the sense of claustrophobia, odd puzzles, treasure hunting, non-sensical (sometimes) and constant killing. That's not to say they aren't fun or bad. It's just not my thing.

But I suppose they are pretty easy to GM and everything is laid out for you. So the prep time is minimal. Of course you can tailor them to suit the players style. I'd probably feel a bit better with a hex crawl.

Everything is laid out for you if you buy them. For people who create their own campaigns, they are a big investment. There are two in the area that is my sandbox. One was partly explored in the campaign that preceded this one. The current characters know about it and might look into it eventually. There's still a lot to do and find there. The other is several hundred miles away and was last visited at the turn of the  century. However, it was about halfway explored back then and a lot of the dangers overcome. However, the Eastern Skumbaggi Goblins have since moved their HQ into the upper levels.

I don't think I'll create another megadungeon.

A megadungeon isn't something I use much anymore. But there are more than a few things to like about megadungeons.

1. They are fun for the GM to create.

2. They are fun for players to explore. (As a player I like mapping.)

3. They provide a startup point of entry for new GMs. (A dungeon is easier to create than a coherent large city or nation state.)

4. A megadungeon is scalable. It can start with one or two levels and grow as the GM has time to create more and as the players require a greater area to explore.

5. Progress exploring a megadungeon is easily measurable.

6. Risk to the PCs is roughly measurable. (If the GM used something like the OD&D approach of difficulty increasing with level.)

7. Dungeon exploration is a default source of something to do.

8. A megadungeon provides a good source of adventure for single sessionss with an an ad hoc, pickup group of PCs.

Quote from: Dumarest;998008I saw there were a couple of recent threads about megadungeons on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about megadungeons?

Not much. I want my set-pieces like dungeons to have context. Now that said - most boxed megadungeons have their own reasons for existing that tend to not mesh with my games, but never let that stop me from re-purposing a cool map.

But I can only think of twice where I've ever done it... so yeah. Not a big fan. Not a hater either. Just have no use for them.

Quote from: Dumarest;998008I saw there were a couple of recent threads about megadungeons on here. As I've never understood the appeal, I'm curious to know: What do you like about megadungeons?

I'm overlapping a little with some previous answers, but from a slightly different slant:  To me as usually a GM, they are like "comfort food".  I'm not going to do my best work in a megadungeon, but I'm not going to botch it, either.  It's a thing to do when I'm tired from real-life, and just need some material.  I'd rather run a good mega--dungeon session than something more ambitious that I didn't have the time or energy to pull off.  But absent that, I'd rather aim a little higher.  For the same reason, I think it's a little easier to publish a workable, useful megadungeon than it is something more ambitious.  

Not saying that a GM using a megadungeon can't aim high, but I don't find that particular goal very interesting.  On the rare occasions when I use one, it's for "high floor, low ceiling,"  explicitly.  Any setting that big is usually more attention paid to a particular thing than I want, as I prefer a lot of variety in the setting environments.  I find, for example, settings concentrated in a single city to have the same problem.

For my purposes, maybe the best thing about a megadungeon is that the players will never even come close to exploring it, because we won't spend that much time in it.