I've been looking to add a mega-dungeon as a hex location for a while and have seen this baby around.

Any thoughts on it from people who have played it/parts of it?

I never played it (or even read it in detail), but I definitely remember being impressed and interested when I leafed through it at the game store years ago. And when it was first published everyone was raving about how great it is. So, it sounds like a winner to me.

I own it, but haven't run it, yet. The S&W version significantly expands on the original, so much so that I would be wary of placing it as a hex location. Much of the contents of this new book wouldn't fit in your average D&D hex, and cutting stuff can get a bit sticky, as a lot of it ties together. It's really designed as an archetypal mega-dungeon which is meant to be the central focus of the campaign.

I only played in the 3.5 one, but I thought it was really, really, really overrated.

Maybe the S&W version is better, but the only thing I remember was a dung golem. When the highlight of your dungeon is a dung golem, well....

I'd suggest getting in on that City of Barakus Kickstarter. Not as big, but more enjoyable.

I'm with Jeremy. I bought the 3.5 edition, read it, and sold it again. To me it was a mess and not an interesting mess.

Don't know about the S&W edition.

Hmm, maybe i'll check out some of the other Troll Lord stuff instead.

They put out some pretty meaty stuff when they were Necromancer games.

I've heard/read that the S&W version is quite different from the new-school one, but can't support that with actual experience due to having none.

Actually, that's not exactly true. Even though I've never played in Rappan Athuk per se, I was one of the playtesters of the Cloister of the Frog God, which was written by Melan and is part of the dungeon complex at large. That was fun, in a "run away in terror like little girls and never look back as 666 killer frogs flood the complex, the swamp, and later your local slice of civilisation, and it's all your fault" kind of way...

Rappan Athuk is a killer 30-level mega-dungeon written in a couple three-ring binders by the coolest DM you had in high school in 1985. For better or worse.

My favourite of the old Necrmancer Games dungeons was the Tomb of Abysthor, which Frog God have expanded and re-released as the Lost Lands: Stoneheart Valley. A lot more interesting and coherent of an adventure setting than RA. If you really want a big old-school dungeon to drop into your campaign (it supports level 1-8), that's what I'd go with. And it's about a third the price of RA.

The issue I have with Frog God Games is the ugly, awkward layout of the books. I returned Slumbering Tsar because it was neither pleasant to read, nor easily usable at the table. But I am, admittedly, pretty fussy in that respect.

I'll agree that Stoneheart Valley is, strictly speaking, better in nearly every way. I think it's also more amenable to what OHT wants to do with it.

Quote from: Haffrung;740837Rappan Athuk is a killer 30-level mega-dungeon written in a couple three-ring binders by the coolest DM you had in high school in 1985. For better or worse.

Yeah.  That's a pretty accurate appraisal.  That pretty much summarizes why I picked it up and pored over it from time to time.  It also summarizes why I ultimately didn't get much use out of it.

I gave my books away.  The people I gave them to ran a campaign exploring Rappan Athuk for about a year before they burnt out on it.  They never got anywhere near the lower level content if memory serves.  They had fun with it though, and the stories I heard about their adventures were entertaining.  It sounded like Rappan Athuk was exactly what it had said on the tin: it's a megadungeon done in the 80s style intended to be run by a killer GM.  If that's what you're after, then it's exactly what you're going to get.

I don't play most of what I review, but I did run some RA. I found the levels near the Mouth of Doom enjoyable. It had a good freaky/not-freaky mix which was enough to keep everyone's interest. Treasure was steady enough and the dungeon deadly enough. I can't comment ont he rest because of my vacation, but for the firstthree or so I think it ranks #2 on my megadungeon list, behind the best Darkness Beneath levels and in front of everything else.



BTW: I'm way behind schedule on the Appalachian trail.

My experience is limited to the 3.x/Pathfinder versions. I've run forays into it and played some, but never finished it. It has a few rough spots/overpowered bits, but otherwise makes for a pretty cool classic megadungeons.

One thing to watch out for is that the better the party is at finding things, the worse trouble they can get themsleves into, like a CR 20 trap hidden in the midst of a level made for a level 7 party.

I think that Castle Whiterock is a bit more even handed when it comes to the same type of crawl, but some of Rappan Athuk has some cool creepy evil-infested dungeon flavor.

I think Barrowmaze is better. But then, Barrowmaze is probably the best super-big dungeon I ever ran.