TheRPGSite

I just posted this on my blog http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/some-good-megadungeon-links.html, thought it was maybe worth reposting here.

Benoist's discussion - http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21636-Advice-on-building-a-megadungeon-and-a-campaign-around-it/page3

Hack & Slash basic megadungeon play and procedures - http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/basic-megadungeon-play-and-procedures.html

Creighton Broadhurst Megadungeon Design - http://www.creightonbroadhurst.com/dungeon-design-megadungeon-design/

DM David - http://dmdavid.com/tag/when-megadungeons-ruled-dungeons-dragons/

These guys all grok the procedural, partially randomised, nature of good megadungeon exploratory play, where both GM and players are playing to discover what happens.

This guy doesn't grok it at all, and tries to shoehorn a linear campaign into a Megadungeon environment -  http://theangrygm.com/category/megadungeon/ - as also seen in eg Wizards' 3e D&D "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk"- good examples of what not to do at least long term. Setting a short linear adventure, like the Moria section of Lord of the Rings, in a largely unmapped megadungeon can work ok if the campaign focus is on something else. But a whole campaign of this control freak illusionism wastes the strengths of the megadungeon concept: the ability to provide genuine but limited choice/freedom.

Something I've said in the past which remains true: Part of the problem is that the Angry GM is, in general, a GM who preps his plots. He's aware of things like sandboxes and non-linear adventures, but when he tries to talk about them he often comes across like the three blind guys trying to describe an elephant -- there's a lot of groping around and then he kind of bumbles out an "explanation" of them that is virtually unrecognizable to anyone actually familiar with them because it's still so heavily infused with the assumption that they must still fundamentally involve prepping plots. (It's like a guy who's lived his entire life in a desert trying to explain the concept of a river while being fundamentally convinced that yes, rivers are different, but they're still basically made up of sand, right?)

That's probably why his Megadungeon series dried up. I was really excited when he started talking about gating, and using Super Metroid as an example, but the idea seems to have stalled.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1011455Something I've said in the past which remains true: Part of the problem is that the Angry GM is, in general, a GM who preps his plots. He's aware of things like sandboxes and non-linear adventures, but when he tries to talk about them he often comes across like the three blind guys trying to describe an elephant -- there's a lot of groping around and then he kind of bumbles out an "explanation" of them that is virtually unrecognizable to anyone actually familiar with them because it's still so heavily infused with the assumption that they must still fundamentally involve prepping plots. (It's like a guy who's lived his entire life in a desert trying to explain the concept of a river while being fundamentally convinced that yes, rivers are different, but they're still basically made up of sand, right?)

He's the blind man with his hand up the elephant's ass saying "An elephant is warm and mushy."

I just got tired of having to skim 90% of the article because it's filled with so much bloat.

Is randomization really the 'best' approach to a megadungeon? No wonder most of them are thin gruel.

Quote from: Voros;1011469Is randomization really the 'best' approach to a megadungeon? No wonder most of them are thin gruel.

It has to be used carefully & judiciously, eg for wandering monsters, for restocking, and Stonehell has a random chest contents chart that works well too. There need to be a lot of non-random elements, especially the map. Total randomness makes exploration meaningless. But lack of randomness often results in Paizo style static dungeons with bloated page count to describe everything.

I think the idea of an endless dungeon has little appeal to me, sounds too similar to a rogue-like video game. I thought the best link was the Creight Broadhurst one where he seems to not emphasize the randomness so much as having a coherent theme to the dungeon. I personally value that a lot more than randomness. I don't mean a 'story'(not that I'm an anti-story per se either) but consistent feel, theme or history that you can discover via exploration. I think randomness works against that, unless the random tables are carefully constructed to fit a theme.

Quote from: Voros;1011501I think the idea of an endless dungeon has little appeal to me, sounds too similar to a rogue-like video game. I thought the best link was the Creight Broadhurst one where he seems to not emphasize the randomness so much as having a coherent theme to the dungeon. I personally value that a lot more than randomness. I don't mean a 'story'(not that I'm an anti-story per se either) but consistent feel, theme or history that you can discover via exploration. I think randomness works against that, unless the random tables are carefully constructed to fit a theme.

I agree about the history, and discovering stuff through exploration - themed areas are important, but so is unlocking secrets.
But I like to GM to discover too, and a bit of randomness gets my creative juices going. I like thinking about "So who are these orcs? What's the connection between X and Y?"

GMing Stonehell it has an overarching theme, but also lots of themed areas, and lots to build on - I find that works great.

I've experienced how random tables can inspire DM creativity, keeping that up over the length of a megadungeon seems like a tall order. I prefer random table be carefully made with small imaginative details to spark the DM, like the random tables in Veins of the Earth or Misty Islands of Eld. But I prefer them as spice to an adventure rather than the meat.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1011455Something I've said in the past which remains true: Part of the problem is that the Angry GM is, in general, a GM who preps his plots. He's aware of things like sandboxes and non-linear adventures, but when he tries to talk about them he often comes across like the three blind guys trying to describe an elephant -- there's a lot of groping around and then he kind of bumbles out an "explanation" of them that is virtually unrecognizable to anyone actually familiar with them because it's still so heavily infused with the assumption that they must still fundamentally involve prepping plots. (It's like a guy who's lived his entire life in a desert trying to explain the concept of a river while being fundamentally convinced that yes, rivers are different, but they're still basically made up of sand, right?)

It's weird. I only included him because Googling "megadungeon design" he's the very second link, after Benoist here on therpgsite. So it seemed worth mentioning his approach was not a good one. Creighton's brilliant post is third.

Quote from: Voros;1011512But I prefer them as spice to an adventure rather than the meat.

I don't really think we differ. I often don't roll on the wandering monster table. I tend to roll for encounter but then often choose something logical.

There's a K&KA subforum about megadungeon design.  It has a lot of good threads/advice/how-to, including discussion by some of those already mentioned.

http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewforum.php?f=28

Quote from: EOTB;1011519There's a K&KA subforum about megadungeon design.  It has a lot of good threads/advice/how-to, including discussion by some of those already mentioned.

http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewforum.php?f=28

Thanks, added that to my blog post. Will peruse.

Quote from: Voros;1011501I think the idea of an endless dungeon has little appeal to me, sounds too similar to a rogue-like video game. I thought the best link was the Creight Broadhurst one where he seems to not emphasize the randomness so much as having a coherent theme to the dungeon. I personally value that a lot more than randomness. I don't mean a 'story'(not that I'm an anti-story per se either) but consistent feel, theme or history that you can discover via exploration. I think randomness works against that, unless the random tables are carefully constructed to fit a theme.

Rogue-likes were based on megadungeons, so that is probably why. But in actual practice the random stuff is just like any other campaign, to add variety and inject life into the system. It isn't everything. In fact, the longer these things go on, the more accumulated established lore there is, the less randomization will be effective. There is nothing saying the randomization can't be tuned to provide a theme either ("this area only has sea creatures serving the demon Dagon").

The one defining trait of a megadungeon is it is big enough to be its own campaign. That and being a sort of "alice in wonderland" mythic underworld.

Quote from: Voros;1011469Is randomization really the 'best' approach to a megadungeon?

Only if you're a booger-eating moron who's too stupid to shit unassisted.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1011596Only if you're a booger-eating moron who's too stupid to shit unassisted.

Seriously, do you have some kind of bipolar condition? Sometimes you're coherent, and sometimes you snap at the most mundane posts with a lot of bile and vitiriol.

No, just grumpy.

Also, the idea of randomizing an entire dungeon is and always has been a stupid idea.  All the way back in OD&D it was made clear that the random tables are to fill out bits here and there, and that's been carried forward.  I don't know who told poor Voros that randomizing an entire dungeon was a good idea, but they were a booger-eating moron.

DM David also has great stuff on Megadungeon play - http://dmdavid.com/tag/when-megadungeons-ruled-dungeons-dragons/

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1011614I don't know who told poor Voros that randomizing an entire dungeon was a good idea, but they were a booger-eating moron.

Well, Voros does like to hugely misinterpret me sometimes. :D

Much like a good outdoor sandbox is mostly outlined with some randomized elements, so is a good dungeon.

The random elements are part of what makes it fun for the referee.  I will have an NPC's general attitude described, but.. is she in a good mood or a bad mood today?  That influences what happens after she says "Who dares invade the sanctuary of the Queen of Pain and Delight?"

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1011607Seriously, do you have some kind of bipolar condition? Sometimes you're coherent, and sometimes you snap at the most mundane posts with a lot of bile and vitiriol.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1011630The random elements are part of what makes it fun for the referee.  I will have an NPC's general attitude described, but.. is she in a good mood or a bad mood today?  That influences what happens after she says "Who dares invade the sanctuary of the Queen of Pain and Delight?"

We've seen behind the screen, Gronan rolls dice for his reaction rolls to posts! :p

Quote from: S'mon;1011628Well, Voros does like to hugely misinterpret me sometimes. :D

There are completely randomized OSR dungeons, Castle Gargantua and Dungeon Full of Momsters for instance. And there are those on DF or K&KA who claim to have built dungeons just using the dungeon tables in the 1e DMG.

Just because one can do something, does not mean one should.

There is, or at least used to be, a contest for the most obtuse and hard to understand C program.  Anybody who pulled any of that shit in a work environment should be fired immediately.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1011765Just because one can do something, does not mean one should.

Or shouldn't. My brother once ran an off-the-cuff AD&D game using primarily random encounters and the random dungeon generator. It was a blast and we all had a lot of fun. He'd interpret the rolls to create scenarios. "Why are the gnomes in the goblin cave? Let's find out."

Quote from: Voros;1011739There are completely randomized OSR dungeons, Castle Gargantua and Dungeon Full of Momsters for instance. And there are those on DF or K&KA who claim to have built dungeons just using the dungeon tables in the 1e DMG.

I have never seen anyone on DF or K&KA say that randomization is the 'best' approach to a megadungeon.  I've seen people messing around with Appendix A and discussing it - something I suspect 95% of the people who've owned the DMG have done.  But I've never even seen anyone dogmatically constructing their dungeons using that tool alone, unless they were a noobie who's coming for advice because they thought that's what people did.  And then they were given better advice.

Please don't use DF or K&KA as a boogeyman.

But I didn't say anyone on those forums said it was the best way did I?

I said they 'claim they have bult dungeons just using the dungeon tables in 1e DMG' as an example of people discussing using complete randomization to build dungeons since some suggested that fully randomized dungeons didn't exist.

I was no more using it as a boogeyman than I was using Castle Gargantua (which I own) or Dungeon Full of Monsters (whose designer's other work I like and intend to pick up sometime) as 'boogeymen.'

Quote from: Voros;1011739There are completely randomized OSR dungeons, Castle Gargantua and Dungeon Full of Momsters for instance. And there are those on DF or K&KA who claim to have built dungeons just using the dungeon tables in the 1e DMG.

I think you know I wasn't talking about randomly generating dungeons (I rem using computer generated dungeons in the early 2000s - they sucked). I just meant stuff like having a wandering monster table, maybe a separate restock table, maybe a minor room contents table.  Stonehell has some areas like the Crypts in the Quiet Halls that use a special random contents table; it works well in context because a dark power is randomly generating undead. But there is also lots of keyed stuff.

Yeah I think we're not far off, I was referring more to some of the blog links that seemed really loose in approach (eg. the Hack and Slash post). I think that approach can work well for any kind of game with an experienced GM but most newer or even moderately experienced DMs could seriously struggle or burn out using that approach too much.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1011630Much like a good outdoor sandbox is mostly outlined with some randomized elements, so is a good dungeon.

The random elements are part of what makes it fun for the referee.  I will have an NPC's general attitude described, but.. is she in a good mood or a bad mood today?  That influences what happens after she says "Who dares invade the sanctuary of the Queen of Pain and Delight?"

In the video game design world, we tossed out the term "randomization" for the term "procedural generation". This is a great example, the mental state of the NPC is procedurally generated at the time it is important (as opposed to "pre-rendered when the area was designed"). The GM has to be OK with not knowing the NPCs mental state until it becomes important, and be able to incorporate the result of the procedural process with the other events happening in the scene.

Castle Gargantua is a really good, creative version of a megadungeon.  It's a bit sparse on reward for my taste, and if you don't control some of the randomization it can occasionally end up being repetitive but on the whole it's very interesting.