What I like:

As a player, I have a high degree of control over my risk.  While risk is lumpy on a given level, there is usually a range to the lumpiness.  This isn't true of the wilderness, as I am used to running it and seeing it run.  The wilderness is not level-scaled in any way.

Since this is a self-contained area, reality can be warped however the DM pleases without the necessity of consistency or fitting it into a broader whole.  I can sit back and enjoy the b-side of the DM's mind.

I can get out of the pool any time I choose.  Yes, I could leave another adventure in the same way but in the default dungeon set-up there are no expectations of commitment, ever.  (I may become committed, by geas or quest, etc., or choose to commit myself - but pending a change the default is I can leave when I want.)

Dungeon combat when chanced is often highly tactical, as there's almost always elevation in the immediate area

It's a stalking horse for my own player skill.  Can I survive if I plump a level or two deeper than my own character level?

Several people mentioned they like mapping.  

Who maps?  Players?  DM?

If its the players is it based on verbal description?  Do they get it wrong?  If they do do you tell them or just let them get lost.  

Bad maps seem like a great way to increase the sense of risk and clostriaphopia.  Make it more accurate to what spelunking is actually like.  But, completely destroy player DM comunication and trust.   Unless you had increadibly high comunication skills and trust on both sides to start with.

Quote from: Headless;998523Several people mentioned they like mapping.  

Who maps?  Players?  DM?

If its the players is it based on verbal description?  Do they get it wrong?  If they do do you tell them or just let them get lost.  

Bad maps seem like a great way to increase the sense of risk and clostriaphopia.  Make it more accurate to what spelunking is actually like.  But, completely destroy player DM comunication and trust.   Unless you had increadibly high comunication skills and trust on both sides to start with.

Referee verbally narrates, players map.

It does indeed increase the sense of risk and claustrophobia; see my comment above about being wringing wet with nervous sweat.  "Did we get teleported or does our map suck?"

I have not observed that it harms referee /player communication or trust at all.

I only ever liked one 'megadungeon', and that was AD&D 2e's Undermountain.  For the most part, I find the idea of a random series of rooms with an Orc, Goblin and a Troll, that somehow don't interact (What you don't think the Troll would have eaten the other two by the time the PC's arrive??) a little disconcerting.  Then again, I am one of those new age freaks who likes context for his tomb or ruin.  And that's what helped make Undermountain's gonzo acceptable to me.

There IS a reason as to why it exists, a Mad Wizard did it.  Who may or may not be alive, but there's enough of his magic to pull in the next group of unlucky monsters and/or treasure to play with.

Quote from: Headless;998523Who maps?

One or more players. Based on a verbal description. And if they get it wrong their map is wrong. And no the DM doesn't tell them. And yes it does require an acquired ability by the DM to consistently describe the rooms, halls, and such and an acquired ability by the player(s) to listen carefully and then translate that into a drawing.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;998573For the most part, I find the idea of a random series of rooms with an Orc, Goblin and a Troll, that somehow don't interact (What you don't think the Troll would have eaten the other two by the time the PC's arrive??) a little disconcerting.

We were taught to have a lot of empty space between encounter rooms.  Interestingly, as early as 1975 people were bitching "Apparently Gygax thinks empty rooms are fun!"

Also, the fiction that drew the largest number of people into the hobby during those first years when it was growing exponentially had scenes set in beyond-epic megadungeons. Goblin Gate is dozens of miles long, and Moria is basically infinite. So, the concept of the megadungeon as an infinite underworld you dip into and then escape is deep in our hobby's DNA.

As a related aside, our hobby's greatest shame is that not one seems to have ever attempted to create a real detailed dungeon based on Moria. It is sitting right in front of us. It is the original, platonic ideal of the dungeon, yet we are such chicken shits that we've never taken it on. I don't count ICE's take on it, or the boxed set for the Lord of the Rings rpg. Those are both good products, but they both take the low road and describe it in abstract terms or through random tables you are supposed to use to fill things in. Maybe someday the hero will be born who does this for real.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;998631We were taught to have a lot of empty space between encounter rooms.  Interestingly, as early as 1975 people were bitching "Apparently Gygax thinks empty rooms are fun!"

The issue that I have is that why doesn't the troll leave the room to eat?  Again, it's a me thing.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;998631We were taught to have a lot of empty space between encounter rooms.  Interestingly, as early as 1975 people were bitching "Apparently Gygax thinks empty rooms are fun!"

A fair number of empty rooms was the expected outcome if one used the random method in the rules for determining if a room was empty or not. And we (me and the other high school and junior high students I gamed with way back when) always created some linkages between the inhabitants in certain nearby rooms. This stuff all seemed pretty obvious common sense to us at the time. Plus empty rooms made opening the door to a room more suspenseful than it would have been if every room was occupied.  Plus the added tactical opportunities afforded by empty rooms.

Quote from: Larsdangly;998659As a related aside, our hobby's greatest shame is that not one seems to have ever attempted to create a real detailed dungeon based on Moria. It is sitting right in front of us. It is the original, platonic ideal of the dungeon, yet we are such chicken shits that we've never taken it on.

Based on what we see in the fiction (bunch of goblins, some dead dwarves, a few trolls, and one balrog) Moria would make a rather dull megadungeon.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;998664The issue that I have is that why doesn't the troll leave the room to eat?  Again, it's a me thing.

Because adventurers are the troll version of pizza delivery. And who said the troll didn't leave the room. Where do you think wandering monsters came from?

Quote from: Larsdangly;998659Also, the fiction that drew the largest number of people into the hobby during those first years when it was growing exponentially had scenes set in beyond-epic megadungeons. Goblin Gate is dozens of miles long, and Moria is basically infinite. So, the concept of the megadungeon as an infinite underworld you dip into and then escape is deep in our hobby's DNA.

As a related aside, our hobby's greatest shame is that not one seems to have ever attempted to create a real detailed dungeon based on Moria. It is sitting right in front of us. It is the original, platonic ideal of the dungeon, yet we are such chicken shits that we've never taken it on. I don't count ICE's take on it, or the boxed set for the Lord of the Rings rpg. Those are both good products, but they both take the low road and describe it in abstract terms or through random tables you are supposed to use to fill things in. Maybe someday the hero will be born who does this for real.

There is an adventure set in Moira in an issue of White Dwarf that is quite good although it doesn't attempt to detail the whole thing obviously.

Quote from: Bren;998672Because adventurers are the troll version of pizza delivery. And who said the troll didn't leave the room. Where do you think wandering monsters came from?

I think his point is if the troll left the room why wouldn't it have killed the goblins?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;998664The issue that I have is that why doesn't the troll leave the room to eat?  Again, it's a me thing.

Who says it doesn't?

Quote from: Voros;998950I think his point is if the troll left the room why wouldn't it have killed the goblins?

Maybe it did kill some. Or maybe goblin just isn't as tasty as adventurer.

I always figured that D&D trolls' rubbery physique (I think that's how they were originally described) and magical regeneration meant that they didn't need to eat very often. So they might patiently gnaw a few old bones while waiting for something tasty to drop in.

And how far away are the goblins?  See previous comment about empty rooms.