Count me among those not terribly interested in a megadungeon.

Instead, I'd like to see those principles applied to something like an ancient ruin. Or.... I dunno.

If I ran a megadungeon, I'd rather have a book that helped me create my own as opposed to running someone else's.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;622903You mean like the Geomorph meme started by Dyson Logos, but with full(y statted) megadungeon levels instead?




Zak, there's your perfect follow-up project.

That, and "Outdoorheim: The Complete Wilderness Kit".

I like it.

"Aquaheim: The Complete Ocean Kit"

Quote from: CRKrueger;622873Ben - I think he's leading the pack with ideas and philosophies about what a mega dungeon is as a thing unto itself with it's own logic and rationale as well as it's use as a campaign locus.

Quote from: jadrax;622896I must admit having looked over some of his threads for ideas, he has produced stuff I could actually see myself having fun running.

Thank you guys. My own megadungeon is growing steadily, and I can tell you I'll do everything I can for it to see the light of publication. I don't know how long that's going to take, there's a lot of work that remains to be done, a lot of actual play that needs doing as well, with the inevitable revisions that'll come out of it all, but what I can promise you is that I won't speed the process for the sake of a buck and I won't ask money to people for something I didn't yet design in the first place. And it'll be a megadungeon. A genuine megadungeon, or as genuine as a module format would allow it, in any case (that's a design issue from my standpoint, in and of itself).

Quote from: Benoist;622914And it'll be a megadungeon. A genuine megadungeon, or as genuine as a module format would allow it, in any case (that's a design issue from my standpoint, in and of itself).

I was looking over your very cool thread, and it reminds me of things back in the day quite a bit.  I'll have to come up with some good feedback over there.  Rob Kuntz stopped by there!  That's always cool to see.

So, some thoughts on the products made.  I have a pretty critical eye for city adventures.  So, that likely colors my approach to these large dungeons.

The mega-dungeons that have been published don’t seem to suffer from a desire to publish creative ideas.  Rather, they fail in the technical writing needed to bring all of the components together into a cohesive whole that may be used as intended. Taking a volume of creative content and using technical writing to bring it into a cohesive easily used whole is not an easy task.  Perhaps one way one could approach this would be to present it as an extremely large version of Mike Carr’s Caverns of Quasqueton from In Search of Unknown and combine it with something like The Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch.  The mega-dungeons about today keep attempting to present the content like a blown up Temple of the Frog, Hommlet or Caves of Chaos.  The size of the mega-dungeon makes the mental juggling act needed to visualize a live campaign with that many components really unlikely for most without a different design and layout than found in small dungeons.

Edit:  I didn't answer the original question.  I would like one of Kuntz extra-large unpublished dungeons to see print, if there could be found a way to present the module's design and layout in a way that would preserve its game play intent.

I wish Rob Kuntz would get over being the "Faye Dunaway of Gaming" long enough to actually publish the Greyhawk Castle levels he designed and still owns the rights to (Machine Level, Boreal Level, etc.) in the same manner as was done with Bottle City, ideally with an overall schematic map and short summary of what was on the missing (i.e. Gygax-designed) levels in-between.

Quote from: Kuroth;622918I was looking over your very cool thread, and it reminds me of things back in the day quite a bit.  I'll have to come up with some good feedback over there.  Rob Kuntz stopped by there!  That's always cool to see.

It is, for sure. And please feel free to share your feedback any time. I'd appreciate it.

Quote from: Kuroth;622918So, some thoughts on the products made.  I have a pretty critical eye for city adventures.  So, that likely colors my approach to these large dungeons.

I get that.

Quote from: Kuroth;622918The mega-dungeons that have been published don’t seem to suffer from a desire to publish creative ideas.  Rather, they fail in the technical writing needed to bring all of the components together into a cohesive whole that may be used as intend. Taking a volume of creative content and using technical writing to bring it into a cohesive easily used whole is not an easy task.

It's not.

Quote from: Kuroth;622918Perhaps one way one could approach this would be to present it as an extremely large version of Mike Carr’s Caverns of Quasqueton from In Search of Unknown and combine it with something like The Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch.  The mega-dungeons about today keep attempting to present the content like a blown up Temple of the Frog, Hommlet or Caves of Chaos.  The size of the mega-dungeon makes the mental juggling act needed to visualize a live campaign with that many components really unlikely for most without a different design and layout than found in small dungeons.

I think it could be done in a variety of ways, combining different components and approaches. I think some of it has to do with expectations on the DMs' parts, which pretty much demand some aspect of "format authenticity", especially with respect to some quarters of the "old school" dungeoneering crowd (you've read this stuff before: "the description format should be this way, not that way, there shouldn't be this or that otherwise it sucks, it's useless, and I won't run it"), whereas making some of the things which were implicit in the dungeon formats of old explicit now with a variety of components that help bring the place alive not only at the game table, but in the DM's brain, would require some rethinking of that format itself.

I'm cool with the traditional dungeon format by the way. I like anything from Tegel Manor to the Hidden Shrine of Tomaochan like many other dungeoneering DMs who'd "like the good stuff", you know. I want to keep seeing those kinds of modules, and would like to write some of that stuff myself in the future, because when you have the right approach as a DM, it just works. That's it. Period.

It doesn't work for everyone, however. What I'd like to do as well is bring some tweaks to the presentation and format which would hopefully help bring the environment alive for the DM prepping and running the stuff. There are several components to this: the ability for the DM to comprehend the environment on a macro as well as a micro scale, the detail of the descriptions, the way they are written, the way they involve game mechanics, the way they relate to one another to create a web or tapestry level per level and across them. I could go on. Let's just say that yes, there's ample room for innovation in that regard.

I understand and agree with what you are saying here.  That's for sure.  We definitely always need cool new normal sized dungeons done in the usual ways!  These true mega-dungeons have special issues, as we both mention.  Holding the micro and the macro at the same time is what makes for great DMing. Don't get gun shy thinking about the challenge of put it all together!  I look forward to reading your updates over on your thread.

My own.

Ben's efforts are immensely inspirational and I still intend to find the time to follow in the footsteps he's been laying out over at this epic thread.

Quote from: Kuroth;622925I understand and agree with what you are saying here.  That's for sure.  We definitely always need cool new normal sized dungeons done in the usual ways!  These true mega-dungeons have special issues, as we both mention.  Holding the micro and the macro at the same time is what makes for great DMing. Don't get gun shy thinking about the challenge of put it all together!  I look forward to reading your updates over on your thread.

I'll get back to it soon. Feel free to leave your feedback there any time.

Quote from: The Butcher;622928My own.

Here's my answer to the OP: I want to see the Butcher's mega-dungeon come to life and kick all kinds of asses!

Quote from: Benoist;622935Here's my answer to the OP: I want to see the Butcher's mega-dungeon come to life and kick all kinds of asses!

Thanks. You've set the bar pretty high, mister.

Quote from: Kuroth;622918The mega-dungeons that have been published don't seem to suffer from a desire to publish creative ideas.  Rather, they fail in the technical writing needed to bring all of the components together into a cohesive whole that may be used as intended.

Any specifics?  And feel free to call me out if I'm your example.

There's only a handful out there.  I disagree that there are big problems publishing them, other than the sheer volume of work involved.  When I read most of the proposed ways to publish a megadungeon "properly" (by people who don't publish, usually, so more theorizing there than actual practice), it mostly seems to me like shortcuts so you don't have to write as much.

Quote from: PatW;622951When I read most of the proposed ways to publish a megadungeon "properly" (by people who don't publish, usually, so more theorizing there than actual practice), it mostly seems to me like shortcuts so you don't have to write as much.

Any specifics? That remark puzzled me.

I think a good megadungeon product should start with the kind of quick-but-complete list of contents you might find in a review, like:

"Ok, the first level is mostly goblins and a few goblin traps and then there are a couple access points to the 2nd and 3rd levels.

The 2nd level has a weird water trap/puzzle (p 93) which is the centerpiece of the whole lower half and also the first really difficult monster and also introduces the idea that the frog-demons are fighting the insect-demons, it has several sort of 'spooky' traps, if you want an idea of what they're like, check page 54..."

One thing that I hate is when you pretty much have to read all the way through a dungeon just to get an honest holistic view of how its put together and what it's like. With megadungeons its way worse because the whole point is they're long.

After that, I think the rooms themselves should be in Stonehell/One Page Dungeon format.

Quote from: Benoist;622955Any specifics? That jab puzzles me.

Didn't intend it as a jab.  Here are some of the ideas floating around that I'm not fond of:

a. The idea that a megadungeon should be a collection of advice on how to run the dungeon with less focus on the contents of the dungeon.  You move monsters around in reaction to players in a semi-sensible way - that doesn't need much more than a paragraph or two, if you even include it.  If your dungeon is piles of combat encounters then I guess you could go this sort of direction, but I like the ratios presented in Moldvay for traps & specials - which weight the dungeon very heavy towards detailed rooms.

b. The idea that dungeons should be more table-driven.  Tables are great when you need to wing it, but if it's a dungeon level I'm paying for, I really want somebody else to do the work properly.

This is a collection of "past impressions" over a few years of reading forum threads and blog posts, so it's probably a caricature of peoples' real positions.

Overall I think that the TSR-era published module format works really well for megadungeons 90% of the time.

Since I'm griping, another thing I don't like is the notion that a dungeon with monsters in only 33% of the rooms is empty.  If you go by the tables in Moldvay Basic (I don't have OD&D so I can't say what went on in there), those "empty" rooms have traps, treasures, and "specials" - in actuality only 16% of rooms are truly empty, in the sense they have nothing of interest.

Quote from: PatW;622959Didn't intend it as a jab.

Yeah, sorry. I immediately reworded it afterwards.

Quote from: PatW;622959Here are some of the ideas floating around that I'm not fond of:

a. The idea that a megadungeon should be a collection of advice on how to run the dungeon with less focus on the contents of the dungeon.  You move monsters around in reaction to players in a semi-sensible way - that doesn't need much more than a paragraph or two, if you even include it.  If your dungeon is piles of combat encounters then I guess you could go this sort of direction, but I like the ratios presented in Moldvay for traps & specials - which weight the dungeon very heavy towards detailed rooms.

b. The idea that dungeons should be more table-driven.  Tables are great when you need to wing it, but if it's a dungeon level I'm paying for, I really want somebody else to do the work properly.

I agree on both counts.

About (a) specifically, I don't think you've got to either basically change a module into an "how to" kind of advice OR you have the TSR kind of format we all know where this stuff remains strictly implicit. There are other ways to present the information in an actually useful way, with the design itself, the description of areas themselves and the like. I think that going all out into a manual format would be a bad thing as well.

Quote from: PatW;622959Overall I think that the TSR-era published module format works really well for megadungeons 90% of the time.

The TSR format works for some DMs. That's a fact. It doesn't mean it's the optimal format for every user out there, however. I think there's room for variations and different ways to present the environment, some of which might be more useful for different types of DMs out there.

Quote from: PatW;622959Since I'm griping, another thing I don't like is the notion that a dungeon with monsters in only 33% of the rooms is empty.  If you go by the tables in Moldvay Basic (I don't have OD&D so I can't say what went on in there), those "empty" rooms have traps, treasures, and "specials" - in actuality only 16% of rooms are truly empty, in the sense they have nothing of interest.

It's an art, not a science. I completely agree that kind of advice shouldn't be taken as a "it must be the case or it's bad" kind of thing. It'd be missing the forest for the trees. The point is variety, the variation of contents and treasures and monsters and traps and not. After, I think DMs can and should find their own personal sweet spot themselves.