Two critical pieces of megadungeons is the logistical component and the issue of a living world.
If the mega dungeon is not in a town it becomes a massive logistical puzzle to explore while supplying said exploration. Even if it is in a town the players will not be able to obtain everything they need immediately. They will have to send for specialized supplies or commission them to be made (within x number of sessions/weeks). There are food and potions to consider as well.
Nextly there is the issue of a living world. I.e the dungeon reacts to being invaded. This could be in the form of the PCs killing monster X causing monster Y to start encroaching on the cleared territory, other adventuring groups trying to clear other parts of the dungeon out (either getting themselves killed, triggering golems or other defenses, stealing loot, ambushing the party, etc).
As an aside I have taken to using “x type tools and equipment”, such as “mining tools” or “thief tools”. The players, upon needing a specific item, such as a pickaxe, can convert their “mining tools” item permanently into a pickaxe. This has proven to be a happy medium of limited resources and planning versus “haha you didn’t pack enough magic frying pans guess you gotta wait another week losers.”
Then there is the town itself. The town will change and react especially if things follow the players back. I sometimes find cities can be more interesting than towns for players who like politics. Having a dungeon with monsters capable of killing a ton of people is a problem a city has to deal with, and how the players interact with a cities government can be a session in itself. Especially if the players find a rare/dangerous artifact and some within the city WANT to buy it and may have issues taking no for an answer. This is typically downtime fodder rather than active session stuff, unless the players express an interest.
As another aside, slowly building up a cast of NPCs in a town or city only to have a bunch die off due to the PCs making a mistake can be very impactful. Not so much because the players care about the NPCs as people but more so because the town they’ve built up through their sessions got savaged.
For a hex-crawl campaign (or any sort of game with travel and exploration). Once the players hit a sufficient level/fame/group size (not just PCs but henchmen, hirelings, laborers, specialists, etc), but before they’re big enough to set up a base/castle/territory, I sometimes do (i.e recommend) what I’d call an “expedition” which is a large organized group with the purpose of fully exploring a megadungeon.
The point of this is multifacteted.
1. Patron play with the high leveled PC characters, where they are the expedition leaders and instead of exploring are tasked instead with managing the expedition and moving in for the extreme threats the expedition uncovers
2. Building up a cast of lower level but still powerful Npcs and future servants and retainers for the territory building stage. The players will have the option to control these characters during explorations instead of their main PCs (which is encouraged, due to them being more expendable). Having the players play them and thus craft stories and build investment via gameplay is a lot more effective than a random NPC table.
3. get the players comfortable with higher logistical complexity and longer term planing but not overloading them with territory management.
4. Building up a proper stockpile of loot and artifacts for the territory management stage both for PCs and retainer PCs/NPCs
I could go deeper into this but I’ve found its an excellent bridge between small party games and territory/keep management games. The biggest thing is to let PCs maintain control over the high level patron PCs. Clearly marking whom I as a GM have control over during a session is also critical for player decision making.
I've been playtesting Rick Barton's truly enormous THE HALLS OF ARDEN VUL (something like a million words!) 6/7/8 times a year for most of the last decade. I think he said it took him eleven years to write, around work. Our current campaign is a big quest narrative that hasn't entered the dungeon proper at all, focusing instead on various scattered mini-dungeons.
Knowing that we would literally never see it all, I got impatient and started doing solo stuff in /around the original AV, the first arc of which is still in front of the paywall for a couple more weeks, for the curious.
Give me a narratively satisfying 5-room dungeon over a mega dungeon any day of the week. Dungeons are interesting because of their relationship to the surrounding world, Versailles is interesting because of what it says about the corrupting power of the monarchy.
Mega dungeons, by definition, are isolated from the outside world. The personal pocket world of some powerful being uninterested in engaging with or living in the broader world.
22 floors and space for over 9,000 people (including crew). That's my current mega dungeon in an Isekai style game. Whole ship and everyone on board got sucked into my world. Monsters chased out the passengers, top three decks sealed off with a deadly purple energy. Refugees find a ruined town on the coast where signage is in Spanish and start rebuilding. Your character is one of the survivors. Got your town, your big dungeon and a reason to explore. Go.
My favorite is sadly hard to find. The old Iron Crown Enterprises Mines of Moria. Was an exquisite mega dungeon. The remake is meh. Can't get PDFs anywhere. I've been really tempted to scan mine and send it to I.C.E. but my copy was in a fire and isn't in great shape. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.
Thanks a great read, I was looking for a good reference to megadungeons (how to create, expand and examples) for future plans in my WIP DnD story. This one is going into my writer's resources file.
I like the Idea of MegaDungeons because it lets you bid a tight simulation of a specific place, The town and the megadungeon. There could be politicking of course with factions, and you could even send PC's hex crawling if they need to find ways of getting past certain things in the dungeon, or even better, gone so low that they are in labyrinth of caves that need to be measured in 100 meter or larger hexes.
I have run campaigns for essentially my whole adult life. Some of my best, going by player feedback, were megadungeons. They are absolutely a viable way to run an RPG.
Mine, Skull Mountain, started in 1982.
It’s about 180 miles east-west, 160 north-south, and is max 1,800’/16 levels deep.
(It includes subterranean rivers & roads, thus the long distances)
Oh wow! I’d love to see some pictures/notes- do you have a blog? Or if not, I’m happy to host some on I Cast Light!
I think a lot of folks would be interest to see a megadungeon that stretches that far back
Here is a brief entry on one of the levels added by player characters over the decades
https://harbingergames.blogspot.com/2020/04/seaward-company-of-dark-moon.html?m=0
https://harbingergames.blogspot.com/?m=0
I also have a discord for gaming
IS THIS A DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS POST ON SUBSTACK??!
GRACIAS SUBSTACK ALGORITHM FOR BLESSING ME 😭🙏
BRO SAME
Two critical pieces of megadungeons is the logistical component and the issue of a living world.
If the mega dungeon is not in a town it becomes a massive logistical puzzle to explore while supplying said exploration. Even if it is in a town the players will not be able to obtain everything they need immediately. They will have to send for specialized supplies or commission them to be made (within x number of sessions/weeks). There are food and potions to consider as well.
Nextly there is the issue of a living world. I.e the dungeon reacts to being invaded. This could be in the form of the PCs killing monster X causing monster Y to start encroaching on the cleared territory, other adventuring groups trying to clear other parts of the dungeon out (either getting themselves killed, triggering golems or other defenses, stealing loot, ambushing the party, etc).
As an aside I have taken to using “x type tools and equipment”, such as “mining tools” or “thief tools”. The players, upon needing a specific item, such as a pickaxe, can convert their “mining tools” item permanently into a pickaxe. This has proven to be a happy medium of limited resources and planning versus “haha you didn’t pack enough magic frying pans guess you gotta wait another week losers.”
Then there is the town itself. The town will change and react especially if things follow the players back. I sometimes find cities can be more interesting than towns for players who like politics. Having a dungeon with monsters capable of killing a ton of people is a problem a city has to deal with, and how the players interact with a cities government can be a session in itself. Especially if the players find a rare/dangerous artifact and some within the city WANT to buy it and may have issues taking no for an answer. This is typically downtime fodder rather than active session stuff, unless the players express an interest.
As another aside, slowly building up a cast of NPCs in a town or city only to have a bunch die off due to the PCs making a mistake can be very impactful. Not so much because the players care about the NPCs as people but more so because the town they’ve built up through their sessions got savaged.
Continuing on:
For a hex-crawl campaign (or any sort of game with travel and exploration). Once the players hit a sufficient level/fame/group size (not just PCs but henchmen, hirelings, laborers, specialists, etc), but before they’re big enough to set up a base/castle/territory, I sometimes do (i.e recommend) what I’d call an “expedition” which is a large organized group with the purpose of fully exploring a megadungeon.
The point of this is multifacteted.
1. Patron play with the high leveled PC characters, where they are the expedition leaders and instead of exploring are tasked instead with managing the expedition and moving in for the extreme threats the expedition uncovers
2. Building up a cast of lower level but still powerful Npcs and future servants and retainers for the territory building stage. The players will have the option to control these characters during explorations instead of their main PCs (which is encouraged, due to them being more expendable). Having the players play them and thus craft stories and build investment via gameplay is a lot more effective than a random NPC table.
3. get the players comfortable with higher logistical complexity and longer term planing but not overloading them with territory management.
4. Building up a proper stockpile of loot and artifacts for the territory management stage both for PCs and retainer PCs/NPCs
I could go deeper into this but I’ve found its an excellent bridge between small party games and territory/keep management games. The biggest thing is to let PCs maintain control over the high level patron PCs. Clearly marking whom I as a GM have control over during a session is also critical for player decision making.
I've been playtesting Rick Barton's truly enormous THE HALLS OF ARDEN VUL (something like a million words!) 6/7/8 times a year for most of the last decade. I think he said it took him eleven years to write, around work. Our current campaign is a big quest narrative that hasn't entered the dungeon proper at all, focusing instead on various scattered mini-dungeons.
Knowing that we would literally never see it all, I got impatient and started doing solo stuff in /around the original AV, the first arc of which is still in front of the paywall for a couple more weeks, for the curious.
https://randallhayes.substack.com/p/cap-and-co-part-1
I only have one mega dungeon in my entire world of Faelorian, but the story has the players too busy 😕
Give me a narratively satisfying 5-room dungeon over a mega dungeon any day of the week. Dungeons are interesting because of their relationship to the surrounding world, Versailles is interesting because of what it says about the corrupting power of the monarchy.
Mega dungeons, by definition, are isolated from the outside world. The personal pocket world of some powerful being uninterested in engaging with or living in the broader world.
I thought I worked hard on a 70-80 room dungeon for Dungeons and Designs, but you just inspired me, there’s so much more I could have done.
I’m going to read this tomorrow
Great article. Currently running Ravenloft and my players are more interested in the dungeon than the castle haha
In terms of the realism of the space, here is the floor plan of the Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship on Earth currently : https://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruise-ships/icon-of-the-seas/deck-plans/2287/07
22 floors and space for over 9,000 people (including crew). That's my current mega dungeon in an Isekai style game. Whole ship and everyone on board got sucked into my world. Monsters chased out the passengers, top three decks sealed off with a deadly purple energy. Refugees find a ruined town on the coast where signage is in Spanish and start rebuilding. Your character is one of the survivors. Got your town, your big dungeon and a reason to explore. Go.
My favorite is sadly hard to find. The old Iron Crown Enterprises Mines of Moria. Was an exquisite mega dungeon. The remake is meh. Can't get PDFs anywhere. I've been really tempted to scan mine and send it to I.C.E. but my copy was in a fire and isn't in great shape. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.
Thanks a great read, I was looking for a good reference to megadungeons (how to create, expand and examples) for future plans in my WIP DnD story. This one is going into my writer's resources file.
Tower Dungeon rules! Very soulsborne vibes. Go check it out if you haven’t!
I like the Idea of MegaDungeons because it lets you bid a tight simulation of a specific place, The town and the megadungeon. There could be politicking of course with factions, and you could even send PC's hex crawling if they need to find ways of getting past certain things in the dungeon, or even better, gone so low that they are in labyrinth of caves that need to be measured in 100 meter or larger hexes.
any dwarffortress player would agree this is the only way :)
I have run campaigns for essentially my whole adult life. Some of my best, going by player feedback, were megadungeons. They are absolutely a viable way to run an RPG.
a megapint of wine