Megadungeon as a sub-system.


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

The Exchange

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Friend and I got talkinga about running mega dungeons. The scope of one as a campaign, how you run the whole dungeons. How plots can come out of them.

One thought I had was the dungeons could have a series of goals for each floor. Like finding a safe house, taking out a monster camp, find how to get into a temple. Etc. Each has specific rewards and counts towards control for that area of the dungeon. As the floors get deeper/bigger there are more and more optional paths and options. Depending on if the PC's want to clear an area, or just create a safe passage to more rewarding areas lower.

And the other thought that came up is you can have a basecamp system much like city management. Bring treasure up, watch as the encampment around the entrance grows. Same goes for your safehouses deeper inside, possible merchants and hirelings to expand your operation. Do you pick up a sponsor as you gain in success. Like the Pathfinders or Aspis?

You could build a whole Ultimate Campaign style safehouse/dungeon map path system out of it. Area of control and reward.

Thoughts?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I can't discuss megadungeons without thinking about Dungeon Master nowadays. It is a very old computer game that presented a 14 level dungeon using pretty simple means to great effect. It's a bit small to count as a "classic" megadungeon a la Undermountain or the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk, but other dungeons today have gotten smaller, so it should fit.

What it does is that it sets up a primary goal that requires traversing the entire dungeon, it gives some backstory on this, you need to deal with food (monster bits, usually) and water (from fountains) since there is no "town level", it has multi-level plots, sub-areas that put you before some particular dilemma, optional content to find, safe areas to rest, and so on.

Yes, it works beautifully. It is, however, limited in the form of no NPCs to interact with. Expanding the concept, then, would primarily involve larger "trade routes" across larger distances, and settled areas of various races, places they consider theirs and will defend from invasion.

Yes, Ultimate Campaign sounds like a good fit.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Ya. I was thinking so too. Scaled back rules for caravaning or 'kingdom' building. But more just henchmen and base management.

Hell, I remember Dungeon Hack Sissyl. I was there too during those days.

Grimrock gives me many happy memories.


Too few of us around from those halcyon days. You can never assume.


A dungeon i really wanted to try was made in the 3.0/3.5 days.

I present to you, the World's Largest Dungeon

you can get a used copy for only... $119.95: Amazon


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back, Dungeon Master 2, Black Crypt 1st Eye Of The Beholder... *sigh*

Is there a chance for me to assemble a team of players that would enjoy a large dungeon these days?

And for some ideas:

Have a mercane/witchwyrd encounter somewhere in the dungeon - possibly needing help/rescue. if the party succeeds with this side quest the mercane/witchwyrd estabilishes a ye olde magice shoppe. Mercanes would be a better pick, I think, because their plane shift ability better explains how do they replenish supplies and get rid of loot they bought from the party.

Similarly, rescuing/meeting various NPCs would supply the camp with various services available at camp and grant access to magic items of corresponding types. I use similar system in my current campaign where party is part of the effort to reclaim half-ruined city from monsters infesting it. (Pool Of Radiance anyone?) Because the party didn't picked p the mission to investigate local "garden" in time they did not meet the druid NPC there. Drawback is that they can't get amulets of natural armor or other druid-themed items in the town because of this.

Other possible missions to develop camp:

- cleanse sewers/waterhole/water pumps of monsters or fungus infestation to gain access to fresh water (try brewing potions without water).
- repair mirrors spreading the light through the underground garden to gain access to fresh plants and herbs...
- reclaim forges to gain access to better crafting facilities.

I might be spending too much time in Moria in LOTRO...

The Exchange

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Sissyl wrote:
Too few of us around from those halcyon days. You can never assume.

Aye. A player of ROGUE and not just ROGUE-Likes.


Oh, the thrill of fighting a zruty!!!

... I just realized... I am a nerd...

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Two words for you: Wizardry 8.

Skizzlefrits wrote:

A dungeon i really wanted to try was made in the 3.0/3.5 days.

I present to you, the World's Largest Dungeon

you can get a used copy for only... $119.95: Amazon

You can get this item from DriveThruRPG for about $39. The same idea would work with Rappan Athuk, too. Same price, even.

On topic: The "Megadungeon-meets-Kingdom-Builder" idea sounds like a lot of fun, TheLoneCleric. It's not really a stretch to imagine a megadungeon as a sort of natural resource - why wouldn't a trading post spring up around one? You could even go so far as to have masons and carpenters go into cleared levels and fortify the walls, standardize and brighten up the architecture, and use the space to create cheap storage, forges, shops and workshops, alchemists' and mages' labs...


I still have an original physical hardback copy of World's Largest Dungeon I keep meaning to play some day.

I've also had a project on the back-burner for years for some kind of open, collaborative wiki-style dungeon that people can dive in and add to.

The Exchange

Being the occupants of a dungeon has been touched on a few times - AD&D had "Reverse Dungeon" in which the players took the role of goblins trying to prepare for an adventurer onslaught, while I believe the Undermountain boxed set had some rules for how to handle "PC settlement." I agree that UC's settlement-building rules, with certain adaptations, would do well in reflecting the concept (Repurposing dungeon rooms is likely to be cheaper than building a whole new building in terms of Goods and Labor, and importing food is likely to be an issue once you have a regular garrison, and so on...) The Contacts rules could also be used to reflect relationships with any neighbors you're not at war with.


Sissyl wrote:

Oh, the thrill of fighting a zruty!!!

... I just realized... I am a nerd...

Find me one poster on this site that *isn't* :D

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Applying the same system in reverse, when you're building a dungeon the "Rooms" system can be useful in determining the original functions of the now abandoned and often repurposed areas. The dungeon's original function (evil temple, hidden vault, etc.) usually has some rough equivalent in the 'sample' buildings listed in the UC - just, y'know, underground. I tend to design my dungeons that way already but it can be a big help to GMs who feel they've fallen into a rut of interchangeable, empty 30x30 rooms with no purpose or explanation.


Lincoln Hills wrote:
Applying the same system in reverse, when you're building a dungeon the "Rooms" system can be useful in determining the original functions of the now abandoned and often repurposed areas. The dungeon's original function (evil temple, hidden vault, etc.) usually has some rough equivalent in the 'sample' buildings listed in the UC - just, y'know, underground. I tend to design my dungeons that way already but it can be a big help to GMs who feel they've fallen into a rut of interchangeable, empty 30x30 rooms with no purpose or explanation.

Hmm. Just realized you could probably go play Dwarf Fortress for a weekend and come out with the perfect map complete with room purposes ;)


2 people marked this as a favorite.

So... A suggestion for backstory: Chaos won. The firestaff was never used. The heroes tried, but failed. Some say they were eaten by a dragon. With their demise, Chaos had time to enfold the entire world in an everlasting ice age. It came over the span of a few years. First crops failed, then starvation set in, then the great ice began to build, and those who were still outside simply died of freezing or thirst. There was a great silence.

But some took refuge in the only remaining safe place: The dungeons of Lord Chaos. It was a shock to learn how to survive, and the uppermost levels are today mass graves, with room after room of simply wrapped corpses. But enough, perhaps a few thousand people, adapted to their new environment. Living off monsters, fighting daily for their food, they made a new society. One made up of all the surface races living together. To be sure, not everyone lived without friction, but as time passed, more halfbreeds were born than in any previous period. Some advances were made. Most impressively, the magic required to excavate 5 * 5 * 5 feet of stone was found. With this, exploration could start in earnest, finding areas never before trod by the feet of anyone alive. Trade routes are being established. By now, most of the surface dwellers have died, but those who remain are typically revered leaders.

Such a campaign would feature new halfbreeds, scavenging instead of crafting, setting traps as part of life, discovering ancient rune magic, huge dungeon networks, ice caverns, and the plots of Lord Chaos...

The Exchange

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Lincoln Hills wrote:
Applying the same system in reverse, when you're building a dungeon the "Rooms" system can be useful in determining the original functions of the now abandoned and often repurposed areas. The dungeon's original function (evil temple, hidden vault, etc.) usually has some rough equivalent in the 'sample' buildings listed in the UC - just, y'know, underground. I tend to design my dungeons that way already but it can be a big help to GMs who feel they've fallen into a rut of interchangeable, empty 30x30 rooms with no purpose or explanation.

True, but true mega dungoens can be full cities. Ever play Skyrim? There is a segment mid-late game where you go to a massive underground Dwarfen city. Loads of open ground, and then 'dungeon-ettes' you have to cross through to get to your target. So each floor of a mega-dungeon might have unique reasons for being there.

Liberty's Edge

I considered utilizing the kingdom building rules when I prepped Rappan Athuk about six months back but the campaign didn't really pan out. I thought it would be neat for the party to slowly tame the land around the various entrances to the dungeon and build a little base of power. I had it all set up for hex crawling as well.

I also introduced a quests system where the group gained XP from performing a big series of quests. The quests were given a CR and handed out about four times the listed CR's XP equivalent so the party would level after a number of quests. Fixed encounters in the dungeon or overland granted only one quarter of the normal XP while wandering monsters and random encounters generated noting. The system worked really well for the time we played and it encouraged delving instead of crawling (they would go in for a purpose and then leave again without slogging through each and every room looking for treasure and XP).


So here's a question I always have about such situations: why wouldn't local civilization do something about said megadungeon?

However back on track: I think rather than crafting a new system UC is probably already chock-full of the things you need. When the PCs first arrive they need a base; that's Downtime. Once they've got their base they'll need to "clear some territory" in the sense that they need to clear a patrollable and defensible collection of rooms to repurpose as they need; that's kingdom building.

In this kind of campaign spells like Charm (insert type), Dominate and others would be extremely helpful. Also using knowledge skills not just to know what a monster is, but what its motivation is. In other words when you hit that ogre early on in the Caves of Chaos, it'd be handy to know he's just got a voracious appetite and because of that you can bribe him w/food.

I suppose my other questions in megadungeons would be:

1. why would monsters hoard treasure if they don't spend coin or use items?
2. are there any GOOD monsters willing to help you in this dungeon?


Mark Hoover wrote:


1. why would monsters hoard treasure if they don't spend coin or use items?

Motives could range from "oooh, shiny!" to the more humanoid members actually being able to spend money through some kind of trade network. Sure, they may not be able to walk in the gates of a typical human city, but they may have contact with individual traders that can walk the line between the two societies. Once a few monsters value coin for that reason, it can quickly spread amongst the rest of the dungeon as being usable currency.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

This all sounds very familiar :)

I've been doing something very similar for the last four years. Feel free to steal any ideas you like.


check out Abandoned Arts Rappan Athuk campaign journal. The players set out to build a homebase cleverly leveraging the noble prestige class and black market connections rogue talent.

Also reading the Alexandrian blog posts on dungeoncrawl subsystem, jaquaying maps and running a mega dungeon should give some ideas. Don't forget to play the denizens proactively too.

The Exchange

Mark Hoover wrote:
So here's a question I always have about such situations: why wouldn't local civilization do something about said megadungeon?

A fair question and one that would have a different answer for each megadungeon. For example:

1. The megadungeon's occupants may spend most of their time in internal disputes, reducing rather than increasing their threat to the lands above. (This was Undermountain's method.)

2. The megadungeon may be days of travel away from the nearest outpost of 'civilization.' (Maure Castle worked that way.)

3. The megadungeon may benefit the local economy so much (buying equipment, selling items acquired in the dungeon, resurrections or funerals for unluckier adventurers) that the local powers-that-be consider it worth the occasional missing caravan or looted granary. (This was Castle Greyhawk's means of survival.)

4. The dungeon may act as a buffer zone between the surface and something nasty; the locals would rather have goblins and troglodytes as neighbors rather than, say, devils or aboleth. (Virtually any megadungeon that opens into the Darklands/Underdark is an example.)

5. The dungeon's depths may be a container or prison for something that the surface world wants to keep buried, and the upper levels are allowed to remain infested with lesser threats to keep the ignorant from playing with fire. (The Temple of Elemental Evil was one of these.)


Y'know what Linkin Park, I never considered #3. I suppose that's sort of akin to RL cities dealing with terrible neighborhoods, though maybe not EXACTLY the same.

Consider; if a city in RL has a really bad neighborhood were crime is deplorable and civility is in short supply, the city's government looks at the risk/reward of dealing with it. There's the cost of increased police, city labor for cleanup and maintenance, and no guarantee that it'll actually get handled versus just not dealing with it directly, taking federal funding for programs and such, and legislating around it.


Matt Thomason wrote:
Mark Hoover wrote:


1. why would monsters hoard treasure if they don't spend coin or use items?
Motives could range from "oooh, shiny!" to the more humanoid members actually being able to spend money through some kind of trade network. Sure, they may not be able to walk in the gates of a typical human city, but they may have contact with individual traders that can walk the line between the two societies. Once a few monsters value coin for that reason, it can quickly spread amongst the rest of the dungeon as being usable currency.

Some creatures might use gathered hoard as a source of magical components or a magical foci for their powers.

One game had magical creatures (dragons and some other monsters) having ability to enhance their natural healing while resting on big enough hoards of precious metals and magic items.

Shadow Lodge

Abandoned Arts wrote:
You can get this item from DriveThruRPG for about $39. The same idea would work with Rappan Athuk, too. Same price, even.

The difference being that Rappan Athuk is a GOOD large dungeon.

That, and it's set up in different levels. TWLD has sections, but everything is on the same level (ie, no descending further into the dungeon.


Go with the megadungeon! Not done enough, there was something like this I was hearing about a few months ago. Adventurers with amnesia, a lot of dying (but almost no permadeath). A bit like Dark Souls. Could be very good.

Also! Just because it is a megadungeon, doesn't mean there are no npcs. Monsters may not all be aggressive, and there could be a lot trapped down here.

Perhaps a few cities around a lake collapsed down into a cavern of soft bouncy mushrooms, and a lot of the town survived. There are plenty of ways to set it up with others in the megadungeon.


Sissyl wrote:
So... A suggestion for backstory:

Cool!

I worked on a setting once where there were tons of huge dungeons because the Sun had an unfortunate habit of disappearing unpredictably, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few decades... a global darkness/ice age.

So you had all these underground refuges, but it's been several thousand years (very unusually long) since the last disappearance, so it's largely ignored (even considered mythical by some) and the underground refuges are mostly ignored... thus full of all sorts of creepy stuff invading upwards from the Deep ("underdark" type realm).

Dwarves, in this world, had the really ancient base civilization... since they survived the sunless periods much better than the other PC races.

Shadow Lodge

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Sissyl wrote:
... I just realized... I am a nerd...

Over 4K posts on a roleplaying game forum, and you are just realizing this?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Funny how that works out...


Skizzlefrits wrote:

A dungeon i really wanted to try was made in the 3.0/3.5 days.

I present to you, the World's Largest Dungeon

you can get a used copy for only... $119.95: Amazon

I've played this. I don't think our DM was quite up to the task of running something this massive.

It's great for players who just want to dungeon-crawl all day long, but for me, it got really boring, really fast. I longed for the seemingly trivial things like "going to an inn," "camping out," etc. It was just grind...grind...trap...grind...trap...grind...

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I would like to throw in my opinions on both World's Largest Dungeon and Rappan Athuk. WLD is really very lackluster and has little to keep players engaged outside of the gimmick that every creature in the Monster Manual is shoehorned in, including the titan. RA on the other hand has more story (it is still story light) and the areas are constantly interesting, keeping players engaged. It also has a great tone for anyone who enjoys retro gaming in that it manages to capture what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s without any of the clunkyness of the RPGs of the time.


Skizzlefrits wrote:

A dungeon i really wanted to try was made in the 3.0/3.5 days.

I present to you, the World's Largest Dungeon

you can get a used copy for only... $119.95: Amazon

...who built that dungeon and why?!

The Exchange

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

One of the elements I'd focus on was how the MegaDungoen might offer not only money but useful land and resources. Like what if the Dungeon had a number of useful mines and factories hidden inside it. Digging out a Dwarven forge complete with most of it's old tools would be a big find. Especially if you wanted to turn it into a reoccuring profit.


I'm still waiting for my Kaer Maga AP.

If it came out and had a kingmaker-esque subsystem for procedurally generating megadungeon... I would consider myself well pleased.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Joshua Goudreau wrote:
...WLD is really very lackluster and has little to keep players engaged outside of the gimmick that every creature in the Monster Manual is shoehorned in...

Which led to a hilarious spoof in Knights of the Dinner Table, in which their in-universe equivalent to WLD was rushed out the door before playtesting and players complained; every monster in the 'Hacklopedia' was in there all right, but due to the rushed deadline, they were in there in alphabetical order.

Sara: I got suspicious when we fought the 'Amoeba, Giant' one room before we fought the 'Angel of Death'.


Just started a dungeon only game that involves a space-time rift and powerful lawful planars trying to fix the rift. There's a chaotic artifact at the center of it that the lawfuls can't approach, and they're just waiting on heroes powerful enough to find and deal with it in the dungeon's lower reaches.

The nice lawfuls have managed to set up a settlement for the rift-displaced people (a couple thousand total) that you can reach from various points in the dungeon, allowing the heroes to return to an NPC populated area and get some rest and new gear occasionally before returning into the dungeon.


Mark Hoover wrote:
So here's a question I always have about such situations: why wouldn't local civilization do something about said megadungeon?

Consider something like Undermountain. The civilization is doing the most effective thing it can: Attract adventurers to destroy the menace.


Flamenwing Castle:
I'm writing up a megadungeon based on a paladin making himself a castle, then getting sieged by a blue dragon and her army of kobolds and finally managing only to imprison the wyrm in the great tempest she'd summoned over the citadel just as she was on the verge of victory. The paladin died and the Dragonstorms wrack the ruin with anywhere from fog to sea-born squalls every few days.

Anyway, the paladin's order finally got around to sending a team after his body. They camped there an built a mausoleum a few hundred feet from the keep. All the while kobolds, working tirelessly for the freedom of their mistress, infested the cellars and crypts of the castle.

Fast forward 60 years. The paladin's order has crafted a mini-dungeon to test hopefuls; passing this test and taking an oath gives people safe passage in and out of the dungeon, use of their extensive facilities and people to bury them in a hallowed crypt if the adventurers' bodies can be returned. However, there's other ways into the first level of the dungeons besides this one.

All totaled there's 7 public ways in with other secret ways suspected but not yet confirmed. 3 of these exit into the courtyard before the keep; these are controlled by the order. Another 3 lie in the blasted ruins of 3 support towers around the crumbling keep. One was recently taken over by uber-lawful dwarf mercenaries who don't give a fig abut good or evil, so long as the deal is fair and the money's good. This place, now known as Drannoscheim is held by the Bloodiron Company and is technically a small village settlement.

Another area has a long past. When kobolds first came up from below to sap this tower they found good stone and gems in the bedrock on their way. In the wake of the siege some of their number were dispatched back here to dig several pits forming a mine and quarry. The mineshafts were connected to the ruin by underground tunnels and expanded for chambers and rooms and such, but after a schism among the kobolds called the Great Despair the place was abandoned and closed off. Some of the kobolds who fled the dungeons at that time turned their allegiances to a red dragon further up the coast and were rewarded with an egg. They returned here after their master's defeat at the hands of the order and over the last 15 years they've hatched and raised the young dragon which they've named Ignitus.

... that's all I've got so far.

I really like the dwarf village entry area. Even though they're very lawful and militant I imagine it like some post-apocalyptic bordertown. If monsters from the dungeon want out and their money is good, the dwarves pass them through but if adventurers want in and can't pay, too bad.

Also the order I mention is LG so they won't just storm the dwarves or force people to submit to the trials and oath. If adventurers want in to the dungeon and don't like the order, they have other choices and these guys respect that.


Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

I'm still waiting for my Kaer Maga AP.

If it came out and had a kingmaker-esque subsystem for procedurally generating megadungeon... I would consider myself well pleased.

Krav Maga dungeon?

Silver Crusade

When I think Uberdungeon I think castle greyhawk, temple of elemental evil, dark tower(judges guild), and to a lesser extent nightmare keep

Shadow Lodge

As for myself, I think of Rappan Athuk, Castle Greyhawk, Castle Blackmoor, Castle Whiterock, the Castle of the Mad Archmage, and Stonehell Dungeon.


LS over at PapersPencils.com discussed doing this this week. The article is still on the front page.

Shadow Lodge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

my favorite cross-section


Kthulhu wrote:
my favorite cross-section

Where'd google get my house?

Sczarni

Mark Hoover wrote:

So here's a question I always have about such situations: why wouldn't local civilization do something about said megadungeon?

Given how often adventurers find themselves in dungeons, I've frequently gotten the impression that dungeons are simply a natural-occuring phenomenon in Golarion, and that there isn't a single square foot of land there that isn't directly over a cavern, crypt, catacomb, underground passageway, future sinkhole, or the like.

The local civilization doesn't "do anything about it" for the same reason they don't vote on whether or not the Sun is allowed to rise and set.


Silent Saturn wrote:
Mark Hoover wrote:

So here's a question I always have about such situations: why wouldn't local civilization do something about said megadungeon?

Given how often adventurers find themselves in dungeons, I've frequently gotten the impression that dungeons are simply a natural-occuring phenomenon in Golarion, and that there isn't a single square foot of land there that isn't directly over a cavern, crypt, catacomb, underground passageway, future sinkhole, or the like.

The local civilization doesn't "do anything about it" for the same reason they don't vote on whether or not the Sun is allowed to rise and set.

Sounds a lot like playing minecraft


Ironically in my homebrew there aren't that many dungeons; not in the underground sense. None of my players are passionate dungeon-hackers and one of the primary influences in the game is the fey, so instead I've got more "dark forests" and ruins than you can shake a wand at.

This doesn't mean I don't HAVE megadungeons though.

I'm developing one right now. A 5 mile radius of wooded bogs, peat hummocks, and forested hills. All of this surrounds a marsh lake fed by 3 major tributaries. I call it Felder's Knot.

There's several factions, both good and evil; they have some underground sections but also a good deal amid the wilderness; each of the factions is using the unique power of the place in their own way. I refer to the whole area as a megadungeon, even though much of it is forests and wilds.

I guess I just figured: would thousands of monsters, intelligent and not, REALLY want to live near one another in an enclosed space?

Shadow Lodge

Silent Saturn wrote:
Mark Hoover wrote:

So here's a question I always have about such situations: why wouldn't local civilization do something about said megadungeon?

Given how often adventurers find themselves in dungeons, I've frequently gotten the impression that dungeons are simply a natural-occuring phenomenon in Golarion, and that there isn't a single square foot of land there that isn't directly over a cavern, crypt, catacomb, underground passageway, future sinkhole, or the like.

The local civilization doesn't "do anything about it" for the same reason they don't vote on whether or not the Sun is allowed to rise and set.

I think another idea is that adventurers coming in stimulate the local economy so much that, rather than wanting to get rid of the mega dungeon, local towns might actually promote their close proximity to it.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Has anyone played Exquisite Corpse?

I think taking that premise might make for a fun "casual" campaign. As each session the GM moves to another player, who only has what they learned as a player the previous session to create the next section of the dungeon.

I'm working on more involved rules for such a system at the moment.

Of course I call it: Exquisite Dungeon.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / General Discussion / Megadungeon as a sub-system. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion