Quote from: beejazz;608885You know what's not done enough?

Something in the style of Fallout 3's subways. Light complexity, large scale, and dungeons as a manner of trekking from point A to B or C far away.

As a strung-together network they could act as a megadungeon, but in practice players might treat segments more like individual dungeons.

Isn't this the Underdark?

Quote from: Benoist;608896So you've got the Cove, right...

You, doing maps on the computer? Now I believe the world is doomed.

What did you use to draw this?

Nice map, Benoist. In actual play, has this done anything interesting? Do players surface and have no idea where in the setting they are? Stuff like that?

Quote from: The Butcher;608905Isn't this the Underdark?

I always imagine the underdark as bigger and deeper than this (more along the lines of the big dwemer city in Skyrim). The subways are shallower and more properly a strung out set of minidungeons that occasionally surface at subway stations.

Quote from: The Butcher;608905Isn't this the Underdark?

Quote from: beejazz;608907I always imagine the underdark as bigger and deeper than this (more along the lines of the big dwemer city in Skyrim). The subways are shallower and more properly a strung out set of minidungeons that occasionally surface at subway stations.

Yeah I more or less agree with that. It's a question of scale. The "Underdark" to me would be literally a parallel world under the surface. We're talking thousands of miles of tunnels, caves with plains that could have the size of baronies or even countries of the surface, and so on. Whereas the way I construed Kusu's Cove (you can see the scale of the hex map at 160 feet, which gives you 16x16 squares per Cove hex to work with at 10 feet squares dungeon scale), it's more like laying out the areas and dungeons on the hex map, horizontally as well as vertically for areas on top of each other or connecting with each other at different levels of depths and whatnot. Think of it as a different way to organize a very large dungeon or even mega-dungeon as setting of adventure tied to the hex map in a more explicit way.

Quote from: The Butcher;608905You, doing maps on the computer? Now I believe the world is doomed.

What did you use to draw this?

My hands.

Seriously. That's a map I drew by hand, scanned afterwards and shaded using photoshop. The tokens are just an easy way added later on photoshop to specify areas in play.

Quote from: beejazz;608907Nice map, Benoist. In actual play, has this done anything interesting? Do players surface and have no idea where in the setting they are? Stuff like that?

I find it interesting because the players have a very concrete way of seeing where they are, what they have explored, without giving out too much or spoiling the pleasure of exact mapping during the exploration proper. I use Twiddla as a white board in parallel of Skype, and I map the immediate environs of the PCs, but I don't give them a general map of the dungeon. There's a player who's actually putting all the tactical bits together and keeping track of the overall maze as mapper. It's working out great, if anything. The PCs at the moment went from straight dungeon to making friends with a tribe of Crabmen lower into the depths and helping them battle some fishmen in Cthulhu's service in a huge hex-mapped cave below, and it's great. No problem whatsoever so far.

Quote from: Piestrio;608036I tend to prefer travelogue type games so the mega dungeon just doesn't work for me, so mark me down to liking smaller dungeons.

This.

The starting region for one of my campaigns was the lower right one of those maps:

Spoiler

The region had everything - mountains that promised lots of dungeons, an elven forest, towns and cities and politics, and a background history ripe with adventuring hooks. Originally I had planned to spend a long time there. But after only four sessions I created a patron to send the characters to the north. I drew a new map, and we (players and me) discovered the world as we went. We spent about one year real time on each of the other maps.

I don't like settings that are too defined, not in commercial games and not in my own creations. It's not that I feel constrained by them - I feel bored by them. Once I think I know everything that is to know I feel the urge to move on.

So I prefer smaller dungeons to the megadungeon, clearly.

But there's another reason for that: In 35 years of RPG history I have not found a megadungeon (game product) that I found believable. Underdark, Undermountain, the Fight On! collaboration, Rappan Athuk, Whiterock just don't work for me. Underground regions, going on and on, with thematic levels serving as towns or even countries make my disbelief suspenders go "snap!"

Big dungeons, like Moria, with different levels having served different purposes, and being usurped by different factions (goblins, orcs, undead, a balrog) make sense to me, but those don't have the size to support more of than a month (or two) of playtime. So I don't view them as the big tent megadungeon campaign concept that is so much talked about in the OSR. Maybe they are, and I am missing a crucial thing.

But I like to give it a try. I am currently preparing my take on the megadungeon concept, the Valley of Wonders and Dark Wishes. A closed valley with lots of dungeon structures (including settlements and castles) in the surrounding mountain sides is something that could work for me.

The closed valley with multiple dungeon structures, including the megadungeon, is basically the direction my work started on the megadungeon thread is taking now. The opportunities for various adventure settings, extrapolation and variations all packed in a tight regional area are endearing.

Love your maps, Dirk. They remind me of the maps in the old basic D&D Gazetteers, albeit not computerized, which in my mind means yours are instantly waaay better.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;610996But there's another reason for that: In 35 years of RPG history I have not found a megadungeon (game product) that I found believable. Underdark, Undermountain, the Fight On! collaboration, Rappan Athuk, Whiterock just don't work for me. Underground regions, going on and on, with thematic levels serving as towns or even countries make my disbelief suspenders go "snap!"

Big dungeons, like Moria, with different levels having served different purposes, and being usurped by different factions (goblins, orcs, undead, a balrog) make sense to me, but those don't have the size to support more of than a month (or two) of playtime. So I don't view them as the big tent megadungeon campaign concept that is so much talked about in the OSR. Maybe they are, and I am missing a crucial thing.

But I like to give it a try. I am currently preparing my take on the megadungeon concept, the Valley of Wonders and Dark Wishes. A closed valley with lots of dungeon structures (including settlements and castles) in the surrounding mountain sides is something that could work for me.

Hmm, I think I'm in the same boat as you. The closest I came to be at peace with dungeons and megadungeons was thinking of them as the anti-city. So Moria makes sense to me -- even if it would be an area that as a player I'd have no interest in going.

However, to have it persist beyond into the realm of countries and 'underground continents' feels like it's no longer a megadungeon but just an alternate world. The FR Underdark or Hollow World is an atlas unto itself, not a single locus radiating power.

I think the closest I came to appreciating the idea of megadungeon was recently reading Forgotten Realms' Lands of Intrigue and the mega-ruin of the lost empire capital city of Shoonach. As a metropolis covering miles, with undoubtedly as many layers of catacombs beneath as complexes tower atop the city, it sorta works for me as a locus of power... But I think a heavy part of that is that hordes of undead don't need supply logistics.

PS: Yes, your maps are quite kickass.