Quote from: estar;481291For my part I am writing a book on it that I hope to release next year. It going to take a while because I want individual parts to be useful in of themselves rather than some Ron Edwards style philosophical musing.

Might I suggest coining another phrase to describe these types of campaigns so? From what I can see there are two broad ideas on the definition - closed dungeon crawls and open ended campaigns. These are complete opposites, so maybe this could be an opportunity to disambiguate while putting your own permanent mark on industry terminology?

Quote from: The Traveller;481292Might I suggest coining another phrase to describe these types of campaigns so? From what I can see there are two broad ideas on the definition - closed dungeon crawls and open ended campaigns. These are complete opposites, so maybe this could be an opportunity to disambiguate while putting your own permanent mark on industry terminology?

Hey, now this we can talk about. I would not automatically assume those two things are different. A "closed" dungeon crawl can still be  open-ended in it's own fashion if there is no set path the adventurers need to follow through the dungeon, or over-arching mission or plot the characters need to be involved in. Exploring the Underdark (or sections of it) can be very "sand box" it seems to me. Also, I'd say your view of the sand box having defined borders is not mutually exclusive with estar's sandbox of open-ended play. Even the map of the Wilderlands has borders. If the characters were to cross the edges of the map, they'd be crossing into a different sand box is all, but the Wilderlands campaign makes the assumption (and reasonably so IMO) that the characters will remain in the Wilderlands. It's just a bigger sandbox. In the case of Keep on the Borderlands, the sandbox is much smaller, but still supports the building of whatever sort of sandcastles one wants to build within it, so to speak.

Quote from: Sigmund;481300Hey, now this we can talk about. I would not automatically assume those two things are different. A "closed" dungeon crawl can still be  open-ended in it's own fashion if there is no set path the adventurers need to follow through the dungeon, or over-arching mission or plot the characters need to be involved in. Exploring the Underdark (or sections of it) can be very "sand box" it seems to me.

The megadungeon is an open-ended environment ripe for exploration. It's an under-world, literally.

Quote from: Benoist;481301The megadungeon is an open-ended environment ripe for exploration. It's an under-world, literally.

Indeed.

Quote from: Sigmund;481302Indeed.

This is kind of why there is a logic to the argument that you actually can't publish a complete megadungeon: because the underworld environment is, by its very nature, always expanding, and often in unexpected ways. The actual life of the megadungeon is so closely dependant on what actually happens at the game table and how that it is next to meaningless to want to provide an enormous labyrinth in print and pretend that is the whole of the megadungeon experience right there.

I would consider books and boxes like Rappan Athuk or the Castle of the Mad Archmage to be game aids that provide a basic frame for you to play and expand into your own megadungeon from there, but they aren't actual megadungeons themselves, in a sense.

Quote from: Benoist;481304

This is kind of why there is a logic to the argument that you actually can't publish a complete megadungeon:

I think you can if you approach it as a setting sourcebook rather than as a tournament style dungeon like Gygax's Upper works or the excellent Mad Archmage series.

Unfortunately the only megadungeon I used is Tegal Manor and I haven't done anything original in this area. So it little more than an idea at this point. But my gut feeling is that it is the right approach to publishing a mega dungeon.

Quote from: estar;481308I think you can if you approach it as a setting sourcebook rather than as a tournament style dungeon like Gygax's Upper works or the excellent Mad Archmage series.

Unfortunately the only megadungeon I used is Tegal Manor and I haven't done anything original in this area. So it little more than an idea at this point. But my gut feeling is that it is the right approach to publishing a mega dungeon.

You can do it that way for great results, I'm sure. The experience, the natural adaptability of the DM to run the thing and expand it, to make it his megadungeon, isn't provided though. That's what I meant. A sourcebook-style supplement can provide you the tips, advice, and tools to get there, but it won't be the experience itself. This is true of any adventure module to some extent, but especially in something like a megadungeon environment. There's something deeply personal about it. There's an investment and a shaping of the world happening through play that just doesn't happen to the same degree in a scripted adventure module.

To the point I was tempted to write something in my previous post to the extent of : "Castle Greyhawk has already been published in full: it's called the Dungeon Master's Guide."

Quote from: Benoist;481310You can do it that way for great results, I'm sure. The experience, the natural adaptability of the DM to run the thing and expand it, to make it his megadungeon, isn't provided though. That's what I meant.

A sourcebook-style supplement can provide you the tips, advice, and tools to get there, but it won't be the experience itself. This is true of any adventure module to some extent, but especially in something like a megadungeon environment. There's something deeply personal about it. There's an investment and a shaping of the world happening through play that just doesn't happen to the same degree in a scripted adventure module.

To the point I was tempted to write something in my previous post to the extent of : "Castle Greyhawk has already been published in full: it's called the Dungeon Master's Guide."

I understand what you are getting at.  It always been my opinion that anything done by people can be taught so that others can do it as well. (Using common sense in regards to individual talent)

The DMG is a great piece of writing but it is also very general (as it needed to be). I think that a more specific work focused on a particular site would be a value to referees.

All I know for sure at this point that a tournament style writeup of a mega dungeon is too long, and to hard to learn from as the details of hundreds of rooms overwhelm the reader.

I pretty sure such a megadungeon product would have dozen or specific area written up tournament style (think Kuntz's Bottle City), more general description of the other areas of the dungeon, good tools to generate content on the fly both at the table and in between sessions.

Plus a lot of the content, even the general advice, would be locale specific. So there would be value for different author to come up with their own version.  Dwimmermount would be diffferent than Greyhawk, which would be different than the Mad Archmage Dungeon, and so on.  

And all of this would be far more compact than a tournament style dungeon and fit easily into a 64 or 128 page book.

I am glad you responded as I think I may just hit on the way I am going to write up the Main Campaign Area for the Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: Sigmund;481300Hey, now this we can talk about. I would not automatically assume those two things are different.

Well for the purposes of planning a campaign, there is a fair bit of difference. I mean technically the laws of physics provide hard and fast limitations, thus creating a sandbox everywhere, but that's not what the definition means.

What a GM needs to do is decide whether he or she wants a tightly controlled campaign or a loose, open ended game. The first is pretty easy, you can create infinite amounts of dungeon levels with the big boys book of monster, trap, and layout random encounters and still have it within the walled garden.

The second is a lot harder. I'm working on some mechanics myself at the moment to create such an open ended campaign world. The difference is you need to keep track of groups and power players in the world, and much more difficult, their relationships to one another and the group. If it were software the problem would be trivial, this is the kind of thing computers excel at. Reducing it to something useable with pen, paper and dice, and more importantly fun, thats the trick.

You need to be able to run it fast and easy and yet produce reasonable results, while tracking the interlocking relationships of possibly dozens of groups and how they interact with one another both on their own time and with the assistance of PCs. Do they affect nodes, encounters or pre planned events, and how? Do they create their own event nodes, as the PCs affect the world? What kind of events occur without PC interaction, and how do they affect the plans of the GM? What keystone events will have certain effects? Can this be generalised?

This to my mind is the holy grail of roleplaying games. If it can be achieved, the effects will be significant and far reaching.

Quote from: estar;481308I think you can if you approach it as a setting sourcebook rather than as a tournament style dungeon like Gygax's Upper works or the excellent Mad Archmage series.

Unfortunately the only megadungeon I used is Tegal Manor and I haven't done anything original in this area. So it little more than an idea at this point. But my gut feeling is that it is the right approach to publishing a mega dungeon.

I have a few I have created for my games.  One or two might be publishable, despite my system.  
Hmm.

Quote from: Benoist;481304This is kind of why there is a logic to the argument that you actually can't publish a complete megadungeon:

Not any sort of "logic" that's worth wasting any time on. Under such "logic" it's also impossible to print campaign settings and adventure modules. Similar "logic" would conclude that it's impossible to publish Hamlet because it doesn't include the actors or the set.

It's also similar to when people say that a published adventure can't be a railroad because, after all, the published text can't FORCE the GM to railroad the players.

Quote from: The Traveller;481265Have they really? So why are there a half dozen different definitions wafting around the thread, most of which contradict each other?

Because idiots like you who don't know what they're talking about keep posting bullshit.

Everyone in this thread who has actually run a sandbox campaign is using basically the same definition. One of those people is a guy who was on the team who first used the term in its modern sense in the roleplaying industry.

Not only are you ignorant. You are willfully ignorant. And attempting to use your own willful ignorance as proof that knowledge is impossible.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;481387Because idiots like you who don't know what they're talking about keep posting bullshit.

Everyone in this thread who has actually run a sandbox campaign is using basically the same definition. One of those people is a guy who was on the team who first used the term in its modern sense in the roleplaying industry.

Not only are you ignorant. You are willfully ignorant. And attempting to use your own willful ignorance as proof that knowledge is impossible.

Go git em tiger.

Quote from: LordVreeg;481378I have a few I have created for my games.  One or two might be publishable, despite my system.  
Hmm.

Sure, the general idea would be teach folks how to run your megadungeons , highlight special rooms/areas, etc.  Not describe them room by room.  It a small difference but one that make it feasible to publish and for another person to run it.  And it may make it more marketable as it would be easier to cherry pick.

Come to think of it somebody kind of did this already, Vornheim. The book isn't a building by building description of the city but more about how the author ran it and all the tools he used. It isn't generic either as there are a lot of specific details about Vornheim itself.

Quote from: The Traveller;481292Might I suggest coining another phrase to describe these types of campaigns so? From what I can see there are two broad ideas on the definition - closed dungeon crawls and open ended campaigns. These are complete opposites, so maybe this could be an opportunity to disambiguate while putting your own permanent mark on industry terminology?

Well, along with the rest of the Wilderlands teams I already made a mark with coining Sandbox campaign.

As for closed dungeon crawls vs open end campaigns.  I don't see them as the same things. The first is a type of locale, the latter is a type of campaign.  My view is that locales can be used with any campaign style. You can run an adventure path with a dungeon crawl, or a sandbox campaign with a dungeon crawl.

A restrictive initial setup like every character is a member of the city guard can be a sandbox campaign.  The difference is in who is driving the action, the players or the referee.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;481387Everyone in this thread who has actually run a sandbox campaign is using basically the same definition. One of those people is a guy who was on the team who first used the term in its modern sense in the roleplaying industry.

Two of those people.

Otherwise, yeah.