First installment is up.

http://theangrygm.com/category/lets-build-an-angry-megadungeon/

I've been looking forward to this, as a follower of Angry and his rants and video game... videos. This first installment is a lot of XP pacing math. Kinda dry but necessary for what he's attempting.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;855346First installment is up.

http://theangrygm.com/category/lets-build-an-angry-megadungeon/

I've been looking forward to this, as a follower of Angry and his rants and video game... videos. This first installment is a lot of XP pacing math. Kinda dry but necessary for what he's attempting.

All this does is make me very happy that I do not run modern versions of D&D where one has to worry about XP budgets and the like. Designing a dungeon level is much, much easier in old school D&D. Design s few special areas for the level, draw up the level around the special areas. For each room not in a special area roll top see if it is empty, has a monster, has treasure or has a monster and treasure. If it has a monster either put one of your choice their or roll a random monster using the dungeon tables from the game (or some you have created for the area). Do the same for treasure.

Agreed, trying to set up "balanced encounters" in 3e & 4e burned me out on DMing for a long time.

Quote from: Ddogwood;855375Agreed, trying to set up "balanced encounters" in 3e & 4e burned me out on DMing for a long time.

On rereading the article, it seems like this is even less of what I think of as a megadungeon: a place where PC enter and do whatever they want. It looks like Angry DM is designing it as a bunch of mini-adventure paths so the characters can start one and have a satisfying mini-boss encounter at the end in one session. I hope I'm reading this article wrong as this seems to negate almost all the appeal a megadungeon campaign has for me as a player or a GM. Perhaps I'm just too old school but I loathe adventure paths. I don't want to be a character in the adventure novel following along the preset path of set piece encounters designed to tell a story when I play.

Best Megadungeon I ever set up, the party basically cleaned out the top 4 levels and established it as a mini-fiefdom; they still had to deal with wandering monsters from lower levels coming up to find out what's up (WHAT'S GOIN' ONNNNNNN), but that was great gym-work for them to clean up on XP, so they could move further down.

They did this until the true "master" of the place decided they were getting too uppity, and while they were out on a wilderness adventure cast move earth, transmute rock to mud and so forth to put an end to their little condominium development


But that's not at all what this project of "the angry DM" sounds like.

When I read "xp pacing math," I thought that meant something like figuring out how much treasure there should be on the first level to provide for a couple dozen adventurers or so (about 50,000 g.p., more if a lot of that is hidden).

Following the link, all I see is one little paragraph. I'm guessing it refers to a video somewhere, which is not my bag -- but neither is making a bunch of spreadsheets to make up a fantasy adventure scenario.

Yes, yes, can we just take it as read that the Old School method is intellectually and morally superior, approved by Demogygax himself, and get on with it?

A megadungeon designed on the principles of encountardization?

No thanks.

I finally found the first installment of actual material.

QuoteNow, you know I'm a big fan of videogames in general. ... And those video games, when done right, take that whole giant sprawling mass and make an art of the design. Without really letting on, they carefully control traffic flow to provide a well-paced adventure with a solid difficulty curve. They provide enough optional exploration and chances to go off the beaten path that the player really is free to explore and to choose how to deal with the game. They just never face more than a manageable chunk of the game at any one time.

QuoteIn fact, these two distinct modes of gameplay – linear progression through an adventure and free-form exploration and discovery – would seem to be at odds. Except they aren't. And that's the beauty of the design. So often, we get wrapped up in the fight over "sandbox" or "railroad" that we forget that the truth always lies somewhere in between. And that SHOULD be our goal, most of the time. Because those two distinct structures provide different types of satisfaction. A well-paced, well-structured narrative and a sense of freedom and accomplishment.

I think the linear and the freely exploratory are indeed at odds, at least in terms of the classic D&D underworld.

It's a pretty basic question: Are the players free to choose from a huge domain of paths through the dungeons, a range of significant possible histories that defies prediction in advance, or not?

Quote from: Phillip;855433Following the link, all I see is one little paragraph. I'm guessing it refers to a video somewhere, which is not my bag -- but neither is making a bunch of spreadsheets to make up a fantasy adventure scenario.

That link takes you to the article. I assume the page linked about will hold links to all the articles as they come out.  Here's a link straight to the first article:

http://theangrygm.com/megadungeon-intro/

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;855453Yes, yes, can we just take it as read that the Old School method is intellectually and morally superior, approved by Demogygax himself, and get on with it?

I would not say that, but it is a hell of a lot less work to create an old school  megadungeon -- and the resulting megadungeon will likely be just as much fun to explore (but probably not "fair & balanced" in the modern D&D sense of the terms).  

If people are expected to do what Angry GM is doing to design a "good" adventure setting for modern D&D, I can finally understand why so many GMs of modern D&D refuse to design their own adventures and expect "support" in the way of a constant stream of new first and third party adventures before they will commit to running a campaign.

Quote from: RandallS;855485That link takes you to the article. I assume the page linked about will hold links to all the articles as they come out.  Here's a link straight to the first article:

http://theangrygm.com/megadungeon-intro/

Yeah. My bad there.

Quote[E]ven though we want it to look like a seamless dungeon that you can explore in any direction, we really want a series of interconnected adventuring days... we're stapling a bunch of mini-adventures together and fuzzing up the edges.

...[W]e realize that each day should probably have some sort of milestone at the end. The heroes have a big fight. Or discover a special treasure. Or a unique piece of lore.

It looks like a proper dungeon to somebody's eye, but the aim is for it not really to be that.

Hey, if people are having fun then that's what D&D is for. However, expecting enthusiasm over a substitute from those who enjoy the real thing is like serving tofu and non-cheese to somebody who sees no problem with a genuine Philly cheesesteak.

IMO, what he's designing is definitely not a megadungeon -- it's just a largish (possibly fairly linear) dungeon. I dare say that a lot of the pushback in this thread could have been avoided if he'd chosen a different word to define the project.

Beyond that, I find what he's doing quite interesting, and I doubt it will be as stale as all the number-crunching may lead one to believe at first glance. Stupid amounts of number-crunching and analysis are something I used to do a lot of just for the hell of it, back when I had a lot more time on my hands. What I rarely managed to do was follow through on all that back-end work and show something of value at the end.

Will the finished result of this guy's efforts be something that's fun to play through? I don't know, but I think it's a bit early to be claiming that it won't be just because it's not really a megadungeon.