As for specifics

A typical empty room looks like this

2. Guard Room
This chamber was once a guard room. Now, it's filled with dust and cobwebs. There are the shattered remnants of some wooden chairs and a weapons rack, but the room is otherwise empty.

Other "empty" rooms look like this

6. Trophy Room
This large room once contained trophies commemorating Thulian military victories. There were plaques, statues, and other similar ornaments, all long since looted and removed to other parts of the fortress. There are indentations in the walls, shelves, and brackets that all give evidence to their former presence. Also in the room are the bodies of two dwarves, both quite fresh though cold to the touch. They wear chain mail and carry axes, but the rest of their belongings (if any) are no longer present.

Technically an "empty" room as it is devoid of monsters and valuable treasure. But for people who like exploring it is evocative and gives the sense that Dwimmermount is a place with history.

Especially when you run into rooms like this

11. Statue of Turms-Mavors
In this area can be found the six-foot tall statue of a muscular man in armor, carrying a shield and wielding a wickedly barbed spear. Atop his shoulders sits the bearded head of Turms Termax, although body is clearly that of Mavors, god of war.

So a statue of a god  has his head hacked off and replaced with another god's head. mmmmm.

On Level 1 there are 68 rooms

22 of them "empty" although many of have detailed descriptions
8 rooms only have harmful traps (mundane and magical)
21 rooms have monsters with varying amounts of treasure. There is a tribe of kobolds with demonic spider as an ally. Along with a small group of orcs with a evil magic user as a leader.
6 rooms have only treasure in them.
11 rooms are magical or have puzzles that the party can mess around around with.

This is not Keep on the Borderlands where caves are jam packed with monsters. I know several gamers what would love to an adventure in a place like Dwimmermount and I know several others that would be bored to tears by it. Also none of the questions about why Dwimmermount is the way it is, are answered on the first level.

And if appear as a Dwimmermount booster so be it. It common knowledge that I done maps for James on several projects and I am doing the outdoor maps for Dwimmermount as well. But also I played with James as the referee in Dwimmermount and talked to the guy. He is running open games nearly every weekend in Google Plus, go sign up and play see what it is like.

Quote from: CRKrueger;589945Haven't seen it, haven't played it.  Not sure you can just dismiss the criticism though as "Dwimmermount was meant to be explored."  Exploration is an act of discovery.  If there's really not much to discover, then is it really exploration?

I posted a breakdown of Level one in a previous post. You can judge for yourself how empty it is.

I will add that when I ran Tegal Manor recently the party managed to go thread their way through a dozen empty rooms before running into a significant encounter. That this represented a session and a half of gaming. There were several points they could have gone left instead of right and run into some very nice treasure.

And this mirror my experience with bigger dungeons back in the day. Even if the group is interested in the background, it can still suck simply you happen to pick the wrong path to find something "awesome" to do. Or if you are the kind that systematically explores a place start out in a relatively empty section.

Quote from: CRKrueger;589945Then again, I'm wondering if the group was looking for B2, and didn't like that Dwimmermount wasn't it.

There are dozens of ways of detailing a dungeon and no one of them is going to appeal to everybody.

Dwimmermount is a cat!*

Level 1 MUs better beware!

*https://muleabides.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/dwimmermount-kickstarter-is-schrodingers-cat/

Quote from: Black Vulmea;589925So my question, Joe, is what were you expecting that Dwimmermount didn't deliver? What would've made it better? What is an example of a published dungeon that 'does it right,' in your experience?

I was not a member of that group, but the one thing that leaped out at me was the lack of awesome. I'm a big fan of negative space contrasting positive space in adventure design, but 90% of my negative space is still filled with interesting things.

For example, the "best gamer rant I've heard in a long time" (as Tenkar described it) is talking about room 46. In the original notes that room is keyed as:

Quote from: Dwimmermount Original Key46. 9 Giant Rats - 2000 cp, necklace 200 gp, comb 30 gp

In the current draft, that's been expanded to:

Quote from: DwimmermountThe wooden door to this room is partially gnawed through, as it is the nest for 9 giant rats. In addition to the rats, the room itself contains broken pieces of wood, straw, string, and other random detritus that these vermin have collected and brought here. Amidst this rubbish can be found 2000 cp, a jeweled pin (800 gp), a gold necklace (200 gp), and an expensive comb (30gp).

When I talked in the other thread about the fact that Maliszewski's method of expanding his minimalist key mostly consisted of using more words to describe a minimalist key, this is what I was talking about.

How could you take that same minimalist key and make it something interesting?

This room contains broken pieces of wood, straw, string, and other random detritus that 9 giant rats have collected and brought here. In the center of the room -- in a space cleared of rubbish -- are twenty skulls arranged in a circle. Each skull has been filled with exactly 100 copper pieces.

When anyone enters the room, a number of rats equal to the number of people entering the room will circle counter-clockwise around the circle of skulls, approach the entrants, rise up on the hind legs, and stretch out their paws as if waiting to receive something. Each of the rats has the holy symbol of a Thulian god branded onto its back.

If the rats are given a coin, they will place it in one of the skulls. (But there will still only be 100 coins in each skull.) If they are given any other valuables, they will scurry away and hide them in the piles of refuse. If anyone attempts to cross the room without giving them a coin or something else of value, the rats will swarm and attack.

Amidst this rubbish can be found 2000 cp, a jeweled pin (800 gp), a gold necklace (200 gp), and an expensive comb (30gp). The jeweled pin is actually a Thulian officer's pin that once belonged to one of the apparitions in room 59. If it is returned to its original owner, the ghost will reward the good citizen by offering to teach them the game of zatriko.

Estar says this place is really, really cool if you've played with Maliszewski DMing it. Sounds plausible. But that has not translated itself well into his written key. (Estar will probably ascribe this to the "impossibility" of realizing a megadungeon in print. In reality, it's just a failure to execute.)

Quote from: Joethelawyer;589929Was the environment itself creative and mysterious, leaving us a with a sense of awe and wonder?  Did it make us want to explore further?  Did it open up further layers of a mystery?

Or did we just push and pull at meaningless torch sconces that didn't move, hoping for a secret door and an end to the boredom

"meaningless torch sconces that didn't move"

That's pretty retarded.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;589929There was one room with ghosts around a table.  They gave no clues to greater mysteries,  they provided no combat opportunities, they were nothing but a waste of time.  We all just said "Eh, whatever," and moved along.

Ghost 1: What's that racket?

Ghost 2: Well there appears to be a bunch of retards swinging out of the wall sconces down the corridor.

'Where's the goddam secret door?' one of them is screaming.

Ghost 1: I can't do this anymore.

When did we last get a chance to haunt a professional dungeoneering outfit?

Ghost 2: Ssshhh! Pretend like we're not interested. Let the rats have 'em.

Pretend like we're playing chess, quick!

And, Ladies and Reptiles, this is the real issue with Dwimmermount, never mind the delays. Unfortunately, it shows in much of the released preview material; even if it was awesome at the table, it didn't translate well into writing. But anyway, the post is clear about the problems:

• too much empty space that serves no good function except an opportunity random encounters;
• boring, generic, time-wasting encounters;
• encounters which read well but don't provide interesting opportunities for interaction, or these possibilities are hidden so well as to never emerge (Rob Kuntz-style "hidden depth");
• repetition instead of an interesting theme;
• cabinet contents dungeon rooms ("5 orcs, 1000 cp").

Justin's post demonstrates well how to increase interactivity and provide a meaningful, intriguing context for these random tidbits (which is how I make most of my dungeons when I am not improvising them - expand and extrapolate from random rolls and the odd ideas in my head, then tie things together through the basic concept), but this either didn't happen in Dwimmermount the megadungeon, or didn't happen in Dwimmermount the manuscript.

There is probably another cure for lightly keyed dungeons like this, which is to keep the pace lightning-quick and come up with a lot of crap in play. I suspect this was the recipe behind EGG's infamously terse Castle Greyhawk - but in the precise recreation, something essential was lost.

Moreover,

Quote from: _kent_;589980ghosts

This right here.

Quote from: estar;589963As for specifics

A typical empty room looks like this

2. Guard Room
This chamber was once a guard room. Now, it's filled with dust and cobwebs. There are the shattered remnants of some wooden chairs and a weapons rack, but the room is otherwise empty.

Other "empty" rooms look like this

6. Trophy Room
This large room once contained trophies commemorating Thulian military victories. There were plaques, statues, and other similar ornaments, all long since looted and removed to other parts of the fortress. There are indentations in the walls, shelves, and brackets that all give evidence to their former presence. Also in the room are the bodies of two dwarves, both quite fresh though cold to the touch. They wear chain mail and carry axes, but the rest of their belongings (if any) are no longer present.

I hate the "this room used to look like this, it doesn't now" style of room descriptions. Surely a room description should start with the most important/notable features of the room at the moment the PCs enter it? I'm fine with noting that the "room full or dust, cobwebs and broken furniture" used to be a guard room - that's useful information for the GM in terms of what is there to be found in the broken pieces, but I wouldn't lead with that.

Far be it for me to defend Dwimmermount but it doesn't sound like the DM made any effort to spice up the material. Any DM worth their salt could have injected more interest even into the dry as dust descriptions that James churns out. The DM should have transcended the material just as they would have for any other plodding module.

But what does James' approach teach us about mega dungeons? Not much except there must be a better approach. Rooms with unguarded treasure in nice even amounts despite random encounters continually wandering through the place really irk me. I prefer a dungeon which is a living beast rather than a series of static encounters just waiting for an adventuring party to traipse along.

Jason Alexander has tried to improve the room descriptions by injected interest and logic (at least in the context of the room) but at a page of text per room that isn't exactly practical. The mega dungeon would end up the size of a phone book.

So terse is the way to go but what we want is an author who can paint a picture with just a few words. If we look at the room with the ghosts why not add one sentence. "If the party address the ghosts they react as if they have been visited by spirits. Nothing the party says can convince them of their ghostly status".

Immediately we have a source of conflict.

 "You are ghosts!"

"Nay YOU are the apparitions".

This is grist for the mill of the creative DM to craft an entire conversation with the ghosts, perhaps even rewarding clever party members with some useful snippets of information.

This is where James appears to fail. He does not inspire with his words.

Thank you for the ghost vignette _kent_ ; it made me laugh.

Well, the OSR has been going on for 4-5 years now. If you want minimal Castle Greyhawk keying, there are already a couple of completed examples that will keep you playing for many levels - Stonehell, Mad Archmage. The veneer has worn off the "wow, megadungeon,we can go anywhere for rooms and rooms and levels and levels." The game now has to be raised, be it through metaplot, strongly themed areas, or webs of intrigue. And people are expecting products that are not in need of livening up, but that show you how to liven up, without being overly detailed.

Quote from: estar;589963On Level 1 there are 68 rooms

22 of them "empty" although many of have detailed descriptions
8 rooms only have harmful traps (mundane and magical)
21 rooms have monsters with varying amounts of treasure. There is a tribe of kobolds with demonic spider as an ally. Along with a small group of orcs with a evil magic user as a leader.
6 rooms have only treasure in them.
11 rooms are magical or have puzzles that the party can mess around around with.

This doesn't sound abnormal for a 0e style megadungeon level. According to the guidelines in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, one should hand place a few important areas on a level, then use a random system to determine the contents of the rest of the level.  

1) Roll a D6 for each room/chamber/area not occupied. On a roll of 1 or 2 (aka 33% of the rooms) will have a monster.

2) Roll a D6 again for each room/chamber/area. If a monster is present, there is treasure on a roll of 1-3 (50% of monster occupied rooms will have treasure). If the room does not have a monster, there is treasure on a roll of 1 (16% of rooms without monsters will have some type of treasure). The guidelines further suggest that treasure in otherwise unoccupied rooms should be hidden, trapped, etc.

This means that for a 100 room megadungeon level, there would be (on average) 4 or 5 rooms with GM designed specials, 31 or 32 other rooms with "random" monsters, 15 or 16 rooms with "random" treasure but no monsters, and 45-50 empty rooms. This seems about normal (or even over-stuffed) compared to literary examples like Xuchotl from Howard's "Read Nails" or Moria from LOTR. And Level 1 of Dwimmermount seems to have even more "active" rooms. I guess I'm not seeing the problem with the dungeon itself, but perhaps with the DM's presentation of it?

Quote from: RandallS;589999I guess I'm not seeing the problem with the dungeon itself, but perhaps with the DM's presentation of it?

My favorable impression was formed as a result of reading the background material on James' blog and then playing the dungeon. Along with reading all his reviews of older fantasy stories. My reaction would be more blah if I hadn't read that.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/dwimmermount

To me it is obvious that much of the content of Dwimmermount derives from him reading those stories. The trick will be how much of that will be written into the final product and whether he conveys his enthusiasm for the material. If he doesn't then Dwimmermount will be just one of many "big damn dungeons". If he does then it will be an interesting product to read and use.

Right now all that been released is the "big damn" dungeon portion of the project with very little special to distinguish it from other similar projects. If he can consolidate and condense his blog posts to lay bare the background and enthusiasm he has for the place then he has a shot of making an interesting product.

Has anyone compared Dwimmermount to Barrowmaze. I just purchased Barrowmaze II and I am very pleased with it for what it is.

If I'm exploring an ancient ruined structure I suppose what I want (as an explorer), disregarding danger and treasure since those could exist absent the dungeon, is:

* to wonder what the structure once was
* to discover what the structure once was, and
* to be awed by the discovery of what the structure once was.

Does Dwimmermount do this? It seems like descriptions that flat out tell you what a room used to be for would undermine my exploratory interests. Is there something big to discover? Do all the puzzle pieces come together and make a light bulb come on where you drop your jaw and mutter, "I get it now. It's not a dungeon at all. It's...."?

Because that's what I want from exploring.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;589975I was not a member of that group, but the one thing that leaped out at me was the lack of awesome. I'm a big fan of negative space contrasting positive space in adventure design, but 90% of my negative space is still filled with interesting things.

For example, the "best gamer rant I've heard in a long time" (as Tenkar described it) is talking about room 46. In the original notes that room is keyed as:



In the current draft, that's been expanded to:



When I talked in the other thread about the fact that Maliszewski's method of expanding his minimalist key mostly consisted of using more words to describe a minimalist key, this is what I was talking about.

How could you take that same minimalist key and make it something interesting?

This room contains broken pieces of wood, straw, string, and other random detritus that 9 giant rats have collected and brought here. In the center of the room -- in a space cleared of rubbish -- are twenty skulls arranged in a circle. Each skull has been filled with exactly 100 copper pieces.

When anyone enters the room, a number of rats equal to the number of people entering the room will circle counter-clockwise around the circle of skulls, approach the entrants, rise up on the hind legs, and stretch out their paws as if waiting to receive something. Each of the rats has the holy symbol of a Thulian god branded onto its back.

If the rats are given a coin, they will place it in one of the skulls. (But there will still only be 100 coins in each skull.) If they are given any other valuables, they will scurry away and hide them in the piles of refuse. If anyone attempts to cross the room without giving them a coin or something else of value, the rats will swarm and attack.

Amidst this rubbish can be found 2000 cp, a jeweled pin (800 gp), a gold necklace (200 gp), and an expensive comb (30gp). The jeweled pin is actually a Thulian officer's pin that once belonged to one of the apparitions in room 59. If it is returned to its original owner, the ghost will reward the good citizen by offering to teach them the game of zatriko.

Estar says this place is really, really cool if you've played with Maliszewski DMing it. Sounds plausible. But that has not translated itself well into his written key. (Estar will probably ascribe this to the "impossibility" of realizing a megadungeon in print. In reality, it's just a failure to execute.)

Damn Justin, can I buy your megadungeon?  That was an excellent alteration you made there.