Quote from: oggsmash on December 29, 2023, 05:36:29 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on December 29, 2023, 12:24:22 PM
Having played significant chunks of lots of the OSR megadungeons, I can recommend the following, depending on what exactly, you want:

1. Rappan Athuk--Huge, great flavor, lots of variety.  There's an outdoor sandbox area and the individual levels can generally be completed in one session.  It's statted for Swords & Wizardry.  Includes full stat blocks with monster XP like all the Swords & Wizardry stuff, which is a huge plus, IMO.
2. Tegel Manor--Updated version, also statted for Swords & Wizardry.  Not quite a megadungeon, but rather a crazy haunted house.  The update adds lots of outdoor areas and additional dungeons.
3. The Black Monastery--A bit smaller, but still large.  Also for Swords & Wizardry; very easy, simple backstory one can drop in anywhere.

Any of the Greg Gillespie megadungeons, but depends on what you want.  "Barrowmaze" is mostly undead.  "Forbidden Caverns of Archaia" is sort of like "The Caves of Chaos" on steroids in the Grand Canyon.  "Highfell" is a collection of wizard towers on a floating island and is the most modular.  "Dwarrowdeep" is an abandoned dwarf hold, but has a lot of empty spaces for the DM to design.  All have solid base areas with small towns and wilderness.  Some cool new monster variants too.  Originally designed for Labyrinth Lord, but Greg's own Dragonslayer game will be out soon and is designed for these.

Michael Curtis' "Stonehell," available in two volumes from Lulu, is possibly the best value for money.  Pretty easy to run because of its design and layout.  Originally written for Labyrinth Lord.

If you want gonzo weirdness with evil clowns, dinosaurs, and lots of tech and classic rock references, you might like Patrick Wetmore's "Anomalous Subsurface Environment."  Also designed for Labyrinth Lord.

"The Halls of Arden Vul" is amazing, but also massive (5 volumes) and, IMO, too complicated to run.  Some of the single room descriptions run several pages in length.  But it has flavor, if you're itching to spend $275 (hard copy; I think the pdfs are like $30 each).

There are others, but these are the ones I've played, at least in part.  Haven't "completed" any, but it's a goal for the coming year.

  Greg Gillespie was the fellow I was thinking of....Thanks!!   Have you run anyone all the way (well at least as far as they could get) through RA?   I have it in a few versions (PF, 5e) either of which are easy conversions for me...I was just wondering if you have had a group stick to it long term.   The area around it seems to offer lots of diversion from the dungeon for people who get a little tired of being underground so I would like to try it.

We did maybe 10 sessions of Rappan Thuk then the party hit a teleporter that took them to Necropolis, which we ran in its entirety.  But we weren't really tired of it, so I wouldn't mind giving it another go with a different group.  It's near the top for me.

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on December 29, 2023, 03:01:05 PM
The "Players getting bored, and leaving after levels 1-2", has been my experience every time I have tried to run a megadungeon. 

Some of the settings attached to the megadungeons are pretty amazing.  I am currently reading Anomalous Subsurface Environment ASE:1 by Patrick Wetmore, and I am blown away by his City of Denethix, and the Land of One Thousand Towers.  It is very post apocalyptic and would be perfect for a Gamma World campaign, or Mutant Future, or the Goodman Games clone.

Quote from: S'mon on December 30, 2023, 09:18:56 AM
I've run both Barrowmaze and Stonehell for years using 5e D&D and enjoyed them a lot. Barrowmaze campaign page at https://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2021/04/helix-barrowmoor.html  session accounts at https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/10021247/barrowmaze

Some Stonehell accounts at https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/10701418/ghinarian-hills-slash-stonehell-session-accounts

In 2024 I'm planning to try running Highfell with Dragonbane rules - https://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/12/highfell-drifting-dungeon.html

I'm curious - how do they keep it from feeling repetitive to keep going through the same dungeon? I glanced over your session accounts, S'mon - which look fun, but it's hard to get a bigger picture from those.

The last time I played in a megadungeon was a Judge's Guild module back in 1989, and my experience was similar to Svenhelgrim in that monster after monster started to feel stale. The old Judge's Guild megadungeon had a variety of monsters and tricks/traps, but it got to feeling rather mechanical. We leaned into it for a while as we honed our tactics and went over-the-top with optimizing our kill procedures. We carefully wrote out checklists and so forth, and also scanned for things like how to kill sections of the dungeon by smoke inhalation, for example. But it did still come to feel like churning rather than fresh.

I copied the following off a blog years ago. Intended to liven up Barrowmaze, I recall the idea was to roll a d20 for each undead encounter so not every one would be off the wall, but enough would be. And you might cross off some entries and write in new ones if repetitions didn't make sense.

I should credit the creator, but I can't find it now off a search, and didn't think to paste that info in as well. I retain impression it was meant to be shared though, so here it is.

What's Up With These Undead?

• An Enchanted Weapon is either (mindless) stuck in or (intelligent) wielded by one of the creatures (GM's choice what weapon).
• The creatures are Armored, or more heavily armored than usual if they normally wear protection. Treat their AC as two steps better. The actual armor is rusted, rotted or worn and can be of any specific type.
  
• The creatures are stalked by an entourage of 3D6 Giant Rats that devour the scraps they leave behind. They will fall upon and devour any fallen PC's, and possibly attack the party after combat if the PC's appear sufficiently weakened.
• A Lesser Demon is bound in one of the creatures (quite visibly, the creature has a large red pentagram painted on its chest). If the pentagram is disturbed, such as by slaying the creature (except perhaps using called shots or similar), the demon (6 HD, AC 15, 2@+6,D8, Fire Breath 3/day, 20' cone for 2D8 dmg, save for half) will be released into this plane. Roll Reaction at -4. An intelligent creature marked in this way will use it to threaten the party and attempt to make them release the demon, and then flee to escape its wrath.
• The creatures are dressed in Clerical Robes and wear gilded holy symbols of an appropriate lawful deity. They possess no special powers. Each holy symbol is worth 50 SP.
  
• A number (2D4) of Giant Centipedes live on or in the creatures in a symbiotic relationship. These centipedes will remain on the creatures until brought into melee range, and will then attempt to scurry onto opponents and paralyze them with their venom.
• One of the creatures has an Arrow of Dragonslaying stuck in it.
• The creatures are, for some reason, chained together. They make a lot of noise while moving around, they move slower than normal and the chain can possibly cause them any number of practical problems. Intelligent undead will know to minimize these problems, and perhaps even use the chain to their advantage.
  
• The creatures are dragging a small cart along. Mindless undead will simply drag it behind them, set on some ancient task now probably pointless. Intelligent undead will use it as a mobile food supply, and in it can be found random valuables worth 500 SP along with a lot of bones and disgusting bits. The cart itself is rickety and worn, but functional.
• One of the creatures is exceptionally large, at least 7' tall if the beings are of human size. This creature is hung with decorative bone jewelery, and automatically has maximum HP.
  
• The creatures carry a Fungal Infection which has covered them in strange growths. This has granted them an extra HD each. Spores release in a 5' radius cloud on a successful hit which causes physical damage (i.e. not fire, cold or the like). Those caught in a spore cloud must make a Fortitude save (one per round) or begin to choke (-4 to all activity for a Turn) and become infected with a Fungal Rot (treat as Lung Sickness, but accompanied by growths which spread infectious spores as per above).
  
• Someone has hung a string of bells on one of the creatures. Mindless undead will announce their approach from far off and cannot surprise anything. Intelligent undead will attempt a diversion, hiding in ambush while one of them skulks around in a room while wearing the bells.
  

One one level it would be nice if megadungeon creators all gave us stuff like this, and more. On another level its not like published megadungeons aren't bulky to begin with, and crowdsourcing is a thing as well.

(We should do more crowdsourcing/brainstorming on this site. Its the only thing I miss from the Google+ days, and even from the pre-convergence days of the big purple site, as long ago as that was.)

Quote from: Dave 2 on December 30, 2023, 05:38:57 PM
I copied the following off a blog years ago. Intended to liven up Barrowmaze, I recall the idea was to roll a d20 for each undead encounter so not every one would be off the wall, but enough would be. And you might cross off some entries and write in new ones if repetitions didn't make sense.

I should credit the creator, but I can't find it now off a search, and didn't think to paste that info in as well. I retain impression it was meant to be shared though, so here it is.

I found the source for this. I was sure I'd seen it before, and was able to find it again.
https://perchance.org/whats-up-with-these-undead

Quote from: Dave 2 on December 30, 2023, 05:38:57 PM
(We should do more crowdsourcing/brainstorming on this site. Its the only thing I miss from the Google+ days, and even from the pre-convergence days of the big purple site, as long ago as that was.)

Yes we totally should do more crowdsourcing around here. I always enjoy those sorts of exercises.

Greetings!

People have mentioned some excellent mega-dungeons, for sure.

I would include "The Night Below." It is an old school boxed set mega-adventure campaign thingy. It is primarily focused on a huge subterranean adventure campaign, but it also embraces plenty of action going on up on the surface. Trading, mercantile opportunities, roleplaying. Politics. Then, there is plenty of scope for wilderness adventures while traveling from some surface town or city, down to wherever the party is encamped in the subterranean world. Once the group has entered the subterranean world, well, well, there is plenty of scope for including various subterranean dungeons and lairs, as well as subterranean towns, outposts, and majestic, crazy cities. There are Fish-men cities, Troglodyte camps, lots of Undead, as well as Minotaurs, beastmen, Drow Elves, and the mysterious Aboleth, which are the primary villain. There is also the Mind-Flayers, Demons, Succubi, various monsters, Dragons, Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.

There is a framework that you can reasonably include all kinds of things, or narrow the scope, as desired. Lots of potential allies and friends that can be gained, powerful secondary villains, all kinds of things. It is a fantastic campaign box thing. I GM'd this thing for my group back in the day, and it consumed and dominated the group's campaign play for, as I recall, like a year of real time. The group went from like 4th level, to 20th level by the time the "Night Below" campaign was concluded. The group then moved into more domain focused play after that.

Each and every week, the group got to embrace subterranean dungeons, subterranean wilderness exploration, and then alternating as needed with return trips to the surface, and civilized lands. The group had to deal with logistics, supply-lines, politics, assassins, evil cultists striking from the shadows within the walls of the city, weird sub-plots, all kinds of stuff going on while they were in civilized lands--before they returned to the savage lands below the earth. So, there was always lots of fresh experiences that were not just being shoved into a dungeon every week. Then, they might slog underground for a week or two, maybe three, before it would be time to return to the surface for a few weeks. Back and forth. It was a good rhythm that I had established, with lots of interesting variety.

I highly recommend this supplement. The original author was Carl Sargent. It is a masterclass all by itself on establishing a campaign with an epic scope.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on December 31, 2023, 06:44:20 AM
Greetings!
I would include "The Night Below." It is an old school boxed set mega-adventure campaign thingy. It is primarily focused on a huge subterranean adventure campaign, but it also embraces plenty of action going on up on the surface. Trading, mercantile opportunities, roleplaying. Politics. Then, there is plenty of scope for wilderness adventures while traveling from some surface town or city, down to wherever the party is encamped in the subterranean world. Once the group has entered the subterranean world, well, well, there is plenty of scope for including various subterranean dungeons and lairs, as well as subterranean towns, outposts, and majestic, crazy cities. There are Fish-men cities, Troglodyte camps, lots of Undead, as well as Minotaurs, beastmen, Drow Elves, and the mysterious Aboleth, which are the primary villain. There is also the Mind-Flayers, Demons, Succubi, various monsters, Dragons, Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.


Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Weirdly enough, I am currently developing a campaign that looks a hell of a lot like this including an alliance of Aboleth being the overarching villains.  The only big difference is that it's also a pirate game centered around an ocean in the Underdark.

Quote from: SHARK on December 31, 2023, 06:44:20 AM
Greetings!

People have mentioned some excellent mega-dungeons, for sure.

I would include "The Night Below." It is an old school boxed set mega-adventure campaign thingy. It is primarily focused on a huge subterranean adventure campaign, but it also embraces plenty of action going on up on the surface. Trading, mercantile opportunities, roleplaying. Politics. Then, there is plenty of scope for wilderness adventures while traveling from some surface town or city, down to wherever the party is encamped in the subterranean world. Once the group has entered the subterranean world, well, well, there is plenty of scope for including various subterranean dungeons and lairs, as well as subterranean towns, outposts, and majestic, crazy cities. There are Fish-men cities, Troglodyte camps, lots of Undead, as well as Minotaurs, beastmen, Drow Elves, and the mysterious Aboleth, which are the primary villain. There is also the Mind-Flayers, Demons, Succubi, various monsters, Dragons, Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.

There is a framework that you can reasonably include all kinds of things, or narrow the scope, as desired. Lots of potential allies and friends that can be gained, powerful secondary villains, all kinds of things. It is a fantastic campaign box thing. I GM'd this thing for my group back in the day, and it consumed and dominated the group's campaign play for, as I recall, like a year of real time. The group went from like 4th level, to 20th level by the time the "Night Below" campaign was concluded. The group then moved into more domain focused play after that.

Each and every week, the group got to embrace subterranean dungeons, subterranean wilderness exploration, and then alternating as needed with return trips to the surface, and civilized lands. The group had to deal with logistics, supply-lines, politics, assassins, evil cultists striking from the shadows within the walls of the city, weird sub-plots, all kinds of stuff going on while they were in civilized lands--before they returned to the savage lands below the earth. So, there was always lots of fresh experiences that were not just being shoved into a dungeon every week. Then, they might slog underground for a week or two, maybe three, before it would be time to return to the surface for a few weeks. Back and forth. It was a good rhythm that I had established, with lots of interesting variety.

I highly recommend this supplement. The original author was Carl Sargent. It is a masterclass all by itself on establishing a campaign with an epic scope.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Currently playing this in an online group for C&C.  Probably the best adventure written for 2e and definitely prefigures the adventure path format in one massive boxed set.

I tried to run Undermountain back in the day.  My experience matched some others.  Even the players who liked that style of play just got bored with it.  One of the players asked if they had to keep doing it.  The rest nodded in agreement.  I just dropped it.  No, you don't have to do that. 

My current group has little interest in megadungeons, and in general finds the whole dungeoncrawl experience to be sort of boring. I think a lot of this is because the current rules (5E) is so fiddly and combat tends to be a real slog.

As an old fart, I thought I would give a 1970's perspective on the megadungeon, and why it used to be a good thing.

When I first learned D&D, the philosophy of gaming was very different. While today's adventures tend to focus on plot and diplomacy, older adventures were mostly a matter of beating monsters so you could steal their stuff. The dungeon was the challenge and we would go in, go as deep as we could, then try to escape the dungeon and head back to town to heal and buy better weapons. Returning to the dungeon we might find a few new monsters had established residence, but the rooms we had cleared were mostly cleared and that meant we could quickly get back to where we had left off so that we could push deeper again. Each time we delved into a new level down we would high-five each other, cheered that we had reached a new depth. Conquering the dungeon was its own reward.

My deepest dungeon was around 20 levels, but some of them were hastily and poorly done. Gary's Greyhawk dungeons went something like 13 levels down. Arneson's Blackmoor dungeons started at 6 levels, and later got expanded to 10. I think a lot of us played that style back then.

Nowadays massive dungeons are neat for me, but not so fun for players. New era, new philosophy I guess.

I know Barrowmaze is a really good megadungeon, and I also recommend Dwarrowdeep. It's a dwarven megadungeon made by the same author. Not everyone liked it as much as Barrowmaze, but I think it's a really fantastic megadungeon. It's actually more of an underground hexcrawl with dungeons all throughout it, similar to Moria.

Another one I recommend is Gunderholfen. It's not as mega as some megadungeons, but it works pretty well and it's a really good dungeon for its price.

Quote from: jhkim on December 30, 2023, 04:03:08 PM
I'm curious - how do they keep it from feeling repetitive to keep going through the same dungeon? I glanced over your session accounts, S'mon - which look fun, but it's hard to get a bigger picture from those.

I think different dungeon factions help, an outer world that feels alive, and important goals within the megadungeon. So do BBEGs, like the Nixthisis in Stonehell. Proactive players, eg my son is an empire builder with a growing cult of Yig in Stonehell spanning several levels and temples, while my friend Matt's Paladin PC Macready is determined to map the Barrowmaze.

Something that helps a lot is not thinking in terms of kill every monster. Even undead aren't always hostile (esp if the GM is getting bored of fights)  . Macready befriended the Barrowmaze mongrelmen, eventually escorting the tribe to a new home.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 31, 2023, 07:32:32 AM

Quote from: SHARK on December 31, 2023, 06:44:20 AM
Greetings!
I would include "The Night Below." It is an old school boxed set mega-adventure campaign thingy. It is primarily focused on a huge subterranean adventure campaign, but it also embraces plenty of action going on up on the surface. Trading, mercantile opportunities, roleplaying. Politics. Then, there is plenty of scope for wilderness adventures while traveling from some surface town or city, down to wherever the party is encamped in the subterranean world. Once the group has entered the subterranean world, well, well, there is plenty of scope for including various subterranean dungeons and lairs, as well as subterranean towns, outposts, and majestic, crazy cities. There are Fish-men cities, Troglodyte camps, lots of Undead, as well as Minotaurs, beastmen, Drow Elves, and the mysterious Aboleth, which are the primary villain. There is also the Mind-Flayers, Demons, Succubi, various monsters, Dragons, Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.


Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Weirdly enough, I am currently developing a campaign that looks a hell of a lot like this including an alliance of Aboleth being the overarching villains.  The only big difference is that it's also a pirate game centered around an ocean in the Underdark.

Greetings!

Nice, Yosemitemike! It is such a great campaign.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Persimmon on December 31, 2023, 11:27:49 AM

Quote from: SHARK on December 31, 2023, 06:44:20 AM
Greetings!

People have mentioned some excellent mega-dungeons, for sure.

I would include "The Night Below." It is an old school boxed set mega-adventure campaign thingy. It is primarily focused on a huge subterranean adventure campaign, but it also embraces plenty of action going on up on the surface. Trading, mercantile opportunities, roleplaying. Politics. Then, there is plenty of scope for wilderness adventures while traveling from some surface town or city, down to wherever the party is encamped in the subterranean world. Once the group has entered the subterranean world, well, well, there is plenty of scope for including various subterranean dungeons and lairs, as well as subterranean towns, outposts, and majestic, crazy cities. There are Fish-men cities, Troglodyte camps, lots of Undead, as well as Minotaurs, beastmen, Drow Elves, and the mysterious Aboleth, which are the primary villain. There is also the Mind-Flayers, Demons, Succubi, various monsters, Dragons, Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.

There is a framework that you can reasonably include all kinds of things, or narrow the scope, as desired. Lots of potential allies and friends that can be gained, powerful secondary villains, all kinds of things. It is a fantastic campaign box thing. I GM'd this thing for my group back in the day, and it consumed and dominated the group's campaign play for, as I recall, like a year of real time. The group went from like 4th level, to 20th level by the time the "Night Below" campaign was concluded. The group then moved into more domain focused play after that.

Each and every week, the group got to embrace subterranean dungeons, subterranean wilderness exploration, and then alternating as needed with return trips to the surface, and civilized lands. The group had to deal with logistics, supply-lines, politics, assassins, evil cultists striking from the shadows within the walls of the city, weird sub-plots, all kinds of stuff going on while they were in civilized lands--before they returned to the savage lands below the earth. So, there was always lots of fresh experiences that were not just being shoved into a dungeon every week. Then, they might slog underground for a week or two, maybe three, before it would be time to return to the surface for a few weeks. Back and forth. It was a good rhythm that I had established, with lots of interesting variety.

I highly recommend this supplement. The original author was Carl Sargent. It is a masterclass all by itself on establishing a campaign with an epic scope.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Currently playing this in an online group for C&C.  Probably the best adventure written for 2e and definitely prefigures the adventure path format in one massive boxed set.

Greetings!

Excellent, my friend! I have always enjoyed "Night Below." It is so flexible. It is like a mega dungeon, right, but with so much more going on. I love how Sargent includes so many prompts aimed at encouraging you to really think about the material presented, and to expand on it in different, cool ways. And, well, many of his own ideas as presented through the set up and encounters are themselves brilliant and very cool.

Running the campaign, I often added new material, but almost always kept stuff that Sargent wrote. It is brilliant, and very enjoyable.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Dave 2 on December 29, 2023, 06:32:14 PM
I had a blast playing in a long running Barrowmaze campaign. Do know before you go in that the emphasis on undead turns it into D&D on hard mode. Many encounters won't be making reaction rolls or morale checks, so it can be more of a meatgrinder than many other old school dungeons. Its a little ironic something weak on those two elements was such a darling of the OSR, but it really is very well executed.
.....

I'll highly recommend Greg Gillespie's megadungeons. Barrowmaze is such that you can run as much as your player's want. And it's a ton of fun for the right group.

Quote from: SHARK on December 31, 2023, 06:44:20 AM
Greetings!

People have mentioned some excellent mega-dungeons, for sure.

I would include "The Night Below." It is an old school boxed set mega-adventure campaign thingy. It is primarily focused on a huge subterranean adventure campaign, but it also embraces plenty of action going on up on the surface. Trading, mercantile opportunities, roleplaying. Politics. Then, there is plenty of scope for wilderness adventures while traveling from some surface town or city, down to wherever the party is encamped in the subterranean world. Once the group has entered the subterranean world, well, well, there is plenty of scope for including various subterranean dungeons and lairs, as well as subterranean towns, outposts, and majestic, crazy cities. There are Fish-men cities, Troglodyte camps, lots of Undead, as well as Minotaurs, beastmen, Drow Elves, and the mysterious Aboleth, which are the primary villain. There is also the Mind-Flayers, Demons, Succubi, various monsters, Dragons, Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves.

There is a framework that you can reasonably include all kinds of things, or narrow the scope, as desired. Lots of potential allies and friends that can be gained, powerful secondary villains, all kinds of things. It is a fantastic campaign box thing. I GM'd this thing for my group back in the day, and it consumed and dominated the group's campaign play for, as I recall, like a year of real time. The group went from like 4th level, to 20th level by the time the "Night Below" campaign was concluded. The group then moved into more domain focused play after that.

Each and every week, the group got to embrace subterranean dungeons, subterranean wilderness exploration, and then alternating as needed with return trips to the surface, and civilized lands. The group had to deal with logistics, supply-lines, politics, assassins, evil cultists striking from the shadows within the walls of the city, weird sub-plots, all kinds of stuff going on while they were in civilized lands--before they returned to the savage lands below the earth. So, there was always lots of fresh experiences that were not just being shoved into a dungeon every week. Then, they might slog underground for a week or two, maybe three, before it would be time to return to the surface for a few weeks. Back and forth. It was a good rhythm that I had established, with lots of interesting variety.

I highly recommend this supplement. The original author was Carl Sargent. It is a masterclass all by itself on establishing a campaign with an epic scope.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Greetings SHARK! Happy New Year. I agree with this 100%. My player's are just about to start this awesome adventure and I'm having a blast just reading it....the ideas that flow.