My advice is to make your own. You'll know it better. You won't have to read, grok, and inevitably modify someone else's prep, and the content will be an exact match for the needs of your campaign. In my experience, using someone else's megadungeon doesn't save you much time. You don't need to have the whole thing done to start play. Just have a general idea of the dungeon's contents, a few levels done, and if the players deep deeper wing it and give them enough of a scare that they move back up (this can sometimes be done with just foreshadowing and noises -- players going deeper than their comfort zone are usually pretty cautious). If you develop your dungeon while playing it (I don't mean in the same session obviously) you'll probably get into a kind of cool feedback loop where the game play helps inspire and direct the development of the dungeon, itself.

You can still use published megadungeons for inspiration, outright theft of cool rooms/sections, or to plug in areas as sublevels.

As for megadungeon fatigue, that can be a very real thing. The way to fight it is to get away from the idea that the megadungeon can be "beaten" or cleared. While simply exploring it in search of fortune and glory is one thing PCs can do, there are many other ways the megadungeon can be used. Some type of quest focused mission is always good. The the famed outlaw Vagnar the Limper has kidnapped a noble's son and is believed to be hiding on the second level of [fill in the blank megadungeon name]. Or the ancient map you found is partially legible, and seems to show system of caves in [the megadungeon] noted as "the crystal caverns," and these contain the final resting place of the famous hero Agrikor, known for his dragon-slaying sword. And so on. PCs can enter the megadungeon on adventures with specific goals, but they don't have to spend all their time in the megadungeon. The campaign can move in other directions, only returning to the megadungeon on occasion.

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on January 03, 2024, 07:10:55 PM

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.

Greetings!

Thorn, my friend! HAPPY NEW YEARS INDEED! Thank you as well.

That is awesome that you are running your group through "The Night Below." I think Carl Sargent is terribly underrated as a game designer. Every section bubbles with ideas and inspiration! I found that there is *plenty* of work for you, as the DM, to do, each and every week or game session. Detailing the various NPC's, exploring sub-plots, and on and on. That thing is incredibly entertaining to just read, and work on, quite apart and separate from playing the group through it. I know you will enjoy it immensely, Thorn.

You should post a weekly campaign Series detailing your group's adventures, and, just as interesting, a kind of "Design Notes" on your part of all that you are doing as the DM. Discussing things in the campaign books that you love, things you changed, and how such changes were dealt with by the players as they explore the fantastic campaign module!

It is mind blowing that it has been what? 25, 30 years since I ran "The Night Below"--and I still have huge memories of how that part of the campaign went. It was enormously inspiring and impactful.

I also recommend that you resist the temptation to "railroad" the group through all the secondary or supplemental encounters, to speed them to the "exciting parts." Let them not just explore, and chase down plots and things at their own pace, but actively support and encourage the group to develop the campaign and really dig into stuff. Your campaign will be richly rewarded for doing so! Watch how different relationships develop, how politics are affected, and even the cultural environment is altered. Trading posts, welcoming new tribes or settlements, making alliances with Gnomes, Elves, Centaurs, what have you. It will blow your mind the depth and scope that can be developed.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon on January 03, 2024, 05:17:09 PM

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.

It sounds like these megadungeons are quite different in design from the old Judge's Guild modules, as well as some modern megadungeons. The one modern megadungeon I have is Castle Gargantua - which is a 2014 OSR adventure, but it's still just lots and lots of rooms with encounters - rather than having higher-level structure with varying goals and politics and such.

Basically, I'm curious about what makes a good megadungeon module, for whatever one's view is.

I always get thrown off by the "mega-" designation.

I guess I would count Gary's Greyhawk as a mega. Dave's Blackmoor. Barker's Underworld below Jakalla. But only those who played with Gary, Dave or Barker ever saw those.

And gamers creating their own dungeons could well have gone to mega status by continuing to draw out and populate level after level. But that was home-brew and only their friends ever saw that.

If we look at what was published during Gygaxian-era D&D, there was nothing I would consider as even close to mega. Dungeons, and settings. A series of discrete adventure locations. But that's all.

I don't know when the mega started getting applied, but Undermountain seemed like it could merit the mega. Maybe Night Below, I wouldn't know since I've never seen it.

Since the OSR movement we see things like Barrowmaze et al and the term mega is tossed around as a "thing," usually with the aura that it reflects "old-school" gaming. Well, maybe home-brewed old school gaming, but not old school modules published for purchase.

I'll say that I once ran a very big dungeon and it qualified as mega. The players were tasked with finding a particular NPC who dwelled at the bottom of the dungeon. They weren't cleaning it out room by room, they didn't attack absolutely everything (close though). But I think we all began to suffer from dungeon fatigue after a while. They couldn't retreat, it didn't make sense. I was glad when they achieved their goal, and it made sense story-wise to teleport them out.

Nowadays I think there's a lot to be said for short adventures. Provides achievable goals without a fatigue factor, allows for training and resupply, and characters can be swapped in and out along with varied player attendance.

I firmly support night below as I was one of the authors wayyyyy back in the day to convert it from 2E to 3x over on EnWorld.  It's a blast to play except in the middle part which is where things bog down tremendously and it becomes a slog.

I highly suggest streamling Book 2 and Book 3 an strip out the absolute meatgrinder sections from the City of the Glass Pool to Great Shaboath. Tone down all the crap surrounding the city and force the PC's to get to the end.

As for MegaDungeons I also support Ardun Vul as the books are beautiful and packed full of good and useful encounters.

Quote from: SHARK on January 03, 2024, 11:57:58 PM
Greetings!

Thorn, my friend! HAPPY NEW YEARS INDEED! Thank you as well.

That is awesome that you are running your group through "The Night Below." I think Carl Sargent is terribly underrated as a game designer. Every section bubbles with ideas and inspiration! I found that there is *plenty* of work for you, as the DM, to do, each and every week or game session. Detailing the various NPC's, exploring sub-plots, and on and on. That thing is incredibly entertaining to just read, and work on, quite apart and separate from playing the group through it. I know you will enjoy it immensely, Thorn.

You should post a weekly campaign Series detailing your group's adventures, and, just as interesting, a kind of "Design Notes" on your part of all that you are doing as the DM. Discussing things in the campaign books that you love, things you changed, and how such changes were dealt with by the players as they explore the fantastic campaign module!

It is mind blowing that it has been what? 25, 30 years since I ran "The Night Below"--and I still have huge memories of how that part of the campaign went. It was enormously inspiring and impactful.

I also recommend that you resist the temptation to "railroad" the group through all the secondary or supplemental encounters, to speed them to the "exciting parts." Let them not just explore, and chase down plots and things at their own pace, but actively support and encourage the group to develop the campaign and really dig into stuff. Your campaign will be richly rewarded for doing so! Watch how different relationships develop, how politics are affected, and even the cultural environment is altered. Trading posts, welcoming new tribes or settlements, making alliances with Gnomes, Elves, Centaurs, what have you. It will blow your mind the depth and scope that can be developed.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

That's a great idea. I think I'll post on the forum once we get going.

And Carl Sargent's stuff is great. I run in Greyhawk and I love his Greyhawk wars stuff.

Quote from: jhkim on January 04, 2024, 04:21:17 PM

Quote from: S'mon on January 03, 2024, 05:17:09 PM

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.

It sounds like these megadungeons are quite different in design from the old Judge's Guild modules, as well as some modern megadungeons. The one modern megadungeon I have is Castle Gargantua - which is a 2014 OSR adventure, but it's still just lots and lots of rooms with encounters - rather than having higher-level structure with varying goals and politics and such.

Basically, I'm curious about what makes a good megadungeon module, for whatever one's view is.

I think factions are really important, especially competing factions like the Vrilya vs Three Eyed King in Stonehell, or the Orcus vs Set cults in Barrowmaze. And PCs should generally have the opportunity to ally with certain factions - Barrowmaze is a bit weak on this, but Stonehell has numerous potentially friendly factions.

Quote from: S'mon on January 05, 2024, 05:49:58 AM
I think factions are really important, especially competing factions like the Vrilya vs Three Eyed King in Stonehell, or the Orcus vs Set cults in Barrowmaze. And PCs should generally have the opportunity to ally with certain factions - Barrowmaze is a bit weak on this, but Stonehell has numerous potentially friendly factions.

As with any large dungeon, even if it isn't quite mega size.  Which leads to the supporting point, that there should be multiple entrances to the dungeon, somewhat proportionate to its size.  Most of those factions will have a way to interact with the outside world, if only occasionally or under duress, without having to go through the territory of another faction.  This aspect naturally leads to the players can skip part of the dungeon, assuming they want to and can find those other entrances.  Likewise, when they do manage to find one that is hidden, it is a meaningful discovery.  Barrowmaze has a good assortment of entrances.

That all means that the GM may not use the whole dungeon.  I've never seen that as a bad thing. 

IMO, for mega-dungeons you only need a few things:
1. the dungeon
2. a base of operations nearby
That's it.
the mega-dungeon: how simple or complex you want to make it is entirely up to you. There's no right of wrong in this. You can use premade/purchase stuff or you can design your own. Me? I'm lazy and use premade almost exclusively. Sure, I'll modify things here and there from the original, but overall I like using other people's material. I'm not so arrogant to think my homebrew stuff is any better than a published mega-dungeon.
Base of operations: can be anyplace you want. Lately, I've used the city of Greyhawk as the base of operations, with Castle Greyhawk about a half day's travel nearby. it's not that turd of a dungeon published back in the 80s. I'm using Joseph Bloch's Castle of the Mad Arch-mage Beta version (before he had to edit the copyrighted material out before publishing).
I have a whole bunch of NPC they can interact with in the city and I leave it up to the PCs to get into or create any political highjinks. No need for a plot for my group, They can create enough turmoil and chaos on their own.

I'm personally not a huge fan of lots of factions.  Any more than three is too many IMO.  It's one of the issues with "Arden Vul," in addition to the sheer density of the writing and backstory there.  I suppose this comes from my experience with Temple of Elemental Evil back in the day.  Sure, there were factions.  But our policy was simply to kill them all.  We don't negotiate with cultists.

I am a bit biased as I wrote a whole book on HOW TO MEGA DUNGEON with Greg Svenson and D.H. Boggs.

The new generation of 5e players do not truly understand the concept of underworld as being more than a bunch of caves. It is rooted in deeper concepts about exploring the uncanny and supernatural, perhaps even the outer layers of the world of the dead, or hell itself.

The ideas of mindless terror coming from Gothic Horror and Cthulu should be prevalent within the setting as well. No sane person would go to these places.

If you want to run a Mega Dungeon you have to reverse the power structure that has become inherent in newer editions of RPGs, where the player characters themselves have now become the most powerful and supernatural, if not entirely bizarre, and return to having groups of weakling humans and their allies delving into the unknown spirit world of darkness.

As the game referee, your goal is to do what is uncalled for in contemporary RPGs and try to trigger dark feelings in your players by exposing them to uncomfortable experiences within the game. The entire concept of 'Safety' needs to be throw out the window, as the point of these Mega Dungeons is to create danger and unease.

As far as mega dungeons are concerned, our Tonisborg Dungeon is one of the oldest ever. Even Pundit says his game group is fascinated by running in an old old dungeon, using minimal rules, where you have to create your own map as you explore.

By introducing the uncanny into the setting you both evoke and invoke terror.

"You come to a room and you see some shiny objects in the middle of the floor... As you draw closer you realize the largest object is a pair of primitive looking pliers... scatted nearby are what appear to be freshly pulled teeth..."

If this is the play style that interests you, we still have the remaining 15 hard bound copes of our book for sale on our site. You can also order much cheaper paper backs.

https://www.tfott.com/product-page/the-lost-dungeons-of-tonisborg-book-first-edition-second-printing-1

Quote from: Persimmon on January 05, 2024, 08:38:03 AM
I'm personally not a huge fan of lots of factions.  Any more than three is too many IMO.  It's one of the issues with "Arden Vul," in addition to the sheer density of the writing and backstory there.  I suppose this comes from my experience with Temple of Elemental Evil back in the day.  Sure, there were factions.  But our policy was simply to kill them all.  We don't negotiate with cultists.

LOL, Persimmon. You made me laugh. hehehe Especially the kill 'em all. That's how I think my players will be when they find the splinter groups of Illithids and derro.....I could be wrong though. I kinda hope the players will turn evil against each other...we'll see.

Quote from: Persimmon on January 05, 2024, 08:38:03 AM
But our policy was simply to kill them all.  We don't negotiate with cultists.

This.

Hard to imagine dungeon-dwellers that a good party would ally with. Manipulate, maybe.

Quote from: Baron on January 05, 2024, 02:29:34 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on January 05, 2024, 08:38:03 AM
But our policy was simply to kill them all.  We don't negotiate with cultists.

This.

Hard to imagine dungeon-dwellers that a good party would ally with. Manipulate, maybe.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend especially when they have food, torches, and overwhelming amount of forces to kill you.

Quote from: oggsmash on December 29, 2023, 11:57:30 AM
   I was curious what some of you guys use mega dungeons for (IME I will use a level or two and players leave do other stuff and maybe return later...or die when they go somewhere they were not ready to be) at least those of you who use them.   I was also looking for a recommended list of same old school flavor preferred.  System does not much matter as I use SW and GURPS these days for our table top and I can convert creatures/situations from most any system to those on the fly. 

My favorite mega-dungeons:  https://grodog.blogspot.com/2020/06/grodog-favorite-mega-dungeons.html

My players still prefer mega-dungeon play, and are now en route back to the City of Greyhawk from Dyvers, so that they can recommence their delving into Castle Greyhawk, having been away from it for a bit of city adventuring in Hardby and Dyvers, with attendant wilderness travels in between.

Allan.