Troll Lord Games

Seriously do you? In my rediscovering of od&d, the basis of an old school campaign was the dungeon. i remember in the underworld adventures th edungeon should be about 10 levels with multiple ways to move between levels and sub levels. when i was 11 that made sence. But now i'm fourty, (Que in oklahoma state football coach's rant, "i'm a man. Im' fourty") and for a good while now my own creations are more that just go to the ruins and loot. they are stories with politics and quests and saving/ conquering kingdoms. am i wrong or isnt that what we all are doing when we create our own material? Who is still making megadungeons?

I think you're right. Classic dungeons had their place, and required no explanation "back in the day." Why one room would contain Ogres and another hell hounds was a mystery we never considered worth investigating. They were there, they had treasure, and they need to die. That was all that mattered.

Nowadays, it's very difficult to justify such a setting (it defies reason!). However, with the party's buy-in, it's still possible to "run a dungeon" with the collective understanding and agreement that it's exactly that - it has no overarching storyline, there's no "logic" behind its existence and occupants...it's just a dungeon. Since our campaigns tend to have evolved to highly detailed levels, such a dungeon should only be used as a diversion for some good ol' fashioned monster bashing, and not something that has to dovetail into the campaign.

I've actually never run that many dungeons. I prefer wilderness tales, urban tales, horror stories, and exploration of ruins. However, the best dungeon idea I ever came up with was for a group of adventurers that lost their way in a faerie wood- though they did not know it was such. They found a cave to shelter in and in it found a massive, labrythine dungeon. I took great pleasure in concocting the most illogical and ridiculous room denizens with implausible treasures (such as enormously wealthy giant spiders- seriously, their treasure type is goofily high). Eventually, the adventurers caught on that all of it, every last moment of it, was an elaborate illusion being played on them by the powerful Lords of the Fey (Titania, Oberon, and Puck, of course) and that they were more or less gladiators entertaining the crowd. Still proud of that one.

I have tired over overblown epicness & grand schemes & come full circle back to the dungeon. Big ones, small ones, ones woth plot & diplomacy, hacker ones, grand underground wildernesses.

The "dungeon as a mythic underworld" idea appeals to me.

I've never done 'dungeons'. I have always done 'lairs'.

The concept of "10 levels, with multiple entries and exits, and 'kobolds on level 1, orcs on level 2, hobgoblins on level 3', and the dragon is at the bottom" is alien to me. I didn't even like B1, the "Condos of Chaos".

I've always done "this was an evil temple, the acolytes occultists were killed a hundred years ago, and now a band of orcs live there" or some such. Even Moria was a lair, not a dungeon. It was a dwarven city, conquored by a demon (who DOES live at the lower (lowest?) level). Later Orcs were drawn to its power and inhabited it. Sure, it has dungeon traits (multiple levels, labrynth like, etc), but it is a lair.

Currrently I'm running C&C Conan, and I do 'adventure sites' or 'adventure episodes' rather than even lairs.

Put me firmly in the mega-dungeon camp.
My game has a mega-dungeon. It has a reason and purpose. Its back story makes it key to my world. It is often ignored, but it is a major plot driver of my world.

I have done lairs and encounter sites.. they are ok and can be quite fun.
But the game was built on the idea of limited resources. The dungeon really made it hit home. Classes were built with the dungeon in mind and they balanced in a dungeon.

Moving play outside the dungeon skews the balance of limited resources. Does it matter matter your mage can only cast 2 spells aday when you only have 2 encounters a day?
Without the limits of being in hostile territory, the casters really out shine everyone in a couple of levels. Who cares if the mage burns all his spells in one encounter.. we have plenty of time to rest and get them back in a nice snug inn.

The lack of dungeons brought the enitre class balance debate about. Now i am glad that 3e brought me C&C, i am not a fan of the continued drive for every class to be equal powered.

Play the game your group likes to play it. but for me mega-dungeons are the main focus.

zarathustra wrote:I have tired over overblown epicness & grand schemes & come full circle back to the dungeon. Big ones, small ones, ones woth plot & diplomacy, hacker ones, grand underground wildernesses.

The "dungeon as a mythic underworld" idea appeals to me.

Yeah. As a "grown-up" DM, I've come back to the classics. As the scribe said: "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

I've learned to cheat a little to make it easier, of course; using online random dungeon generators and MapTool (mostly for me but also for when the players don't want to agonize too much over mapping - though that eliminates the whole "getting lost" angle, which is a little unfortunate).

I also play them as highly constrained and perpetually growing (downward, usually) sandboxes and slot out portions as being "under the control of" some monster(s) (meaning that I use them as the fill in for wandering monster results that I decide I don't like).

I love dungeons. Not all the time, mind you (I do enjoy a good solid story-based living campaign as well). But for quick, easy, kick-in-the-door-and-kill-things-to-take-their-stuff play, it's grand fun.

Dungeon fan here. I don't do JUST dungeons, I do a bit of everything, but there is lots to love about dungeons. I like to put enough stuff on a level that if you map, solve puzzles, get lucky with checks, etc., that most of the single classed characters will level up; obviously very deep dungeons can have vast levels. Characters wishing to be done with it and shoot down quickly are given opportunities to do so; greater risk, quicker rewards. Lower levels will contain some higher level monsters, though some monsters of all previous HD might be found.

I think dungeons make perfect sense in what I think of as the D&D world, the one that sort of exists independently of campaign settings, fantasy novels, myths, and films, while borrowing shamelessly from all of them in an eclectic hodge-podge of fun. It has a language that is easy to pick up on.

I just never get sick of that stuff, don't know why. I find it amusing instead of grating that everything is so mixed up. Dungeons work pretty well for the 4 core classes. Specialist classes need a lot more wilderness, but of course, in a large enough dungeon there can be plenty of wilderness in a world where anything is possible. I like to have fun with people never seeing the woods until 4th level; until then, they just find themselves at the front door of a dungeon.

I like playing in dungeons too. I know, there is a lot I am missing from the surface world, like buying stew at inns and talking for hours with some random gnome I meet in the woods, having actual plants to entangle people with, rolling to see if I remember who the local lord buys his shoes from, but there is something comforting in the relentless deathtrap that is the dungeon.

I don't think that I've done much that hasn't been a dungeon of some sort. The political side of stuff leaves me uninterested...and since I'm not very social (socially challenged as my shrink puts it ) I tend to veer away from a lot of NPC type interaction.

I'd say that 3/4 or more of the adventures I run are dungeons. Sometimes mega, sometimes one-shot lairs. I have the players wander the wilderness occasionally, but usually to get from one dungeon to the next....

It surprises me but I guess I'm in the minority here. I'm in the "they are stories with politics and quests and saving/ conquering kingdoms" camp.

ThrorII wrote:
I've never done 'dungeons'. I have always done 'lairs'.

The concept of "10 levels, with multiple entries and exits, and 'kobolds on level 1, orcs on level 2, hobgoblins on level 3', and the dragon is at the bottom" is alien to me. I didn't even like B1, the "Condos of Chaos".

I've always done "this was an evil temple, the acolytes occultists were killed a hundred years ago, and now a band of orcs live there" or some such. Even Moria was a lair, not a dungeon. It was a dwarven city, conquored by a demon (who DOES live at the lower (lowest?) level). Later Orcs were drawn to its power and inhabited it. Sure, it has dungeon traits (multiple levels, labrynth like, etc), but it is a lair.

Currrently I'm running C&C Conan, and I do 'adventure sites' or 'adventure episodes' rather than even lairs.

RGR on that. If I have a dungeon it is a lair that makes sense. By the way I never thought about Moria that way but you hit the nail on the head with that.

Again, to go back to my favorite published game world ever, Earthdawn had a great way of working dungeons into things. A few generations prior to game's begin, there was a mystical apocalypse where demonic horrors crossed over from the astral plane to ravage the world. During the long years of this ravaging, the denizens of the world hid out in underground cities. After the apocalypse was over and everyone returned to the world, those kaerns remained, some abandoned, some lost, some destroyed, awaiting teh coming of adventurers seeking to learn their secrets.
Very cool. Much better than my hasty description. Seriously, Earthdawn was an amazing game world.

Lord Crimson wrote:

zarathustra wrote:I have tired over overblown epicness & grand schemes & come full circle back to the dungeon. Big ones, small ones, ones woth plot & diplomacy, hacker ones, grand underground wildernesses.

The "dungeon as a mythic underworld" idea appeals to me.

Yeah. As a "grown-up" DM, I've come back to the classics. As the scribe said: "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

I've learned to cheat a little to make it easier, of course; using online random dungeon generators and MapTool (mostly for me but also for when the players don't want to agonize too much over mapping - though that eliminates the whole "getting lost" angle, which is a little unfortunate).

I also play them as highly constrained and perpetually growing (downward, usually) sandboxes and slot out portions as being "under the control of" some monster(s) (meaning that I use them as the fill in for wandering monster results that I decide I don't like).

I love dungeons. Not all the time, mind you (I do enjoy a good solid story-based living campaign as well). But for quick, easy, kick-in-the-door-and-kill-things-to-take-their-stuff play, it's grand fun.

See i may be teterering on this as well. I dont have the free time i use to have to develope things. so the dungeon idea has made me rethink what i am creating. maybe i need to run a campaign of a mega dungeon. I also like Dead Horse's comment on the limited resources. I think you all have allowed me to accept the dungeon. Thanks for the comments and i will let you know if i create my personal Rappan Athuk

I'm fairly split between 'dungeons', lairs, and 'other type' (city, forest, underwater, etc.) adventures.
Thinking about this, many fall into the category of 'dungeon' even if they
don't quite fit the down-delving-ever-lower into the earth category.
The first "Ravenloft" seems to me a 'dungeon' -- a multi-storied castle (there's your levels) inhabited by baddies who have to be survived and vanquished
or you don't get out.
"Beneath the Storm Giant's Castle" (Judges Guild, way back when) was exactly that - corridors and rooms within the cloud his castle stood upon = a 'dungeon'.
"Tomb of Horrors", even though if I remember correctly, was on one 'level', but essentially a 'dungeon' -- as you got further in, things go progressively harder/badder.
A tower adventure (like those you can make from "Towers of Adventure") is also kind of a 'dungeon' -- starting from ground level, the higher up in the tower you go, the more difficult things/monsters get.
Every tomb I've ever created was a 'dungeon' of sorts.
And tracking the were-rats through the sewers under the city is a kind of 'dungeon' it seems to me.
Even village adventures could be seen as a 'dungeon' -- each building is like a room (or rooms) of the 'dungeon', roads/alleyways between buildings are like corridors, etc.
FWIW, any 'indoor' adventure layout I've created, whether caverns, dungeon, manor house, tomb, castle, or ruins has had at least some logic to it. Sure, the guardroom just inside the portcullis might now be occupied by rats or orcs or whatever wandered in years after the place was overrun, abandoned, whatever, but the rusty chain and ratchet can still be used to raise and lower that portcullis. Y'know, stuff like that.

My first real mega dungeon attempt was a vast burried city.

Dont get me wrong, my campaign currently spans 2 worlds and has alot of politics and social stuff. Yet the game always comes back to the mega dungeon.

If you want to, visit dragons foot and look for their mega dungeon thread.
linking....http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewt ... 42&t=27662

Some wonderful reading and great ideas.

Yes!

I was a little offended at the OP's question at first. Then I realized that I'm just a little cranky from a Gen Con-induced lack a sleep and the slowness of service here at Steak n' Shake a block down from the convention center.

I think dungeons have their place. Same as city and wilderness-based locales. I don't feel that their exclusion makes a game any more "mature" just as I feel they're inclusion makes a game any less. I would agree that the "orc in the room, guarding the chest" types are a little elementary in form and function but on the other end of that spectrum, I've heard of fantastic campaigns revolving around Rappan Athuk, Undermountain, Night Below, and Castle of the Mad Archmage. Honestly, though, the former type dungeons can be fun for a diversion once in a while.

I use them often. Sometimes, it's a final chapter to a story or a part of story. Sometimes, it's a stumbling block for the players - something they have to pass to continue on the story. Other times, it's just a side trek to tempt the PCs.

I guess, in the end, it all comes down to how their utilized by your GM. I wouldn't take the pipe wrench out of my toolbox just because it's big, clunky and I don't use it that often. It has it's purpose, and if you know how to use it right, it can sometimes be the perfect tool for the job!

I think dungeons have their place, and as such, I use them whenever I can. To be frank, as a GM/CK, the blind yawning sandbox travel from one wilderness area to town/city and then to another really bores the hell out of me. (Especially after doing it for as long as I have-- going on five years; I need dungeons to break up the monotony of "Random Wilderness encounter(s), town with NPC's with problem hooks the PC's may or may not bite on, information found for overarching plot, rinse and repeat".)

Bad Guys and Lost Ancient Cultures stash stuff integral to the overarching plot, and in my world, dungeons are where they stash it. Nowadays, I do try to find more of a coherent reason for the dungeon to be there, and I try to make the monsters and adversaries within also 'mesh' more than I did in my youth. But I am all about forcing the PC's out of their urban sprawl and happy roadside taverns and into some dank, claustrophobic wonderland of death... and then adding some traps, loot, and riddles in for spice.

I just wish the other GM's in my gaming group felt the same way; I'm tempted to blindly buy some Dungeon Crawl Classics and leave them on peoples' doorsteps.

man, I'm 45 and I have never stopped loving dungeons. That said, there are some pretty lame dungeons out there. I like dungeons that have all the richness (politics, negotiations, plots, etc) that the OP sees as limited to non-dungeon environments. I also embed my dungeons in a fairly political outside world. And I've been known to throw some fairly convoluted city/political stories at my players .... but they almost always return to dungeons.

What I don't like is overland travel and random wilderness encounters.

Geleg wrote:I like dungeons that have all the richness (politics, negotiations, plots, etc)

Any published ones come to mind?

Lord Dynel wrote:I was a little offended at the OP's question at first. Then I realized that I'm just a little cranky from a Gen Con-induced lack a sleep and the slowness of service here at Steak n' Shake a block down from the convention center.

Yeah, rub it in for those of us who didn't make it to GenCon.

It didn't occur to me to be offended, mostly because the OP's experiences seem to mirror the evolution of the hobby. Back "in the day" we did lots of dungeons but, since DragonLance and Ravenloft and other adventures of that era, today's modules seem to focus on plotline arcs. When I started there was a hint of plot in the background, but smash-and-grab was the focus.

Just Jeff wrote:

Geleg wrote:I like dungeons that have all the richness (politics, negotiations, plots, etc)

Any published ones come to mind?

well, my homebrew ones do. But that doesn't really answer your question.

How 'bout JG's Caverns of Thracia? That's always been my model. I'd also throw in the D1-D3 series, although IMO it requires a fair amount of work on the part of the DM to run it well.

"Caverns of Thracia" is a good dungeon, yeah. I've got the Judge's Guild "Dark Tower" which (I think) is a great dungeon: a tower that's been pretty much entirely covered by a landslide of decades ago, making levels underground of the previous above-ground structure. With a clerical/political background of folks all with a vested interest in it. A good model for how to do a dungeon right.

Yes, of course. A game named Dungeons and Dragons should have both in them, regularly.

As for published modules with politics... tons of them.

Temple of Elemental Evil, for example.

Just Jeff wrote:

Geleg wrote:I like dungeons that have all the richness (politics, negotiations, plots, etc)

Any published ones come to mind?

Here are a few from the TSR classic lines...

L1 - The Secret of Bonehill
N1 - Against the Cult of the Reptile God
U1-3 - The Saltmarsh series, but you must run them as a series to "get it"
T1-4 - The Temple of Elemental Evil
A1-4 - The super module not the original tournament edition
GDQ1-7 - Again the super module more so than the originals

All of these classics contain one or more "dungeons" along with a number of the other aspects that have been mentioned.

serleran wrote:Yes, of course. A game named Dungeons and Dragons should have both in them, regularly.

Honestly, my players hardly ever have encountered dragons. I should fix this.

Just Jeff wrote:

Geleg wrote:I like dungeons that have all the richness (politics, negotiations, plots, etc)

Any published ones come to mind?

2e Module the Shattered Circle.

Has a classic multi-level dungeon & a mysterious new civilisation. PC's will have to deal with one faction or another (or both) to get through it. I added a few drow bounty hunters to sweeten the pot. To satisfactorily conclude the adventure the PC's will have to negotiate a solution for some strange allies.

serleran wrote:Yes, of course. A game named Dungeons and Dragons should have both in them, regularly.

As for published modules with politics... tons of them.

Temple of Elemental Evil, for example.

of course ser would like dungeons, he has written the best dungeon creation product i have read since moldvays basic set. (note, ill take my endorsement pay in cash). i will also say the best part of your work was the reasoning for creating the dungeons. i had a scarred lands campaign and recently started a mignight campaign so to get the feel of the setting a non lair dungeon didnt make sense to me. glad i asked the question and so many have answered. maybe i need to rethink how to set dungeons in my campaigns. or get someone else to run for a while. maybe greyhalk needs heroes?