benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 13:00:57 GMT -6
Since last time I went on with the mapping of the level of our mega-dungeon featuring, among other things, the hideout of the bandits living at the foot of our volcano. The "Bandit Level" as I call it evolved from the first sketches you saw in the previous posts, one chunk mapped at a time, taking my time in between to pause and refresh, think about a few ideas I had while visualizing the environment, take a few notes, think about something else. I have been asked to list the tools I use when mapping. These usually do not vary: I use a range of Staedtler pencils (Staedtler Mars Lumograph, 12 pieces, ranging from "F" to "8B" in tone - I only used the F pencil for all the sketches you have seen so far, since the shading of the map is one of the last steps in our level design), rulers and protractor, compass set (including small and large compasses, the "large" one being the compass you are probably accustomed to), a good white eraser, and some graph paper I create to my own specifications and print from these online templates.Mapping chunk by chunk, areas get some of their features modified, shifted, erased or refitted. Parts evolve in such a fashion, from one mapping session to the next, on my moleskin notebook: Individual sections like these are then copied onto the general, final map/draft of the level, like this: This process gradually gives us a picture of the whole final level, as you can see from this next photograph: There is still a major section of the map missing, which is the cave system in the NE section of the level. This cave system I sketched apart, since these are much more complicated to get right for me: a cave system can be drawn in any number of ways (it doesn't need to follow the lines of the grid in any way shape or form, basically), so it's customary for me to try several configurations before finding something that fits both what I have in mind and what I already came up with in other sections of the map. This is a draft version of the cave system I did by copying the outline of the dungeon on a separate sheet of graph paper: Once I was satisfied with the results I then copied this draft onto the final version by taping to the sheets of graph paper together to then hold them against the light of the day outside, retracing the outline of the caves with a pencil, as shown here: Now, scanning both sections of the map and putting them together using photoshop, we have the bare bones, unshaded, and mostly unfurnished version of our final layout: You can compare this draft to our original Bandit level diagram if you want and maybe recognize some of the areas we started talking about earlier: As you might have noticed from the previous scans of the moleskin notebook, I not only adapted and reconfigured some earlier ideas, but also added lots of little notes and thoughts about all those various rooms and traps and corridors as I mapped, scribbling stuff in the corners, adding names on the map, and so on, so forth. This is an organic process: you start by thinking of an outline, then organize your ideas into a workable whole (a diagram), then use that framework to actually come up with the final layout, adapting these ideas as you go, coming up with new ones, taking notes in the process, etc. There is still a lot of work to be done (since the map itself is far from final, with a sublevel under this one and a mezzanine level that need to be mapped as well, not to mention the surface level that needs its own representation, of course), but we will soon start keying our map to really try and pin down the level as we visualize it now: what are the challenges, the traps, the puzzles, the inhabitants of this level, the features that are worth describing on this map, what do they do, how they operate, etc. This will have a snowball effect on the various tasks that remain to be done, and will slowly bring everything together into a coherent whole. Once we have that picture of the level nailed down, we will figure out how to make it come alive using a bunch of tools which will make our lives easier in actual play - tools such as wandering monster tables, relations between the factions of the dungeon and the like. We will be ready to run the game from there. Stay tuned for more.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 13:00:08 GMT -6
We’ve talked quite a bit about the importance of providing meaningful choices to the players, so that they can manage their exploration however they want, they can get invested in their own successes or failures, and can own the game while you are basically role playing the environment and playing an action-reaction game based on the environment you build prior to the game. We do not want linear paths, or bottlenecks the PCs would have to go through, or would have to confront to get the adventure going. Instead the path itself is the adventure. Their choices, whether they take left or right, whether they camp here or there, confront this group of creature or sneak past them, parley with that vanquished opponent or choose to slaughter everyone down to the last henchman, all these things have an impact on the way the game unfolds, including, perhaps most importantly, the end game itself, whatever it might become as a natural result of play. This doesn’t mean you are just running some kind of magical tea party and haven’t prepared for whatever the players might throw at you. One of your roles as DM is to come up with the environment and challenge the players, keep them on their toes, allow them to make these meaningful choices we just talked about, and have the world evolve as a result of the input they are bringing to the game milieu. This is why our level diagram took the shape it did, with its loops and different paths of exploration between our would-be clusters of rooms: to enable these choices, rather than hamper them. Now, as we map the first areas of our Bandit Level, it’s good to have a few other ideas derived from the same principle, that variety is the spice of life, and what provides meaningful tactical choices to our players, as it comes to the particulars of those areas themselves. I’m reminded of some thoughts Papers & Paychecks had on this particular subject over a period of time that I found extremely pertinent and useful, so I’m going to paraphrase quite a bit here as I put this thing together. There should be a variety of battle fields and tactical environments. This means that some rooms are small, and others are huge and hard to defend. Some have multiple entrances and exits, others don’t. Some rooms are clustered together, and others are not. The players have to adapt to circumstances, have to keep thinking tactically on their feet to not lose ground, to keep loot they’ve acquired, to secure their camps and fallback positions, and so on, so forth. The content of said rooms must itself vary. No room after room of orcs guarding the same-sized pies over and over again. Some of the rooms, lots of rooms actually, must remain tactically empty. This makes the rooms that are not empty the hot spots of the exploration, with chases, moving combat positions, control of the battlefield being an asset for the players thinking on their feet, and a plague to those who don’t. The players can manage their discoveries. They’re not interrupted all the time because of the next monster in the next room. They can plan and organize themselves. They can fortify areas, build camps and even work on zones of influences they control in the dungeon. If you want an idea of the proportions being used in a classic dungeon layout like this, I’d say that about half to three quarters of the rooms are left empty in the end. The rooms that are not empty will contain monsters, or might instead contain just treasure, hidden, trapped, guarded or not, while a few rooms will probably just feature traps and hazards with no treasure to be gained. Some treasure is guarded by monsters, traps and other hazards, and some is not. A good guideline here is that the more valuable, the more easy to carry the treasure is, the more likely it is to be kept by some monster or threat or another. Copper pieces, heavy pieces of furniture, are hard to carry along and bring back to safety. These might be treasures lying around, or easily reached. Silver pieces and huge tapestries which are easier to dispose off might be guarded or locked away in the upper levels of your dungeon. Gold, gems and jewel are portable and extremely valuable: these are hidden, well guarded, trapped, owned by chieftains and other tough opponents. Use a variety of creatures. Not just intelligent humanoids, but a little bit of everything: oozes, constructs, undead creatures, animals and so on. Variety is the spice of life, variety ensures choices are significant. If you fill room after room with clusters of goblins, you shouldn’t be surprised if your Magic User blasts through each area memorizing the same spells over and over and over again. When you vary the creature types, the spells the MU memorizes all the time might not be adequate. There’s no instant solution to every problem. So the MU with the help of his companions must explore carefully, try to understand the nature of their opposition, formulate plans, sometimes fall back and memorize the right spells to get what they want out of some particular situation or another. Speaking of variety of creatures another important tip comes to mind: don’t always use the same tactics whatever creatures you’re playing; use tactics appropriate to the creature types you’re using, and have these tactics reflect on the composition of the level itself. Some opponents like some animals or undead are just dumb. They stand there banging their heads against the walls ‘splush… splush… splush...’ don’t use tactics per se, just charge moaning ‘meat… meat…’ and that’s it. A starving wolf who feels threatened goes for the jugular if cornered, or uses animal tactics surrounding the opponent with the members of his pack if not. Role play the environment. It's your job as a DM. Vary your opponents’ types and tactics. Which makes me think : I also agree with P&P that having rosters of creatures is a good thing, particularly when we think about intelligent and/or non-negligible opponents scattered throughout the dungeon. It’s a good thing to know how many orcs are on the level. It allows the PCs to effectively have a tactical impact on their environment: they can have strategies, go for guerrilla tactics, they can wipe out the opponent, and then, can move from one level to the next knowing that they won’t have to face yet-another random orc party. It makes them feel like, throughout the campaign, they’ve actually accomplished something. They know for instance that some spiders might still be encountered on level 3, and maybe some creatures from other levels might still lurk here and there, but they’re pretty sure they solved the bugbear problem down there. You don’t need a roster for everything that can be found in the dungeon certainly (particularly when talking about stuff like rodents and vermin and basically the kind of opponents that can reproduce quickly or get access to the dungeon from the outside with ease), but you probably should have a good idea of what the numbers and compositions of the major intelligent forces throughout the dungeon actually are. One last point, and that’s about the variety of environments throughout our levels and dungeon in general. Customizing the environment and having some areas feel like they have “themes” going through them is a good thing. But don’t customize every single area of the dungeon. For something to feel weird and stand out to player’s scrutiny, it should be beyond a baseline that’s already been established. If there is no mundane, there is no weird possible. So with the first levels of the dungeon you want to build up expectations at least to some extent. You want to provide a baseline the players can learn about and deal with meaningfully. They can create tactics and strategize about their environment. Then, you can introduce the special and the weird. Create a set of reasonable expectations that land some results for a time, and then challenge them. Same thing with the creatures they meet throughout the dungeon: use some amount of fairly known creature types and critters, and then start introducing your own weird takes on them. Build expectations, and then challenge them. Alright. I’ve talked about a lot of stuff in the form of advice and guidelines and such but our map isn’t going anywhere with all this talk. First, to draw a map we need a legend, an idea of the symbols we are going to use throughout our level so we can make sense of it all. There’s a set of symbols that is fairly common throughout TSR publications. This is more or less the set I’m talking about: Now, I’m notorious to deviate from this baseline on a regular basis because I kind of map as I go and don’t think about this or that symbol before posting the finished layout online. Then I get asked what the hell this or that blob represents on the map. So I’m going to make an effort and try to stick to this set of symbols for once. I start mapping the dungeon on a moleskin notebook I keep with me to write down ideas and such. I take one of the exits we have as a starting point, and basically go from there, referring myself to our level diagram periodically to know where the corridors lead, what features I might have to place next on the map, et cetera. For this present level, I started with the “Well” entry point on our diagram. After I mapped a bit and erased my mistakes or just what didn’t look good to me quite a few times, I end up with this on the first page of my draft: And then continue on the next page, growing the level bit by bit, adding features, naming some areas, trying to visualize the environment as I do so. I don’t come up with everything on the spot: you’ll notice that some doors are missing, that there are no traps written on the map, or creatures placed. I have some ideas I may write down here and there, but not everything comes to me that way. I’ll often go back on the layout and add or erase things, modify what I’ve got because that doesn’t fit my expectations, and basically work at fitting the pieces of the puzzle into a coherent whole as I’m mapping the whole thing and quite often some time afterwards too. You can see there that I have the area named "Snake Pit" on the diagram take the form of this round structure up on the page with this pool of water or something in the middle of it, and some underground tunnel linking it to this area further east shaped like a cross, which I think is the area marked "Shrine" on our diagram (not entirely sure at this moment if that is going to stay or going to be changed down the road). There's an interesting thing that happened as soon as I started drafting the map on the first page, by the way: this is this inclusion of areas of the dungeon that are completely unknown even to the current inhabitants of the level (which were probably used by the people who build the tower in the first place, i.e. the people who also built the troglodyte habitat on the side of the volcano up there, or the Builders/Mi-Go prior to that, maybe), as well as different areas which are spreading down a flight of stairs, like there are actually two different sub-levels intertwined with each other on this map (visible on the bottom of the first page, then going on the second page with a room spreading under the corridor stretching eastward at the bottom there, and another area stretching right around the round structure/Snake Pit too, if you follow the flight of stairs around). These pages copied together on my “clean” copy of the map look like this at the moment: The whole area covered so far here on our clean map represents this reddened part on our level diagram, more or less: This is growing, bit by bit. I'm having quite a bit of fun with this actually. We'll see where that leads us for next time.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:56:43 GMT -6
Link to our volcano side-view map to make sense of what follows. At first, I started looking for models of mines I could use to model level (1a) of our megadungeon, but then, not finding anything particularly enticing (a few pictures and side-views here and there, but nothing really conclusive at the moment), my attention went back to the Bandit hideout level (1c). I know this is a level that might be somewhat self-contained, maybe including a few mysteries like an inactive teleporter or two, some haunted passages to level (1b) probably, and for sure a tunnel linking it to level (6), the Market Place, which collapsed some time ago and that the player could possibly dig through if they so choose (which would be far from being an optimum choice, since the level it links to would be far more dangerous than anything they’d meet in the hideout). I took back my puzzling notes on the Bandit Hideout and added some more (the grey part is what I had until a few days ago, followed by what I added afterwards). Bandit hideout. Victims abducted. Bandit ‘King’ and his court. Hounds he throws food at. Trained rodents. Group of Hobgoblin mercenaries. Mud. Giant Snake pit. Shoddy workshop with disassembled carts, teeth taken out of skulls. Toy constructs built by alchemist to entertain. Alchemist prisoner too? Prisoner for too long. Remains of Mi-Go tech. Alchemist experiments with bits of knowledge he does not understand. Horror creations. Head jars malfunctioning. Abductions to fuel the experiments in raw materials. Room with fusioned blob thing. Oozes of memory, crystals? Cave system. Crystal book. Chasm/ropes? Trying to create slaves the way the Mi-Go did, but experiments are far from satisfyingly successful. Doesn’t really know how or why.Now, these are the partial elements coming to my mind as I’m trying to visualize the environment. I see bits of situations or rooms and I just think about them, write down, and let it stew for a while. I might as well check out some ideas or material this makes me think of, like in this instance, To Snare the Pale Prince and Kings in Darkness, both Elric stories, which for some reason this idea of the "King of Bandits" made me think of, or the obvious HP Lovecraft influences with the Mi Go, or other bits and pieces of ambiance or monsters from various Hellboy comics, which I'm reading right now, and Dracula which is always in the back of my mind somewhere. This is going to get organized in our next step here, as we think about our level’s layout and put it down on paper before mapping the whole thing itself. One doesn’t really need to think thoroughly about dungeon layout before actually putting pen to graph paper. It’s something that you have to keep in mind for the reasons we outlined earlier (which are further explained in Melan’s excellent breakdown of dungeon levels from various published modules, as well as the advice from Justin Alexander entitled " Jaquaying the Dungeon," both of which being excellent reads for the dungeon designer in all of us), but this can be put into action as you draw the map without thinking too much of the layout before hand. Here, I’m going to give the layout a bit more thought before I draw the map. What I do is to basically organize my elements into rough areas on a diagram that represents my level, with the different connections between the different parts of the layout. I’m thinking here in particular about the way these elements are situated next to each other for the place to make a minimum of sense to me, about the different entrances and exits to the level and how they are positioned on the map, as well as the way each element is linked to each other, ensuring, among other things, that I do not have any areas that would have to be explored, or could not be avoided in any way, for the reasons previously mentioned. What you get is something looking a bit like this: The boxes on this diagram represent rough areas of the complex, maybe clusters of rooms joined to each other thematically at least. The court for instance could have an audience chamber, the quarters of the king of the bandits (marked ‘king’ on the map), some sort of pit to enjoy the giant snake devouring some visitors in the manner of Jabba the Hut, these kinds of things. It’s not a final drawing by any means. It’s just meant to give us an idea of where it is we’re going as we draw our map, and what each area or cluster might be about as we do so. We see the different lines linking our areas which are like main passage-ways, connections, corridors maybe, and so on. The dashes link different areas through streams of water or tunnels between different pits and the like. We can also see our five different main entrances (which I just came up with, and would mean we would need some type of spacial representation of the immediate surroundings around the tower ruins to make sense of them meaningfully as the players explore the area, which means a secondary, surface map later on). This basically starts us on the way to structure our ideas, might bring some other ideas enriching the whole (the location of the Snake Pit for instance just gave me the idea of connecting it to the Court with the Jabba the Hut type pit maybe, which then led to other pits being linked underground as well), so that in the end, when we put pen to paper, we have a much better idea where it is we are going with this layout. Note that the fact this diagram looks like what a chart showing relationships between factions or NPCs in a game setting might look like, or how the links between various clues or elements in an investigation scenario might be organized prior to play, is no coincidence at all, here. Fundamentally, there is no difference between Melan’s analysis of dungeon layouts and Justin Alexander talking to us about the Three Clue Rule: it’s all about managing the players' choices, not by trying to trap them into a prefabricated suit of rooms or clues or events, but by giving them even more choices and alternative courses which you then manage on an action-reaction basis which forms the core of the game itself, rather than trying to work the group towards a predefined outcome that would need to occur one way or the other for the game to be remotely satisfying once played. Also note that the process can be repeated at the macro and micro level of our level (and indeed dungeon) design, the particular areas of the diagram in their actual layout repeating the same principles of non-linearity. If you take this to its natural extreme, what you end up with is a map looking like this: Which is one of the first levels of Castle Greyhawk, taken and magnified from this original picture of Gary Gygax as he was running OD&D for the ENWorld moderators a few years prior to his passing: Here's a link to the full thread discussing this picture and map over at Knights & Knaves.Now, as I started drawing the level itself, I didn’t want for it to look like this. I wanted it to have a more organic structure. More realism if you will (Gary would beat me on the head if he knew I was using that particular expression). I look around for various layouts I like, kind of like models for inspiration. I notice Weem’s Caves of Chaos map, which is pretty cool in and of itself (and usable for online gaming at high resolution, hint hint). There’s also some of PatW’s layouts on Knights & Knaves which I like a lot, aesthetically, like this one and that one, in particular. That’s basically the material you can see on that brew picture I took for fun a few days ago (along with the uncompleted diagram reproduced above): And now we’re ready to map. I’m going to talk about a few basic considerations to keep in mind as far as the content of the rooms, the enemies, the treasure, etc are concerned next time, and we’ll start seeing the level coming together bit by bit, hopefully.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:56:00 GMT -6
Now that we have figured out who the Builders are, the pieces are starting to fall into place. We have a much better understanding of what the dangers of the place and the surrounding area might entail. Now let’s start thinking about the way this is going to shape our setting and levels in the megadungeon. The SettingA Viking temple in the ValleyWe know we have a river stretching for miles between two ranges of mountains. This river leads into the sea, about a league (a little less than four miles) away from our volcano and the hamlet in the valley not far from it. There is a harbour by the sea, one of the main communities of the area really, and another village about 16 miles away from the shore in the valley (which we are going to tentatively name Hagensburg, named after the Viking chief that led his people into the area). The closer you are from the shore, the more you will find descendants from the original native population of the area. These will be based on the First Nations of the Central Coast whose culture and livelihoods are based on fishing, with the Salmon being one of the central animals of their traditional tales and dances. They are a proud people, and they know far more about the area than the Vikings really do. They have a natural reluctance to share their wisdom, however, since their stories and customs are their most prized possessions. In addition to these two particular ethnic groups, we have other tribes living on the islands off the Coast, and some descendants of a proto-Celtic people who settled in the area prior to the Vikings’ arrival. These are few and far between. They may be the descendants of the people who built the troglodyte habitations on the Volcano’s face we talked about earlier. The Vikings live on farming the land and hunting around the valley. They run into regular trouble with the wild life of the area, much more so than the natives ever do (it is part of their heritage to know the way of the land and become part of it, in a way, whereas the Vikings settle, plant crops where they can get it to grow, use the lumber where they can find it etc. as the civilized folk are used to do in similar circumstances). The PCs might have been born in the area, or they arrived recently (because of rumors about treasure in the area, dangers for the settlers and promises to earn a living as hunters and tamers of the wild, because they came to the harbour recently, etc.). They will find no shortage of things to do, from finding people who have lost their way in the wild, to attacks of humanoids on the nearby settlements, to obviously rumours concerning the megadungeon itself, its mines, the troglodyte settlements, the ruins one can find nearby, and so on (more about these rumours later). The WildernessThe Wilderness is immediately around the valley itself. It’s all around the settlements and trails, just next to the river running throughout the area. Unless they are clearly following the river, various trails present in the valley, or following some clear indications based on the landmarks of the area, they can get lost really quickly (with a chance between 50% and 70% depending on the particulars of the terrain and elevation. See S&W Complete p. 83 for that). In case a random encounter occurs (1 in 6 per turn of exploration, or per game rules you are using), roll on the Cold Wilderness Areas tables (AD&D MM2 p.135) depending on the exact type of terrain the PCs are treading at the moment. If you want a sample typical encounters, the PCs could meet black bears, grizzly bears, elks, wolves, winter wolves, wild boars, giant eagles, wyverns, hostile humanoids (goblin, hobgoblin, orc, ogres, hill and frost giants), friendly humanoids (including elves, dwarves, gnomes, Viking or native hunting parties, another group of adventurers, woodland’s men, etc.), dragons (white 1-3, green 4, black 5, red 6), and more, not to mention the aarakocras flying around the area of the volcano and of course, the degenerate fungi haunting the flanks of the mountain at night. To put it bluntly, traveling around the area without knowing what you are doing is not an absolutely excellent idea. Better to be prepared, and get a clear idea of what it is you are looking for before leaving the trails in the valley. The DungeonAssuming you either do not start at the PCs’ arrival in the area or that they make it to the flanks of the mountain/volcano some time during the first session, we need to start thinking about the dungeon’s population, and map at least the different entrance levels to be ready for their exploration of the place. It means that the levels marked red on this map should be ready by the first session at least, having the pink levels ready as well being a huge plus for us. Based on the way our megadungeon is coming together, I think it’d be neat to have a possibility to travel underground from the Bandits’ hideout (1c) to the Troglodyte ruins (1b) through a series of tunnels, maybe with a few set pieces along the way. Note also that the connection between the hideout (1c) and the marketplace (6) has collapsed some time ago (It’d be crazy for the PCs to get there at low levels. If they really want to, they could hire the help to dig through the rubble. We should allow them to, and provide them with ample warning if they decide to keep exploring in that direction: this is very dangerous territory for them at this level. Beware). Access to the tunnel/connection between the troglodyte ruins (1b) and the Temple of the Hand could be linked to some type of puzzle or riddle, something having to do with the sorcerers who occupied the place previously. This could be figured out by the PCs early on, but would more likely provide an obstacle to them until they can figure it out using clues we would plant on different levels of the dungeon, for instance in the Tomb (2b) if the riddle has something to do with the technology of the Fungi. Some of the sorcerers could have been abducted to the Hive (0a) as well. There are different possibilities. No need to take a decision right away. The Aviaries (0b) have two connections to the lower levels. The connection to the mines (1a) would be hard to use, probably some sort of ventilation shaft, where the PCs would have to provide all the different components to make their ascension secure if they so wish. The connection to the Tomb (2b) would be easier, maybe still functional, or hidden during all this time. Maybe the stairs linking the Aviaries to the mines have collapsed as well. None of these obstacles would be insurmountable to the well-organized PCs (they shouldn’t be), but this gives us an idea of our map flow and the potential paths of exploration the PCs might take. The point is, there must be a whole lot of different ways for the PCs to explore the place however they want, but that doesn’t mean that all ways must be equally easy or accessible. Some of them are more dangerous than the others. There are easy ways to get from point A to point B, and hard ways. Choices, choices, choices. These elements tie into the resource management of the game. Do we keep digging even though the magic user ran out of spells a while back? Are you sure you want to set up camp by that well here? How do we bring back all that gold from this level up to that one? And so on, so forth. The levels themselves must provide variety and choices to the exploring PCs. If you go from room to room in a linear succession with the exact same critters populating each of the areas with maybe the boss fight at the end, this is boring, for one thing, and this is playing against the assumptions of the game, second. Part of the interesting idea behind Vancian memorization for instance is that not all spells are useful all the time, so you have to manage what you want to memorize for this or that particular task, whenever that’s relevant. If you fill up rooms with clouds of goblins, and only goblins, you shouldn’t be surprised if the MU player just blasts through them with fireballs and acid arrows. It’s just that it’s the most useful spell for the job, always. So we must vary the types of threats and populations within the levels themselves, so the game itself remains enticing, with the decision-making process being a part of the equation that leads the PCs to victory or failure. I wrote down a few notes about my different levels already. More like just bits of sentences and lists. Ideas I will flesh out later as I map the levels themselves. For instance, for the Mines (level 1a) I have: Mines. Some Ash Kadaï. Long mine corridors. Web. Room clusters and safe areas here and there. Rats/flooded area. Elevator destroyed. Some ‘zombies’. Mi-Go possessed. Carts. Rails. Access to Tome of the Builders (2b). Up Aviaries. Shaft to Ashen Court (2a). Repaired makeshift elevator? Yeti lairs by the entrance? Multiple entrances on the mountain. Some Ash Kadaï want to fight and clean up the level. Others want to stay down at the Ashen Court. Chief is indecisive or dead. Hazards and traps. Traps of the Ash-K. Strings with bells. Hollowed bones. Whistles. Arrows and boulders. For the Troglodyte ruins I have: Magical, undead level. Skeletons, zombies, scavengers. Predator found refuge near the surface. Random hauntings. The deeper you go, the creepier and darker it becomes. Up to the seal. Ruins. Abandoned rooms. Traps. Offerings from the Ash-K who are afraid of the place and want to appease its Evil. Bones disturbed are reset after a time. Rooms too. Cursed to repeat for eternity. Pantomime. And for the Bandit hideout: Bandit hideout. Victims abducted. Bandit ‘King’ and his court. Hounds he throws food at. Trained rodents. Group of Hobgoblin mercenaries. Mud. Giant Snake pit. Shoddy workshop with disassembled carts, teeth taken out of skulls. Toy constructs built by alchemist to entertain. Alchemist prisoner too? Prisoner for too long. Just as before when I drew the side-view map of our dungeon and named its levels, I have no idea what some of this stuff might mean yet. I’m just trying to visualize the place and seeing what parts or ambiances or particular rooms or situations might be there. The same way I did with the map before hand, I let these ideas simmer a bit. Then, when I feel like it, I will actually look for models for the mines and get down to business mapping the level.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:55:17 GMT -6
I do not know what windings in the waste Of those strange sea-lanes brought me home once more, But on my porch I trembled, white with haste To get inside and bolt the heavy door. I had the book that told the hidden way Across the void and through the space-hung screens That hold the undimensioned worlds at bay, And keep lost aeons to their own demesnes.
At last the key was mine to those vague visions Of sunset spires and twilight woods that brood Dim in the gulfs beyond this earth’s precisions, Lurking as memories of infinitude. The key was mine, but as I sat there mumbling, The attic window shook with a faint fumbling.Here I was, reading through one of my newly acquired books, when the idea suddenly popped up in my head. One question has been in my mind since I started building this megadungeon. It was right there when that item on the key just came up to me as I was naming the different levels of our side view of the volcano you can see above. (2b) Tombs of the Builders There it was, surfacing again. It's an item that I actually came up with on a previous dungeon project I played with my wife some time ago. You can read the entire writeup for that place there, on that particular thread. This is Level 2 of the Tower of Saint Makhab, the level where the adventures of Pei Lin, one of my wife's characters, started some time ago in my own Dunfalcon "Greyhawk + Yggsburgh" combo/mashup. When I came up with it on this map here, I considered erasing it and just coming up with something else instead. But then I thought ... well, it could be something else entirely from what I had come up with for the Tower of Saint Makhab earlier. And the question of these mysterious "Builders" intrigued me. Who would have dug the first few levels of this place, exactly? I just went on with the map and questions you can read above, and let that simmer in the back of my mind. I knew this would come to me. And then, as I was taking a break from the board and reading through L'Appel de Cthulhu... it suddenly did. The Builders are the Fungi from Yuggoth. Everything fits: the isolated valley surrounded by mountains. Settlers and indigenous people living around, close by, with hints and legends circulating around about this wild places, these isolated peaks covered with dark trees, lost in the mist and snow. The digging underground searching for ores or secrets burried deep in the bowels of the earth. The sleeping volcano, and the connexion to a much deeper underworld. The duergar keeping the gate come to mind. These could be worshippers of Tsathoggua, the Hyperborean creation of Clark Ashton Smith. And then this gate, this dark portal to the underworld could be more than just leading to the Underdark. It could be a clue to reach the black, lightless N'kai, somewhere under the blue-litten K’n-yan and the red-litten Yoth. To quote the Whisperer in Darkness, by HP Lovecraft: "Do you know that Einstein is wrong, and that certain objects and forces can move with a velocity greater than that of light? With proper aid I expect to go backward and forward in time, and actually see and feel the earth of remote past and future epochs. You can’t imagine the degree to which those beings have carried science. There is nothing they can’t do with the mind and body of living organisms. I expect to visit other planets, and even other stars and galaxies. The first trip will be to Yuggoth, the nearest world fully peopled by the beings. It is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system—unknown to earthly astronomers as yet. But I must have written you about this. At the proper time, you know, the beings there will direct thought-currents toward us and cause it to be discovered—or perhaps let one of their human allies give the scientists a hint.
"There are mighty cities on Yuggoth—great tiers of terraced towers built of black stone like the specimen I tried to send you. That came from Yuggoth. The sun shines there no brighter than a star, but the beings need no light. They have other, subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples. Light even hurts and hampers and confuses them, for it does not exist at all in the black cosmos outside time and space where they came from originally. To visit Yuggoth would drive any weak man mad—yet I am going there. The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious Cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the things came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen.
"But remember—that dark world of fungoid gardens and windowless cities isn’t really terrible. It is only to us that it would seem so. Probably this world seemed just as terrible to the beings when they first explored it in the primal age. You know they were here long before the fabulous epoch of Cthulhu was over, and remember all about sunken R’lyeh when it was above the waters. They’ve been inside the earth, too—there are openings which human beings know nothing of—some of them in these very Vermont hills—and great worlds of unknown life down there; blue-litten K’n-yan, red-litten Yoth, and black, lightless N’kai. It’s from N’kai that frightful Tsathoggua came—you know, the amorphous, toad-like god-creature mentioned in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon and the Commoriom myth-cycle preserved by the Atlantean high-priest Klarkash-Ton.""There are openings humans know nothing of, and great worlds of unknown life down there," and the Fungi of Yuggoth have known them, built them, and kept them for eons at a time. This simple revelation of the identity of these mysterious builders opens so many doors in our dungeon design, it is kind of overwhelming at first. The Hive. Maybe there are degenerated Fungi living there, maybe stealing some husks, some humanoid bodies from the creatures that venture in the caves and pits of this volcano. They might have regressed, separated for ages from their world, and reverted to this primal fungoid race serving a Queen Fungus, a monstrous being hidden in the dark levels above the mines. They must secrete something that the Aarakocras might want. Are they on friendly terms with each other, or do the avian creatures sneak into the hive, or connect with it through their own tunnels to use the Fungi's production like we do with our own bees? What if the Aarakocra "worshipped" the "Queen bee" herself? They could be the agents of the degenerated Mi-Go in the outside world. Their eyes over the heights of the nearby mountains, in a way. What about the Fish Men close to the Ziggurat of Ankhepoth? These could be a remnant of a Dagon cult. Maybe these are the descendants of the men that discovered the remnants of a much older presence of Deep Ones around this area? Would that be a clue as to the manner in which the Fungi degenerated? Does it date all the way back to the wars of the Fungi and Cthulhu? If the Hive is the location of a swarn of degenerated Fungi inhabiting corpses and, for a few, flying around in the darkness to protect their Queen, then maybe the Tombs of the Builders have some real Fungi in cryostasis or something. Undead Fungi maybe? Could these beings have some heads severed from various creature types dating back to the prediluvian times when they were entombed lying around? Maybe these could have seized control of the area, one way or the other? I'm pretty sure the Ashen Court will be the dwelling place of the leaders of the Ash-Kadaï that roam within the abandoned galleries of the mines above. But what about the troglodyte habitations which predated the construction of the mines? Could there have been a lord and his retinue living here secluded from the world, obsessed by the secrets the fiery mountain might reveal to him, searching for a "truth" that cursed him forever, thus haunting this place to make it this creepy ruin everyone, including the miners that came afterwards, wanted to avoid at all costs? It seems to me obvious that the Smoldering Theatre, the Temple of the Hand and the Market Place were once the core of the Mi-Go's hideout. The lair of the Bandit is much more recent, and was connected to the Market Place at some point. Now it's an isolated part of the complex. Maybe connected to the settlements on the cliff's side above, I do not know yet. I kind of like the idea of a foreshadowing level completely isolated from the others there. Hm. More food for thought there. Let's stop right here and let that whole thing stew for a little bit. It's getting there. We have a much more precise idea of where we are going with this now.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:54:24 GMT -6
Alright. So now we have an idea of what our setting might be like. Through this process, we drew a sideview of our dungeon complex (as it stands now anyway - we might modify that sideview later if the elements we come up with don't "lock" into each other neatly of if there's a piece we didn't think about that's glaringly missing with hindsight): And we have a key that describes the elements we have on this sideview: (0a) The Hive (0b) The Aarakocra Aviaries (1a) The Mines of the Ash-Kadaï (2a) The Ashen Court (2b) Tombs of the Builders (3) The Smoldering Theatre (1b) The Trogodyte settlement ruins (4) Ponds of the Fish Men (4a) Sunken Ziggurat of Ankhepoth (5) Temple of the Hand (6) The Market Place (6a) The Fortress Gate of the Duergar (1c) The Brigands' Hideout As I mentioned earlier, I mostly came up with these names out of thin air, because they sounded cool at the moment, or I just thought "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we had the duergar there?" That's the extent of my brainstorm on this, along with the consideration of the types of different entrances to the dungeon that informed what these levels might be like (the ruined tower with the brigand's hideout, the troglodyte habitations and the mines above). Names suggest a lot of things. Nothing beats a cool name as a jumping off point. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that each and every single one of us reading that list instantly started to imagine what the levels and setting might be like, and what they might contain, just by reflex. That's our imagination and logic taking over and instinctively filling in the blanks : "Oh, the Smoldering Theatre, what's that? Is that a level filled with smoke and stuff? Why a "theatre"? That sounds interesting!" As the guy coming up with this megadungeon, I use this exact same reflex to structure the ideas afterwards and from there, shaping these instinctive ideas like I beat the crap out of bars of raw iron to reveal the blade that's been hiding there all along. I let the whole thing simmer for a while, dip it into water and let it sit in the back of my mind for a while, so that both my imagination and my logic fit the pieces into each other and break them down for the next few days. Maybe I'll write a bit of an idea on a sheet of paper once in a while. Maybe I'll just think "hey, that might be a cool look for the fortress of the Duergar" and move on. At some point, I will sit down in front of my notebook or computer just as I'm doing right now, gather any notes I scribbled down, along with the map and key and all that stuff, and I'll just look at the whole before writing down what I think links all this stuff, as if I had "clues" to a mystery lying in front of me that I would have to solve right then and there. Now, I usually have two ways of going about it. I either start drawing one or several dungeon levels right away and basically make sense of it as I go, writing down what I come up with for reference in later levels in case of foreshadowing elements, or ideas that might affect further developments of the environment, OR I think of a more coherent concept right away and go on to design the dungeon levels afterwards, retroactively modifying whatever I came up with on the paper as I go into the detail of what the place looks and feels like. The point is, that’s an organic process starting from the moment you put the pencil to the page and start to draw where ideas feed into each other and everything gets smoothed out in a way as the whole takes shape. But there’s an important warning here I have to give you: don’t over design. Don’t describe absolutely everything in your dungeon environment. It should be described and populated in a comprehensive way so you can take your notes and run the d**n thing (that’s the whole point here after all), but you don’t want it to become so detailed it stifles your imagination as you run the game. There’s a point after which less is more. It can vary from DM to DM, but the point still holds true generally, I think. For the sake of this example, I’m not going to go straight to level mapping. I’m going to flesh out my ideas a little bit first. So I look at that key and map we got. We know we have some “builders” somewhere in the history of that place. We also have people who built the troglodyte habitations on the side of the volcano, and people who dug the mines on its side as well. Are those the “Ash-Kadaï” mentioned earlier ? Perhaps these are the same people, but then, perhaps not. I think it’d be weird to have these habitations here and the mines just next door, and also strange that these complex habitations would have been build after the existence of the mine, so I decide that the mines were dug after the habitations had long been abandoned. Maybe they are haunted by some presence, in which case it would explain the miners, whoever they are, avoided these ruins like the plague. But then maybe they came to this place because these habitations existed, and dug inside the volcano to get to a place of power while at the same time avoiding the dangers of the haunted ruins? The brigands would have come to inhabit the tower at the foot of the volcano much later, fairly recently, since they would still be there. The tower itself could have been built by the same people who built the troglodyte forts/habitations. I think the Builders were a race of pre-human beings that disappeared at some point during the world’s history. They built the main levels of this dungeon which were repurposed by their new inhabitants afterwards: I’m thinking of the ashen court, the tombs, the temple and the market place at the very least. Maybe something happened to them that made them degenerate over time. Maybe that’s what the Hive and/or the ashen court are: a sort of hive of mindless husks including some original builders, but also all manners of humanoids which have been repurposed by a “Queen bee” of some kind? The Aarakocras of the levels beside it might use it as a source of sustenance. Maybe the inhabitants of the mine too (inhabitants which, I am guessing, are some sort of clan of humanoids. The Ash-Kadaï could be some sort of goblinoid clan or war party; though I’m not sure what types of creatures their numbers would count quite yet). The Smoldering Theatre could be some sort of hemicycle, or dungeon structure that surrounds and incorporates the volcano’s main conduit. If the temple was a place of study and communication with the higher beings living within the fiery depths of the volcano that would later have been understood as a religious place of some kind by more primitive creatures, then the theatre might have been some type of testing area. Some sort of jumping off point for the experiments born within the ancient laboratories of the temple. The name would come from faces, or alcoves –cameras maybe– surrounding the conduit. It would look to a primitive creature as a “theatre” indeed, with silent figures looking at the fumes choking the whole place, a place for great sacrifices the ancients, the Builders, performed for their gods perhaps? They would have thus repurposed the place and turned it into some kind of cult to their Elders, a cult where they mimic what they understand of the Builders, that is… not all that much. This is evolving; time to pause for a little while. I’ll go on with this later on. Let me know what you think.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:53:38 GMT -6
Yesterday I started sketching a sideview of a megadungeon from this thread. I started by wondering what kind of wilderness it could be found in, and what would be its entrance. I was searching while looking around, and my eyes fell on the mountains surrounding this place. I imagined that the Bella Coola valley could make for an interesting megadungeon set up: it's a long stretching valley surrounded by mountains, basically, with two main villages and several hamlets scattered around along the river running throughout. It's fairly isolated, with the wilderness of the Central Coast being often right next door to where you live, almost literally. There are First Nations people, as well as descendants of the Norwegian settlers that came to live here in the past, and of course now, a whole variety of other people, of all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities. It would be easy to translate this place into a medieval fantasy setting that lies at the edge of the civilized world, so I thought, why not do it? I started by taking a blank sheet of paper and drew the outline of a mountain. I added trees and stuff, and decided there would be a lake on the other side of the mountain, the one not facing the valley, and maybe a village of degenerated folks there.. and maybe some creepy ruins at the bottom of the lake too. There would have been mines dug there in ages past, and these mines would serve as a possible entrance to the dungeon. And some brigands in the area too, with a lair around the base of the mountains. I start adding this stuff on my mountain sketch, and start adding levels like this. I think about the troglodyte medieval manors I saw in the Black Périgord in France a year and a half ago. There could have been some abandoned settlements there as well, with secret passages leading deep into the dungeon. I basically go on with my sketch, adding my rectangles, linking them with staircases and slanted passages and pits or wells, I don't know exactly yet. At some point, I wanted the top of the mountain to be a nest of rocks, with the nest itself being a dungeon level full of spiders and giant insects and all sorts of stuff, but I decide against it for the sake of simplicity, and cut off the top of the mountain to basically make it a very old volcano instead. I start adding the numbers, starting with the entrances of the dungeon being numbered (1), with (1a) being the mines, (1b) being the ruins of the troglodyte habitations below, and (1c) being a ruined tower in the wilderness somewhere at the foot of the volcano itself. Now I list all my items, and I start making up names for the levels, imagining what might be there, or just dropping a name that might change later, but that might give me some ideas for later. Here's what I end up with: (0a) The Hive (0b) The Aarakocra Aviaries (1a) The Mines of the Ash-Kadaï (2a) The Ashen Court (2b) Tombs of the Builders (3) The Smoldering Theatre (1b) The Trogodyte settlement ruins (4) Ponds of the Fish Men (4a) Sunken Ziggurat of Ankhepoth (5) Temple of the Hand (6) The Market Place (6a) The Fortress Gate of the Duergar (1c) The Brigands' Hideout I have NO idea what several of these names entail, what form the level might take, whatsoever. I just came up with this stuff. But right there you can already see that this is coming together, and that there's a kind of background, hidden story that's coming out of this: there were mines here before, and habitations on the volcano's side too. There's a court, and aviaries, and fish men, and a temple too. Lots of factions there. Tomb of the Builders (a classic name of mine I put in some other dungeon before - it just popped onto the page again and I decided to just leave it as it came up) - who are the "Builders"? And then, there's this theatre place, and the market place. Spectacles, exchanges between the dungeon inhabitants? And the fortress of the duergar too. A gate... to the underdark? And the volcano itself, what role does it play in all this? I outlined the old main conduit/pipe of the volcano. I know it is dormant. Is there some kind of volcano cult here? I don't know. I'm letting these ideas simmer a bit, and then I'm going to try to structure it a bit.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:52:40 GMT -6
At the start of the game, you should have your first level mapped and keyed, all layed out, as well as the levels that are linked to this first level too, in case the PCs find a passage down and decide to go deeper right away during the first session (that's usually a bad idea, but you never know). I'll come back to that part of the job once I start building a megadungeon here on this thread. Time in a dungeon is kept using turns (in O/AD&D at least). A non-combat turn is about 10 minutes of game time, during which the PCs engage in different actions like searching along the walls, walking down a corridor, and so on. A combat turn is usually defaulted to 1 minute of real time, but that actually can vary greatly if you want to get picky about it. Count the turns and you'll be able to manage time spent in the dungeon. I'm reaching your question about what I like in my dungeons now. I guess... I like the concept of the mythic underworld. I like the idea that the dungeon has a life of its own, and is a character of its own in the game. Maybe levels too, in a way. But that doesn't mean I don't like my dungeons and levels to feel "real" somehow. Actually, I need to visualize the environments in my head to be able to describe them to the players, so that part of the job ("what does that look/feel like? How's the light in that area? etc.) is something I keep in mind pretty much all the time. I like dungeons that have some history to them. I think about the background of the place and its inhabitants. I think about the factions' relationships, and how they deal with each other every day when the PCs aren't looking. I include stuff like refectories and latrines and ventilation in my dungeons. It just makes the places feel more real in my mind. I map by hand, and I would encourage you to map by hand as well. You don't need to be an artist, or even draw a straight line straight to do some mapping, and mapping on a sheet of paper, a notebook to write down your ideas as you go, using your eraser to redraw stuff as you go, keying the place wondering "what is that corner for, exactly?" is really great fun! You should totally get away from your computer, take a pencil and have a go at it. You might be surprised how fun that can be. So avoid softwares altogether. That's my tip to you. For the online game here on the RPG Site I draw everything by hand, then I scan it, and color/texture it using Photoshop. This is the latest map of the dungeon complex the PCs are exploring right now: And lastly, we arrive at that archeological question. Well, dungeon complexes can be burried over time and unearthed in a variety of ways. Maybe the complex is linked to existing, used buildings or ruins in the area? The classic castle or tower ruins in the wilderness. Or the entrance is somewhere within a mine complex. Or the entrance has been recently revealed by a geological disaster, an earthquake, a flood that made the terrain slide, anything like that. Maybe an entrance is by a volcano that recently errupted? Or deep at the bottom of a lake that evaporated over time? Or maybe the complex has been magically revealed, or displaced at the area it occupies now? Maybe it's a giant flying saucer that crashed yesterday from the heavens? Use your imagination. It can be anything you want it to be.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:51:40 GMT -6
OK. I decided I'm going to build a megadungeon on this thread once I'm done with the basic advice here, to show you live how that's supposed to unfold. So. We have a basic sideview schematics right? Then you can develop maybe a sentence or two based on the names of levels you came up with, or just come up with names now, or just wonder "what does this level do, exactly?" You don't need to have zillions of levels. Just have a basic idea of what can be found there. Maybe anywhere from 6 to 12 levels or more. Enough for the PCs to basically depart at some point from level 1, with choices to access different levels from different access points, and go maybe deeper once more from there. You can always expand later. The difficulty of the levels should basically reflect their depth: the deeper you go, the more dangerous it becomes. So that the players know that when they decide to go down, they might be facing greater risks. It's part of the management of danger, the tactical aspect of the game, and you place that choice into the players hands, instead of just tailoring "encounter levels" to the PCs no matter where they go. They go deep without preparing for it and got TPKd? That's because they made a tactical mistake. It's not because you were a pregnant dog to them. Choice. Here's a good word to keep in mind when designing a dungeon environment. When you set aside the tone, ambiance, the detail of the critters and the shape of the rooms, what it really comes down to is to create an environment the PCs can interact with meaningfully. For the interaction to be meaningful, there needs to be choices, good and bad ones, as well as clues they may or may not uncover because of their tactics, preparation, insight etc. that will help them along the way. This means that first there are different ways for the PCs to go deeper. Different pathways, stairways and pits and ramps and teleporters and all those things, pathways that lead to different locations, maybe with some clues as to what awaits the PCs if they take this or that path. If for instance on level 1 they find bodies in a room that have been emptied of their blood all lying around a huge pit that goes very deep into the dark, they can make a few suppositions, like maybe that's a giant bats' lair, or the tomb of a vampire, or who knows? That makes things exciting. Clues. Foreshadowing. All this stuff. The attention to choice also means that within a single level of the dungeon, there are different ways and paths for the PCs to explore. Don't make linear dungeon layouts where one room leads to the next to the next. That's boring. Create a layout where PCs can choose to go left, right, in the center, find or not the secret passage that goes around this or that way, have rooms interconnect with each other, so that the path they choose actually leads to a particular adventure for them, and not something you'd have prepared like a script for them to follow. Avoid stuff like enigmas or huge obstacles that would HAVE TO be overwhelmed to go further. Like a "bottleneck" where you have to figure out the password to get the door to the only level linked to level 1 to open. For two reasons: (1) there's no choice, the PCs have to deal with that, and if they don't want to or find it boring or whatnot, you're screwed, and (2) they might very well not figure out what you have in mind, and you should always be prepared for failure on the PCs part. Failure needs to be significant, almost a reward of its own, in the sense that it takes the adventure in different directions, instead of just stopping it dead in its tracks to have the game grind to a halt. Oh. Don't trap them in the first level of the dungeon. Let them leave, replenish their resources, with the danger that the rooms they've cleared will be repopulated by different creatures or factions or whatnot. It's part of the dungeon's resource management too: do I keep on pushing even if I'm low on spells and three of my hirelings are dead, or do I retreat with what I've got even if I have to face more problems on this level when I come back? Different players will be interested by different things in a dungeon. Some like tactics, resource management, overwhelming obstacles. Others like the ambiance, the decors, like to investigate the history of the place. Others are in it for the phat loot, the opportunity to kick ass and get rich. Others yet will want NPCs to interact with sometimes, some RP opportunities, will love to have problems and drama thrown at them so they can interact with the other members of the group meaningfully. Try to provide a variety of stuff to interact with. Some fights, a variety of obstacles and creatures to deal with, a basic history or purpose to the place that can be found out if they care (doesn't need to be a novel, but something like "this was the cellar of the castle. It is now repurposed as the brigands' headquarters, and they themselves do not know the purpose of the hidden shrine in are 22b."). Maybe some monsters that can be bartered or parleyed with. Some prisoners. Orc babies if your PCs want moral dilemmas ( ). If you know the players, you'll know what interests them. If not, include a bit of everything and try to detect during the first few games what will catch their interest, and what their basic MOs are. That should become obvious very fast. Think about the ambiance of each area. Think about the five senses. What do the walls look like? What's the smell around that corner? Does the water pool in that corridor, sending reflections or making noise if the PCs walk in it? What's the feel of that altar's surface when they touch it? What's that faint wailing in the distance? Where does this draft of cold air come from? And so on. Alright. Pause. I'll go on in a moment.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:51:01 GMT -6
First, I'll repost the actual questions that lead to this series of posts: The one thing that's been bugging me is, how do I go about [building a megadungeon]? How big do I make the dungeon? How many levels should I have ready at session #1? How do I keep PCs interested right from session #1? How do I keep time during dungeon crawling? How do I compute time spent by PCs at exploring each room, level, etc. so I can keep a meaningful tally on resources like torch, lantern oil, rations, etc.? How do you like your dungeon? Mythic underworld, quasi-realistic underground complex, or something else entirely? What software, if any, do you recommend for dungeon map creation? I'm doing it by hand, but having simple and handy software at hand might be nice. Also, since I don't know shirt about archeology, how the f**k do things like entire cities get buried over time? And how would it possible to explore them without, you know, shoveling all the dirt away first?My response follows. What I would do first is get an idea of what the different levels you have encompass. It doesn't have to be complete or final. It's just to have a general idea of the type of underworld setting we are looking at. Maybe you already have an idea for the surface. Some entry point to the dungeon, or the concept of a first level, but then, maybe not. Doesn't matter. In any case, I'd start like this: Take a sheet of paper and draw your dungeon complex like a side-view schematics, with bands or rectangles symbolizing each level, maybe a name or a short description of the level in each rectangle, and stairs, shafts, teleporters, rivers, whatnot linking each of the levels you have. Like this: This should give you some ideas as you go. Maybe there's a lake somewhere in the vicinity some underground levels link to. Or a volcano, a chasm, some tower or fortress in the wilderness, whatnot. You'll get a feel of the type of setting, literally, you are looking at, and your vision of the whole thing will evolve from there. You'll think about it, then maybe modify the map, then maybe just scrap it and start again. It's all cool. It'll just get better as you get ideas. You become a blacksmith by beating the crap out of iron bars and all that. OK Wait. I'm being interrupted. I'll get back to all your other questions ASAP.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
OD&D, AD&D, AS&SH
Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 17, 2012 12:49:36 GMT -6
A really nice chap going by the name of The Butcher on the RPG Site once asked questions about a megadungeon environment, how to build it, how to make it interesting, how to make it come to life, and so on. I started giving some advice like a lot of other people on that thread, and decided to push this a little farther by coming up with a dungeon environment on the spot, in that thread, and basically build it "live", with commentary and advice, so that he and others could see it come to life bit by bit. It's just one of many methodologies. I think it might be useful to repost it here, if only as a sort of reference, an example, or an alternate way to do it for those who have experience in that field, since it is based partially on the guidelines of the OD&D booklet 3, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, though it also tries to connect to a broader audience by using some AD&D guidelines as well. Since the series has been very popular since I started posting about it on the RPG Site and later the Knights & Knaves Alehouse, I'll be reposting the material here for those who might have missed it, with the hopes that more lurkers will be able to stumble upon it in the near future. MASTER LIST OF POSTS IN THIS THREADPost 1: Answering to the OP, part 1Post 2: Answering to the OP, part 2Post 3: Answering to the OP, part 3Post 4: Figuring out the setting, and sketching the megadungeon's side-viewPost 5: The multiple ideas we derive from our sketchPost 6: The identity of our Builders is revealedPost 7: Fleshing out the setting, wilderness and dungeonPost 8: Diagram of Bandit Level layoutPost 9: Bandit Level mapping part 1Post 10: Bandit Level mapping part 2Post 11: Unified draft of the Bandit levelPost 12: Factions, history and relationships on the Bandit LevelPost 13: Bandit Level Map Key, Part 1Post 14: Bandit Level Map Key, Part 2Post 15: Bandit Level Map Key, Part 3Post 16: Bandit Level Map Key, Part 4
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 12, 2012 18:41:41 GMT -6
Hey--a comment on this thread! I'd almost forgotten about it... Benoist, I'd agree with that, and the Mythus rules start with a "basic" framework that, as far as I can tell, are basically the Prime rules, which would make it easy to do. Have you actually played the game? If so, what was your experience? We did run a few games with the Prime rules ages ago back in France, and my memories are pretty good: it was fun and dripping with a cool feel with the magic and Aerth setting and all. I had a shot to play online with Dave Newton, the co-author of the game, but it sort of fell through, which sucks really. He's a cool guy, and basically was pitching the game in those terms, as I was pitching it here: that the rules are not intended to be all in from the start, that you run the game with the Mythus Prime rules first (which are indeed at the beginning of the Mythus book), and then develop the campaign and corpus of rules from there until you reach your "sweet spot" so to speak between the basic Prime frame and the complete Advanced system. That's the intent, anyway.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Jul 11, 2012 16:03:09 GMT -6
Yes, what the man said. Have an Exalt for that, Chainsaw.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by benoist on Jul 11, 2012 15:49:16 GMT -6
Mythus is a great game that is universally misjudged but for a few astute gamers out there who actually sat down and looked through its massive corpus of rules to find out what it's all about. Mythus Prime in itself is very functional and non-intrusive. Picking it up to then add elements from the advanced Mythus rules is actually the way I would advise running the game at first.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by benoist on Jul 11, 2012 15:27:07 GMT -6
These are really nice pictures. Thanks for sharing them all, guys!
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benoist
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Post by benoist on Jul 11, 2012 15:19:01 GMT -6
Awesome.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by benoist on Jan 11, 2012 21:15:02 GMT -6
First levels are fragile. I love this. Makes me really want to survive. I love the ingenuity that comes out of a group under those conditions. It's about the brains (mmm Mi-Go likes), ideas, management, organization, equipment, hirelings etc. I love this aspect of the game.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Nov 20, 2009 17:36:12 GMT -6
I think it's a fascinating idea.
When creating games for my table, I get inspired by a wide variety of sources. Sometimes it's a piece of art, sometimes it's some module I pick and choose encounters from, sometimes it's a movie, or some scene from a book, and more often than not, it's from innocuous things in life I take a second look at for one reason or another.
Dungeon Sets present another take on the conundrum of bringing game elements to a table as a publisher for a DM to play with, while at the same time trying not to force a prefab, stale, linear adventure "plot", or content on a particular gaming group with its own campaign, play style and specificities. It's an input, as far as I understand, that is destined to spark the DM's imagination instead of putting it on the back-burner to use the works others have designed in your stead.
Not to mention, it'll de facto solve mapping issues, and thus probably will save time, at many a game table for many DMs prepping their game.
I find it intriguing to say the least. It's definitely worth a try!
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Oct 9, 2009 11:25:32 GMT -6
Very nice map, and your campaign sounds pretty cool. I think that using Dunfalcon as a name does help set it apart from Greyhawk. LOL Yeah. Thing is, when you start saying on message boards, "I'm running a Greyhawk campaign at the roots of gaming", people who know the setting well will instantly come up with all sorts of expectations, like for instance a "canon" treatment of the setting. When I'm talking about the 'roots of gaming', I'm talking in part about the way some DMs, like Dave or EGG, built their own sandbox, picking and choosing amongst available influences what elements would make it there for play. It was more of an organic, creative process where one would just take this or that element of this novel or that movie and just retrofit it in the sandbox. That's the approach I'm taking here. I took the map, retrofited Yggsburgh in there, but ultimately, this is *my* sandbox, not EGG's, not Rob's, not anyone else's (until I run the thing with co-DMs, obviously, if ever). This is part of the logic that made me choose to run with the Free City's name in the East Mark's paradigm, Dunfalcon, instead of the Official™ Greyhawk™ name.
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benoist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Oct 7, 2009 15:22:58 GMT -6
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Oct 7, 2009 15:22:22 GMT -6
Absolutely FASCINATING. This is awesome. Thanks for the search, Snorri!
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Oct 7, 2009 11:18:37 GMT -6
The Dreamlands form a perfect D&D setting for the aficionados of the Weird and unexpected. This is a perfect fit, and I too am planning to use them with the game at some point. My idea so far would be to interconnect various settings via the Dreamlands, and treat them as a setting of their own, through and through, as described by HPL.
The D&D-CoC back-and-forth idea kenmeister talks about is very cool. It certainly would make for an awesome campaign!
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by benoist on Oct 7, 2009 9:55:34 GMT -6
I agree. It'd be fascinating to know what was in that folklore journal.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by benoist on Oct 7, 2009 9:53:20 GMT -6
Thanks for your feedback!
I decided to use Dunfalcon in part to mark the setting as clearly apart from the Official™ Greyhawk setting. That, and when I pointed out my hesitation between the names to my better half, she told me flat out that she preferred 'Dunfalcon'. Maybe it had something to do with my French accent, and the fact that, for me, it's much easier to say 'Dunfalcon' rather than 'Greyhawk' (ahh, these English -H-s...). LOL Probably, now that I think about it.
The idea of using Dunfalcon as a derogatory term is awesome, though, I agree. There must be some strong competition going on between the two cities if you assume they are both free and both seeking profit from the commerce (and adventuring) in the region.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Oct 6, 2009 15:42:44 GMT -6
Thanks coffee!
The story I know is that Tolkien was grading copies of students when suddenly he wrote on a blank graduation paper "In a hole lived a hobbit..."
The meaning of the sentence escaped him for some time, until he picked it up again and came up with the story we all know as "The Hobbit". It is my impression that Tolkien was saying that he didn't 'invent' the name as in "consciouly made it up", but rather, the term came spontaneously to his mind. I don't remember any allusion in the correspondance or HoME where he would have hinted at an anterior origin of the word. The fact there would be a prior mention in a "19th century folklore journal", as the article claims, is a breakthrough, really.
I'm sorry I didn't click the link of the OP earlier. My apologies for that. Fascinating.
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benoist
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Posts: 346
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Post by benoist on Oct 6, 2009 13:21:51 GMT -6
Hello everyone. I posted not so long ago about the making of my campaign sandbox, and Josh, aka Julian Grimm here on OD&DD, with the Grimmhaus blog, thought it'd be nice to have maps without names so that people can use it for their own campaigns if they choose to. The interest here is that this is a blend of Greyhawk and Yggsburgh into a workable "Dunfalcon" campaign setting (along with other elements like Bard's Gate, Rappan Athuk, Castle Whiterock and others). Here's the map: Here's the link to the map with icons, but without city/landmarks names. And here's the link to the map without icons or city/landmarks names. I know many people out there want to reconcile Yggsburgh and Greyhawk into a whole, so I thought I would share it with you all.
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benoist
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Post by benoist on Oct 6, 2009 13:13:37 GMT -6
Happy birthday indeed.
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benoist
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
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Post by benoist on Oct 6, 2009 12:39:26 GMT -6
I do know Tolkien used the word Halfling (seems to me more than once, but I could be mistaken). So I always thought it odd that Hobbit was taboo but Halfling was not. *nod* That's because "halfling" is a generic term derived from the English language, whereas "hobbit" is a term Tolkien came up with all by himself. Tolkien Enterprises thought it was copyright infringement (and it was, to be honest).
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benoist
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Post by benoist on Oct 5, 2009 11:45:41 GMT -6
Mike's reasoning is fatally flawed. Tabletop RPGs and computer RPGs do not share the same properties and are not, in effect, the same thing AT ALL.
Instead of playing a losing game with the big boys of the MMO world by emphasizing the commonalities between these two media, the tabletop scene should emphasize what is DIFFERENT between TRPGs and CRPGs. The social component of the game itself (which is fundamental to its enjoyment, IMO), the lack of boundaries to the users' imaginations (as opposed to a CPU and program raising barriers to what you can accomplish), the do-it-yourself, craft approach of tabletop gaming, and so on, so forth.
We should accept the fact that TRPGs and CRPGs are not the same thing, and realize that the instant gratification of CRPGs will make them more popular than TRPGs. TRPGs will survive nonetheless, due to the fundamental differences between the two media.
What Mike's logic does is just ensuring that the TRPG hobby gets in the end absorbed by the CRPG hobby. It's similar to the notion of Appeasement in War time. It's stupid, nonsensical, and should be rejected at every single opportunity, IMO.
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benoist
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Post by benoist on Oct 5, 2009 11:36:56 GMT -6
Legally, most TSR-published materials are now the property of Wizards of the Coast. They own TSR's old catalog and, if there were ever to be reprint of, say, OD&D or something, it'd carry a copyright statement indicating this. This. In effect, legally, WotC owns TSR's properties. WotC *is* TSR for the purpose of these specific properties. The distinction is mostly moot, when talking about Intellectual Properties, since WotC bought TSR and its catalog of IP and trademarks.
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