Megadungeon Post Mortem

 

The First Floor

I ran a megadungeon a couple of years ago, and while I had fun running it, and my group had some fun delving into it, it was pretty clear by the end of the campaign that my players were done with it. The campaign ran for about a year and a half of weekly sessions and by the halfway point of the campaign the party was spending the majority of its time exploring the region around the dungeon. I don't think that the impulse to explore the surrounding area is uncommon, and I have come to learn that it is an activity that my players really enjoy, but I do think that there are some elements of the dungeon that made exploring it less satisfying than it could have been.

The Size:

Megadungeons are supposed to be big, that's their whole thing, but I think the dungeon I made was big in the wrong way. Above is a map of the first floor of the dungeon and it is enormous. At around 350 rooms the floor was probably too big, especially considering that it was only being explored by a single party made up of three players. The dungeon level had a total of 7 entrances scattered throughout it, but most were positioned at the edges, and so any approach would include a slog through lots of previously explored regions, and because I was using the rule that all doors are stuck, it meant every room took a minimum of 1 Turn to open. The size also meant that the party never found any of the stairs down to level 2, which I imagine affected the party's sense of forward progress.  

I think my players found these elements discouraging, and probably a little boring. So here are some ideas I think may have alleviated those feelings (Assuming the size of the floor remains the same).

Discoverable Fast Travel:

The Last Stag

Adding teleporters, pneumatic tubes, or a system of goblin rickshaws could go a long way in easing the boredom of moving through the same space multiple times. These could also add an impetus for exploration if, for example, tube stations need to be activated in order to be used or the goblin rickshaw union operates using an intricate system of passes and permissions to reach their various stops.

Unlocking Stuck Doors:

This might take the form of an old fashioned lock and key, knowing the secret knock needed to get through doors made from a specific type of wood, or a troop of dungeon rangers willing to escort the party for a price, the point is that there is some knowledge or resource the party can acquire to skip past stuck doors in their travels. 

More Connections to Lower Levels:

I think that this would have gone a long way towards the longevity of the dungeon, and looking back, I realize I should have just told my players how to get to level two at some point. Barring that, more connections to lower levels gives player more options on how to proceed and more opportunities to find those connections. I especially think setting a few connections near dungeon entrances would increase the chances of them being discovered early.

More Concrete Direction

I wasn't using rumor tables when I started this game and I now realize that was a big mistake. Giving players some ideas about what is contained within the dungeon gives them potential goals and objectives which can be powerful motivators and would prevent aimless wandering in the dungeon. I also think treasure maps placed around the region that point to things like new entrances, or access points to lower levels would also have been extremely useful motivators. 

The Factions: 

The first floor of the dungeon had six factions in it. That was too many factions. Each of the six factions was big, and took up a lot of space in the dungeon, and held a lot of the dungeons treasure, and the party had no desire to interact with them. There was also a lot of thematic overlap between the factions which meant that the party had some difficulty keeping the separate factions straight.

Smaller, Regional Factions:

This solution would put the size of the factions more in line with a large adventuring party plus retainers, making them a little more vulnerable. This, I think, would make them juicier targets as enemies, and would put them on more equal footing as allies for the party. Shrinking the factions would also open up more unclaimed areas of the dungeon for the players to explore and potentially claim for themselves.

Fewer Factions:

If I were to redo the factions on this floor I would have reduced the total number of factions to five, with two opposed major factions and three minor factions, arranged using the faction star detailed here by Scrap Princess. This would give the players small factions that they can bully or champion, and large factions that they can throw in with or rally others against and generally create a more dynamic social environment. 

Treasure:

Treasure is what the players are here for, and is the main factor that contributed to my players loss of interest in the dungeon. I used the OSE stocking procedures to stock most of the rooms, and there was treasure there, the players just never found any of it. I think the reasons for that are things that have already been covered, namely the size of the dungeon and the large number of factions.

The factions all had large treasure stashes, there were a few big monsters on the dungeon floor that had stashes of treasure as well. I think that these were the two biggest sources of treasure in the dungeon, but since the players didn't like engaging with the factions, it meant that they never got access to the big faction hauls. The size of the dungeon also meant that finding the big monsters with treasure much harder.

So, the party was stuck with room treasure, and since they never found a way to the second level, the room treasure was for the first level of the dungeon which isn't very much.

Contrast this with the party's experience hex crawling where they found lots of small locations, of varying danger and reward levels and it becomes clear why the party ended up defaulting to exploring the wilderness. 

I think that smaller factions, and more mobility in the dungeon would go a long way towards making treasure more accessible on this level, and more obvious routes to lower levels would give players better access to bigger threats and payouts. I also think the use of rumors and treasure maps directing players to specific treasures would go a long way towards showing that the dungeon does in fact contain treasure. 

XP For Room Exploration:

For this I would probably use the exploration XP described in Zzarchov Kowolskis Neoclassical Geek Revival wherein the players receive XP for each room they explore, and every room explored is worth more than the previous (i.e. the first room grants 10xp, the second 20, the third 30 etc.) which resets when the players leave the dungeon. I think that this method, while not a ton of XP, might help players set goals, and push deeper into the dungeon than they otherwise would.

Conclusion

My first megadungeon was kind of a mess, but it was a mess that I had a ton of fun making. I originally planned to make the dungeon 8 levels, with a few sub levels and I didn't get anywhere close to that. I started the game before the first floor was done, ended up completing it and most of the second floor while the game was going, but by the time I was finishing up the second floor, it became clear that my players had lost interest in the dungeon. Shortly after that we did a soft reboot in another region where the main focus was wilderness exploration which my players really like and which I'm having a lot of fun with.

I learned a lot while running the megadungeon, and I'm excited to try my hand at another one.

If you want a closer look at the map I have added the xcf file, a png of the map and the map key to a folder Here.