There has been a lot of megadungeon talk around the internet for the last week. I am hardly an expert on the subject, having never run one myself, but I do have some things that I would like to see in a published megadungeon.
1. It should be pretty short. I don't need to see more than 100 pages for a whole world campaign setting (and I can go with FAR less) so I'd like to see the megadungeon come in at 64 pages or less.
2. Most of that space should be spent on a description of the rooms/areas. I am not talking about boxed text to read aloud here, I am talking about good physical descriptions that give me more than I will probably give the players at first. Historical information will be really useful here.
3. I would prefer that, in general, an area of rooms was described with random tables given for things that could be found in that area. Give me good historical information, a good description of what the stoenwork in that area is like, and random tables to use to populate the rooms with the kinds of traps, monsters etc. found there.
4. I would prefer nice looking poster maps. Don't put grids on them, don't number every room. Just call out the areas, point out special rooms, and give me a scale for the map.
5. Good descriptions for special, cool rooms. Don't bother with the other rooms other than the general information. I wasn't going to use what your detailed description of the mess hall anyway.
6. NPCs that inhabit the dungeon and the surrounding areas. Just the important/cool ones. I won't bother to read about the ones that are just run of the mill blacksmiths.
What I don't want:
1. A room by room description. *Yawn*
2. Adventure hooks
3. Adventures/quests
4. More than 64 pages
5. A bunch of gridded maps in the book that I have to keep flipping back and forth to
6. A poster map with no scale on it.
Here are some more posts on the subject of megadungeons:
The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope
Grognardia
Grognardia
Greyhawk Grognard
1. It should be pretty short. I don't need to see more than 100 pages for a whole world campaign setting (and I can go with FAR less) so I'd like to see the megadungeon come in at 64 pages or less.
2. Most of that space should be spent on a description of the rooms/areas. I am not talking about boxed text to read aloud here, I am talking about good physical descriptions that give me more than I will probably give the players at first. Historical information will be really useful here.
3. I would prefer that, in general, an area of rooms was described with random tables given for things that could be found in that area. Give me good historical information, a good description of what the stoenwork in that area is like, and random tables to use to populate the rooms with the kinds of traps, monsters etc. found there.
4. I would prefer nice looking poster maps. Don't put grids on them, don't number every room. Just call out the areas, point out special rooms, and give me a scale for the map.
5. Good descriptions for special, cool rooms. Don't bother with the other rooms other than the general information. I wasn't going to use what your detailed description of the mess hall anyway.
6. NPCs that inhabit the dungeon and the surrounding areas. Just the important/cool ones. I won't bother to read about the ones that are just run of the mill blacksmiths.
What I don't want:
1. A room by room description. *Yawn*
2. Adventure hooks
3. Adventures/quests
4. More than 64 pages
5. A bunch of gridded maps in the book that I have to keep flipping back and forth to
6. A poster map with no scale on it.
Here are some more posts on the subject of megadungeons:
The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope
Grognardia
Grognardia
Greyhawk Grognard
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