Megadungeon Advice & Resources

Hey, everyone!

I’m about 90 rooms into my Dungeon25 project, and while I’m happy with my progress so far, I’d love to swap ideas and hear what’s worked for others.

Here’s what’s been working for me:

Writing rooms in pairs (or clusters). This has been a game changer. Thinking about how rooms in small groups and considering how they relate to each other has made generating material so much easier.

Relying on themes, motifs, and spark tables for inspiration. For the first level, I started with two major themes: castle and the sea. From there, I brainstormed motifs associated with my themes. Castle led me to knights, courts, and statues. The sea led me to pirates, kelp, and tides. Then I wrote some spark tables and began combining two mundane ideas to yield something more original. Who is the Knight of Kelp? What’s the deal with the Court of Tidepools? Why is there a statue of a pirate here?

Writing and mapping in tandem—to a point. Generally, my process has involved coming up with a small cluster of rooms, then placing them on the map. However, I sometimes add rooms to the map without keying them or write a room description without immediately placing it on the map. This has helped me follow my inspiration and avoid getting stuck working on a specific area.

Here’s what’s been challenging:

Incorporating traps. My megadungeon is far more inhabited than the prototypical mythic underworld, so it doesn’t make sense to have a bunch of deadly unsprung traps lying about. What has been fruitful is thinking about who may want to set non-lethal traps (and why).

Including weird, highly interactive stuff that encourages experimentation. This has easily been the most challenging aspect. Statue puzzles and odd shrines can only get you so far. Taking inspiration from real-life marvels and oddities has helped (I have a room inspired by the Prague astronomical clock, for example)

If you’re involved in Dungeon25, participated in Dungeon23, or have worked on large dungeons, I’d appreciate advice, best practices, and referrals to helpful resources!

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It sounds like you have good themes which are pretty important!

I often rely quite a bit on my prior prep for Stocking, this usually involves using some of my Random Tables when I get stuck or need inspiration. I link to several of them in my Dungeon Stocking - Expanded Tool, which is intended to work with the standard B/X Stocking Methods, but contains a few “hints” or “prompts” to serve as a bit of an Oracle in situations where you might not have a specific idea in mind for a Monster, Trap, Special, or Empty Room.

For Specials, Shrines/Statues/Pools are pretty great, but I often like to use these as a cue to add things that also alter other Areas of the Dungeon in interesting ways. This can promote a bit of backtracking to “unlock” different areas, or even make previously “known, but unable to be explored” areas accessible. Sometimes these are in the form of a Puzzle or Sequence of Triggers.

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I really like the process in tome of adventure design, where you zoom in from a large picture, e.g. first roughly define different dungeon areas and how they are linked, then proceed to fleshing out details such as layout of rooms in the area, then content. For creative content, try a combination of a simple yes no oracle for questions (is there a trap?) and descriptive oracle such as randomly picking words from a book (what is its mechanism?). That’s works for me!

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Something to think about regarding traps is that while it may not make sense in regard to the denizens setting traps in a location, traps themselves could be a kind of faction unto themselves. I say this because traps are an essential part of influencing routes traveled in the megadungeon and having them allows different group dynamics to favor different paths. Consider thinking outside of the traditional pit and perhaps there is a strange latent magic opening up floor portals that send you somewhere strange, or the possibilty of a displaced ghost firing arrows through the walls instead of just mechanical arrow traps.

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Thanks, this is all helpful! Ktrey, your blog rocks and your tables are one of my go-to resources when I need a jolt of inspiration.

Re: a top-down approach—before I began keying rooms in January I made an initial list of levels, drew diagrams of how they might connect, and also listed potential points of interest for each. Highly recommend.

Re: traps—that’s a very helpful reframing of the concept! Considering that trapping—or dislocating or killing—may not have been a trap’s original intended purpose does open up a ton of possibilities

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