Thursday, December 22, 2022

Dungeon23

An old mantra of this blog has long been that "roleplaying games were born in the megadungeon." By this, I simply mean that most of the earliest examples of what we would today recognize as RPGs were played in the context of exploring an immense, subterranean locale filled with monsters, magic, and mysteries – Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, and Empire of the Petal Throne, to cite just three examples, all assume that much of a campaign's action will center around delving into the depths. Obviously, roleplaying games can (and should) include so many more activities, but there's something satisfyingly primal about braving the mythic underworld and returning to tell the tale.

To be worthy of the name, a megadungeon shouldn't merely be vast in size, it should also contain enough to hold the players' attentions for a long period of time. Unlike smaller, more focused "lair" dungeons, like those typically found in published adventure modules, a megadungeon is a sprawling, rambling thing that isn't about any one thing, nor is it possible to "clear" it. Instead, it's a place to which the characters can come again and again over the course of weeks, months, or even years without ever fully exhausting. A megadungeon can thus be the centerpiece of a campaign, in the way that Castles Blackmoor and Greyhawk were in their respective campaigns and the Jakállan Underworld was in the earliest Tékumel campaign.

I was reminded of all of this for two unrelated reasons. First, as you'll know, I've been working on a science fantasy RPG I'm calling The Secrets of sha-Arthan. When I first conceived of the idea a year and a half ago, I called the project The Vaults of sha-Arthan. The Vaults of the title are megadungeons by another name – deep, ancient labyrinths reputed to contain the secrets of the deific Makers. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to develop one of these Vaults as the basis of a sha-Arthan campaign and have been slowly poking at the idea ever since.

Second, Sean McCoy, the creator of Mothership, proposed something that's come to be known as Dungeon23. The idea quite simple: create one room each day for a megadungeon throughout the entirety of 2023 and then share the results. I thought this was a great idea, if only because it took what might otherwise have seemed like an insurmountable endeavor and broke it down into a much more manageable form. Since I was already contemplating the development of one of the Vaults of sha-Arthan for use in a campaign, Sean's idea struck me as worthy of an attempt.

So, among other things, 2023 will see me attempt to flesh out the Vaults beneath the ancient city of da-Imer one room at a time. Since I already have a lot of ideas of what that fabled underworld might contain, I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to keep up the pace for a while. Of course, this is a marathon, not a sprint. The real test comes after a few weeks or even months, after the novelty of the exercise begins to wear off and the realization that a year is a long time to commit to a single project.

I'll undoubtedly have a few more thoughts on this, as I work on it over on my Patreon. For now, I only wanted to say publicly that I intend to pick up the gauntlet Sean has thrown on the ground. Wish me luck.

16 comments:

  1. There was another megadungeon in 2022 where each day had a new room. That was "Stooshie & Stramash". It ran out of steam somewhere around May.

    See the Twitter account @StooshieS

    https://twitter.com/StooshieS/status/1477282106430705670?s=20&t=13krJDu0GV7PjLJ5lkPL6g

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    1. my rule is when in doubt, roll on a random chart. gets me over any humps

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    2. Thanks for posting the Stoshi link. Amazing efforts, he went into detail on each room instead of the bare basics. I can see why he ran out of gas in the fifth month. This whole Dungeon23 idea could be amazing if folks put that much effort into individual rooms, then people could pick and choose and build dungeon levels and a megadungeon.

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  2. I'm going to be using the Dungeon23 Helper document put up by Hexed Press on itch.io. It slightly modifies the formula to give more structure for creating the dungeons. Since I'm the kind of person who will get easily discouraged if I don't have a structure to follow, I'm hoping it gets me over my creative hurdles!
    https://hexedpress.itch.io/dungeon23-helper

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  3. Interesting project. Not sure I have a big enough notebook for a whole year of dungeon...

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    1. I don't have one either. I'm just going to draw all the rooms on separate pieces of paper.

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    2. In a blog post the day after the tweet, Sean McCoy suggested using a daily planner. He found one that has 7 days of the week on one side (one for each room) and a grid on the other side (for the map section).
      https://seanmccoy.substack.com/p/dungeon23

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    3. "I'm just going to draw all the rooms on separate pieces of paper."

      That would make uploading them a lot easier, I guess. I mean, I've got a blog for fantasy RP stuff too, I just don't use it much lately. If I'm going to play I might as well put it out there for the world - or the like three people who ever look at the thing. :)

      https://sanctumreconditesage.blogspot.com/

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  4. My advice: in the early days, when you are full of ideas, write them all down. You may not want to flesh them out at the time, but when the lean times hit you'll probably be grateful to your earlier self.

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    1. this is excellent advice. I keep word docs in a folder labeled "projects" that are not tied to any actual project, but have notes that I like, with evocative phrases, etc

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    2. Yeah, got notebooks full of fleeting thoughts awaiting some attention. Used to use my bus commutes as random-idea time.

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  5. In Deep Dungeon Doom, I'm adding #Gygax75 to #Dungeon23 so to develop the environs a little.
    https://www.donjonlands.com/2022/12/gygax75-and-dungeon23-create-a-dd-dungeon-campaign-in-a-few-minutes-a-day-without-too-much-thinking.html

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  6. Office supply stores are good sources of fat wads of paper designed especially for writing stuff in within a framework of a page-a-day. Diaries. Or even calendars if you feel like being super brief.

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  7. You could even pick up a week-to-a-spread diary and thence do 52 levels of 5 room dungeons (with 2 spaces to spare).

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  8. I am totally doing this for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2E world of Titan, and have resurrected a dead blog to do so. Intro starts here! http://fantasygamebook.blogspot.com/2022/12/dungeon23-inspires-dead-blog.html

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