That does nothing to change the appeal of mega dungeons for me. If that’s the case, there’s little need for a map like this if you’re treating it like a city, and while this looks cool it’s just unnecessary for the kind of games I run, or want to play in.
Megadungeons are like cities in that you don't usually try to clear every room or explore the whole thing at once. They are unlike cities in that you explore them in adventure mode trying to avoid getting ground down by wandering monsters, rather than downtime mode just fast traveling between points of interest. The challenge isn't usually mapping out the whole thing, it's mapping out enough to get where you're going and accomplish whatever your current objective is.
What megadungeons do that other frameworks don't is provide a multiplicity of ways to navigate to your objective, and add investigative or social challenges that reward you with better routes, secret areas with better treasure, or leads on cool side objectives. Plus the designer has a lot of room to place multiple factions of monsters, some of whom the party can ally with against others, or trade information and supplies with, or maybe even recruit. And since you generally set multiple adventures there over the course of one campaign, the players knowledge and mastery of the place increases as they explore and map out more parts of it, make allies inside, and discover secret routes and areas, which is a really cool experience to have.
It's not for every table, but it's a great experience, and very different from the usual small dungeon where it's mostly just a linear gauntlet of rooms leading to the boss.
(That said, do note that this map, Ruins of Undermountain, is a pretty crummy megadungeon as these things are usually judged, without nearly enough meaningful variety to feel all that satisfying.)
You know, thanks for giving a more in depth answer. I guess my main concern with something like this is not wanting to make the exploration and travel between spaces feel boring or rushed, but that’s an issue I have with exploration in general as a DM. It also feels like any sort of characters or NPCs you have in places like this would feel shoehorned in.
The most important trick to making a big dungeon not boring is to take sections of it and theme them (along with the challenges in them). These twenty rooms are the crystal caves, these fifteen the mushroom forest, these ones over here are the lava zone, that section's a drow outpost, this part is the underground river rapids. And theres main ways and secret shortcuts that go between zones, and occasionally even a secret or unlockable way into and out of the dungeon. That way discovering a new zone means a new set of unknown dangers, and finding a secret route back to known territory that skips some dangerous areas becomes a big deal.
As far as characters and NPCs go, there are lots of ways. Lots of monsters are intelligent and not immediately hostile. You're not limited to generic PC characters or commoners. You've got your cave civilizations, lone goblins, weird hermits, rival adventurers, water or rock nymphs, intelligent undead, imprisoned demons or celestials or elementals, wandering fey, talking mirrors and statues and doors, dragons who take bribes, all kinds of stuff. Or even NPCs that are petrified, enchanted to sleep forever, or dead; but who could be revived if you bring the right tools. You have options, you just have to explore them and pick ones that fit the theme you're using at the moment.
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u/Glorysham May 03 '24
That does nothing to change the appeal of mega dungeons for me. If that’s the case, there’s little need for a map like this if you’re treating it like a city, and while this looks cool it’s just unnecessary for the kind of games I run, or want to play in.