Lessons from Running Mega Dungeons

A few years ago, I ran a summer-long campaign using the Stonehell dungeon.  The lessons learned were invaluable, and heavily influenced some of my decisions in structuring my current campaign, The Black City.  Some of the things I got right; there are plenty of things that still need refinement.  Running your campaign using a megadungeon, campaign dungeon, or tentpole dungeon (pick your term) as the centerpiece offers a lot of benefits, but it's not a risk free proposition.  There are a couple of basic things you have to absolutely get right, or it's going to crash and burn on you.

Feed the Player Choice Engine
Choice (or agency,as the cool kids call it) is the magic engine that makes the mega dungeon work.  Information is the fuel.  The megadungeon needs an interesting background to engage the players, and they need to learn enough about the dungeon to plan their own capers.  Making blind decisions is no better than a coin flip, and when the players don't have the right information, they're choices are meaningless.  OSR luminary Matt Finch said it much better than I could on a comment here at the Lich House:  Running a better sandbox game.  Read and gain 1 point of Wisdom.

Information tools include things like campaign background, rumors in town, clues picked up within the dungeon, rumors from other adventuring parties or dungeon inhabitants, treasure maps, and so forth.  These tools are tried and true.  The players need to be able to plan, and their plan needs inputs.

I would elevate this as the # 1 reason, bar none, mega dungeons fail - failure to feed the engine.

Engagement
Interesting environments develop engagement.  You've all heard the advice - make sure your megadungeon has some distinct levels and areas, to limit repetition and monotony.  Design set piece areas, that are intricate, tactical, or otherwise very cool.  Add factions to the dungeon so the group can engage in non-combat roleplaying, or a bit of politics.  Make sure the rooms have interesting encounters that provide a challenge, or the chance to learn something (even if its an empty room).  This is all common advice, good advice.  My list is not exhaustive, and one can certainly argue more or less special ingredients need to be in that sauce.

But engagement requires information, first and foremost, and that means feeding the engine.  Putting in a wicked cool 'Fountain of Serpents' as a major set-piece location is less valuable when the player characters don't hear about it, learn why it's cool, and get enough information to plan a mission to try and find it.  Multiple competing factions are irrelevant if the group doesn't discover how to take advantage of the rivalries.

The Dwimmermount Controversy
Tenkar over at Tenkar's Tavern recently ran his crew through a level of Dwimmermount (Closing the door on Dwimmermount) and it spawned discussion there, and on TheRPGSite.  The players didn't like it - and ink has been spilt.  Dwimmermount discussions always seem to have popcorn value, since it's a high profile project that has veered off the road a bit.  James Mal has one of the largest pools of OSR readership, perhaps encouraging a bit of schadenfreude - I just know, mention Dwimmermount, and folks come out swinging hatchets.

However, if players aren't excited to step foot into the dungeon or plan a targeted excursion, they clearly don't have the right information.   I can't say if the drafts are to blame - I'm a project backer for Dwimmermount, but haven't bothered with the downloads yet.  Tenkar's group did explicitly set out to run the levels they used "as is", without heavy improvisation or enhancement by the DM.  It's spawned lively discussion about empty rooms, evenly distributed copper coins hidden in rat poo, and nothing less than the very death of the megadungeon format!

No published megadungeon can capture the magic of the campaign that birthed it.  Running a game session is performance art, and the more sparse are the published notes, the more improvisation is required to bring it to life.  The manuscript needs to fire the imagination and give the DM something to work with, too.  Keep your popcorn handy, where will this saga go next?  I should I probably get off my keister and actually download some of the evidence, experience the drama firsthand.  I'm still a popcorn muncher.

I had expected to spend time talking about what's going wrong and right with the Black City, but I'll have to save that for tomorrow.  My soapbox is about to collapse under the weight of self-importance, and I've got enough bruises this week already.

Mythic Monday: The Tarrasque

Wow - it’s been a while since I've posted a monster for Mythic Monday - my well of inspiration has taken me to other places these many months.  This past weekend, churches everywhere celebrated the feast of Pentecost, and my readings last week referenced dragon floats used in religious celebrations and feasts in Spain and southern France.  In following the lead back to its source, I was brought to the legendary Tarasque (or Tarrasque, in D&D).

Take a moment if you like, go hit Wikipedia and read up on the Tarasque.  Otherwise I'll paraphrase briefly:  Born of a middle eastern fire monster and the biblical Leviathan, the Tarasque was a 6-legged dragon that terrorized 1st century southern France before it was subdued by St Martha, a holy woman that pacified the creature while approaching it bare foot, in a white dress, and wielding a flask of holy water and a cross.  Then the villagers chopped it up (and renamed their place Tarascon).  Prior to its subdual, the beast was nigh invulnerable due to its armored shell.

The version of the dragon that shows up in Corpus Christi celebrations and the religious festivals is called a Tarasca, and a quick google search will show a handful of nifty Tarasca floats and wood carvings - here's a collage so you can see what I mean.  I like how they all have the signature turtle shell back and those big freaky mouths.  Some of the old woodcuts display the Tarasque with legs sticking out of its mouth, mid-meal.  We don't have too many festivals here in the States where people roll around man-eating turtle-backed dragons.  :sigh:

Images of various Tarascas

There are some bits of the story that are intriguing.  What is it about the theme of innocent maidens assuaging the most terrible of beasts?  I've read psychological theories of predatory monsters, how they call to mind primordial fears of being hunted by animals, or Freudian taboos of cannibalism, but I don't recall coming across an explanation of the 'beauty taming the savage beast' motif.  I just know if a gamer wrote the story, an unarmed cleric facing down such a monster with a vial of holy water wouldn't even count as an appetizer.  Bye bye village.

The tarrasque is a fascinating monster to put in a campaign; it lies dormant for years at a time, wakes up, depopulates an area, then stumbles off to find a good sleeping spot until it's time for the next eating binge.  How cool would it be to put a depopulated area into your low level sandbox… "Oh yeah, there used to be people here, but then the Tarrasque came through a few years ago, and folk are slow to move back… who knows if it's going to wake up near here again sometime soon?"  Sages would try to chart and predict that kind of thing on the calendar; kingdoms would plan evacuations around the imminent waking of the sleeping Tarrasque.  Plus, the Tarrasque is one of those awesome creatures to put on your monster kill 'bucket list'.  "Some day, I'm going to slay that stupid Tarrasque.  It ate my village."

Check it out, though, there's one amazing power of the legendary Tarrasque that didn't get copied over into D&D lore.  I try to keep the blog somewhat on topic and clean, but this is too funny to ignore:

And when he is pursued he casts out of his belly behind, his ordure, the space of an acre of land on them that follow him, and it is bright as glass, and what it toucheth it burneth as fire.
--The Golden Legend

When the Tarrasque "has a movement", so to speak, it burns down acres at a time.  And it uses this as a defense mechanism.  Unholy flaming shit.  You can't make this stuff up.

To my fellow Americans, enjoy your Memorial Day holiday, be sure to thank a veteran for their service, and I'll see you guys again shortly with more ideas on the Harrow Home Manor.

I almost forgot - the Tarrasque shows up in Monster Manual 2 for AD&D... I know many of those monsters are reprints of modules, does someone know if there is an earlier source for the Tarrasque in AD&D?  Thanks for any insight!

Moses is a 16th Level Cleric

Charlton Moses

We just passed Easter and Passover, and the pompous Cecil B Demille version of The Ten Commandments was on TV this past weekend.  The kids had never seen it, so we put it on the DRV; at four and a half hours, it was too much for a single sitting, and there are too many commercials.  We just finished.

Our kids are well trained geeks.  My 10 year old declared, "Moses is at least a 13th level cleric".  My daughter said he was a water bender like Ang the Avatar. When Ramses decided to plunge his chariots into the canyon of water, my wife is like, "Where is Admiral Ackbar when you need him?"  Then my son started conjecturing whether the fiery pillar was a flame strike spell or a wall of fire.

Assuming that the plague of hail is a suped-up Weather Control spell, I'd actually put Moses at 16th level  in AD&D terms - Weather Control is a 7th level cleric spell.  I think old Gygax must have liked that Cecil B Demille movie quite a bit.  You could argue there was Sticks to Snakes, Insect Plagues, Flame Strikes, Part Water, Control Weather, and even a bit of Commune in it.

As for the whole angel of death bit, regular clerics have got nothing.

Taking the Long View - in High Gygaxian

The mantle of referee requires enrobement in such varied guises as tactician of melee, grand strategist, architect of cunning traps, engineer of puzzles, and inventor of myriad enigmas.  As you join the ranks of those forebears who also assumed the storied title of DUNGEON MASTER, embrace this role with élan and engrave your vision boldly across the milieu!  But be forewarned, even the practiced referee may find himself confronted by the circumstance in which the players, through dint of forethought and application of luck or skill, are discovered in a superior position vis a vis a carefully formulated encounter.  The natural tendency of the inexperienced referee in such surroundings would be to alter the deployment of forces arrayed against the players, in devotion to an ideal formulated on a requirement of balance or appropriate test, but this view is incorrect.  You must resist this urge.  THE ROLE OF THE REFEREE IS TO ADJUDICATE SUCH SITUATIONS WITH IMPARTIAL NEUTRALITY AND PRACTICED INDIFFERENCE TO THE RESULTS.

The experienced referee has already seeded the dungeon environment and surrounding milieu with a myriad assortment of challenges,  each amenable to one pattern of solution or another.  When the players have successfully ferreted out a resolution to a given difficulty, allow them to enjoy their fleeting moment of success, but gird yourself for the upcoming confrontations.  Continued success requires adaptation, and the players will soon learn that yesterday's successful techniques hold little water with tomorrow's new challenges!

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Chris over at Hill Canton's announced International Write Like Gygax Day, and I couldn't help but join in the fun, especially as we're using the 1E DMG actively at the table right now.  This was going to be a simple post about "you win some, you lose some, it all balances out in the end", but it seemed like too good an opportunity to spout some High Gygaxian.  Happy Friday!

Firmly Grasp Your Staff, Brave Cleric

Or… how my group's humor operates on the level of an 8th grader

In classic D&D, Moldvay BX, the staff of healing is the best early magic item in the game, able to bestow a cure light wounds to each person once per day - no charges, no bookkeeping, it just keeps on working.  The thing is money.  In a party of characters and retainers, that could be a dozen cures a day!

But let's not overlook the other benefit - touching everyone in the group with the magic staff each day provides an endless supply of dick jokes.

Let's see, it started with simple snickers and giggles months ago whenever the cleric said things like this:

"I will touch him with my staff."
"Let me whip out the staff and lay it on you."

After 8-10 months of having the staff of healing around, the dick jokes never seem to get old to the players.

I brandish the staff in my hand...
Slip him the wood, Brother...
...Come, rub your hands on my magic staff and be healed.
I will bestow the gift of the wood...
Let me whip out my staff and take care of that for you…
Touched again with the magic wood...
Magic wood to the rescue...

They took it to a new high (low?) the other night with these choice innuendoes:

Phat Kobra the dwarf held off getting healed until they were turning in for the night, then he finally said:

"Make sure you give me the magic staff before bed, I want to wake up healed and refreshed."  Snickers all around.

Then, after the cleric healed himself with the staff:

"You can do it to yourself?"

"Oh yes, when it comes to working the staff, sometime it's best just to take it into your own hands.  I slide my hands on the staff and it works just as well on me as it does on you."

The cleric player was laughing the whole time he said that one.  Yep, playing D&D with 40 year olds, with the humor of a bunch of 13 year olds.  Unfortunately, pretty soon the (actual) 9 year olds at the table are going to figure out what all the 'staff of healing' laughter has really been about.

I don't look forward to the day the party gets a Rod of Lordly Might.