Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 420sempai Dec 22, 2014 10:38:26	I've been playing D&D intermittently for a little while now and I've never once played in or ran a campaign that revolved around dungeon crawling. I have very little experience with such things, but my playerbase decided it was high time we've gotten around to running a game largely based within a dungeon. I, as the DM, will be required to make a 25+ floor dungeon where the majority of the game I have planned will be taking place. My players understand that I've never done this before, so they don't expect a grand masterpiece. However, I want to give them as exciting and memorable of a game as I am capable of and then some, so I came here for help.   So, here's the rundown of how I want the dungeon to work:   1) 25+ story dungeon at the center of a once grand city, now turned to ruin 2) Players will be level 7 minimum, perhaps a bit higher. I don't know what the party will be at the moment, but I have 5 players and definitely won't go any higher. I want them to feel powerful without overwhelming me as a DM, as I have only run/played in campaigns that haven't exceeded level 9. Overall plan is to have them become strong enough to face a Death Tyrant at the end. 2) Largely filled with undead and illusions. Lots of mental distress to the characters the further in they go 3) Major contraptions operated at first by mechanical devices, then by more magical ones the deeper the party goes 4) The goal is of the delve is to retrieve an item that would give one of the five party members a wish. The party knows that only one person can use it from the beginning, but must work together regardless as it is too dangerous to attempt alone. 5) Want to give off a ruined kingdom vibe here. Started writing bits of lore and whatnot that people could run across upon passing through certain areas, completing puzzles, etc etc 6) Reccurring themes of madness, deception and what is and is not real. Plan on pulling a lot from character backstories to mess with players and whatnot.   I guess what I'm asking here is for any suggestions that you guys may have as to trap ideas, magical gear, enemies, spells, etc; as well as ways to design the actual dungeon itself so it has an ongoing theme and keeps the players interested. Any and all posts are welcomed and I can go into more detail about things should any questions from all y'all arise. As I said, I am incredibly inexperienced with this sort of thing, so even if it seems like common knowledge to you and you think it'd be helpful, post it please.   TL;DR: I'm really new to sending players into a dungeon dive. Please help me with an overambitious dungeon so I don't disappoint my players   Thanks ahead of time for anyone taking the time to read this and post. Appreciate the help
#2 iserith Dec 22, 2014 11:26:05	Some reading (not my blog):   1) Dungeons: Theory and Design 2) Dungeons: Build for your Players 3) Dungeons: Running the Dungeon 4) Dungeons: Threat Structure 5) Dungeons: Information Management 6) Dungeons: Monsters, Hazards, and Stunting 7) Dungeons: Encounter and Flow Design
#3 johndakar Dec 22, 2014 19:53:38	Grimtooth's Traps for traps. Rappan Athuk if you just want to mess with conversions. Good luck.
#4 OrwellianHaggis Dec 23, 2014 2:08:37	With your theme I'd take a long look at Dragon Age (any part of any of the games that take you into the Deep Roads dealing with darkspawn, and I'd also look at the demons and their quest lines; there's a lot of moral quandaries there, lots of rich stories). I'd watch Aliens too, focusing on the bit where the marines descend into the hive, there's a lot of mileage in those scenes regarding tension and horror.   On a personal note, in this kind of game I'd really appreciate a dungeon that made sense. You know, dining halls, storage rooms, stables, city squares, etc.   Are your players the kind who like to track encumbrance, exhaustion, and so on?
#5 RedSiegfried Dec 23, 2014 6:24:03	The first and main piece of advice I'd give is to not write a megadungeon in advance and have it set in stone before you even start playing.  instead, just prep a few areas the party is likely to use for the first session, and continue that pattern for the sessions after that, using feedback and directly soliciting ideas from the rest of the group on what kind of things they'd find most fun, and build the dungeon as you go along.  It's less work for you, too!    Your rundown is a good framework and certainly sounds interesting, but don't make the mistake of writing it all in advance or feeling that you have to stick to your overview after you start playing.  If you write it from session to session as you go along, you'll have a lot more time to build and change your already cool ideas with help from the rest of the group.   The group will always be more engaged and have more fun with something that they had a part in helping to create.  And don't worry about how this might create spoilers or "ruin immersion."  The group won't care about stuff like that if they're too busy having fun!
#6 sleypy Dec 23, 2014 8:27:26	I think you have your bases covered pretty well.   These are issues I have run into in my experience as a DM and Player in order of importance.   I think you should have a conversation about your intent to use the players background against them. I have seen the response to this ranging from happiness to bitter anger. This may not be an issue since it sounds like you have been playing with the group for a while.   If you have not considered this already, how do you expect players to interact with traps.  Are you challenging the player or the character? If your challenging the character than passive perception can be a useful tool to stop delves from bogging down due to excessive numbers of perception/investigation checks. If your challenging the player, you need to make sure that you are describing things clearly so that poor communication doesn't become part of the trap. In either case, consider having noticable features seperated out from the base room description. That way if something is noticed or unnoticed you don't need to change the room description on the fly and accidently give something away or get paranoid over something that isn't important.   WIth the lore stuff, I find it works for me to have the lore woven into the rooms, creatures denizen descriptions. Like in Tomb of Horor there are a lot of trapped frescas and other trapped artwork.Some as simple as that tells you how the lich views trap and art, as well as the style of art that was probably popular during the time the traps were made. This also can help with clarity with traps, because that little bit of insight helps adventures deal with the traps.