Building the megadungeon: Why factions are fabulous

Not them again!

Goblins and kobolds are dime a dozen. 

Players may groan at meeting another nondescript batch of the little green meanies. 

But gussy them up with personality as a distinct faction, and voila, they're much more engaging!

Second, savvy players can play multiple factions off against each other, adding another dimension to game play.

For example, let's create two factions of goblins who are at odds. 

Let's say one is called the Hobdreamers, and they have discovered a vast hallucinogenic fungus colony deep in the megadungeon. They are pale and nocturnal, cover themselves with white shroom dust, and mark their territory with mushroom caps stained in blood and set on a pike.

The fungus colony is sentient and communicates with the goblins through dream quests. It's goals are unknowable to mere animals. 

The industrious goblins are grinding up batches of fungus and selling it to humans in local villages and towns, causing an addiction epidemic that has authorities alarmed. This also gives the fungus colonies glimpses of what the user sees. 

Of course, the goblins need human middle men, as most people won't trust treacherous goblins pushing shrooms. So the goblins enlist the down and out, people on the fringes of society who have been cast aside. Perhaps crippled war veterans, or members of persecuted religious sects who've had their possessions confiscated by the local authorities and now thirst for revenge, like getting the bishop's sons addicted to shrooms. 

The second goblin tribe, let's call them the Lurkwebs, worship a giant arachnid (the classic trope, but I love it) which can psychically control a single goblin at a time mentally. Spider Queen Ixitchibit also produces offspring large enough for the goblins to ride. 

They use mama spider's web silk to create nets, which they use to snare merchants and caravans going along the old forest road passing by the megadungeon. The forest is perpetually gloomy, allowing these goblins to operate during daytime, as so little sun reaches the forest floor. They are excellent trackers and specialize in ambushes from above, riding their spider mounts and firing poison darts and arrows.

Daw, so cute, so readily available! Good luck finding scorpion riding goblins

Spider venom is used to poison their blades. Perhaps they also spike their mead, slowly gaining immunity to the venom. Their skin is tattooed with web patterns and spiral welts. Their territory is marked by crude web patterns.

Each goblin tribe is simultaneously building a skull and bone totem pole, trying to out do the other. The Hobdreamers have been suddenly getting much richer, their tower more splendid by the day. The Lurkwebs are jealous and want to put the Hobdreamers back in their place.

On top of that, the local thieves guild is angry that a new mysterious group is peddling drugs in their turf, and want their cut. 

So just by fleshing out a couple factions, we create a web of intrigue and possible adventure threads. Perhaps the local authorities want to hire the characters to put a stop to the drug trade. Or the thieves want to hire the characters to strong arm the goblins, or one goblin tribe wants to hire the characters to burn down the other's tribal totem. Maybe the merchants want an escort through the forest, or revenge on the goblins.

All of a sudden, the goblins are not just goblins anymore. They're Lurkwebs and Hobdreamers, both visibly distinct, with different goals and interests. 

Defining a faction leads to connections and consequences and fleshing out other factions, and suddenly you have a web of adventure hooks.

Ask yourself:

1) Who or what do they worship? What else makes them distinct? 

Orcs might follow a demon banished from Hell for not being evil enough. Kobolds might be trying to hatch a dragon's egg. Goblins might serve a medusa, and gouge their eyes out as a sign of devotion. A failed acolyte might pose as a powerful sorcerer and use a stolen magical artifact to beguile a tribe of gullible hobgoblins... until exposed. 

2) How does that figure in to their appearance, goals and modus operandi? 

Think of adornments (tattoos, clothing, face paint, armour, etc.), macabre ends (raising a demon, opening a gateway, creating a war machine, enslaving enemies, passing their spirit into objects, cursing a rival, etc. Pull freely from fantasy tropes, there are a ton of well worn ones!), and how step 1 above might influence how they go about it. 

The only limit is your imagination!

3) Who or what do they need to achieve their goals? 

Maybe they use magic, or ancient golem left over from an earlier civilization. Think of interesting monster combinations: what might they collaborate with to make encounters more engaging?

Kobold missile troops might benefit from the help of a bruiser, a bear or giant scorpion. 

Orcs might benefit from some imp allies, or perhaps they're berserkers who use only bone weapons and have pet grey ooze to deal with armoured enemies. Maybe the excrement or residue slime of a grey ooze, if you smear it on your skin, repels it.  

4) Who or what would want to oppose this, and why? Evil factions are often driven by things like envy, hate, sloth, prejudice, entitlement, etcetera. 

If one faction suddenly gets wealthier, it'll piss off all their rivals, who might gang up on them. Or perhaps they'd serve as mercenaries, then betray them. 

And of course there will be the forces of good who will oppose a rising tide of evil in the region. Perhaps it's the faeries of the woods, or a merchant guild trying to rebuild prosperity, or desperate farmers, or a monastery of monks guarding an ancient tome. 

Taken together, these details can help make your humanoid monster fodder more interesting, as well as flesh out the region which the characters are exploring. Plus, the web of interconnections will offer a plethora of fun ways players can turn rivalries to their advantage.

Win win!

Next up: A bunch of factions from Druidun Dungeon.

Populating the megadungeon part four: Pillage your ancestors!

The one, the only... of many iterations now

The Winged Adventure

I have been intrigued by the Castle Greyhawk dungeon since I was a kid. It lives on in my memory as a legendary, ideal dungeon. I never played it, but people talked about it in hushed words. 

But I don’t think it ever existed.

Not as a fully fleshed out, annotated place. 

The longer I work at the mega-dungeon, and the longer my campaign goes on, the more I believe Gygax created a lot of the dungeon on the fly, from barely annotated maps, rough scribbled notes, and on the spot inspiration based on interaction with the players. 

I don’t think the process of a published adventure is the same as the one for a mega-dungeon. My gut tells me that the mega-dungeon is far more fungible, more adaptive, and more ad hoc. It’s in the moment. It’s a living thing, a morphing meme that changes every time you look at it. 

If Gygax had tape recorded the sessions, we might have a solid record of what the player’s experienced. 

The Greyhawk campaign setting, including magnificent map, was developed over time by Gygax and his players. The box set was the most in-depth world building I'd ever seen outside Tolkien.

But my gut tells me that the Greyhawk Dungeon lived in those sessions. Even Gygax probably can’t remember everything that happened, and I doubt he wrote down everything after. 

There have been some adaptions of the dungeon, including a joke one that doesn’t sound at all like what I’d heard the dungeon was really like. 

Later in life, Gygax (as I understand it), revisited the mega-dungeon, but I’ve not purchased or seen any of these products, which he had to do under another game license. 

A shambling mound... why, what a good idea!

Pilfer the Ancestors

Gygax inevitably leads to plundering the idealized ancestors.

It’s also very much in keeping with the tomb raider aspect of D&D: plunder the work of those who came before!

There’s 50 years worth of amazing, imaginative, incredible dungeon design already out there! Ideas for monsters, treasures, traps, adventures, threats, rewards, the works. I read it and think, damn, why couldn’t I think of that? Or worse, I thought I thought of that, but actually someone thought of that decades before I did! This is ever the hazard of fantasy fiction.

It will happen to you, sooner or later. Don’t be too hard on yourself when it does. Millions of people have played the game over the decades, this is a well trodden space, and overlap is inevitable. Think of it more as great minds think alike. 

Initially, when I started my dungeon, I didn’t want to use any online material. I wanted it to be purely my imagination… although my imagination was heavily influenced by what I had experienced as a kid, and I took from that, consciously or otherwise. That’s inevitable. We are the sum of our experiences and what we extrapolate from them.

One of my favourite parts of the old Dragon Magazine: Phil & Dixie!

Fantasy is a great big mish mash of tropes, more so than sci-fi is. Dragons, dungeons, elves, orcs and so on inhabit an awful lot of fantasy stories.

The up side? There’s a lot of material you can shoe horn into your fantasy world without any revision. Most of the time, orcs are orcs, dragons are dragons and dwarves are ornery, drunken workaholics. 

The more rooms I did, the harder it got. I’d say after the first 100 rooms I was really running dry and I started looking for inspiration. I’ve now reached level three of the mega dungeon and… even pilfering, reskinning and repurposing, I’ve run out of steam. 

My original intention was to have an entirely unique, original megadungeon. Easy, breezy, I thought. I’ve written graphic novels and 100,000+ word prose novels. I could do this! How hard could it be? 

Turns out: plenty hard!!!

I went too big. Now, I am contemplating incorporating elements from other dungeons wholesale. 

Fortunately, I have a big buffer built and we aren’t playing that often anymore. Hell, we may never get through what I’ve built so far (such is the power of my OCD autism). 

So… I will wait until my creative tanks refill before tackling level four. 

One thing this project has done is increase the respect I have for anyone who actually has completed a true mega-dungeon. 

"Didn't I see you in the last dozen Fantasy Worlds?"

I will continue to post missives from my subterranean creative journey as they occur.

Next: Good question. Formatting your masterpiece, perhaps? 

The immortal Finieous Fingers and his always relevant door protocol advice

Populating the megadungeon part three: Balanced vs. randomized

 

"I'll take the giant for 500 XP, Alex."

Balanced encounters vs. Randomized threat levels

The current philosophy of Dungeons and Dragon game design is that encounters should always be balanced. You take the party level and from that calculate how dangerous the monster should be. A traditional megadungeon is actually based largely around this idea: first level down is for first level characters, level two is for second level, third for level three, and so on. By the time they reach level ten, they’re tenth level. 

This, however, is only a general guide, and players will often delve deeper before they are prepared to. If you look at some old dungeon modules, you’ll sometimes find significantly more dangerous monsters on upper levels. I prefer this, as it teaches players that there are some threats to be avoided, and not to think they’re at the centre of the game universe (yet). They have to earn that. But you have to let players know the world is terrifying and that not everything is scaled to suit their skill level. They have to exercise their own judgement in deciding when to engage, when to flee, and when to hide. 

Famous last 1st level words: "Come on, you guys! We can take down a 20th level monster if we use the power of cooperation!"

If you do throw in a dragon squatting in the abandoned Dwarven Hall of Grimiron on the first or second level, be sure you give the players plenty of clues as to what lies ahead. Maybe the kobolds worship it, and have built altars, and scrawled their dragon god’s story on the tunnel walls in front. 

You want your players to have the option to quickly retreat if they realize they’re in deep trouble. 

If players insist on being overconfident, or even outright boneheaded, well… I believe killing player characters should be avoided whenever possible, as players invest a lot more energy and backstory than they ever used to. Dying was a matter of course in AD&D. Now? Not so much. 

But the threat of death still has to be there; it’s a vital part of a fantasy adventure. No risk, no reward! Offer players saves and outs and second chances whenever possible. Remember everyone makes mistakes; after all, seeing characters grow and advance is part of the fun! 

If a player does die, do whatever you can to make it meaningful. 

A player dying during a random encounter is pretty anti-climactic. Dying during the boss fight, saving the lives of the rest of the party? That’s epic. 

Always go for the epic and memorable. Stories can come out of good D&D games, ones that will be told and retold in the years to come. Aim for it.

Add breathing space

Dungeons are more believable when they have ‘empty’ spaces. These help build up tension. However, they can’t be (generally) truly empty. They need items of interest, because players get really bored, really really fast. A couple of empty rooms in a row will do it. So be sure to offer clues as to what is ahead (massive scat outside an owl bear or dragon lair, claw marks, offal, broken weapons, stone statues of adventurers petrified by the basilisk down the hall,  the smell of cooking meat, the foul stench of ghasts, etcetera). Maybe the giant ants build geometric sculptures out of dirt to mark territory between colonies. 

I always feel some anxiety that players will get bored. It makes me throw in more monsters, and more varied monsters, than is believable, even within a fantastical dungeon space. I try to use all the tricks mentioned above to keep it exciting. 

Ultimately, I am only trying to make the mega-dungeon passingly plausible. Enough so that players aren’t constantly stopping to say, this makes no sense! That’s death. So always listen closely to your players. They will tell you as the game goes on what works, what doesn’t. You’ll learn the limits of their suspension of disbelief bubbles. 

Count on that!

Evil avalanches... hmm... why, I could use that!

Player feedback

Getting players to clearly state what they like and what they don’t can be a double edged sword. You don’t want to open up the door to nit picking and negative energy. Most players won’t want to give offence, and may pull their feedback punches, or be hesitant to offer criticism at all. 

If the criticism goes to far, it can kill the vibe. As such, it’s better to ask what’s working and what they’d like to see more of, than what they’d like to see less of. 

If you emphasize the positive, the rest will naturally sort itself out. 

The Rule of Three

The Alexandrian (Of So You Want To Be A Gamemaster fame; it's good, I picked up a copy) puts forward the Rule of Three: one monster, one trap, and one item of interest per room. Or something like that. I can't find the original post, but he does also apply it to clues, which is a very good idea, as well. I’ve tried to implement it in my dungeon. 

Unfortunately, I made my dungeon too big, and putting three things in each… after the first 100 or so rooms, that was just too much for the scope and scale I was aiming for. Arguably, the scale I wanted is nuts. Arguably, you only need maybe 10 rooms tops to go from level one to level two, and maybe 20-40 rooms per level after, depending on the monster challenge level and size of your player group. 

So after running headlong into the brick reality wall, I’ve scaled back. Some of my rooms only have 1 thing. Others might have 4. I vary it for the sake of my own sanity and the limit of what I’m capable of without burning out. 

Other posts in the series: 

DM Journal 1: Jumping from AD&D to 5e

The quixotic quest to build a D&D 5e megadungeon: level one, part one

1st floor of Druidun Castle megadungeon: locations 1 - 6

Node vs. megadungeon RPG adventure design

Building the megadungeon: Establishing history and purpose

Building a megadungeon: Level design

Populating the mega-dungeon part one: Mix, match and batch

Populating the mega-dungeon part two: Magic (and story) is your friend

Populating the mega-dungeon part two: Magic (and story) is your friend

"I don't think this spell does what you think it does!"

Magic is your friend

If you don’t feel like working out a vague ecosystem, just say the dungeons magical. Have the players come across some dedication written by a long dead wizard who forged this magical space. 

Magic can be the answer to almost everything. 

Magic is the Dungeon Master’s best friend.

You don’t need a fully worked out food chain. That’d be an awful lot of work and kind of nuts. There’s no way so many apex predators could coexist in such a small space, there wouldn’t be enough for them to eat. You’d need a dungeon tens of miles across. 

You only need is to establish the semblance, the impression, of an ecosystem. 

...just filled with ravenous man-eating monsters, demons, and pits of green slime.

Backfill a backstory 

Another way to add variety when characters are plowing through an area dominated by one monster type is to add backstory. Sometimes, the need for this only becomes obvious when you are populating an area. 

If the dungeon is old and our orcs from the example are not the original inhabitants, you can layer in elements rom earlier eras. Perhaps the orcs have moved into an old arena, and there are trap doors and a labyrinth beneath for monster holding pens, along with weapons, unspeakable horrors, and undead gladiators. Or they’ve occupied an old prison, or an old dwarven forge. That can spark all kinds of ideas: dangerous abandoned equipment, elemental powered furnaces, cryptic murals, cells with immortal prisoners, torture devices containing undead victims, wall carvings that hint of deeper treasures that the characters are seeking. 

Adding an earlier purpose creates entirely new adventure hooks. Players can take them or leave them. I try to throw in a lot, because many (most) won’t intrigue. But when you have a hit, mine it like a Hollywood executive exploiting a time honoured franchise!

I recommend mega-dungeons be abandoned, repurposed spaces. If you work out the story for the duengon’s earlier inhabitants, it gives you direction and purpose when seeding in elements. The space is imbued with an underlying logic that smart characters can suss out, allowing them to piece together the past, possibly leading to greater rewards.

Getting all that to work can be challenging, and it’s easy to overcomplicate things. That’s what do: I plan overly ambitious backstories that won’t conclude until… uh… maybe level 10, and I start setting them up on level 2. 

By the time I get to level 10 I guarantee I’ve forgotten what the heck I was doing on level 2. 

Fortunately, the players will be your guide, letting you know what story hooks to nurture, and what to let fall away. They won’t remember the threads left dangling because those threads didn’t interest them in the first place.

This also argues for the living dungeon. 

"What will suddenly introducing all this loot into the local economy do for inflation?"

The living dungeon 

Don’t finish the mega-dungeon before you start. Trust me no this. Megadungeons are big, sprawling feats of imagination, almost herculean tasks, and if you try and do it all before players go through, you risk investing too much into a dead end path.

All you need are the first 3 or so levels plotted out. If you’re really ambitious, you might rough out some lower level maps, but you don’t need to plot everything out yet. Plunk in a few monster possibilities so you have some inspiration at hand in case the players get ahead of you.

Instead, listen to your players as they progress through the first 3 levels. See what interests them, and what they couldn’t care less about. Have a bunch of story seeds that you can plunk in, and a vague idea of the resolution, and see what characters latch onto. The mysterious lost tome of the Necromancer? They couldn’t care less about. But the Treasure of the Gorgon Queen? They’re all in! 

Pivot to what the characters are intrigued by and alter the dungeon to fit. This doesn’t mean abandoning what you like. You’re just emphasizing elements you already had, to pull the players in more effectively. 

Remember that the dungeon is a shared space, living in the imagination of both DM and players. Everyone has to be interested, if you want to keep your magic imaginary realm alive. 

Another issue is that players level up much, much, MUCH faster than in AD&D. You needed a lot more treasure (you got XP points for treasure back then) and monster kills to advance then. To reach level 2, some classes needed 3,000 XP. Now, everyone only needs 300 XP. 

This means your characters may advance in levels musch faster and more erratically than you might be prepared for. You then need to buff up the dungeon denizens as players have outpaced the challenges you originally set. 

Another fabulous What's New strip with Phil & Dixie, from an ancient copy of Dragon Magazine

Other posts in the series: 

DM Journal 1: Jumping from AD&D to 5e

The quixotic quest to build a D&D 5e megadungeon: level one, part one

1st floor of Druidun Castle megadungeon: locations 1 - 6

Node vs. megadungeon RPG adventure design

Building the megadungeon: Establishing history and purpose

Building a megadungeon: Level design

Populating the mega-dungeon part one: Mix, match and batch

Populating the megadungeon part three: Balanced vs. randomized