One of the fundamental dilemmas of a megadungeon that I have found is restocking vs. leaving fallow.
If you continuously restock the dungeon, you get fertile ground for new PCs to explore. There are monsters of the same rough difficulty of the monsters in that area (assuming a level-based restocking system). There is new loot of the appropriate level to those monsters (assuming you restock loot, as well.)
But it costs you time and effort, as the GM and as the PCs. For the GM, you must take the time to place these new monsters. As the PCs, it costs you time exterminating them. With new PCs, it might be the right level of challenge. With more powerful PCs, it might just be an in-game resource drain and a real-world time sink. More powerful PCs might waste time, effort, and game time wiping out monsters, making clearing a level or clearing your six a waste of time.
If you don't restock the dungeon, then the new PCs have nothing to do except pick up scraps of the older, more experienced PCs. They can't handle the danger pockets, they might not be up to delving into new territory, and much of the older territory will have been cleared by the experienced PCs.
But equally you gain time. Game time and especially real-world time. The delvers take less time to get to deeper levels and interesting stuff. The the players in the real world spend less chunks of sessions chopping up puddings, burning oozes, killing orcs who won't quit, etc. and more time delving down after the hoards of dragons and demon lords and vampyre-lich-trolls.
Of course, this isn't either/or, it's a continuum. But it's one on which must choose a spot or end up with one. I'm generally closer to the "restock" than "don't restock" end of that continuum, but I do consider the cost of staying there . . . and the cost of leaving it to speed up delves.
I've restocked my mega dungeon very little.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
I've only run approximately fifteen sessions in the dungeon and my sessions average only 3 hours
My players vary from week to week, they don't keep detailed notes or maps and often forget where they have/haven't been. They miss easy stuff and hard stuff alike. They focus on something that is unreachable, but accidentally ignore something incredibly valuable
I don't have time for restocks
My dungeon is really full and empty spaces are good.
I am still filling in a lot of blank spaces. The players routinely come close to entering these areas and I am always working on filling them.
Running Stonehell in 5e, I'm a lot further towards the no-restock end of the continuum. I want to see PC groups get to the vast unexplored areas deeper down. If PC groups are delving regularly I pretty much limit restocking to one or two encounter checks on their way to the frontier of exploration, the place where their maps or guides run out.
ReplyDeleteI deal with the new PC/new group issue by having PCs start at a level high enough that there is significant gameable content remaining. Eg with Stonehell dungeon level 1 basically cleared and most of level 2 cleared too, I'd need to start new PCs at character level 3, 2 at a pinch. In practice I'm actually starting all new PCs at level 5 since after a year or so of play and many dozens of sessions I'm keen to see exploration of the deep levels, and 5th is a 5e sweet spot suitable for a wide threat range. Thanks to a teleporter I have had PC groups exploring small parts of 8 & 9 as well as 1-5 - though only a small bit of 3, which is nice since it keeps 3 open for future lower level groups if I go back to a lower PC start level. No one has reached 6 or 7 at all yet.
I usually restock after every session, borrowing a technique I found in Michael Curtis' Stonehell. For every room that the PCs visited, I roll two d6. On a 1, there is an encounter from the wandering monsters table with appropriate treasure; on a 2 there are monsters but no treasure. If no monster is indicated, but the second d6 comes up 1, there is an unguarded (but potentially hidden) treasure from the unguarded treasure table. This simulates the initial random stocking of the dungeon using the tables in the B/X books. This doesn't take very long since they aren't "full fledged" lairs but more akin to wandering monster encounters.
ReplyDeleteI like this method, as it retains a fairly sparse population in the dungeon and doesn't turn it into a slog every session, but it adds to a feeling of a living, ever-changing megadungeon.
After very large changes to the dungeons (wiping out a major faction of monsters, going away for months on end, etc.) I will manually restock as feels appropriate to reflect shifting powers of factions, etc.
The way I see it, there are two problems outlined here: new players running out of equal foes, and more experienced players being bogged down by weaker foes and unable to make it to the stronger ones.
ReplyDeleteThese don't seem opposed.
Let's start with the second: it's easy to imagine a dungeon where, say, there's an elevator that lets you just outright choose your difficulty level. A less gonzo interpretation of the concept is more like Castle Greyhawk is supposed to have been, where there's hidden surface entrances to deep-down levels and level-to-level shortcuts all over the place.
If the weak monsters get in the way, give the players an option to go around them. This may or may not be available from the start - perhaps they only discover that a random stump in the forest has a secret passage to level 13 by travelling from said level, or perhaps the passage is known from the start but your first-level party doesn't dare brave the warnings and go down the well.
For the first, well, that requires restocking of some sort. This doesn't need to be all that frequent, however: it's perfectly alright to only restock an area once the players have cleared out a significant amount of it. Let them feel some progress, and only reset things once the options start to thin out.
This also makes it a bit easier for the DM since, well, they can handle it all in one go (during which they might also alter the dungeon layout, create new sublevels, etc.) rather than having to do it after every session.
In other words: only restock your dungeon once it really starts to need it, and make sure to give shortcuts to lower levels.
That's just my opinion, though.
I don't think you're wrong, just that this takes some dungeon design to deal with the problem. There are ways to put that in later, but it's much easier if you planned around this from day one.
DeleteA megadungeon definitely benefits from plentiful access routes from high up down to deep levels. And it needs to have a lot more stuff than any one party can feasibly clear, unless they want to be over-levelled and getting very low rewards for their level. There should be reasons tempting groups down to lower levels, whether threats (eg the Nixthisis in Stonehell) or rewards (rumoured treasure, esp magic items).
DeleteYour use of gates is likely one avenue to allowing delvers ready for challenges to navigate to places of interest quickly while avoiding fodder enemies (except while trying to flee with treasure and the injured).
ReplyDeleteI agree that you have the continuum of restocking/light restocking/no restocking, but the dungeon design itself can help massage the potential pain points.
This may be a better question for another post, but...
ReplyDeleteHave you ever had a party run into competitive NPC delvers?
Or former delvers who moved in for good? The 6-fingered cultists are somewhat of a competitor, but they've been around a long time.