You seem to have painted yourself into a corner. The majority of the headaches are self-created or player-created.
I agree, 100%. I posted my Felltower Regrets just out of potential utility to myself or to other GMs in the future. I wasn't expecting anyone to show me a way out - and honestly, I'm not sure I want one. I wouldn't do it this way again does not equal I don't want it the way it is now. It's not everything I would want a future megadungeon to be but I do think it's where it should be based on the constraints imposed on it by choices I'm comfortable with.
At least for the self-imposed headaches.
You have a much stronger insistence on ecological consistency and logic than most dungeon crafters, and definitely megadungeon crafters. But because of this you face problems with every proposed change that ripple effects touch numerous clusters of rooms and their creatures.
Yes. It's a constraint based on the original design decision. Many of the reasons I shot down my player's suggestion (and that of commenters) about how to "fix" the problems I built into Felltower were the issue with contradicting the original design constraints. I'm a big believer in the value of constraints and letting those constraints cause emergent results. The dungeon has a strong ecology, and what happens in it - and to it - centers on that. As such, I think it's more responsive to player interaction than it would be had a gone the Prime Mover approach, where a wizard or cabal or god or whatever is in charge of the dungeon. It's a lot more dependent on what the players do, and less easy for a GM to stick a finger in to change things to achieve a specific effect.
That's all deliberate. I chose my constraints, built my dungeon, and I'm hewing closely to those constraints and seeing what happens. I think it's more important to stick to those than choose the easy route just to make something come out the way I'd do it given a chance to start over.
I can't tell you not to do that since it is a big part of how you operate, but I can point out that you're doing this to yourself and many megadungeons work fine with a bit of underlying logic and connection but not sweating every detail and the players are fine with that. It's part of the megadungeon conceit.
I'd argue it can be part of the conceit, but it doesn't have to be. I can sweat endless details and make that work. It limits my ability to keep changing the environment that has already been explored, yes, but it suggests lot of effects that add to the immersive and enduring nature of the game.
I can live with that. I'm not going to avoid talking about where those choices took the dungeon, but I am going to keep living with those choices. Again, that's why I posted my regrets and "why nots" but didn't ask for people to help me dig out of this corner I've painted myself into. I don't really want a reason to change anything beyond what can be sustained within the constraints the campaign is built around.
Now, the problem with players cutting off ways between levels I wouldn't mess with. Try to undo or bypass their efforts and they'll just try harder to break your dungeon. If they really want ways down then remind them more ways were there and PCs blocked them, PCs could go unblock them if that's what they want.
Now, here, I strongly disagree. **** the PCs and their efforts. If it clashes with what the ecology of the dungeon demands, too bad. If they knock a door down because they hate it and there is a dweller in the dungeon that would rather it be fixed, it'll get fixed. They can block stairs and others can open them up if that's useful for that individual or faction. The PCs can do what they want, but so can the NPCs. That's one of the upsides of my constraint-centered approach. It has to make sense . . . and letting the players determine what's blocked or not, without input from the logic that underpins the actions of the NPCs, would not do so.
Some things limit my options, some limit theirs. It's our game, after all, so we all have to live with the decisions we've made . . . and with the undoing of them by NPCs if that fits the baseline campaign decisions.
I lost my entire reply and I don't have the time or energy to reconstruct it. I'll only restate the last part which is in regards the players' agency, which you completely took the wrong way. You have your monsters do their thing. If that conflicts with the player's that's fine. I wouldn't tell them they can't cut off the access to the lower dungeons levels any more than their hand. If they are about to do it again, let them. But if they are bemoaning it taking so long to get to deeper levels and treasures or that the area at the bottom of the stairs is all plundered out, feel free to remind them there were many other access routes and players chose to destroy some of them. If they want other routes they could put time into reopening them. Bottom line, let the players decide what they want and figure out a way to achieve it. If that is at odds with the dungeon denizens then that will play out naturally, but neither block them as GM from screwing themselves over if they are about to do it again nor block them as GM from planning to reopen a closed route.
ReplyDelete