Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Modules, Megadungeons and the Old School Renaissance

A lot of this is prompted by thoughts shared on this thread on RPGnet, by Mike Mornard (Old Geezer), one of Gary Gygax's original players. Reading it will give a bit more context into what I'm talking about.

As somebody who read about the megadungeon idea and said, "Wow, that's cool!" and went off to make his own, I have to say that I feel like today's old school modules are going down a path that, while it has its merits in its own right, is neither useful to the megadungeon designer, nor reflective of the old school play that we are trying to get at. Read the RPGnet thread linked above, Mike Mornard makes the main points: a lot of the classic modules are relatively linear grinds because of the requirements of tournament play. And as they were popular, and needed their own justifications in the world, they tended to be given a location, a rationale and a place that makes them awkward fits at best for a megadungeon.

But there are a few products, both older and more recent, that make me think there is another way to approach the module. Two are classic Gary Gygax modules: EX1 Dungeonland and EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror. These are high Gygaxian funhouse areas that were linked to the original Greyhawk Castle -- in fact, they're really the earliest published levels from that classic dungeon. The other is a more recent product, which I was lucky enough to actually play in: Bottle City by Robert Kuntz. This was another sub-level in Greyhawk Castle, and the product really shows the difference - it's a big sandbox to play in, rather than being a linear, plot oriented dungeon.

What makes these modules so interesting for me is that they validate an alternate model to the classic convention module. The intent is not to have a fully sustained, well plotted and placed dungeon, but something that can be dropped into an existing dungeon with relatively little difficulty of integration. It doesn't have to be Wonderland, since Gygax already did that, but it could be just about anything that is accessible from stairs, a chute, a teleporter, a mirror, a bottle, or anything else you're likely to find in a big dungeon.

But the other thing that sets EX1, EX2 and Bottle City (and the Living Room, which I've yet to receive) apart from other modules is that they are not simply someone dreaming up "what dungeon should I put out next" but real sub-levels from dungeons, which arose not out of commercial or convention needs but were worked up for an actual play group, cleaned up and published. There is something wonderfully authentic about that, the sense that I'm not just reading a scenario the author wrote for others, but an actual level from a well-loved dungeon, which I can add to my own dungeon (or not) because the idea is so interesting.

Who knows? Maybe once I stock it and some players actually get to it, I'll write up the "abandoned temple" sublevel of my own dungeon and put it out on Lulu. But I hope this is food for thought for some of you looking to write a module.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link, Wayne. Good post as well. I have to admit in my 1e days I replicated the stuff I saw coming out from TSR; while not always linear, there was little in the way of empty rooms, and most adventures were mission/goal oriented. The megadungeon concept was foreign to me, but I have since embraced its merits. I now consider it an underground sandbox and not a place to clear out and move on.

    Also

    Maybe once I stock it and some players actually get to it, I'll write up the "abandoned temple" sublevel of my own dungeon and put it out on Lulu

    Please do!

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  2. One of my players is a 20+ year veteran of various editions of D&D and has a long history of using the Mentzer version... and notebooks full of old adventures he's run.

    I don't know how many are ready to drop in to existing campaigns as is, but I did encourage him to take the better ones, translate them into English, do as much as he can to strip the plot out of them. Not discard the plots entirely, just present them separately as a suggestion, "this is a way to use this module," rather than a hard-coded plot. I think it would be important to keep all the elements of the original works in these home-campaign-as-product things as well as do everything possible to make it useful to as many different people as possible.

    I haven't seen any of his work, so I don't know if it's any good (but knowing him I wouldn't expect total crap) and I don't know whether he has aspirations to sell it (I'd enourage him to charge *something* just because people are more likely to read and perhaps use material they've invested in and not just saved) but I am excited by the idea of having encouraged someone that has something to contribute for everyone.

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  3. Thanks for the link, Wayne. Good post as well. I have to admit in my 1e days I replicated the stuff I saw coming out from TSR; while not always linear, there was little in the way of empty rooms, and most adventures were mission/goal oriented. The megadungeon concept was foreign to me, but I have since embraced its merits. I now consider it an underground sandbox and not a place to clear out and move on.

    Yeah, and to be clear: lack of empty rooms and having a plot orientation aren't bad things that should be avoided at all costs. Those modules should be there, because after all you've got to have something to run at conventions and for one shots and all. But they're not the way megadungeons work, and so what I'm looking for is another type of product that allows us to share our work & slot new product into an ongoing megadungeon.

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  4. Jim -

    That sounds awesome. Finnish classic D&D, with the plot and fiddly things stripped away? I'd definitely find a place for that.

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