Make Mega Dungeons Great Again! 

*Thanks for watching!* How do you make your mega dungeons fun and exciting? Let us know in the comments below! Make your own mega dungeon in no time using DungeonFog and all the incredible tools available on their platform! Find them here: dgnfogaffiliateprogramme.sjv.io/jdQeZ Find the mega dungeon that I created for this video here: www.dungeonfog.com/hub/u/greatgm/m/60b9e4322e2fcdf991cb7cd227670b30

So basically there should be 1000 rooms which are identical, 999 of them have a mimic in the middle except for one which has the Lich'es phylactery, only it's just a mimic, too, with a little note that says, "I'm sorry, but your lich is in another castle."

The Mines of Moria is a great example of a mega dungeon.

I'm doing a jungle city ruin for Dungeon 23. The 'hallways' were formed by previous explorers who cut their way through. The 'chambers' are everything from small out buildings to whole villas to camp sites now long abandoned by previous adventurers. Some of the dungeon is open to the sky, most of it is well below the canopy which lends itself to a vast array of 'random monster encounters' just dropping by. There's also a few sub-levels.

Don't forget that you should be restocking the dungeon periodically. The Denizens can also be hard at work expanding and changing the dungeon over time. And as long as you have a map (perhaps from your previous delve of the place) you should be able to move through the area at a faster pace. Maps are essential to running Megadungeons, and also very helpful if you are fleeing from some creature that has wondered up from the floors below.

I like introducing non-Euclidean spaces to my players. Or reverse-gravity ooze-filled spike pit traps in the ceiling. Which ever comes first!

I believe that making a mega dungeon great is writing a narrative from leaning into the expectations given by a dungeon.

My current mega project dungeon is one for a weekly get together organized play. A massive dwarven city left abandoned for player to explore and loot for items with a new group every week delving deeper and deeper, using the markers previous groups have left behind and literally drawn on the map to navigate as well as a premade journal of an explorer as a guide.

Wow. I'm so inspired now. I had a desire to do the Dungeon 23 challenge but now I have an idea of what to do. Thank you.

I am currently homebrewing a mega-dungeon and got to 200+ rooms mark. Here is what have worked brilliantly for me (and maybe wasn´t stressed out enough by Guy, still a great video btw.) 1. Add factions to megadungeon. Factions should have goals and motivations. Make provisions for players to join or befriend some of the factions if they play their cards right. Those pesky goblins are not nuisances anymore, but rather questionable allies instead. It is great way to give players a map with this, with not all information there being correct. It also adds a social aspect to the megadungeon and make players think whether they should be talking to or fighting something. 2. Add a big overall time pressure. It really helps getting the players organized and coordinated. And it so good for the pacing. 3. You don´t need to have all the megadungeon prepared to run it. Start small and then prepare it section by section. Ask the players where they want to go and then prepare that. 4. You don´t have to homebrew the entirety of the megadungeon. You can take rooms and sections of other dungeons and add them to your megadungeon. Your players will probably never know. 5. Don´t be afraid to add whacky stuff in there. My players players thoroughly enjoyed the robot section in the medieval campaign. 6. In my opinion, the biggest challenge is not the map of the megadungeon, but what are the players going to do in each room. Try to make each room interesting and have a purpose. Add secrets and treasure. 7. If you want a good example of a megadungeon (and borrow a few sections to your own), try Rappan Athuk, Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Barrowmaze.

I've always enjoyed using myconids for a unique biome that holds a curiousity instead of just a slog of kill, kill, kill.

Currently making my own rpg that's focused around mega dungeons and this video has been super helpful thank you!

Running starfinder now. Did you know that any crashed ship that is big enough, is a dungeon? Fascinating thing

I'm creating a list of room purpose/functions this year. Finding it more useful for me. Once I have enough room functions, then I can create any number of specific type of dungeons. Well that's my plan. I am enjoying all these videos about dungeons as its helping me a lot.

I think it would be cool if the players build their own mega dungeon to lure other heros and monsters to

There is nothing better, then a fresh pea off the vine from your garden. Tasty green orb of the “Gods” it is. =]

7:40 and by variety, we mean Wasabi!

Yay! I want to build one these later in the year.

Just discovered this video. Well done presentation! Getting back in to D&D after years, so this really helped get the imagination going with some solid fundamentals! You Rock!🤘

I've actually had a dungeon where the door out led back into the same room but it was slightly changed as sort of a endless loop the characters could break out of in a bunch of ways.

A Mountain Dwarf, mason, 10th level Wizard with Criminal Background can make a good dungeon in one year. Pick any location with some hard, rocky ground. Cast Fabricate to create 125 cubic feet of bricks from an area of rock 4 times/day (3+1 with Arcane Recovery). Use Unseen Servants from a Ritual to move these onto a Floating Disk, also a Ritual. Then transport them to the surface and the Unseen Servants construct a building with the bricks. Cast Private Sanctum every day for that year to make it permanent throughout the dungeon and building area. Cast the Sanctum spell with a 5th level slot for a 100 foot x 100 foot square that is 200 feet deep for a two million cubic feet area of effect. Cast a Teleportation Circle daily and also make it permanent but outside the area of the Sanctum to work. Working five days a week for 52 weeks, that's 130 ten foot cubes of open space in the dungeon. The above ground building can be whatever you want. For example, make a wall 20 ft. high and ten feet thick around the inside of the square of the Sanctum. That's 72 of the 10 ft. cubes. A cube of bricks can also be split into 20 sections 10 ft. square and six inches thick. Sixteen of these sections can make a room that is 20 ft. by 20 ft. square and 10 ft. high with the remaining four used for some interior supports, stairs and decoration. Sixteen of these rooms (four by four) would fit inside the walled in area forming one level. You could build upwards a total of three levels for 48 rooms. The remaining bricks make battlements upon the walls. The teleportation circle could be on the roof of the top level, so outside of the Sanctum. Thus, after a single year the Wizard creates a walled in tower thirty feet high inside a permanent Sanctum with a permanent Teleportation Circle. Below this is a dungeon area of 130,000 cubic feet, also protected by the Sanctum. Having a Criminal Background, the Dwarf can Find/Remove traps, or arguably Hide/Set similar traps inside the Tower/Dungeon. Also, Arcane Locks, Magic Mouth spells, Glyphs of Warding, etc., can be added. A Dwarf might make these year after year for decades. It could be a Wizard's Tower, Cleric's Temple, Thieves Guild, etc.

Thank you for making this topic exciting! I can't wait to build a dungeon for my players!

Pain, pressure and ... PROMBLEM!

You are the first person I've seen actually tell people to watch their videos at double speed and while I already was watching it in double speed I just have to comment on it because hell yeah

Really helpful video with some great ideas, thanks!

It is like Dracula's Castle from Castlevania.

I missed seeing your videos! Glad RU-vid finally put this one in my feed again, especially since my players are entering the final stage of the campaign. Wasn't sure how to proceed from here, but this gave me a few amazing ideas! Thanks Guy, love your stuff!

I have a few. The first one is going to be a crypt of fallen soldiers of the empire that some of my players were fighting for in my last campaign. There's a story as to how they all were slain in an apocalyptic event that I can lore dump in a natural way through a labyrinth. Once they reach the bottom, they will be rewarded by having the bottom be the central hub for the remnants of the army's conscripts, where they will have a library of spells and lore, a blacksmith that they can upgrade there weapons, and are able to be enlisted in different factions in the army that is responsible for different tasks (recon, Intel gathering, spellbinding atuneing, supply running, and plain old fighting).

I did something both my players and I absolutely loved one time: I made a whole planet a dungeon. Basically every individual room in the dungeon was it's own separate "thing" with one "floor" being about as big as one of these mega dungeons, but periodically every room would swap places with another room randomizing the whole area, with exception of any room that has a sapient creature in it. It was extremely liberating having what basically amounted to a "free weekly adventure" button, I even swapped the layout on them when they got to the deepest part of the dungeon they where going to one week and they went absolutely bandannas!

This is exciting. I'm working right now in an adventure qith some similar premise. i wanted to make a rogue like dungeon exploration, where the rooms were made randomly, but with some runes the players can influence what they find in the next room. This video gave me some ideas to expand and change some of the runes. For the other hand, the dungeon itself it's made randomly, but i took 3 criterias to make them, 1 was the biome, 2 the type of structure and 3 what kind of magic influence is present in the dungeon. In basis of that you can have a catacombs in a swampland with divine influence, or a series of structures disperses in the desert with timespace bending magic in it. Now I'm super hyped to introduce the new changes to my players.

Great advice! What was this used for, and why did it expand? A section of dungeon where a wizard experimented in developing Gate spells - room connections that don't make sense. The 5th "p" - poop. Where does it go? What facilities are there? Usually missing from most dungeons. What about kitchens? No one cooks? Using wood or coal? How did it get here? Where does the smoke go? Do we asphyxiate the cooks? Is everything conveniently sized for medium creatures? If dwarves would stop making grand vaulted chambers, Smaug would stop bothering them.

Fanfreakingtastic sir ty for this!

Kind of a thing I've been looking at doing for a long while

When I think "dungeons," I think of Tomb of Horrors. Indiana Jones. Elder Scrolls, Gauntlet, Darkstone, Diablo, Doom, Gloomhaven: trap-&-monster-ridden hallway after trap-&-monster-ridden hallway that eventually leads to an odd room also full of traps and monsters. And they're often not necessarily designed with either logic or with the intent of making the best use of the space. They're weird for weirdness's sake. Considering the very strange construction of most dungeons in general, the idea of a lunatic having too much time and money actually makes more sense, IMHO.

Well now you've given me the idea of a dungeon that is just one room with a door that leads to the exact same room. Not a copy of the room, the same room. It's like an infinite loop and they need to solve the puzzle to be able to advance/leave. Maybe with an added time pressure. Maybe every time you pass through the door without properly solving the puzzle, a circle of arcane runes starts to form and if it's completed, something bad happens.

Great one! More on mega dungeons please!

I love Megadungeons and NEVER find them boring. How do I translate this to my players? Thank you for this video. Moria is the ultimate, but rather one-dimensional even if it is colossal in size. I like separate dungeons and crypts linked together by caves and caverns, both natural and dug by monsters and humanoids. This provides the variety you mention, and the different biomes. I include factions that occasionally war with one another to provide some tension as well as some sort of Big Bad at the bottom. (Or more than one considering the factions aspect.) And, never forget this piece, it's never complete. I am always adding to it.

Thsnks I'm running a Castlevania megadungeon on youtube. Super helpful as always.

This video is so surprisingly relevant to a project I'm working on.

Ran a mega-ish dungeons as my party was trying to get through a mountain pass with winter setting in. Naturally the pass got too dangerous, but a friendly giant guided them to a forgotten underground city/mine (surprisingly, not dwarven) they could use to pass through. I divided it into several parts with the first being mostly a puzzle part which opened another passage deeper within, which contained some undead and great loot, but also had them flee after waking the boss undead and his slumbering horde. So they entered into s system of caverns from where they encounter an elven sage who had been captured by a group of hobgoblins who had set up shop in the western part of the underground city. With the aid of the sage they manage to sneak some way but are detected close to the outer gates and have to fight their way out, leading to a nice ”bridge of khazad-dum” moment with the dwarf fighter fighting a holding action in a narrow tunnel to give the others time. Finally all manage to escape to the hills, leading to the next adventure..

I haven't done it yet, but I've got an idea I want to do where I make what's effectively a megadungeon, but it's actually an entire city. Like not even underground, the city is just so detailed and intricate that it's effectively a dungeon. The issue is verticality, as it always is with D&D. I don't really think that one big isometric map will do for a city.

I've only run two true Mega dungeons in my DMing career of about 22 years. One was fun because the players at the table were all top tier and we basically built it as we moved through with the story, all I did was set up a major underlying secret and the factions that existed there. It was the interior of a huge glacier with a cult of Levistus, various monsters, some campaign specific villains, and various brigands/native arctic tribespeople etc. The next time I ran one, I made it fun simply by focusing on the physical layout of the underground city, and the characters that made it their home. From goblins and dwarves, to cults and tomb robbers, but with one secret, which was basically a kind of antimatter power source that was activated once long ago and was the whole reason the city (which was once above ground) had partially dematerialized and fallen into the earth and then got stuck there. The whole point of it was to provide an ultimate "ah ha" type clue about a lost ancient civilization that was one of the major keys to defeating the BBEG. I see a lot of players and DMs try to do too much with a mega dungeon , but really I think mega dungeons are meant to be fairly vague, with strong themes for each area/level and allow the players to evolve the adventure as they go. I also like the idea of wandering monsters that the party has to run from that can appear somewhat randomly. That keeps the tension high and the sense of dread real, so its not just a bunch of comedic relief murder hobos slashing their way through every room. Pro-tip: Use "true puzzles" sparingly. They slow play to a crawl and honestly, very few people like puzzles. If you do use a puzzle make sure it's simple, but evokes a theme, or if its a complex puzzle make sure it isn't a "hard stop" , meaning that the players are free to do other things while they work out the details.

Another great video, put it on 0.5 speed out of respect

Is there a video on these 4 adventure types he mentioned? I'd like to watch it!

The closest thing to a mega dungeon I ran was a 17 floor dungeon I made up by rolling randomly on a chart many moons ago. It was a subterranean structure made by elfs(not drow) that had so many pointless hallways and unnecessary slopes and stair elevations. Not in a way of going to the next level but rather a random step or two in a hallway (I forgot the purpose I think it housed a Mcguffin) It was so bad my pc's never trusted any architecture designed by any elf.

Thank you for providing more system agnostic content. Respect ✊

I usually have you on 1.5x, so that speed up caught me WAY off guard 🤣 nicely done

I'm currently running a mega dungeon campaign that's gone on for over a year. The opening is very relatable

How Old School can a Mega Dungeon be if there are no Secret Doors? :D

If there were really megadungeons it would be like modern Mt Everest. There would be way too many parties camped out bumping shoulders wanting a piece.

I do love a good mega dungeon :D I'm currently working my way toward running my players through the Tomb of Iuchiban, which isn't a mega dungeon but it is completely nut-bag crazy :D

Can a megadungeon be prepared the same way one prepares a regular adventure? Like you have a town with people having problems that need fixing now, a forest full of beasty creatures out for hunt, a location where bandits hide who are currently preparing a raid on the town, etc. And then fill those locations in to certain parts of the dungeon. Dungeon town, Dungeon forest, Dungeon Bandit Hideout. Maybe they are a bit smaller in scale than outdoors. Dungeon Town could have maybe 50 people living there, rather than 500; and Dungeon Forest is 30 seconds travel away, just behind the town's gate, rather than half a day traveling. And then just connect them with dungeon maps as you do.

I am currently design a labyrinth like dungeon that has an elementL theme each level. I hope it's fun. Have to deal with water and then fire and the lightening. And I made intractable puzzles.

One of the scenarios involved a deity-turned-devil who sought to create an endless labyrinth where he could mock and torture those who entered. He never finished because he god loss and slowly went mad. The result is that the labyrinth has many entrances and exits and anyone who fights it are still tempted by the riches it promised. Never explicitly stated how big it was, but for game purposes it was the entire campaign. Just one massive dungeon crawl where old Zeal's minions sometimes appeared alongside the mutated monsters.

Undermountain!

I’ve had the idea for a shifting magical underground structure, that is being created and changed subconsciously by the nightmares of a group of mages, who fell into a comatose state after establishing contact with a Lovecraftian being from somewhere very dark and very far away. The whole place is divided into sections with different flora (if any) and fauna, like a sunken district with murky water, fish, aquatic monsters, a fungal district with weird plants, mushrooms and myconids, a crystalline section with otherworldly or mutated entities (think „the color from outer space“), and whatever else I can come up with. The players would just wake up in there after being „sucked in“ (sort of a Backrooms scenario). And since this has been going on for a while, there are settlements built by other unwilling denizens of the dungeon although there is a healthy amount of paranoia from most NPCs just struggling to survive the place. I’d probably run this as a loose campaign where people can join or leave whenever, bring new characters at any point and have each session be an independent expedition, slowly uncovering the dungeon. And now I have to do it thanks to this video.

Out of the Abyss comes to mind

The metro in metro 2033 is an excellent megadungeon

I always watch videos at 2x unless it's watching it for the music. Not because anyone talks particularly slow but I just feel I can get through more content and experience more

I don't have time to make my own world and dungeon. I like the flavor and feel of deadly risk, and want my players to have the satisfaction of ending Orcus' machinations to blight the world (or die trying). I'd like to use the Lost Lands world and run the Rappan Athuk dungeon. What approach would you take to bringing your 4 elements for adventure variety into play in a this situation?

Ultima Underworld vibes

is there someone who made a map of the dungeon like nazarick from Overlord ?

Nice, I'm about to start a new campaign for my players with a Warhammer 40k space hulk style spelljammer mega dungeon.

14:20 Is the "promblem" typo giving anyone else adventure ideas? 🤔

The Winchester Mansion...

Dang it. Now I want to build a mega dungeon…

Working on my #megadungeon2023 and you gave me a fun idea. A series of identical rooms that lead into identical rooms with identical NPCs to f*** with my party. See if I can make them believe they've entered a time loop!

Promblem? Solid advice.

Mega dungeons can also be used in sci-fi, using large ships/stations (like in Dead Space or Metroid Fusion) or alien complexes (like in Metroid)

The opening line spoke to me. That is the problem of mega dungeons.

2:29 carry on my wayward die,

PROMblem, sir. Get it right.

"Press the 2x button" Yea uts basically my default play speed. Tho I usually go for 1.5 or 1.75

Mmmmmm ... I do like peas myself. Possibly my favorite vegetable. 😊

Your "Promblem" is obvious. Amusing. ...and the video was useful.

Guy keeps killing the content, so we can carry-on carrion-ing 💀

Pressure can definetly ruin fun.

I can barely understand you at 1X sometimes ;)

I always feel a little rude increasing the playback speed of videos explaining things...but I do it pretty often

I think you already talk too fast for 2x video speed. :P 1.25 or 1.5 for me. But mostly because Im new to DMing and focusing on learning design as I'm a suxxy writer

Yep, the point of the megadungeon shouldn't be exploring it. Exploring the [anything] should be a byproduct of the group doing stuff in there

Your thumbnails look like soyjack memes.

I disagree that the wealthy mad man idea deosn't make sense. It's fantasy... Ego driven warriors want statues to be raised in their honour, to be remembered. Priests will build big temples as memorials to their devotion, Thieves will want a lgend of "The Big Heist" I don;t see why Wizards who reach such levels of power wouldn;t want to create their own legacy. It;s easy to write a unique spell with your name on it... But Wizards are always likely to have the weirdest shit in their vaults. Some might pass that on via a will... they're boring... others may donate them to their guild... less boring but still not going to give me a decent dungeon. But some crazy old wizards will want to give someone the chance to EARN their stuff. The best Mega Dungeons invariably have a Mad Wizard, or sometimes an evil cult... (often led by a Mad Wizard) at the heart of their existence. The outer layers are an open invitation for the low level sword fodder to move in and make home, which the players clear out as thye head deeper in. But the deeper you get the more arcane the monsters become, with elemental, and greater undead, etc as the Mad Wizard might have died centuries ago meaning his deeper "pets" need to be very long lived. Mad Wizard Dungeons are great fun, and can be a welcome relief for many players who get fed up with furrowed brow adventures drawn from boring back stories. "The Tomb of the Mad Wizard XYZ is the last known resting place of the Staff of Incredible Stuff. Many have tried over the years to reclaim the staf... none have survived..." If you want to go with the organic method, then that's cool. You can run a mega dungeon as a mini campaign in its own right. Here's a VERY simple and basic concept for a mega dungeon that can be as big or small as you like, makes more sense than most adventures you can buy, and provides variety, along with opportunities for thinking your way round problems, along with plenty of scope for The party arrive in a village and it has recently been beset by Goblin raiders. The Goblins come from the big Mountain to the north, and until recently rarely ventured into human lands. The villagers ask the party to investigate and put a stop to it. The party reach the mountaoins and find that the Goblins have been booted out of their lair by Orcs... these orcs lived in the caves higher up the mountain, but recently the Bugbears who lived above them moved down into their lair and kicjked them out... forcing them to displace the Goblins... This escalation of powerful monsters kicking out weaker monsters can go on as long as you like... until you reach the top of the Mountain where once lived something like a Vampire, who has been kicked out by a Dragon who just moved in... Mega Dunegon + Variety + Plot + opportunities to negotiate and make alliances, they may be able to presuade some or even most of the green skined gribblies to help them evict the bigger creatures... some will obvioulsy say "No... DIE!" but that's where the genuine conflict comes in. Can they all be trusted to work together, does the party intend to kill them when its done? There's a dozen or more ways to apply that simple premise depending on location, situation and type of game, but it works...

Hey, sorry to post this here, not relevant to your video, and sorry if you already know. Tabletop Wizard isn't working (at least with Google Chrome). Says privacy issue, maybe tied to the HTTP or HTTPS designation. I'm no expert. RPG Finder, the old designation, gets stuck on a perpetual load attempt. Just wanted to give a heads up there! Hope to be able to access again soon! Please feel free to delete this comment at your leisure, didn't really know how else to bring attention to those within your wheelhouse of administration.

Why is my comment getting deleted.. lil sus

I watch most videos at 2x speed. Then I'm only wasting half the time.

I wonder how a MAGA dungeon would look like

I don't think mega dungeons were ever great. Any dungeon that takes more than 2 sessions to wrap up goes from being fun and interesting to being a boring slog. It doesn't matter how good a dungeon builder you are or how interesting you make the encounters, eventually the pc's get to the point where they just want to get their loot and exp and leave. Example "I could be back in town rping starting my own business, interacting with npc's, and grabbing some character development, but instead i'm stuck underground in this shit hole trying to get through ANOTHER puzzle lock. Can't just pick it and move on. Nooooo we need to spend 2 hours trying work a set of magic orbs in just the right way because our dm wanted to 'challenge' us...jackass."

"Making Mega Dungeons Great Again", hmm are you a Trumper?