Slowly Delving my Megadungeon

I'm actually doing the thing I wanted to do... letting my Moridis' Halls Megadungeon sort of just organically grow over time. I've now played through eight sessions, and my characters are closing in on level 2. I've been logging the actual play as I've done it, and you can read it here if you really want to...

this morning they ended up killing a dragon that I thought they had no chance against after a series of unexpected events put them into a position where they kind of had no choice. It was fun to watch the social dynamics I'd set up for a section of the dungeon play out in a way I never would have expected when I created it. I was forced to react to the situation as it played out, and I was very lucky that my heroes were wearing some stolen garb so they could frame cultists for Mordis for killing a dwarf from a clan they might want to ultimately be friendly with... oopsies. I keep updating both this actual play thread and the megadungeon, and the link is over to the left under resources for Tales of the Splintered Realm.

In the interim, I've also started a map of level 2. I'm thinking that this thing has three levels proper. I threw down the grid and created all of the hook points to level 1, then started to drop in section of dungeons as I created them, starting to frame out connective tissue. I have only a few of the hook points back to the first level defined, and most of the rest I have some thinking to do. 

Flippin' the Script

Now that I have a firmer idea of how Daggerford is set up, and how it is settled into the nearby environs, I realized that the map of Moridis' Halls would work much better if I flipped it east to west, so that the sewer entrances were in the southwest corner, and the more remote entrances could be northeast of the town proper. I cleaned up the map just a smidge, inverted all of my concealed and secret door markings, and went back to an unkeyed master to work from. I had about a third of this stocked, and now I'm back to the drawing board (almost literally), but it's okay. I have some other ideas for things I'd like to do with some of these areas anyay, and I want to make the dungeon a bit more robust in general. This entire section was really the living and working areas of the D'Ro, with some of their upper prison pens, offices, and minor facilities. Their more experimental, magical shenanigans were on the second level, so while I an hint at such things filtering up from below, much of this is a straight-up dungeon crawl largely populated by undead and vermin that have wandered in from above. The D'Ro themeselves have largely relegated their mad works to levels 2-3, generally abandoning this area. However, I do know that at least three young dragons, all considered too weak by their mother Moridis, have been cast aside into these upper halls. All three have motivation to either get into their mother's good graces or at least muck up her projects, so all three could provide role-play and interactivity beyond waiting for heroes to kill them and loot their lairs.  

The New(est) Delvers of Daggerford

I went round-n-round in the old noggin about how to approach my actual play experience for the Halls of Moridis, and in the process went back through my actual plays and lots of notes for dungeon delving for the last few years (on and off). I decided to wipe the slate clean and start all over with a brand-spanking new group of adventurers, using the Tales of the Splintered Realm rules, although with an old-school edge - I went straight up 2d6 for all stats (organize as desired), and ended up with some deeply flawed characters. These are NOT heroes in any meaningful sense, but are literally a group of losers that a noble-minded elf has pulled together. I like that I spent all of their money, and she had thirty pieces of silver left - she has used this to pay off the debts of the other three (they appeared to her in dreams telling her to investigate the Halls of Moridis), and she has assembled her rag-tag coaltion. I mean, Sloth couldn't even afford armor, and most of them have CHA that gives a penalty. This is an old-school sort of group, and I couldn't love them any more.

Also, I have officially crossed a line as a game designer. For decades, I have repeated a process. I will get a few years past a game that I've written, pull it out, decide to play it for a while, start to immediately see where I could improve it, and start tinkering. Before long, I'm no longer playing the game, but instead working on the next edition. I don't think there will be another edition of Tales of the Splintered Realm. It's 'perfect' as it is. As I've been leafing through it, I've been pleasantly surprised, again and again, at how clean and sharp it is. For a moment, I had a pang of something akin to regret that I put friars in there instead of clerics (the only 'revolutionary' change), but then I watched the first half of Rogue One the other day, and realized that the church of the game world better aligns with that ethos - the true adherents of the faith are not armored clerics in churches, they are wild men like John the Baptist wandering the wilderness declaring that the true faith is not dead. Temples are often relics of the past or have been overcome by grifters and charlatans. The choice of character classes reflects this reality. You can easily build a 'cleric' or 'paladin', but the game is correct as it is. I was also astounded that I'd managed to get over 120 monsters in there - I started to think about how this game could use a larger bestiary, and then realized it didn't really need one - the vast majority of the classic monsters are represented and it's a great cross-section. I could literally play with just these rules forever... and I guess I just might.  

I did cheat JUST a bit and swap out Vessa's archer talent for two weapons in her Warden build - it's a minor swap, and I just have to accept she is no longer an official warden, but is a house-ruled variant... a mark of shame forevermore.

I'm looking forward to playing around with these four...