Just found this site. (I’ve been avoiding reddit lately.) Now I’ve got an incentive to make D&D memes again. Migrating my old stuff gradually while I come up with new ideas.
Megadungeons are a bit of a relic from previous editions, when mapping was a large part of the experience. If you're going to run one, I recommend using B/X or even OD&D and perhaps scaling down a bit - Old megadungeons were made when entire college dorms played in a single campaign, and were meant to grind down party resources.
Mega-dungeons are great. I'm running one now and I basically have zero prep, I made the dungeon and just see where they go. They go in the dungeon and explore, get into some trouble and grab some loot. It's honestly so nice to have them dungeon crawling. My last game I was juggling plot lines across 5 cities and making custom content constantly in prep. I was burning out between 5e and building content every week.
It's also great for a sandbox game, even if it's not focused on the dungeon. Having a default option really helps get things moving, or to still have a session if you don't have everyone around (or if you want an open table).
I remember playing Keep on the Borderlands back in the 70’s. I think I might have been one of the very few at the time that questioned thee necessity of these giant and seeming pointless gauntlet style dungeons. Was so fun playing back then, but man… the logic you had to suspend just to move forward three steps. 99.9% of every dungeon was entirely pointless. But by god they were so fun!
I’m in the middle of the 5e version at the moment. We’re level 11 and have reached floor 9 so far. We started December 1st of 2022 and play at least once a week.
Mind blowing. It feels far better suited for something like Shadowdark or OSE than 5e; just totally out of place with 5e’s themes. How are you enjoying it?
Update: We finished the campaign last night on Friday the 13th (9/13/24). We all got out alive, with the majority of our loot, from the 23rd level, at level 19 (334411 XP 😁), but opted not to fight Halaster in the condition we were in.
I've wanted to run The World's Largest Dungeon ever since I saw a blog post about it on a webcomic site. I've bought and read through it a few times, and stolen chunks of it as dungeons in other games.
You should check out the halls of Arden vul it's massive. There's a let's play on YouTube right now that is epic. Some of the best examples of old school play out there.