I often begin my campaigns with megadungeons. I sketch out a couple of maps of the first two levels, stock them with monsters, traps, tricks, and treasures – usually using a combination of choice and random selection – and let the players go explore.

I have never, however, spent the entire length of a campaign exploring one.

Stories suggest themselves to me as we play. Characters met in town or in the dungeon. Opportunities for wilderness adventures. The cast of characters grow, and players come up with their own goals that may relate to the outside world.

Still, the megadungeon waits. It might be visited again. Or used in a later campaign.

Dungeon of the Oracle

The campaign that used megadungeons the most was one set in the far north-east of the World of Greyhawk, in the land of the Frost Barbarians. The dungeon, occasionally called “The Dungeon of the Oracle”, spans at least eight levels and possibly more besides – the players did not get that deep! I used it for a three-year campaign using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules at my local game store. Plenty of players took characters into its depths.

They met Knights of Hextor working towards dark ends. They made alliance with orcs, who battled other orcs and inhabitants of the dungeon and were happy to have potential allies. And they discovered the Oracle, and her prophecies of a future doom facing the Frost Barbarians.

Trips outside the dungeon took them into the Great Kingdom, and to another large dungeon – my opportunity to introduce Rappan Athuk, where one of the blades the Oracle said was important could be found.

But the game always returned to the Dungeon of the Oracle.

Constant Development

It was a place under constant development. Duergar lived in one of the upper levels. An archway of magical force provided entry, although a code had to be entered first. Failure to enter the code caused the activator to take a damaging shock! My players were very confused when the code changed. They were under the impression that once a code was set, it had to stay the same! The Duergar did not feel that way. Trial and error found the new three-digit code.

The players never worked out the later code that the Duergar changed it to. It didn’t occur to them it was now a FOUR digit code!

One group of players reset a trap created by kobolds (so that it would hit the next monsters to come by). They drew a smiley-face on the door to remind them. Many months later, the adventurers returned. Only a couple of players were in common – this was a game where players came and went a lot – and they found the smiley-face on the door, and the players who had been there had forgotten what it signified. And were hit by the trap as they opened the door!

Much laughter as the players then remembered!

Castle Greyhawk

My current Greyhawk game began with the exploration of the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk. The characters were hired to do a job. They did it, but in such a way that left the person who hired it unhappy with them. And the intrigues he pulled exiled them from Greyhawk and sent them to Veluna. That megadungeon exploration lasted a very short time! The campaign continues, having gone considerably longer!

Even if you think a campaign is going to be about a megadungeon, it might not stay that way! My home campaigns are rarely tightly plotted affairs. I change according to what the campaign needs.

The Living Dungeon

My general advice for anyone running a megadungeon is this: Keep it a living experience.

Levels do not stay cleared out. New groups enter and claim the cleared territory. Not everything is automatically an enemy. You can befriend orcs against the fiendish gnolls or make common cause with mind flayers because you share a cause. At times, the machinations of the dungeon dwellers cause the surface world to become threatened, and you must use your most puissant skills to defeat the threat.

Variety! Of threat, of experience, of personality! Those are the things that help the campaign flourish.