"Megadungeon for 2023. 12 levels. 365 rooms. One room a day. keep it all in a journal. Let's do this."
- Sean McCoy
I don't know how I stumbled upon this Twitter thread, but when I did I felt extremely excited. For those of you who don't know Sean McCoy, he is a game designer who helped create the Mothership RPG. A lot of eyes are on him because of his work and the simple challenge he floated online has exploded into an immense community movement. A project everyone can focus their creative juices on in the coming year. But not be so cumbersome it weighs you down. Something to fill the need for a long-term creative project.
For me, a mega-dungeon is pretty unfamiliar ground so this challenge intrigues me even further. I usually focus on narrative arcs, interesting obstacles, interpersonal conflict, and exploring the world. Dungeons are confining, force your players into a set of literal boxes, and restrict their options to a few set paths. I say this not to discourage dungeon delving, it serves a purpose and feeds into a specific kind of play. It's just play I am not particularly interested in running a whole lot.
But what if the world WAS a dungeon? That is what has been rolling around in my head since I saw the tweet. No base camp to rest at, no town to resupply, no moments of guaranteed reprieve. An entire campaign where you drop into a dungeon and you are forced to deal with the challenges carefully or risk becoming lost completely to the dungeon itself. A bit different take on a mega-dungeon maybe (IDK I am just assuming), but it's the take I'll be running with.
Welcome to my #dungeon23 journey, where I pen the living mega-dungeon of StoneGate (working title?).
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