Dungeons are boring.
Most dungeons I’ve played in have boiled down to:
Dungeon Master “You kill the Goblins!”
Player “Sweet! What’s in the next room?”
Dungeon Master “More Goblins”
Player “But the past five rooms have been Goblins”
Dungeon Master “Don’t worry there will eventually be a puzzle and then you may get some loot!”
My mind was changed in 2021 when I found a dungeon called ‘Castle Xyntillan‘. Every area in this mega-dungeon features interesting encounters and events which often involve no combat. Castle Xyntillan does present tropes and harsh outcomes in the vein of OSR, but this dungeon is confident enough in its character that it doesn’t feel the need to use combat as a crutch.
After both playing and running Castle Xyntillan I wanted more, but the problem I ran into is that Castle Xyntillan is kind of an outlier. Combat was the main focus of most dungeons I read.
So I’m going to make my own: An Accessible Mega-Dungeon where Roleplaying is the focus.
Recently I read an article about a challenge called ‘Dungeon 23‘. The idea is that over the course of the year 2023 you design a room for a mega-dungeon each day. At the end of 2023 you’ll have a mega-dungeon with 365 rooms.
I’m going to participate in the Dungeon 23 challenge and document my journey in these ‘Jim’s Blog‘ posts at Knights of the Braille. I hope you’ll join me.
Knights of the Braille 