The Megadungeon's Magnetism

Down in The Megadungeon

What makes the Megadungeon so central in a campaign? Obviously, the fact that you're gonna spend tons of time working on it, both before and during the course of the campaign. Still, you may have to deal with not so inclined to endless dungeon crawling players. Assuming that Knowing Your Party is a consolidated notion, if you still want to run a Megadungeon Campaign you should consider the Megadungeon's Magnetism. In short, the Megadungeon around which the campaign evolves should not just be the central feature, but also a catalyst for adventure. That means that most encounters should be (at least in the long run), related to the Megadungeon itself.

Rather than telling dozens stories and rumors to the players, I think it would be better to just get their mouths watering by allowing them to find links and connections to the Megadungeon in almost every other place they explore. It's not a question of illusionism: rather it's a question of implicit conditioning. Perhaps the players exploring the Sorcerer's Tower discover that the sorcerer worships a powerful demon that dwells in the darkness beneath the Megadungeon. Perhaps they find a map to one of the Megadungeon's entrances in the loot of the Goblin King. Perhaps the players find a letter in the Giant's house, sent from his cousin that lives on the third level of the Megadungeon.

A Megadungeon has the potential to perturb events in a very large region (perhaps even a small Country), and that should be evident to the players. One of the things I really disliked playing The Temple of Elemental Evil is that our DM never focused on how much the Temple affected everyday life for miles. The Megadungeon should work just like a cancer: it's a continually expanding living organism that rots everything it touches, thus attracting more and more weird and chaotic creatures and NPCs.