Episode 03, "The Question of Space" is Live!
I have another episode and reader notes to share with you! But first, three pieces of news.
First, Ultan's Door Press is having a September sale, with almost everything at 15-20% off. Get the entire run of Through Ultan's Door and Downtime in Zyan. I even have a small number of Huargo's White Jungle posters available! Head over to the webstore here while it's still open.
Second, I've decided to start a project connected with this podcast called "The Megadungeon Syllabus". (Forgive the pedagogical title, but my day job is professoring and I literally write syllabi all the time, so I'm just going with what I know.) It's going to be a larger ongoing project where I create three versions of a reading/viewing list--short, medium, and long. It’ll be broken down by different topics, like “Mapping”, “History of the Megadungeon”, “Factions”, “Procedures”, and so on. I'll probably create a google doc full of links. I'll certainly share the evolving work in progress doc as it develops here.
The third announcement is that my next newsletter is going to contain a review of Hull Breach, the new multi-author 3rd party companion for Mothership 1E. I think it has set a new standard. It has a lot to teach us about how to make big collaborative projects work cohesively together that are relevant for all kinds of genres.
Now on to our real business, Episode 3 of Into the Megadungeon, "The Problem of Space". This time I interview Gus L about his long running HMS Apollyon campaign. We talk about how dungeoncrawling involves navigating a concrete space and evoking a sense of place, how to make treasure actually interesting, why it's so hard to publish a good megadungeon, and how you can draw on the weirdness of history to get outside of bog-standard fantasy tropes. Without further ado, I present Episode 3 to you on your platform of choice:
Episode 3 “The Question of Space” on Spotify.
Episode 3 “The Question of Space” on Apple Podcasts.
Episode 3 :”The Queston of Space” on Google Podcasts.
Episode 3: “The Question of Space” on Podcast Addict.
Episode 3: “The Question of Space” on Overcast.
Episode 3: “The Question of Space” on Pocket Casts.
A full text transcript of this episode can be found here.
Reader's Notes
Gus's Stuff
First, you can find many of Gus' posts about the HMS Apollyon campaign over at his old blog, Dungeon of Signs here. I HIGHLY recommend you download and read Gus' HMS Apollyon Player's Guide, which you can find here. It's a wonderful repurposing of Original Dungeon & Dragons to lean even more into procedural dungeoncrawling and the wild Apollyon setting.
For Gus' theoretical writings on the procedural dungeon crawl, as well as new gaming projects, you should take a look at his newer blog All Dead Generations here. For Gus' published adventures, like Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier, and Broken Bastion, visit Ratking Productions here. You can purchase Gus’s pirate and lawyer themed adventure Beneath the Moss Courts, a companion adventure to my zine, Through Ultan's Door, here.
FLAILSNAILS & Constant Con
At one point we discuss FLAILSNAILS and Constant Con. FLAILSNAILS was a set of protocols whereby GMs agreed to allow players to take PCs from one game and use them in other games. Constant Con was the massive open table schedule of running FLAILSNAILS games that people could play. If you want to know more, I wrote about FLAILSNAILS on track 01 of my Google+ Mixtape here
Gus's Megadungeon Recommendations
Gus also refered to three published megadungeons that he thinks are each very good in their own way. This is really the first set of megadungeon recommendations on the podcast.
Caverns of Thracia by Jennell Jaquays, a pathbreaking early hobby massive dungeon notable, like Jaquays' other early contributions for it's evocative flavor, use of factions, and open map design. Gus wrote a review of it for Bones of Contention here.
Patrick Wetmore's delightful gonzo science fantasy megadungeon, Anomalous Subsurface Environment (ASE) that started Gus on megadungeon gaming. You can still get in print or PDF here.
Gus also praises highly Richard Barton's truly massive The Halls of Arden Vul, which you can find in all it's enormous glory here.
History as Inspiration for Adventure Design
Finally, of course, you can find the UNESCO World Heritage list here, presenting you with numerous real world locations to fire your imagination for your location-based adventure design.