Alright. The One Hundred Dungeons: A Make/100 Dungeons Project makes me scratch my head a little:
1 - Its crowdfunded - obviously2 - Its crowdsourced - "everyone who backs at the Dungeon Builder level (up to 100 backers) will become an active participant in the creation of this Mega Dungeon. You will be able to see and comment on layouts, room elements, traps, monsters, quests, and even the overarching storyline. You can be as involved as you like -- you can even submit dungeon layouts or object and artifact suggestions, that we can then vote on as a group." bTW, this level is 75 bucks.
3 - Its a "megadungeon" of 100 levels, but the sample maps shown only show one set of stairs each, so they aren't leading to other levels. That does not make a multileveled dungeon let alone a megadungeon.4 - at the $75 level, you get commercial use of the art assets of this project, which aren't bad. The corridors and rooms are nothing to get excited about, but the dungeon trappings look decent and were hand drawn. I'm not saying they are worth $75, but if you buy into the concept of the project, its a nice bonus,
6 - Its a "megadungeon" - sure, I mentioned this already but megadungeons generally need a theme to be successful. 100 random levels doesn't seem like much of a theme. As an aside, are 5e players particularly fans of megadungeons? Oh wait, I was wrong - classic megadungeons don't have themes:
One Hundred Dungeons is an attempt to build an old-school MEGA DUNGEON -- an insanely deep and varied dungeon -- with this one having 100 different levels -- each a complete dungeon on its own that can be explored (some small - some large - some enormous), but together they form a Mega Dungeon that can provide years of adventures for your party.
Most classic Mega Dungeons are deep labyrinths without one real overarching narrative -- you can simply explore, find treasure, fight monsters, and discover various secrets while your party ventures through the dungeon.
With One Hundred Dungeons, what I hope to do is create a classic Mega Dungeon -- but one that comes with an optional overarching story -- and which you could alternatively use for individual stand alone adventures with your group.Still, like I mentioned earlier - you still need a way to get from level to level, and the sample maps are missing that.
I'd be interested in the theme or narrative that can carry through 100 levels and possibly that many creators inputing their ideas.
This is not my type of megadungeon. It may be yours...
Maybe I've got a broken view of the value of the art bits, but I thought the thing would be worthwhile for that alone. Whatever's done in 100 levels is mine to use commercially, forever. That seemed cool. And if I get a real product out of it, bonus.
ReplyDeleteYou are thinking like a publisher, but it depends on whether or not you will use the art bits.
DeleteIf you are creating dungeon adventures, it may be worth it.
Sadly, I'm not impressed when the sample levels for a 100 level dungeon each have only one way in and out.
Maybe its just cause I'm on my mobile device but all the samples look really small and the description says some small some large. I wonder if these samples are sub levels that are dead ends. I'd hate to think that by 100 levels they mean 100 straight down with no branches etc...
DeleteFirst off: I wish this guy the best in pursuing his dream.
ReplyDeleteReality: This product will never be anything more than a series of maps and one page dungeons considering the scope of this product (1 page of map 1 page of words).
The scope of having a fleshed out dungeon with content even with some maps of 12-15 rooms , being HIGHLY generous with 5 rooms/page (unless these rooms are one liners) you are still stretching your descriptions VERY thin, monsters are going to be "See Monster Manual page xx." , and the sheer page count is going to soar past 200 pages. People are already asking about a hardcover? My god. This is an impractical product with a massive scope and a nearly impossible goal to achieve considering.
Lastly, this goes to show that there IS a market for this type of product, he's already at 2/3 the way there and it's only one day in with nearly 12 months of production time. I had a bet with some people that there is a market for randomly generated dungeons with thematic ties through dozens of levels and thousands of rooms. I sent them the link to this page where folks already tossed in $2500 worth. I'm getting a free lunch out of this :)
I do wish this guy the best of luck, I backed at the $75 just for the art work alone that I can use and reuse. You just can't beat that price.
Yeah, I don't really get it - the product title basically says these are 100 separate dungeons you can drop in wherever. Sure you could try to link them into one mega, but you could do that with any 100 random dungeons (?).
ReplyDeleteI'm not wild about these "pay us AND create the content" deals. I suppose commercial use of the maps is okay, if you think you'll get a lot of use out of them, although to be frank I can create maps at least that nice with CC3+/DD3+ (which I already own). So this is definitely not for me.
ReplyDelete