Space, Boredom and the Modern Megadungeon - With ASE Level 1 Examples.

I’ve been running Anomalous Subsurface Environment straight from the book, for what is really the first time. In the first campaign of Land of 1,000 Towers that I ran the party steered clear of the ASE itself and I ended up using scenarios of my own devising. That is happening in this campaign as well, but it seems like for now the adventurers are back in the megadungeon at least for now (the key is offering them revenge for several deaths).

More Morlock means more flavor!

A problem I’m noticing is that ASE has a lot of empty rooms, at least on the first level, and for online play, especially with a large number of players, this can be really slow and a bit boring. I don't think this is limited to ASE, I think this is a central issue with published megadungeon design. It's an issue of not enough flavor, and too little variety in the empty rooms, and ASE has more flavor then a lot of mega-dungeons, Stonehell for example (not to say Stonehell is bad - it's great), but even with ASE the small room descriptions leave a lot up to the GM and there are plenty of rooms that are simple filled with dust leaving a large amount of blank exploration space.

The traditional justification for large amounts of empty rooms is that they create a delay by providing risk of wandering monsters, and make sure that the adventure doesn't become a series of obvious challenges. However, the classic 20% - 60% empty rooms is a bit much for a short session and it's not as if one can simply roll encounters more often. At a table, playing for several hours the classic stocking system might add to tension and danger (one goes further and further from the stairs), and it does help explain why the moment one steps into the dungeon there isn't a force of inhabitants rushing to meet the party, but in a 2-3 hour online game I've come to believe it's too much wasted space and time.

In the past I’ve tried to make things more interesting by changing the construction of rooms, floors and doors based on my opinions about the former uses and ages of the various parts of the dungeon or determined by random generator (usually I break the map into regions and then random it up decide use/or extrapolate details from use). Yet even with this basic set of descriptions, room after room of dust and random encounter checks can be disappointing. Additionally, ASE has these huge levels, and by the time a party gets deep enough into the dungeon to really get an idea of where anything might be they are likely to be 2nd or 3rd level (especially if like my players they often wander off to adventure in other locations). I have come up with a couple solutions to these problems.

1) I am filing the empty rooms with interesting stuff.
2) I am increasing the HD and other stats as well as the numbers of some  creatures  (number is important because I think the parties Pat Wetmore was testing with had 3-5 PCs, while I tend to have 5-9).
3) I am increasing the amount of treasure, both guarded and unguarded.

This last change is yet to be fully implemented, but I like a somewhat steady level gain by PCs (maybe a level every 4 or 5 sessions, with variation depending on success), and I don't like giving XP for killing things. These changes ideally should make exploration both more tense (as the enemies are tougher, and after a few encounters the party expresses real fear of the Morlocks and fungal horrors of ASE's 1st level) and more rewarding (both because there are interesting things to discover and because there is more treasure).

It's not simply treasure, traps and encounters that are rewarding, it's a sense of discovery and 'making sense' of a dungeon that seems to appeal to my players.  To do this I need a better narrative for the sections of the dungeon levels as well as for the level as a whole.  While players will make up some connections between dungeon features on their own, it helps if there is already a narrative there.  In my own design naturalism provides a good source for this kind of nodal system as each faction will necessarily expand to protect it's needs and areas of conflict will occur over resources like water and food.  ASE level one has a bit of a ecology, but it's hardly fleshed out, I believe doing so is helpful for both filling empty rooms and making the dungeon more sensible.

I have a feeling that for many mega-dungeons (and larger module dungeons of the TSR era) similar ‘fixes’, especially the inclusion of interesting encounters, dressing and treasures in formerly empty rooms. Most of these encounters shouldn't be combat (though they may lead to it with random encounter checks), but should add flavor and perhaps a chance for some sort of minor treasure or trap.

The only good Morlock is a dead Morlock

I have made the following assumptions about the first level of ASE - your mileage may vary.

1) It is filled with bones, as many of the humans trapped in the ASE retreated here.  Many died others evolved into the Screechmen or Morlocks after turning to cannibalism.
2) The young goblin hive mind once controlled most of the level and had a rather mystical bent.
3) The Morlocks are fairly complacent and depressive, they don't mess with anything they don't have to and feel safe enough to use much of the level.
4) Dungeon Elementals don't come up here much as it's pretty peaceful.  They do preserve strange things added to level one and reset traps. 

ASE LEVEL - 1 ROOM FILLERS
This 1D10 table consists of encounters that will fill empty rooms or spaces - I don't think every room needs to be filled, but some should.  I am hesitant to add suggest that these are best placed based on speed of party exploration (every third empty room the party encounters say, rather then on the map prior to the session), but from the prospective of running a fun game rather then a game that is ideologically pure that is how I'd use them. Encounters with an "*" after their title are one use encounters.  Once the "*" encounter is found future encounters will be with the alternate encounter.

1D10	ASE LEVEL ONE FILLER CHAMBERS
1)	Goblin Shrine (*)- An ancient shrine to the sky brains, from several generations ago before the Morlocks destroyed the goblin overmind.  It covers an entire wall with an altar of bones and a series of shiny metal discs above.  The wall and altar are painted with luminescent purple paint.  Within the shrine is a magical amethyst studded bone club (1D4) that a wizard (or goblin overlord) can use to shoot a cosmic ray for 1D6 damage every other round.  Targets save vs. Spells to avoid damage, and after each battle a 1 in 8 chance exists that the wand's power is exhausted. The shrine and club are trapped with runes in powdered sick rock that will cause blindness to any who touch the shrine (save v. spells) without first rubbing them out. Alternate - Room contains 1D6+1 goblin spawn sacks.  A delicacy (suckling goblin!) to the morlocks but otherwise pretty disgusting.
2)	Fungal Topiary – Someone or something has taken a great deal of effort to train a variety of brightly colored fungus into a set of topiary.  There isn’t much worth depicting in the underworld however, so the fungus tends to be in the shape of skulls, geometric forms, spiders, or morlocks.  There may be something of interest at the core of the topiary (often bracing it) if appropriate (1D4) 1- Skeleton of a human 2- Shrieker 3- Hunks of rich incense mushrooms (2D6x20GP Value) 4 - 1D4 Hungry Vagabond Mushrooms.
3)	Tomb (*) - A large jar made of mud clay and painted a vaguely purple color with round symbols in a darker purple.  It contains the remains of one of the dead overmind's servitors.  Besides the dessicated corpse of a larger then normal goblin and a large quantity of inert purple dust are three unopened amethyst geodes worth 100 GP each (they appear to be lumpy rocks but are noticeably hollow if examined). Alternate - Morlock bone bags. 1D4 grey morlock skin sacks (with white fur trim) filled with obviously cooked bones and dangling from a re-bar spear wedged into the floor or leaning against a wall.  1 in 6 chance each of containing 100 sp or shrunken head of 10 GP value.
4)	Last Stand -The bloody remains of some kind of violent conflict.  1 in 4 chance bodies (1D4) 1-1D4 goblins, 2-1D4 morlocks, 3-1D4 screechmen, 4- 1D2 dungeon vermin.  Blood and gore splashed about, and a few broken spears, clubs or daggers (rebar, bone or office furniture derived) scattered about and a stink of fear and combat.
5)	Miniature City(*) - A tiny city carved of bone, dried fungus and bits of brick, complete with miniature people and a train sets encircling it.  The buildings are fantastical and strange, as if built from some ancestral concept of what a city might be (It's the construct of a long dead screechman savant).  The first spell cast in this room will be absorbed by the city and cause the train to move, windows to light and people to slide along tiny groves to and fro.  If disassembled the whole thing will bring 50 GP to a very curious collector of art brut, but it's magic will be lost. If the any first level faction realizes the party has destroyed it they will be extremely resentful as it is an object all revere. Alternate - A pile of fresh scat on the floor (your players will ask).  (1D6) 1-2 Morlock - contains teeth 2- Screechman- runny and reeking 3-4 goblin - melena  5- Jawhead - inexplicably square 6- Crab Spider - golf ball sized fly specks
6)	Abattoir - This room is splattered with blood and a pile of bloody bones (morlock, screechmen and goblin) sits into a corner.  A scored block of stone rest in the center of the room and there is a 1 in 6 chance crude rusty cleaver sits nearby. Random encounters in this room are 2 in 6 chance and will always be a party or morlocks or goblins either butchering something, arriving with a fresh kill or packing up carcass.
7)	Murals - Murals cover this room (1D6) 1-Ancient and cracked showing red cheeked children at play wearing bright clothing 2-Ancient Graffitti with stencils of skulls and phrases like "Surrender to the Hunger" 3-4 Purple goblin spirals (studded with 1D10 10 GP chunks of amethyst, lapis lazuli or turquoise) 5-6 Morlock cave art in charcoal and red earth, depicting gruesome feasts, goblin hunts and battles for dominance.
8)	Personal Protection Pod (*) A grey metal capsule sits in the center of the room.  It has an ancient stencil reading "IMES PPP - For Your Safety".  The pod has a keypad and a locking mechanism, and may be opened with a successful pick locks or science check.  Within are the sad remains of a DynaMat executive wearing a power suit (worsted grey or blue wool not steel and robot parts) and either a pearl necklace, gold watch, efficiency medal etc. of value (1D12 x 100 GP) Alternate - 1D4 large rusted and rotting machines.  their use is unknown and unknowable, even to a skilled scientist, but poking around in their innards will (Save v. Wands) garner a 1D4 HP shock. 1 in 4 chance these machines are a dented and rusty (level 1D4) robot casing.
9)	Document Storage (*) - Piles and piles of yellowing paper and old electronic storage devices.  Most of the ink is faded and rotten though some paper has been re-used for crude drawings in charcoal. Alternate  - Morlock Crafts - Broken chunks of ferrocrete and stone hammers litter the room.  This is a tool production area, where the re-bar is removed from rotten concrete and hammered into crude weapons. Alternatively the room is filed with vile vats of fermented fungus used to tan goblin and morlock hide for the production of clothing and containers.  Any encounter here will be with morlocks, though 1/2 of them will be female.
10)	The Skeleton Machine (*) – A massive contraction of brass gears and strange nobs sits in this room, draped in cobwebs, piles of bones are scattered about and several ½ finished skeletons are assembled on the floor.   The centerpiece of the machine appears to be a brass coffin with an lid decorated with etchings of flames and skulls.  This machine (broken unless repaired by a scientist) once used galvanic power and dark magic to animate skeletons.  If the coffin is opened the skeleton within will attack, and if the machine is interfered with or prodded at it will electrocute anyone touching it for 1D6 HP damage.  If fixed it can creature one animate skeleton each turn, but they will not be controllable and will simply attack anyone nearby. Alternate - Room filled with neatly stacked ancient skeletons.