2025-04-28

All the Ways the PCs Know They Can Go in Arden Vul

One of the players posted a list of all the ways they could explore next on the campaign Discord.  Here's a shortened version:


  • 2 caves behind the waterfall (beneath 35-40' of rough water)
  • Ruined tower near the base of the waterfall (ghost)
  • Secret entrance 2/3 of the way up the Long Stair, leading to the Great Cavern
  • Ruins of the city of Arden Vul
    • Northern island
    • Multiple watch towers
    • Square tower near Forum with bronze double doors
    • Square tower (bees)
    • Square tower and cistern (baboons)
  • Down the Well of Light (baboons and giant 4-armed baboons)
  • Pyramid of Thoth, move statue west 
    • Halls of Thoth (halflings)
      • Great Chasm
      • Lever on top of triangular pyramid, teleporter to Well of Light
      • Beastman territory
      • Stairs down, behind secret door in baboon mosaic
      • Chute down, opened by manipulating a statue
  • Pyramid of Thoth, move statue east
    • Black portal (demons)
    • Selket statue, teleporter to Great Hall (beastmen)

At least so far, Arden Vul has a large branching factor.  The PCs choose where to explore, and then instead of having one less choice (as they would if they exhausted a dead end), they usually find a couple more choices.

This makes prepping the dungeon more difficult for the GM, because I can't always guess where players will go next, so I have to have a lot of areas prepared.  This is probably good though, because it gives me incentive to prep more each week, so I'll finish prepping the whole adventure sooner.

I think having a lot of choices is good for players, because if they get stuck in one place they can go somewhere else.  However, it does require players to have good memories, or take good notes, or buy Eidetic Memory, so they don't forget about all those loose ends.

2 comments:

  1. Branching options off of selections is something that Felltower doesn't do. Net/net, it's much more work but I think it makes for a better megadungeon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The players seem to know what they're doing. Good note-taking is essential for megadungeon, even more so with AV.

    ReplyDelete

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