Five Torches Deep in Barrowmaze - a retrospective

This is not a review of the Five Torches Deep rules, or the Barrowmaze module, but more my reflection on running a megadungeon using an OSR set of rules.

Barrowmaze was the first true megadungeon I ran. I have previously runned large dungeons that took three or four sessions to play through, but these were always completed in single in-game days. Barrowmaze, however, is such a huge dungeon, with so many locations, that it is impossible for a party to explore all of it in a single day; the version of the dungeon which I ran is already a cut-down version of the original, with many monsters and treasures removed, plus I simplified the process for searching and looting the tombs, and it still took 17 sessions for my players to explore most of it.

While the first few sessions felt novel and different to my players - I am usually a GM who cares little about encumbrance and supplies like food and lamp oil - once they had to develop a system to investigate and loot tombs, things became more routine and mechanical later on in the campaign, and especially when the PCs gained more hit points and did not need to be as cautious as they did at levels 1 or 2. While this may seem rewarding to the players, from the point of view as the GM it was less interesting, as each encounter, while existing in the larger framework of a dungeon with a theme and a history, was essentially independent and isolated from the other encounters.

Also, with Five Torches Deep's system of "Schroedinger's supplies", bringing the exact supplies that you need in the exact quantities became less, well, exacting, and once the PCs have made enough gold this part of the gameplay was mostly auto-piloted. In practice, in-game passage of time and the availability of healing magic became the only determinants of how long the PCs could stay in the dungeon.

From a tactical point of a view, a megadungeon with a theme was fun. The players had to deal with traps which they knew had to be there, but the exact mechanism of which they did not know. The same was also true of monsters: they knew the dead would rise and attack them if they opened the sarcophagus or tried to remove grave goods from the burial niches, but they had to do those things if they wanted to get paid. However, these encounters mostly did not contribute to the narrative of the campaign. This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially in an open-table system common in OSR and which we employed for my campaign, as it allows players to miss sessions and not feel like they cannot keep up with the storyline. But for me, at times it felt a little grind-y.

That is not to say that the Barrowmaze module did not encourage incorporating plotlines into the dungeon-delve. There are two major NPC factions operating in the dungeon, a few more "native" factions (which I ended up omitting), plus several NPC adventuring parties whom the PCs could have allied themselves with or competed against. In addition, several artefacts which were important either in opening certain doors or destroying the MacGuffin were littered throughout the module. The presence of these various parties, and the fact that the two main NPC parties had agendas which they were actively working towards meant that this was a megadungeon with a expiry date: eventually one of the factions will find the MacGuffin, and then things will get really bad for everyone else. This to me is a strong point for the design of the module, but it does require wisdom on the part of the GM on information management: let the players learn about the true purpose of the NPC factions too early, and they may become too focused on stopping them at the expense of exploring the dungeon; let them know too late, and things will just become a big showdown. In retrospect I should have given my players more information about the two NPC factions and perhaps having the PCs run into the NPCs more often, giving them more a sense that there is some constant scrabble for territory.

Over all I think the concept of Barrowmaze - a megadungeon with a reason for being what it is, populated by monsters with a reason for being inside, and being explored by several factions with competing interests - is a very good one. To fully exploit the potential of the set-up, however, requires a GM who knows what he wants out of the module, and how to achieve it.

The dungeon being as big as it is, PCs are expected to level up several times as they explore more and more of it, and this is something that I did not account for. In my other campaigns, I usually ask that my players keep track of things like gold and equipment earlier in the campaign, but when the PCs before richer and more experienced in adventuring, I tend to hand-wave these aspects. Usually, the scope of the adventure also shift from more low-level play like robbing tombs and fighting goblins, to higher-level missions like thwarting villains with devious plans and powerful henchmen. This becomes harder to implement in a megadungeon setting, or at least I feel I did not manage to make this transition.

So will I run another megadungeon again? Well, it was fun, but I will almost certainly not do so with this same group of players. The experience of starting as a level 1 tomb-robber and slowly working your way up to an experienced adventurer with lots of cool items is classic D&D, but I am not sure is one that players will enjoy going through again. Nevertheless, I don't rule out the possibility that I may run the module again for another group of players.

As for Five Torches Deep, there are many elements of the rules which I like and will incorporate into my standard, baseline 5E play, but I feel that the spell list is too limited and resulted magic-using PCs having the same repertoire of spells.

Overall it has been a learning experience for me as a GM, and if you are looking for a megadungeon to run, Barrowmaze is certainly worth looking at.