Strict Records
I've now run half a dozen or so sessions of the open table megadungeon now and it's time to capture a snapshot of how it feels right now.
It's good.
I'd go so far as to suggest that it is correct to play this way. Scheduling, for instance, is easy because there is a unrestricted pool of players who may or may not be available for any one slot. No more meetings about whens and wheres. The GM will be sat at THIS SPOT on THIS DAY at THIS TIME, first come first served. If the campaign has problems to solve (kill/find/rescue a whatever) then people want to be the ones to claim those solvings. If you aren't there someone else will be, and who knows who else? Maybe the guy who was with you when you found out that key secret on the solution to something will be in the next game while you will not. Will they claim it without you? Probably!
Yes, there has already been some PVP. Just some soft sabotage for future groups, nothing so crass as targeted violence.
As a GM, not knowing how a game is going to go while also being incredibly over-prepared for it is amazing. I could run what I have for months and likely not have to make anything new. But I do anyway. It's a bit like an aquarium, adding decoration and predators to spice things up and see what happens, hopefully not wiping out the fish in the process.
Interesting fact: After 7(ish) sessions with strict adherence to rolling dice in the open and never pulling punches, no one has died, most people have been slowly getting stronger and improving their skills both in session and in downtime activities. So the next time someone says Troika is a one-shot system that's hyper fatal, tell them their players need to get good. Trust me, there's nothing funnier to me than a PC dying from an excess of hubris, they are surviving on their own wits, not my whims.
The dungeon is massive and I only have 1 and two half levels planned out concretely. You could absolutely have a level be 20-30 rooms and have a lot of game in it. I'm not going to say how many rooms are in level 1 of the Undercity 'cos I know players pass through here. MORE THAN 30!
NPCs with their own private plans and schedules is great GM fun. Players can choose to interact or not. You just put something in the mix, see what happens, and roll with it. No wrong answers so far.
I think it's probably common knowledge, but using a dry wipe board to draw individual dungeon rooms for the players (ONLY when they move at Exploration Speed, of course) is essential. If I had to minds-eye these rooms we would all go mad.
NPCs, also, need to be realistic in long campaigns. Like, not REAL realistic, but practically realistic. They have time and space to achieve what they want to achieve, and they don't HAVE to do this in a vs. the player kinda way, not everything is playercentric. What the NPC wants is what THEY want. Maybe the players don't care? Maybe they do? Starting with a realistic want has, so far, been very satisfying for me.
I have pretty much left the PC side admin to the PCs. They keep they character sheets, they track advancement, and they either do, or do not, send me inter-game requests. I thought it might be more intensive, but it seems people are totally able to look after their side of things and let the GM do GM stuff.
It's been pretty low-key but I've also been testing out all my Troika 2 stuff and the megadungeon is a brutal sink or swim space for mechanics. Another vote for "play-testing is essential".
I think that's everything I can share without spoiling anything. Making the dungeon has also been great fun, but that needs to stay secret until a post-mortem in the distant future.