Session 12
Today was eventful! They explored about 5 more rooms of the dungeon but what rooms were they.
We found some Gygaxian ass traps which felt a bit like mean punchlines, but that was expected, Arden Vul can be quite mean.
Lykourga's advancement galvanised my favourable opinion towards charging for advancement. I think if I hadn't done that, they would definitely be advancing way too fast and zooming past the intended level of the floors, but I am considering that not dividing the XP might make things a bit too fast for the intention of Arden Vul, because even if XP were being divided, they would all still be on the same current level, they would just have a bit less XP overall. I haven't made my mind up over that however, especially given how they need 26,4k to level up the entire party. Either way it becomes a game of picking and choosing who they have money to level up more than just simply getting XP, plus the very interesting decision of whether or not to sell magic items.
Overall, I lean towards not splitting the XP being the correct decision.
Also, and I don't think they're thinking about this, but training to level up taking time is starting to imperil the "adventuring season" so to speak, as each week of summer they spend training is a week of good weather not spent inside Arden Vul. As winter approaches, travelling to and from the dungeon will become increasingly more difficult and dangerous, so I wonder what will come of that.
I also believe I should enforce the danger of the cliff a bit more - at first I thought this was just randomness for randomness' sake, but the fact the dungeon is "sticky" and doesn't want you to leave makes for a really interesting field of play. If every time they leave they risk getting extorted twice or slip-'n-sliding towards their doom, the inn outside becomes a far more interesting prospect. And, in the long term, perhaps even rebuilding the long stairs to Arden Vul and things like that.
At 3¼ months of gaming, it appears that the concept of the megadungeon keeps surprising us. Certain parts feel more homely (the first floor is basically a corridor to them now) but never fully safe, as I can tell they still tense up when a random encounter is rolled - even if they know for a fact that the most likely results are factions that pose little danger to them. There is a very nice and pleasant focus to the megadungeon game which makes it very very easy to play, and with the "bleeding them dry of cash" style of gaming, everything feels quite straightforward.
Ironically, one of the only things I could see potentially making this loop stale would be excessive deadliness creating a treadmill of characters that can't escape levels 1 to 3.
