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u/Cinedelic 11h ago
Vecna's Mall of America Terror
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u/JonTheWizard 20th Level Dumbass 11h ago
Which will YOU be more terrified of: the monsters or how good these deals are?!
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u/swashbuckler78 10h ago
Imagining the hoard of hungry zombies, shuffling up the escalator all groaning: "Food... Court..."
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u/JonTheWizard 20th Level Dumbass 10h ago
And then they learn it's Sunday so the Chic-Fil-A is closed.
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u/BernzSed 9h ago
The horrible, overwhelming stench eminating from the Chamber of Abercrombie & Fitch
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u/NotFromStateFarmJake Monk 6h ago
Mall of America would be real shit actually. Went there for the first time a few weeks ago and it’s just 3(4?) square levels on top of each other
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u/JonTheWizard 20th Level Dumbass 11h ago
I don't know about dungeon, but Triangle Town Mall would make an excellent town. The mall would be the commercial district (obviously), the parking lots would be housing and maybe attach a castle road along that line of shops to the south of the mall with the castle itself across Summer Boulevard.
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u/shawncplus 6h ago
I feel like most malls if they mixed residential and commercial space would make pretty solid villages provided that there was actually grocery stores and the like and not just Sunglass Hut/Apple Store/Spencers
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u/CitricBase 7h ago
You know your society might be carbrained if the concept of housing in the place of parking lots sounds like a distant idyllic fantasy
</foxworthy>
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u/HedLeeman 10h ago
My parents tell me that back in the days of AD&D my dad surveyed the local mall (he's an engineer/architect) and directly translated it into a dungeon. Every 'store' was a parody of the store that was in the actual mall. The ice cream joint was serving black pudding that was more likely to eat the customer than be eaten. He apparently got 'talked to' by security because surveying and mapping the mall is a weird thing to be doing. I don't remember much more than that of their story about it, I think at least one PC died.
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u/SteamingTheCat 9h ago
"Excuse me, we see you're looking around the mall and making maps of it. And just taking an interest in unusual parts of it"
"Oh I'm going to turn it into an evil dungeon of torture and death!"
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u/Wishnik6502 8h ago
No D&D relation but back in the day if you played Doom and didn't recreate your home and school/work (at the minimum) you weren't playing correctly.
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u/NorboExtreme 11h ago
Damn, West Edmonton Mall would be a full Campaign Mega-Dungeon lol
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u/CausticSofa 8h ago
Would love if our campaign had ice rink, roller coaster and water slide detours. And the inn has all of those fun theme rooms.
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u/cute_spider 11h ago edited 10h ago
The setting is the infinite gnomish shopping mall. The location is a mechanization of some gnomish lich, and it grows like a tumor underneath a major metropolitan city. The city population know that they have more than five hundred years before the mall reaches the core of the world and destroys it all, so completing this dungeon / opposing this lich isn't any sort of existential rush.
Parties of adventurers slog through aggressive gnomish shoppers and search for The Shop of The Lich. Pockets of friendly gnomish shopkeepers and shoppers are nearly indistinguishable from Lich loyal gnomes, and the mall gnomes intermingle besides.
But! The mall has EVERYTHING. Adventurers should expect to get stacked and strapped up with an incredible variety of magical, high-tech, and luxury goods! Food courts provide a suspiciously incredible variety of delicious foods. Finding food and treasure is easy within the mall, finding a space that's quiet and dark enough to sleep is the real challenge.
Most gnomes live and die within this mall. The gnomes overwhelmingly only speak gnomish, so communication is frequently very strained. Parties of gnomish shoppers frequently spill out of the mall exit and mix into the city's population. It seems like the gnomes are less aggressive outside the mall, and shopper-gnomes are increasingly a population in the city. They do not get along well with the existing forest and suburban gnomish populations, but they are able to establish businesses and cater to other cityfolk
City encampments are, likewise, set up in useful zones within the mall which provide space for adventurers to rest and eat. Imagine a food court next to a hollowed out boots store with cots and curtains set up. The food courts that are captured and run by the city are kind of terrible though
Surely the lich's shop must be found before it destroys us all, but in the meantime... Plundering the infinite gnomish shopping mall is the fastest way to get rich in the world. It has been a major economic boon in the city and the country. We've got four hundred years until it's a real problem...
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u/QuestingKola 10h ago
This dungeon map looks like a dragon
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u/Toutatis12 Dice Goblin 10h ago
Long ago in a distant land a great beast fell from the sky. The locals sought to memorialize the great beast so as not to invite it's vengeful spirit upon them. To honor the great beast they are now offering up to 25% off select stock this weekend only!
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u/QuestingKola 10h ago
The whiplash of eating this comment first with stereotypical deep voiced fantasy narrator voice before it unexpectedly morphed into the preppy, too cheerful advert tone-
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u/johnabbe 5h ago
Some words are so good they're edible! You can find them at the Word Market, in the southeast sector of sublevel 43.
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u/bodaciouscowboy_ 6h ago
That distant land is South Florida. I spent a lot of time in Sawgrass Mills as a kid.
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u/neok182 6h ago
Funny story, this is Sawgrass Mall in Sunrise Florida and it was originally designed to be shaped like an alligator, hence the logo.
The Oasis addition in the top part and newer ones since broken the original design.
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u/Sunlightshift 6h ago
It was intentionally made to look like an alligator up to an expansion later!
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u/Mattrockj 11h ago
The West Edmonton Dungeon
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u/john_the_quain 10h ago
Ok, the party successfully defeated Claire and Spencer. Let’s see how you fair against Hottopic and his sidekick with terrible French accent Jacque Pennay.
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u/quazimofo925 11h ago
Oh my god I recognized this mall map before even seeing the logo. I spent so much time there in high school
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u/Dependent_Piano2523 5h ago
Mall of America, if your campaign is a Dungeon Crawl.
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u/Toutatis12 Dice Goblin 5h ago
HELLO CRAWLER
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u/Johnnipoldi 11h ago
Genius.
Use Maps if you are in need of Maps!
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u/chaosTechnician DM (Dungeon Memelord) 10h ago
Slow down, master DM. I'm not sure I'm following.
Are you saying I can use already-existing real spaces as models for my not-yet-existing fantasy spaces? How do y'all come up with these great ideas?!
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u/Hot_Bel_Pepper 10h ago
I kinda want to do this will my local mall and see how long it take my players to realize what it is.
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u/mwmontrose 6h ago
Having worked at Sawgrass Mills, I'll tell you the real dungeon is the parking lot
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u/shadeandshine Forever DM 6h ago
See my brain is using my sociology degree and thought just get a city and look up how it was redlined and basically have the party fight systemic poverty to determine where monsters vs traps are
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u/Aethermancer 9h ago edited 9h ago
They say these Dungeons were crafted by mad wizard of the Tyrant-King of Prussia, Nordstrom. He was a big fan of a particular torture device. They called it Nordstrom's Rack.
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u/Capt_Vindaloo 9h ago
My local hospital. Shit does not make sense. Architect must have been working in 5 dimensions.
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u/lordzya 7h ago
I ran this as a dungeon in my SCP game, modified to fit my cannon and power of my PCs obviously. The archfey the article is named after was trapped in a portal half summoned so it couldn't chase my players around and they just had to send it back.
It worked great, I had some of the overgrowth turn out it be plant monsters and had sneaky animated mannequins that were real creepy.
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u/NurturingCruelty 10h ago
Already playing welcome to Elderfield, which is a RPG on Steam. Already frustrated as hell with the mall basement. It’s a bit flooded. And full of fishmen. Some of them are friendly, to be honest but most of them attack. And some of them are nightmare fuel
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u/Automatic_Bus_7634 9h ago
I guess if you want a dungeon that's just an enormous open hallway with dozens of unconnected rooms
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u/zedoktar 9h ago
Malls are not a good dungeon substitute. Maybe if your map includes all the service corridors and such, but a mall is laid out a specific way for very different reasons than a dungeon would be.
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u/Techercizer 7h ago
There's a hundred comments on this 9000 upvote post and this thought was sitting down at 1 vote. Concerning.
A dungeon consisting of a main thoroughfare with dozens of unconnected side rooms is not something you need a lifehack to make. Or probably want.
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u/rzalexander 11h ago
That’s such a gosh darn good idea I’m absolutely stealing that. For my sci-do inspired campaign, the next space station is going to look awfully familiar to my players.
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u/B1gCh33sy 10h ago
Can't wait to send my hirelings to Kobold Wannadoo City. Hope they're still alive when I come back for them.
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u/FixergirlAK 9h ago
Airports work too, especially if you can get the map with the service corridors and fuel pits.
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u/Moonpile 9h ago
Long before Pokemon Go or Ingress, I had the idea for a Roguelike where you could explore the real world as if it were a dungeon, fighting monsters and winning treasure. I though I could get money from malls by making different stored different locations in the game, thereby driving traffic. Did I do jack all about that idea? Of course not.
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u/BananaF4p 9h ago
lol just use the WEST EDMONTON MALL it has a huge real pirate ship, amusement park, water park, movie theatre, and ice rink.
so much space for creativity!
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u/Odd-Bend1296 9h ago
I prefer the long winding corridor with quest events that repeated send you back and forth along the same path.
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u/SummerDaemon 6h ago
I run bi-weekly Call of Cthulhu and yesterday made the joke that the creepiest mansion I could come up with didn't have anything on our local mall.
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u/AngelOfIdiocy 11h ago
This person (I assume) also made a blog post about https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/megadungeon-malls-and-collaborative-caverns
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u/AppointmentPerfect 10h ago
Once had to run a one shot for a buddy who returned to town unannounced with less than 24hrs prep time. Might have busted out the 20modern books and grabbed some maps of the local mall, when in doubt: "Roll 'yourself', zombies are a comin"
Helps with character creation because its so limiting, though for gameplay reasons we fudge a little. The fledgling meat head had impressive strength, and the comp sci major suddenly was a pretty damn good hacker, etc... great night
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u/shanksisevil 10h ago
The "Mills" has tons of malls. they should have a main page with links to malls and maps.
"Simon Properties" is another.
"Triple 5 group" is the mall of america -- since someone posted mall or terror above
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u/Phoenix92321 10h ago
See I actually use a mall in my city for a city in my fallout campaign setting
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u/Unplugged_Controller 10h ago
I made a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one shot for my wife and it took place in a mall. It was so convenient! I just lifted a map from some mall in Iowa I think, and it worked perfectly
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u/MirrorMan22102018 10h ago
You could even make a Dawn Of The Dead Reference or two.
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u/AnAngryPlatypus 7h ago
And remember, the undead in the mall don’t always have to be the scariest thing in it….(shudder)
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u/CatLord8 9h ago
Whenever I visit somewhere with conveyors systems, I think about 16bit JRPGs with how specific and absurd the foot traffic has to be. Also when I worked manufacturing the way I needed to metroidvania through different operator roles - a different tool per role, so access to a new area when I got the tool.
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u/Tbagts 9h ago
Streaming in, dawn of the dead style, discrete suites. Clans and loosely affiliated teams organized to capture the Champs, the old TJ Maxxx, the coolers behind the Orange Julius. Scavenging parts and building whole city rooms, dry tarps and pallet crenellations across the top of the garage. On duty guards, wicked homemade crossbows and grease grenades, an impenetrable palace.
Inside the floods trinkle down the long-seized escalators, watermains tapped with taped hoses, jury rigged water stations behind the point of sale at the Victoria's Secret, now a churning hovel of fent smoke and night screaming.
Smoke fills the mall, sizzling electric shocks and crowds of semi humans scrape in every corner. Enormous waves of trash and detritus on every surface, screaming vomitpain. Every piece of glass broken, every store looted and occupied, like a Bangkok street market on meth, horror corners abound.
Spider Gary knows the place well: hallway 5D, heavy steel doors. Deadbolt strong. The main electrical room for the mall his only room, humming junction boxes, low current songs. The city has left the power on, although most of the fixtures have been destroyed.
But in the hallway and power room- it's safe. He has 32 sweatshirts from American Eagle and 131 pairs of pants. Cases of rotting lemons and some giant pretzels, swimming in mold, but nutritious. A nest of sorts, it's warm too. Bucket toilets and a mop sink. Florescent lights. He knows he's going to run out of food at some point, and then it's going to be a problem: starve or try to escape towards Spencer's.
But until then, he lies back, ignoring the pounding on the doors, and squeezes his hands around his neck until he falls asleep.
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u/DarkestOfTheLinks 9h ago
back when the tweet was new i did actually use a mall layout for a dungeon full of cultists trying to rip open a hole into the nine hells
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u/Claytonius_Homeytron 9h ago
I'm pretty damn sure at least a few DM's that I've had did exactly this. Just put the monsters and bosses where the employees and managers would go. Done.
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u/Artistic_Annual8457 9h ago
University campus maps could also work reasonably well for this, now that I think about it.
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u/ObviouslyProxy 9h ago
Looked so damn familiar, then saw Sawgrass at the bottom, I love walking there 😂
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u/vgacolor 9h ago
As a man in his 20s in South Florida during the 90s, I have horrible memories of being dragged around SawgrassMills. That mall is huge and it was a big deal when it opened.
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u/KazumaKat 8h ago
This is not advisable in some regions where the risk of terrorist attacks at malls is a historic risk btw. My lawyer earned their retainer that week.
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u/FartingUnicornFarts 8h ago
That mall was originally shaped like an aligator. After many years of additions it is now a monster.
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u/l0st1nP4r4d1ce 8h ago
Mall of the Americas DOOOOOOM!
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u/CrashUser 7h ago
Please, it's just Mall of America, the race track is the Circuit of the Americas
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u/sadolddrunk 7h ago
In the official Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook, they explicitly suggest using crossword-puzzle grids to design network security layouts for cyber-hacking adventures. But the grids also work surprisingly well for emergency dungeons.
Also please note that once upon a time the year 2020 seemed impossibly fantastical and futuristic.
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u/Vortieum 7h ago
I could imagine the line outside and wait for a table at the Cheesecake Factory at the Oasis being some sort of eternal punishment.
Great place to eat and people watch on a Sat afternoon though.
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u/dtelad11 7h ago
Ran a CoC one-time set in the local mall, it was a blast. (For the record, this was way before Stranger Things ...)
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u/wallmonitor 6h ago
I was going to literally have a map of my hometown rotated 90 degrees as the town map.
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u/eye_of_the_sloth 6h ago
DOO do DOOO You are now entering the white sea horse
Ahora estás entrando en el caballito de white sea horse...
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u/voluminous_lexicon 6h ago
Or maybe some large airports. Enter through the end of one of the terminals and then the big arena/goal is at the security/ticketing hub
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u/Spitfyre3000 6h ago
Oh my god this was my local mall growing up, giant fucking thing, insanely large and it's grown since then. When my mom did walks in there to avoid the heat it really was my megadungeon as a kid.
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u/MoneybagsMalone 5h ago
Just use wailing caverns map. The person trapped in an unending nightmare wasn't the elf, it was me on my first character trying to get all the quests done before dungeons had maps or quest markers.
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u/Phillip_Graves 4h ago
Or just use Blackrock Keep and Depths from Wow...
Fuck that place. With a kanabo.
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u/MobileJob1521 4h ago
And if you want the dungeon to be an impossible-to-navigate hellish maze, use a typical hospital map.
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u/Wise-Key-3442 Essential NPC 4h ago
I'm from a small city which the biggest shopping mall has like 2 floors for stores, one for food and one for cinema, but the whole propriety isn't larger than two squares counting the parking lot, which is the biggest section there.
And then one day I traveled to São Paulo and the people I was with decided it was a good idea to visit Shopping Aricanduva, the biggest shopping mall in the whole Latinamerica.
We spent 15 MINUTES trying to find a bathroom! That place was like a maze for us, we simply got lost very easily. We also spent other 20 minutes trying to find an exit when we decided to go home.
So I'll tell you this: Shopping Aricanduva is a perfect dungeon design.
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u/nemobane 4h ago
Mall maps make great dungeons for apocalyptic campaigns, D20 Modern campaigns, horror campaigns. . . . pretty much all the campaigns.
And the OG map for the mall can make for some inspired modifications to the loot table generation and traps.
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u/beardsalt 3h ago
Hell yeah haha
Also check out procedurally generated custom maps - free https://watabou.github.io/
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u/RelentlessIVS 49m ago
Give it a few more years and all malls will truly become abandoned dungeons, because they wont exist anymore
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u/7StarSailor 35m ago
The nice thing about running games in contemporary settings that play in the real world is that finding maps is extremely easy.
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u/kingofdarkness13 4m ago
It's a meme but like hmm...this actually sounds like a very good idea to me, well, not the improvising a dungeon map part, but using the map of a mall as the map lol
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u/llfoso 11h ago
Literally last week took my kids to the zoo and was thinking the zoo map would make a great dungeon layout. Jaquaysed AF with natural points of interest. Lots of loops, open areas, narrow areas, side paths...It's perfect.