I finished up the first draft of my dungeon design advice for new DMs (or those new to old school style gaming) today. I'll work on the Wilderness design section next, and let this section sit for a while before I read over it and make some edits. For now, though, I'm pretty happy with what I've got down.
While I was writing up the chapter, I did take a break and re-read the advice Mentzer gave in his Basic Set, which is how I learned to do it. My section isn't as concise as his, but it explains about more dungeon types and gives more of the rationale behind dungeons both as game elements and as part of the fictional fantasy world. I don't give as many specific examples of traps and specials, but in the age of the internet, I'm not to worried about needing to do that. I was more focused on the how and the why of these types of encounters, along with monster and treasure stocking, and general dungeon design for different purposes.
It's six pages long (A4 size). The section headings are:
Been busy teaching an elementary student English camp last week, and this week. They are both physically and mentally draining, but a lot of fun. And I get to inspire a bunch of Korean kids to take more interest in learning English.
This year, instead of reading and creating choose-your-own-adventure type stories, I'm playing board games with the kids. They're really enjoying it. Some got into the interactive fiction thing, but for most it was just a thing to do. With the board games (Bang!, King of Tokyo, Dungeon!, Clue, The Keeyp) they really have fun. But explaining the games takes a lot of effort. 4th and 5th graders aren't the most patient bunch. :D
Aside from the board games, quite a few of the new teachers I've met this time are gamers. One runs a Pathfinder game, and two others play in a 5E game together. Another guy isn't currently gaming, but both he and the PF guy were interested in maybe joining my new TS&R campaign. So I don't need to worry about one of the currently interested players dropping out. That's a nice feeling.
I've got enough locations and NPCs in the home town described in enough detail to get started. I can add layers of detail as they develop in play. I've got half a dozen small dungeons ready. I've got the "main" dungeon maps drawn and keyed. I just need to fill in what's in the rooms.
The dungeon is not a megadungeon, but it is fairly large. The first level has around 60 encounter areas. About 100 on the second level. And approximately 140 on the third level. Three hundred encounter areas seems like quite a bit, but there are several "special" locations in each level, most with multiple sub-areas (counted in the totals above). By the standard stocking numbers, that's around 100 empty rooms, 100 rooms with monster encounters, 50 traps/hazards, and 50 strange or unusual encounters.
It will take a bit of time to get that all filled in, but with the adventure seeds included with the home town, the small dungeons nearby, and a local wilderness area with encounter tables complete, I think I'll be confident to start if I only have the 1st level keyed by the time the campaign starts. I'll get as much of the 2nd done as well, if I can. Best would be to get all three keyed, so I can start throwing in rumors and missions at the players.
Quite a few years back, I blogged about the Mark Twain Caves in Hannibal, MO. They're the cave system I'm most familiar with, having grown up in that region and visited several times. The cave system is full of twisty passages, narrow passages and wider chambers, rough terrain, elevation changes, and so on. Very much like the maze dungeon I was defending in that post seven years back.
My family spent the 4th of July weekend visiting Jeju Island. Obviously the 4th isn't a holiday in South Korea, but I'm on summer vacation and we took the boys out of school for a couple days to avoid the vacation rush. For some stupid reason, South Korea has decided that the final week of July/first week of August is when EVERYONE in the nation should take their summer vacation. We got lucky that a typhoon that had been headed our way veered off to Kyushu. Got a little rain, but not too bad.
Anyway, one of the things I was most interested in seeing was a place called Manjanggul Cave. It's a lava tube cave, created by a series of volcanic eruptions.
The cave entrance (and my boys' heads)
And it's pretty much just one long snaking tunnel. It was wide, around 30-40' for most of the length. There was a stretch where it narrowed to I'd guess 10-12' for a bit, and a few places where rocks blocked parts of the main floor. The ceiling was also high, usually around 40' or so, I'd guess. The floor was rough and pitted, with pools of standing water common, but it was generally fairly easy to walk. When we got to the end of the tour area (after about 1km walk), the boys sped back to the entrance while my wife and I took our time. They say they didn't fall while doing this, and Stevie, my younger, is pretty careless. If he could hustle through the caves, it's not so bad.
As you can see, there are lights every 15' or so, staggered left and right, so each light on a side is around 30' apart. And they used colored lights for effect.
Not as claustrophobia-inducing as the Mark Twain Caves. Well, I say that as someone without claustrophobia. So I could be wrong on that. But it's much roomier than MTC.
Anyway, this cave is just one big long snaking tunnel, like what might be left behind by a purple worm.
The map
No defense of dungeon mapping in this post, but thought I'd share the cool caves I "explored" on the trip. Aside from the cave, we did some fun stuff for the boys, like go-kart riding, a maze experience zone (that was a workout!), and did some archery!
The boys had shot my old recurve bow when they were in the U.S. a few years ago, but I'd never had any proper instruction in archery. The guy at the archery range spoke perfect English (he'd lived in Singapore and California), and was a really nice guy. Since he wasn't busy, he let us shoot a few extra rounds for free, and gifted Stevie with some 8-bit glasses as a prize for hitting a bullseye in one of the rounds. He taught us a hybrid of traditional Korean and Olympic style archery, and we all did fairly well with it. Flynn, my older boy, did the best, but that's not surprising as he's always taken to any sort of sport quickly (unlike his old man).
The archery range is the one thing both boys agreed they'd like to return to the next time we visit Jeju.
Also, in ALMOST game-related stuff, the view from our hotel room included this place.
Unfortunately, I was correct in assuming it actually had nothing to do with D&D.
I've been crunched for time lately, with a journal paper just submitted, a conference presentation to prepare, student homework to grade, and midterms coming up soon. Oh, and then there's being a husband/father! But somehow, I manged to sneak in some time to consider how I'd design a Castlevania style megadungeon while watching the boys play on the playground over the weekend. And it's taken me until Wednesday night to finally blog about it!
Here's what I came up with:
The castle itself will have 12 zones, ranging from around level 3 to level 8 or so. I figure, why bother starting at 1st level for something like this? Get right to the good stuff. But also level 10+ characters really don't have to worry too much about vampires, right? Double energy drain sucks, but with turn undead, fifth level spells, magic items, and lots of hit points, high level characters can manage Dracula easily. So keep it in the sweet spot. Still plenty of room for character progression.
Each zone will of course have a theme. The Great Halls. The Dungeon. The Clock Tower. The Armory. The Long Library. The Catacombs. The Chapel of Lost Souls. All stolen from Castlevania, of course! And each will be around 15 to 20 encounter areas. As mentioned previously, there will be easy access to every zone (relatively so anyway) to be more of a megadungeon and less of a side-scrolling railroad.
Around the castle will be five towns and five small dungeons. I'm still debating whether to use names from Castlevania 2 for the towns (Jova, Aljiba, etc.) or actual Transylvanian town names (Brasov, Sibiu, Sighisoara, etc.). Whichever way I go, each town will have certain goods and services available, including a small cast of potential hirelings. Each town will also have a random events table to roll on each time the PCs visit (maybe not the "home town" since they will likely go there all the time).
The five small dungeons (or dangerous wilderness areas) will be around 10 encounter areas each, and probably have magical treasures that will be nice to have (but not necessary) in the castle. This will provide possible diversions if the players are getting bored by the castle, but also help get the treasure (XP) needed to level up, since the castle itself will probably not give enough XP for the higher levels, especially if there are a big group of players like my games tend to attract these days.
Additionally, it would be easy to add more small dungeons around the castle if necessary to help boost the PCs up a level if they need it. Or maybe I'll periodically restock lower levels. That's what happens in Castlevania games anyway. Then I won't need to add more maps and keys, just re-key areas that were cleared.
Seems manageable when I break it down like this, but again, no time! One of these days.
So, yesterday and this morning I redid the first level of the map for S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks for my personal use. I used GIMP 2.10.10. It was a lot easier than I'd thought it would be. The biggest hassle was setting up the grid to the proper proportion. Once that was done, the "snap to grid" feature made it really simple to lay down all the lines. Hopefully I got all the doors correct. I probably missed one or two.
Instead of letters for coding the color cards for the door locks, I used colors. Of course, gray and black didn't look good with the already black lines and gray shading for the lighting effects. So I switched them go green and blue.
And with layers, I was easily able to make some alternate versions.
Another video I watched from Shadiversity on Youtube is discussing why the standard, labyrinthine dungeon of gaming is unrealistic and impractical. Go ahead and watch it if you like.
Now, I don't disagree with any of the reasoning Shad puts forth for why a typical dungeon in RPGs and video games is unrealistic. Not necessarily in the order presented in the video, just the order I remembered them:
1. It's poor architectural design. Good design should make it easy to get from place to place. Dungeons are designed to force you to go through choke-points.
2. There's often a secret passage for the "boss" that you won't find until you've reached the inner sanctum, but if you could find it early would save you a lot of trouble.
3. It's poor defensive strategy to split your defenses among a lot of separate areas when the goal is to protect a centralized treasure vault.
4. Carving out an underground tunnel system is a lot of work, making it larger than necessary is wasted effort.
All very good points. If your goal is to make your game more "realistic" to improve suspension of disbelief, and these sorts of things are things that you can't suspend your disbelief of, then yes, super logically laid out fortresses with easy ways to get straight to the end, and concentrated defenses where they will do the most good are the way to go.
And Shad does mention several times that he understands that dungeons are this way in order to facilitate game play. Good for him. And his idea towards the end of designing a rational, realistic fortress and letting players design their own plan of attack like a heist or caper movie plot can be fun, but I wouldn't want this all the time.
I've already given a pretty good reason why an underground labyrinth might logically exist a few years ago, so I'll let that post stand as a rebuttal to #4. If you don't want to click the link, I compare a map of the Mark Twain Cave, created by nature, to a typical dungeon layout.
For the idea that it's a poor defensive strategy to spread out your defenders, well, yes, maybe. But in most fantasy worlds, there will be wizards casting fireballs and ice storms and whatnot. Put ALL the monsters in one big room, and that handful of area affect spells the wizard has are suddenly a LOT more powerful. It's much better to get the twenty orcs, three ogres, two owlbears AND the blue dragon in one fireball than to have to decide to use it on only one of these groups of monsters.
If you were a BBEG, would you really want to put all your monsters/soldiers in one area where more than half could be wiped out by one fireball? In the real world, would you station all of your soldiers where they could be targeted by one artillery shell or guided missile? Of course not. Grouping your forces may be a strong defense against a conventional attack with swords, bows and spears, but not against area-effect firepower.
When it comes to the secret passage that allows quick access to the end, I think it's actually a good thing. If players grumble because they didn't find it early on, well, that's either because they didn't look for it, looked in the wrong place, or the dice just weren't on their side this time. Finding and taking advantage of that secret passage is good game play. And he mentions computer games like Skyrim don't allow you to find it at all. That's on the game designers, not a fault of the dungeon itself.
Finally, we come to the first point on architectural design. Now, the occasional dungeon with a logical architectural design can be a good thing. A nice change of pace. I was thinking about making a dragon's lair dungeon with a long wide corridor from the entrance straight to the dragon's den for the foolhardy adventurers to rush to their doom. Side passages would be for servants, food storage, etc. I wouldn't want every dungeon to be this way, though.
I think Shad is missing out on a few key concepts besides just game-play factors. And yes, that is probably the main reason for the multi-room, labyrinthine dungeon layout. Finding the treasure is supposed to be the challenge of the game. But there are a few concepts that Shad seems to believe are important that may not be, or at least aren't always important. And I think he hints at one of the biggest reasons for a dungeon to be the way it usually is, but doesn't quite make the leap to realize its importance.
First of all, Shad puts a premium on realism. Understandable, as that's the whole point of his YouTube channel. Do research on historical arms and armor, then point out how fiction/film/games get it wrong. For me, anyway, I think that too much realism is just as shattering to the fiction of the RPG session as too little. Making everything realistic is impossible. We need game mechanics to elide features of reality that are just too difficult or unwieldy to use in a game.
I remember getting turned off of the PS2 game Metal Gear Solid 3 because of its attempts at "realism" that made things LESS realistic. In that game, when you were wounded, instead of the elegant but ridiculously unrealistic method of eating food to cure your wounds (tried and true in many games), you had to go into your equipment management screens and treat the wound the way a field medic would. Clean it, anesthetize the immediate area, use antiseptic, stitch the wound closed, more antiseptic, and bandaging. Realistic, right? But you could be in the middle of the boss fight, pause the action, perform minor field surgery on yourself, and then restart time and the boss is right where you left him. That threw me enough to ruin my suspension of disbelief, and then the hassle of needing to complete five or six steps when in previous games I had only one to solve the same problem made the game unfun and I never finished it. (Pretty sure I've posted about this before here on the blog, sorry for the repeat.)
The point is, trying to become more realistic in one area made the game even less realistic in another area.So there needs to be a proper balance between realism and elegance of mechanics.
Secondly, Shad seems to be around 30-ish, so I'd guess he probably started RPGs in the 3E era, or maybe 2E AD&D/White Wolf era. He seems to take a lot of things that were popular back then as a given for game design. He mentions several times that to him, a "dungeon" should be a villain's base and why would a villain want to have to go through the ogre's chamber and around the flaming flying dagger trap every time he wants to nip out for a coffee or a pizza?
My question for Shad is, why do you assume that every dungeon is some master villain's lair? Some dungeons are, yes. And they would be better off to at least conform somewhat to Shad's cries for realism in dungeon layout. But not every dungeon is a lair. Some are just caverns. Some are tombs. Some are treasure vaults. And some...well, we'll get to that in a moment. Not every dungeon should have a BBEG lurking at the end. Not every dungeon needs to be a livable space. That's not written anywhere in any D&D book I've ever read. In fact, several of them are explicit that most dungeons are NOT.
Finally, here's the part where Shad almost gets it, but not quite. He mentions, around the 12:15 mark, that illogical dungeons are almost set up as if it were designed as a challenge. That someone wants the adventurers to get the treasure, but only if they prove their worth. But why would someone do that? It's illogical! [Setting aside the fact that in the real world, that's exactly what DMs are doing!]
Enter the realm of the dungeon as mythic underground. Modern fantasy obviously had its roots in mythology. Tolkien, Anderson, Howard, Moorecock, Dunsany, Morris... Lots of early fantasy writers drew on mythology and transformed it. There are plenty of blogs out there about using the dungeon as a sort of otherworldly zone where mortals can challenge themselves and prove their heroic worth. And yes, it can be seen as a handwave to explain away things like why there are no orc babies or what do the dragons eat when there are no adventurers to snack on. But it also gives the game a sort of resonance and weight that can be very impressive and immersive for players.
If the dungeon is a mythical underworld, rather than part of the normal, real, rational world, then Shad's idea is exactly right. The dungeons exist, put there by the gods or the Cosmic Forces of Law and Chaos, or whatever explicitly as a challenge to would be heroes. Are you strong enough to overcome these monsters? Clever enough to avoid falling victim to the traps? Wise enough to navigate the maze of passages without depleting your resources? If so, then congratulations! You win the treasure!
As Shad mentions, any sane evil overlord would want to protect their
wealth, not offer it up as a challenge for the worthy. But we've already
established that Shad's preconception of a dungeon as primarily a BBEG lair is
already clouding his judgment on this issue, and that's why he fails to
make the cognitive leap to the mythic underworld concept.
If the dungeon is the setting for a Campbellian hero-journey, then of course it should be set out this way. Every choice of pathways is a lady-or-tiger dilemma. Every encounter is there to challenge one or more aspects of your character. And yes, it is purposefully created to be difficult but not impossible to succeed.
If, like Shad posits, all of your dungeons follow the strictures of good architecture, all are bases for some BBEG or another, and all are defended in the most logical way, you can never achieve this sort of mythic resonance in your sessions.
Three years ago, I had to teach this summer corporate class for Samsung Electronics through my university. Pay was great, but the hours were horrible. 8~11am, then 8~11pm. And it was so far from my home that I would have wasted about 5 to 6 hours of my day commuting there twice. So I rented a room for the weeks I was there. The pay for these classes was awesome, and the room was cheap. So there was that.
Anyway, officially we were supposed to start at 8:00, which meant I had to be there by 7:45 or so. But the workers were usually just getting off their shift, and never made it to the classroom before 8:30 or so. I got a lot of reading done while waiting around in that classroom for students to show up. Played some classic Nintendo games on my phone emulator (to prevent corporate spying, there was very limited internet access), and for a few days, drawing dungeon maps on this little pocket graph paper notepad I'd found.
Quite a few of them are Asian fantasy themed, since I was working on Chanbara at the time.
I found that mini graph paper pad today, and the maps are still in it. That will save me some time while putting together my new Chanbara campaign. Just need to stock these locations and decide where they are on the area map.
I'm sure this has been done by others over the years, but I decided today that I'm going to use the board game Dungeon (by TSR) map as a dungeon and stick it somewhere in my West Marches campaign.
It might be a good choice for my "8-Bit Realm" where I'll have everyone make versions of their PCs using Retro Phaze (the OSR/classic CRPG mashup game). Should be fun!
I think I've got a file somewhere listing the creature and treasure cards from Dungeon. I unfortunately don't have a copy of the game. But with the list I can make the Retro Phaze (or just normal 5E D&D if I don't use this for the 8-Bit Realm) encounter tables and random loot tables.
Over the summer, I went back to the U.S. for a month to visit the family. While there we took a trip down to Hannibal, MO to visit the historic Mark Twain sites. It's only a 40 minute drive down there. I've of course been there many times before, and my wife had visited on a previous trip. But it was the first time for our boys (although the younger, having just turned 1, is still too small for it to count). Anyway, Flynn (my older boy) and I took the tour of the Mark Twain Cave.
If you've ever read Tom Sawyer, you'll remember the cave. It's a real cave that Sam Clemmens played in as a boy. Here's a map of it.
Notice anything? This is a natural limestone cave, carved by water seeping through cracks in the rocks over centuries. And there are chambers, passages, intersections, multiple ways around, and while the map doesn't show it, some elevation changes as well.
Now, I've heard before people bemoaning the fact that labyrinthine dungeons are unrealistic. "If dwarves or goblins or a wizard were really carving out rock, they wouldn't waste effort making long hallways between rooms," they say. Well, what if nature has already done a lot of the work for them? What if the dungeon started out as a natural cave system like this, and the dwarves or gnomes or orcs or whoever came along and just expanded and finished some of the already existing passages and chambers? Not so much work now, is it?
Third time's a charm, and I'm on my netbook instead of my phone. Should get through this no problem. (fingers crossed)
So, we've finally gotten to the actual dungeon part of the sample/starter adventure. The first thing Frank notes is that the first level has been stocked according to the Random Dungeon Generation Table (later, on pages 46-47. I've seen a lot of blog posts about that little d6 for contents, d6 for treasure table over the years. Like it or hate it, the sample provided here gives a novice DM a pattern to study and analyze if they're into that sort of thing. I sure wasn't as an 11 year old. My early dungeons had something in every room, and often in the corridors, as well. It took a while for me to learn the importance of the empty room.
Next, we're warned about Room #27, the harpy/yellow mold room, which can only be entered once one of the PCs gets to 2nd level. So probably the Thief or Cleric, if there is one in the party (and they don't die). The room is a killer encounter, potentially, much like the warm-up carrion crawler outside. I think I remember Frank saying in one of his Q&A threads on Dragonsfoot that he loves to start off new players with a TPK just so they're warned that such can and will happen.
Anyway, the most interesting bit of this introduction to the level is the advice that the party should be able to easily return to town, rest up, and come back fully healed and with spells replenished whenever they want. It also says that later, when dungeons are farther from town, the party may want to rest in an empty room, to get back spells, and RECOVER FROM INJURIES. Frank says, and I quote, "A brief stay overnight in an unoccupied room may allow spell casters to relearn their spells, curing any badly wounded characters in the morning."
There's no mention of 1 hit point per night, or 1 hit point per level per night, or 1d3 hit points per night. Just that "badly" wounded characters recover after a night's rest.
So the "Extended Rest" that totally heals you in 4E and 5E has its roots right here in Basic D&D. Glad I discovered this. And yes, the interpretation I'm taking from this is not the only possible reading of the line, but it's certainly one that could be drawn from the text.
Finally, there's a list of standard dungeon features.
Now, we get to the keyed entries. And like a normal module, now the map has numbers and the entries match. So we've gone from a barely interactive story (Player's Book) to a more interactive story (players' book again) to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style game (this book) to a normal map-and-key module format. Well done, Frank!
I'm not going to go through the entries for each room. There are kobolds, giant rats, giant bats, zombies, and some weird stuff in there. The bedrooms are tricky because there's not enough information about them that can be learned by testing to fully make use of them, and there are no clues to them otherwise. And as I mentioned above, even at level 2 the harpy room can be tough.
For level 2, we're given a map (very simple, similar in fact in some ways to the quick digital map I posted a couple of days ago) and a list of possible creatures that might be found there. And we've been told that on Level 1 there were no wandering monsters, but from Level 2 there should be.
Level 3 we're left to our own devices to map out, and given a few ideas for monsters, including a lair for Bargle, everyone's favorite villain. And there's the suggestion that there could be more levels lower down, including portals to other sections and a dragon's lair.
All in all, this is not a bad little adventure with a nice learning curve. There are some problems with the layout of the keep section (level 1), but this is a game, not an exercise in medieval architecture so I can let them slide (although I try to be more realistic when designing castles myself, with lots of functional space rather than dungeony maze rooms, and yes, even as a kid my castles had some thought about what each area was used for, while dungeons were chaotic messes.)
Just did a little test run using GIMP to create a very simple dungeon map. This took me less than 15 minutes to make. With a bit more time, and some more practice with GIMP making maps, I should be able to knock out some more complex structures, and add more details to the dungeon. The map I made yesterday for Under the Hillfort Ruins is more complex. It has doors, statues, stairs, and other features marked on the map, along with room numbers.
Feel free to download this, stock it, and use it in your own home games if you like. I'll need to come up with a license* for maps if people would like to use them in published adventures, I guess.
*Note, I doubt anyone would want to publish an adventure with this simple little map. Just planning ahead.
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I started out Hidden Treasure Books in order to sell paper minis. Now, I'm planning on expanding into adventure modules and who knows what else? Well, actually I know what else. When I ever get Chanbara ready for publication, I'll publish in print and pdf through DrivethruRPG via Hidden Treasure Books. Same for Flying Swordsmen: Wu Xing edition, and if Paul agrees, Presidents of the Apocalypse (he's entitled to 50% of any profit on that one, so it may require its own publishing storefront so we can share the profits equally without having to figure what portion of HTB's profits is from PotA every month).
I'm already dusting off an old adventure, Under the Hillfort Ruins. I had the incomplete notes for download for free here on the blog, but since it was from my 3E days, I'm revising it for old school (BX/BECMI/LL) and finishing it up. I also plan to run my group through it next weekend and see if there are any problems in play (there weren't any 10 or however many years ago I first wrote it and used it with my old Yamanashi group).
And there are plenty more old adventures I've got lying around in files and folders on the bookshelf, or digital folders here on the computer.
Another plus, since I've been messing around with GIMP a lot lately to make the paper minis, I'm getting more proficient with it. I redid the map for Under the Hillfort Ruins, since originally I'd used a map someone put online. It was pretty darn simple to make, so expect more dungeon maps in the future as well. I know Dyson Matt Jackson, and some other bloggers make some awesome maps - don't expect that quality, at least at first. But it should be something else fun to do.
Making money (not much, but it's not about getting rich) from doing something I love? It may be just the thing to get me through the dissertation process, which is about to start this fall (fingers crossed that my adviser OKs my idea).
The next several sections fall under the heading of "Playing in a Group" and give advice for finally going beyond the solo play tutorials at the beginning of the book. This first part is on general advice for play, especially things to do and think about before the game starts.
The first bit is for beginners only. Make sure everyone has read this book, and that whoever will be the DM has read the Dungeon Master's Rulebook. Frank suggests sticking to the starter adventure instead of using a purchased module for the first few game sessions. I did just that back in the day, and it's not a bad little dungeon (I've used it again and again in the intervening years). But I know that Holmes Basic came with either B1 or B2 and Moldvay Basic came with B2, and I assume many DMs started out running one of them, or the caves under Zenopus' Tower (Holmes) or the Haunted Keep (Moldvay). YMMV on this one, I guess.
Setting Up: make sure everyone has pencils, erasers, paper, dice, character sheets, snacks, etc. Players are given permission to access the Player's Manual whenever they need it, but forbidden from looking at the Dungeon Master's Rulebook during play.
Mapper and Caller: Mapping, for me at least, has always been fun. It's advised that everyone learn how to do it, but over the years we've realized that certain types of adventures don't rely on careful mapping. That's not an indictment, and it's good to have more than one player able to map some adventure site in case it does become necessary. Recently, with our online games and Twiddla.com whiteboard, the DM just draws the map to save time.
Caller is something I don't think I've ever used extensively. When we were kids, there usually weren't enough of us to bother. If we'd had groups of seven to twelve players, callers might be necessary. Also, Frank tells us that the caller is just a reporter, giving the final decision to the DM - NOT the final judge who makes the decision. Whenever I've heard of people using a caller, it's usually listed as the caller's role to make the final decision. If you can trust the caller, I suppose it's more efficient that way, but that wasn't the original intention. The caller is there as the safety filter to keep players from doing stupid things like wandering off on their own or pressing the obviously dangerous button just by calling it out to the DM. Unless the caller says you will do it, it doesn't happen. So I guess it's a good idea to keep that player who wants to randomly screw up everything from being the caller.
First Steps to Take: Again, I am happy to see how succinct Frank can be at explaining game concepts. My long, rambling Tackling the Megadungeon post series was designed to get players to consider some of these things, which Frank lays out quite nicely. I'll just copy/paste this here (and hope the OCR of the PDF doesn't lead to any weirdness):
When all the players are together, with characters ready, each player should take a moment to think about the adventure to come. Some of these things apply to players, and some apply to the characters.
Who is your character, and who are the other characters? Have you adventured with them before, or not? Are any of them friends - or enemies? Should you keep an eye on any one character? Who can you trust completely?
Why are you going? Are the characters just out to explore, or is someone looking for a specific item? Are you out to rescue a prisoner, destroy a famous monster, or some other goal? Games are usually more fun if a specific goal is kept in mind; if nobody is sure just what they want to do, you can waste a lot of time doing nothing.
Where are you going? Nearby caves, or a castle, or some other dungeon? Have you bought the equipment you need to explore?
When are you going? Do you plan to explore a dungeon at night, when more dangerous creatures could be around? Players: decide when the game will end; it’s very easy to play longer than you intended. Set a time for quitting, and stick to it! Remember to leave some time for dividing the treasure found.
What are you going to do? Look for big monsters or small ones? Will you run from danger, or face it? What can your party do, considering the abilities and special items available amongst the characters? (Player's Manual p. 53)
Treasure: decide on how to divide up the loot before the adventure starts, a suggested method is provided below.
Marching Order: general common sense advice - keep Fighter-types up front, with a rear guard as well, and Thieves and Magic-users in the middle where they are protected. Dwarves and Halflings should take the front rank so others may fire missiles or spells over them.
Tactics of Play: Some general play advice - let the combat types handle the combats, stick to marching order when moving, specialists should move forward to deal with special problems then get back in position, let the high Charisma PCs negotiate, and always have someone keeping watch for monsters when others are searching for traps, treasure or secret doors.
Ending the Adventure: Some good advice given subtly here. Of course as players you should stick to your ending time for the session even if things are going well, but also be prepared to retreat and end the session when prudent (Fighters are wounded, spellcasters are out or nearly out of spells, etc.). Be sure to leave some time at the end for calculating XP and divvying up treasure, and resupply NOW (assuming the party heads back to a town) so you don't forget something important next session. I know I've fallen into that trap often enough, especially with late night finishes.
Dividing Treasure: I don't think I've ever played in a group where this system was actually used. In my experience, magic items are divided as need/want dictates, with random rolls for contested items, even if it's not "fair." Then all the money is just divided evenly among the PCs.
The system listed here is as follows: if everyone gets a permanent magic item, divide money evenly between all characters regardless of other magic items acquired.
If some get permanent items while others get temporary items, those with permanent items get a 1/2 share.
If some get permanent items, some get temporary items and some get nothing, then those with permanent items get no treasure, those with temporary items get 1/2 share, and those with no magic items get a full share.
It would be interesting to try some time. Of course, I've always wondered - should a powerful wand or staff count as a temporary item due to its charges? If so, you could walk away with a Staff of Wizardry and a full share of treasure while your companion gets a dagger +1 and a half share. Obviously, common sense should come into play along with the general system presented here.
Spiked Circle warrens where we may be bargaining away our souls to demon-worshiping bad guys in exchange for safe passage in order to resurrect Venerable Carolus. Thidrek hangs out with Elder Karl's sandalwood scented ghost to the side.
At long last, this little series continues. Read about OD&D, Holmes, AD&D 1E.
In Tom Moldvay's Basic Set (Erol Otus cover), we get a very well organized two pages on dungeon design. We're given a six-step process to follow, which helps DMs conceptualize their dungeon quickly and easily. It's mostly a clarification of the information in OD&D, but with one big difference. As with AD&D 1E, we've got a very different focus. OD&D assumed a megadungeon, while Moldvay assumes smaller dungeons created for each adventure (although they can easily be re-used).
Moldvay's steps are:
A) Choose a scenario [10 sample types listed]
B) Decide on a setting [10 sample locations listed]
C) Decide on special monsters to be used
D) Draw the map of the dungeon
E) Stock the dungeon [using the random system from OD&D, and providing six room traps, six treasure traps, and ten ideas for 'specials']
F) Filling in the final details
Moldvay then, after discussing Wandering Monsters (which actually may be part of step F, making it three pages of dungeon design advice), gives us The Haunted Keep. He goes through and explains his six steps above, and provides a fully detailed and keyed map of one of the two towers, and a cut-away map of the two dungeon levels.
What Moldvay has done here is take the dungeon design principles of OD&D and the 'site-based' preference of AD&D and married them nicely together. One could easily design a megadungeon using the Moldvay method, even though the text assumes smaller complexes made for their own separate adventures. All one needs to do is decide on what sections of the megadungeon will or could be used for the various types of scenarios listed, then follow the rest of the instructions for each section.
I just skimmed through the first section of OD&D's Volume 3: The Underworld and Wilderness Encounters. Having started playing D&D with Mentzer, a lot of the information was actually pretty familiar to me. that's why it only got a skim. I'm probably missing a few important points, but for the most part, Gygax and Arneson had figured out a lot of good advice for creation of a dungeon.
Make sure the place itself is interesting to explore.
Don't overcrowd it.
Allow for discovery, and re-use.
Keep monsters mostly appropriate for the level.
Place important monsters and treasures first, then if the place is too big, use random stocking to fill out the rest.*
Of course, Gygax assumes creation of a Megadungeon, similar to his Castle Greyhawk. By the time Mentzer was re-editing the Moldvay/Cook edit, more thought went into creation of smaller dungeons with specific purposes. But all of the above main points were still there. There's not a lot of actual advice for the crafting of the dungeon, other than the sample map and semi-explained key, and the example of play, though.
I do like the fact that in the sample dungeon, there's a 'special' which he notes is basically a Dick DM move to use, so don't use it.
Interesting differences from the later Classic D&D game include (old news to some of you, of course):
2 moves per Turn while exploring. I guess this was taken from Chainmail, with its split moves each turn to allow for reconsideration/reactions. 240' (120' encumbered) per 10 minute Turn is still really slow, but better than in the later editions.
Doubled chances to find secret doors when searching. Elves 1-4 in 6 (1-2 in 6 innate, rolled by the DM in secret), 1-2 in 6 for everyone else.
*I'm guessing that this picture of Gary's notes for Castle Greyhawk are so sparse because it's just the specials only. The rest he was able to simply roll randomly as he ran the game. Or maybe not even roll by the time this picture was taken.
I spent about 10 minutes yesterday afternoon doing a rough sketch of a map for Flying Swordsmen RPG's campaign world. I spent some time this morning before my son woke up detailing coastlines, then sketching in mountains and rivers. This evening, I detailed the mountains and rivers.
Now I've scanned it just to put it up here and show off where I am so far. My sketch pad is too big for my scanner, so I had to do it in two parts and edited them together roughly. The seam is obvious, but this is just for posterity. I'll be adding in forests and deserts next, then finally cities, roads, and provincial borders and labels over the next few days.
I only got two of my sample characters rolled up so far, but I've been having fun with the map.
Also, I've got another artist lined up to help, Jacob from the Yamanashi Group. Things are coming along with this little project of mine.
I'm too busy to post anything silly or serious today. So here's a map.
This is a map of Europe I made back when I was in Japan. I intended to use it for a 'mythic Earth' campaign but never did. I've hand-written a little note at the bottom that says '1 hex=54 miles.' I had traced the map from an atlas I had, and the scale of the map was roughly that.
It's not as nice or as detailed (or as accurate) as something you'd get from Alexis, but if anyone wants to use it, here it is.
Somewhere back when I was in high school, I finally got around to drawing up an adventure in The Haunted Keep on the Karamiekos map. Since I'd started with Mentzer and had only ever had the slightest perusal of the Moldvay/Cook BX edition, I had never seen the sample dungeon in Moldvay's Basic book.
Which means, to my Castlevania inspired mind, my version of the Haunted Keep became the lair of a vampire. And it was broken up into several sub-sections, each with a sort of 'boss' encounter, and a place to magically rest and recharge (just like how Castlevania levels end with that orb dropping to recharge your health after you beat the boss). OK, maybe kinda lame, but the dungeon did have some pretty cool stuff in it, though.
Particularly, I'm fond of the castle's courtyard, which was a maze of semi-sentient thorn hedges. You could chop your way through or try to fly over them, but you'd take damage doing so.
Maybe I'll get ambitious and type up the notes to go with these maps and make it into a downloadable PDF. Don't think I'll have it done in time for Halloween this year, but oh well.
First, you had to make your way through the secret tunnels.
Then you had to go through the courtyard thorn maze.
Then you had to work your way through the crypts to get into the Keep.
Finally, you had the five levels of the Keep to deal with.
I remember that Killingmachine and I ran through this one night at his house. He played several of his PCs, and I ran several of mine to fill out the party. We had a blast, and I know we finally beat the vampire, and I don't think anyone got level drained too badly. :D
Getting pretty busy these days. Next week is the Korean harvest festival Chuseok, so we're doing lots of recording at the radio station, plus family matters to take care of. So posting may be light.
It's an Elven tomb complex, with quite a few tricks/traps, and not so many monsters.
It was written for 3.5 D&D, but it's really just a rough skeleton of an adventure. This was for a game on RPOL, so I never really fleshed out the rooms until the characters got to them because of the slow pace.
Anyway, it should be pretty easy for anyone to just ignore all the talk of skill DCs and Challenge Ratings if you need a nice little low-level site to explore and drop into your campaign. Some assembly required. I gave it a quick read-through, and I'm not sure if I put all my ideas for it on paper (well, electrons...) but hopefully there's enough that you can figure it out or just make up your own.
The map is not mine, I got it from some internet site with lots of maps to download. Sorry whoever it was that created it, I really can't remember where I got it. If you ever see this blog, let me know and I'll be happy to credit you. Enjoy my hastily photoshopped additions to mark certain areas for the adventure.
