D is for Dungeon

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for the month is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: how to approach it, how to run it, how to enjoy a system that deserves to be played NOW, nearly 50 years after its inception. Consider this a 'crash course' in the subject]

D is for Dungeon...specifically dungeon design.

The "dungeon" is (as one might expect) a rather important concept in a game called Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax's glossary in the DMG provides us with the following definition:

Dungeon -- A generic term for any castle, location, or ruin that serves as the site of an underground adventure.

Okay, straightforward enough. Or is it? 

The thing is this whole idea...this whole concept, the premise on which the game is built...is about as clear as mud. We are told in the PHB that "individual adventuring usually takes place in an underworld dungeon setting" until 

"play gradually expands to encompass other such dungeons, town and city activities, wilderness explorations, and journeys into other dimensions, planes, times, worlds, and so forth."

However, when it comes to the three types of adventures described in the PHB (p.101) between dungeons, wilderness, and city and town adventures

"Adventures into the underworld mazes are the most popular."

The reason the word dungeon is central in the game's title is because exploring dungeons is the most elementary part of game play. It is the reason the players are here...the reason they're willing to work together, cooperatively, towards a common objective. The dungeon...an underworld death trap filled with dangerous monsters and monstrous dangers while tempting players with the promise of fame and fortune...is the draw. When we say, D&D is a game of adventure, the DUNGEON is the location where that adventure takes place. For the most part (we'll get to the caveats in a bit).

Which is why it's so unfortunate that the AD&D books provide ALMOST ZERO INFORMATION ON HOW TO BUILD OR DESIGN A DUNGEON.

Unfortunate, I say, but true. A gross oversight on the part of the author, and one I didn't even realize till a few years ago, when I was writing a series of posts comparing the DMGs of various editions. None of them are "good" when it comes to this topic...in fact, "terrible" would be a more apt description. But it took me years to notice this lack of information because I learned the basics of how to design dungeons decades before...from Tom Moldvay.

Moldvay's Basic Dungeons & Dragons Rulebook (published in 1981...two years after the DMG) gives a pretty similar definition of the word "dungeon:" a place underground and often among ruins, where characters adventure. However, unlike Gygax's DMG, Moldvay outlines a step-by-step process for designing an adventure...in two pages, no less! His system, while simple, provides the foundational building blocks of design:

Step 1: Choose A Scenario. Moldvay calls this the "background theme or idea which ties the dungeon together," and notes that a "good scenario always gives the players a reason for adventuring." 

Step 2: Decide On A Setting. This is the actual location where the scenario takes place, the "dungeon" in question. Examples of adventure sites include castles, caverns, crypts, temples, mines, stronghold, towns, and towers...most any fixed location can serve as an adventure site, i.e. a "dungeon." But regardless, they all have in common the following elements:

- removed from "normal" (game) civilization

- stocked with danger

- contain the promise of reward

Step 3: Decide On Special Monsters. The D&D game, in all its editions, thrives on conflict, and requires adversaries for the players to struggle against. The scenario and setting suggests monstrous opponents that players can expect to encounter while exploring the dungeon.

Step 4: Draw The Dungeon Map. The first practical step (everything up till now has been thought exercise and/or brainstorming). You draw a map of the area the players intend to explore. For me, this is the most difficult part of dungeon design, as I tend to be a bit hard on myself. I often pull blueprints of actual buildings and cave complexes to use as templates, but I also steal maps from old adventures and re-work/re-purpose them. 

Good maps have sensible layouts, often with multiple means of ingress and exit, multiple levels (both up and down) with more than one way to access each, and enough asymmetry of design to be interesting. Maps for less experienced (generally lower level) players should be easier to map than those you design for experienced veterans, because players tend to want to make sketches during play to aid in their explorations. Making a nightmare labyrinth of non-Euclidean angles and shifting walls is going to be hard on players with fewer resources...and "actual play experience" is one of those resources.

In addition to being clear and legible enough for YOU, the DM, to read, it should have a number of encounter areas...rooms, chambers, special points on the map...that you should meticulously label with a numerical key. I strongly advise using simple numbering for these encounters, not an alphabetical key or (Lord no) Roman numerals.

Step 5: Stock The Dungeon. Now that you have the map for your dungeon (based on your scenario and setting you've chosen for that scenario), you key the dungeon with your notes of what will be found at each and every encounter area. This is the "meat" of dungeon design...the map is just the skeleton, and without the guts and muscle and sinew, it's not yet an adventure proper.

Moldvay identifies four forms of "contents" for encounter areas, and I find these useful categories for design. ALSO, while I don't determine contents of encounter areas randomly (as Moldvay suggests), I do place them in the same proportions given by his random chart:

• Monster (1-in-3 encounter areas): these are NPCs that are likely to be antagonistic towards exploring adventurers and who are combat-worthy and inclined to fight if provoked.
• Trap (1-in-6 encounter areas): these are obstacles and hazards designed to damage, delay, confuse, or inconvenience players.
• "Special" (1-in-6 encounter areas): these are anything not a "trap" or straightforward "monster." It could be a special (modified or non-book) monster, a magical effect of some kind (healing pools, teleportation gates, magic mouths, etc.) non-hostile NPCs (hostages that might be rescued or hired to join the group), riddles and tricks, etc.
• Empty (1-in-3 encounter areas): an encounter area devoid of Monsters, Traps, and Specials. It does not mean a literally "empty" chamber; it can still invite interaction (players may search it for traps, secret doors, etc.), and still take real game time from players determined to give it a thorough going over. But these areas are necessary places of respite from the stresses and danger of the dungeon, and I don't recommend going without.

It should be understood that these proportions are guidelines, not hard/fast rules. That being said, I always try to hew close to these proportions as they give a nice rhythm of play in practice. Since you'll only get perfect proportionality in dungeon designs that feature encounter areas in multiples of six, some rounding often occurs. For me, I tend to round the number of "empty" and "trap" areas DOWN while rounding "monster" and "special" encounter areas UP.

For example: given a 20 encounter area, I'd go with seven monsters, four specials, three traps, and six empties.

Treasure, of course, is equally important to stocking as danger, and as with types of encounter areas Moldvay's suggestions for treasure proportions aren't terrible (1-in-2 for monster encounters, 1-in-3 for trap encounters, 1-in-6 for empty encounters). Along with the proportion of encounter types, this indicates that slightly fewer than one-third of all encounter areas will have SOME sort of treasure present. For me, I prefer a slightly higher presence of treasure...something closer to 40+%, but this varies based on scenario and setting.

[please keep in mind that "treasure" takes many forms. If prisoners can be rescued for a reward, they are treasure. If the local magistrate has put a bounty on bugbear scalps, then bugbears become treasure. Etc. We are not just talking bags of gold and silver]

For AD&D, a game of adventure (in which players brave danger in pursuit of reward), treasure is the primary motivator, the "spur" that drives players to action. A steady drip-drip of treasure with the occasional discovery of a large cache, is the primary formula that keeps players on the move and willing to engage and struggle with the challenges of the dungeon environment.

At this point, we are done with Moldvay, and can speak to the concept of scale.

Each dungeon should be designed for a particular level of party; this is what I refer to as its "scale." Actually, it may be more precise to say a particular experience point total of individual player character. Often, you'll see an adventure designated as being for a specific level range...an adventure for levels 4th-6th, for example. They might as well say "for characters of roughly 22,000 x.p." which would yield PCs in the given level range (paladins and multi-class PCs being at the low end, druids and thieves at the high). Everything in the dungeon is scaled off this level range: the types of monsters used, the deadliness of traps present, and...most certainly...the amount of treasure to be found.

Scale is important. Reward should be commensurate with the degree of challenge faced by the players: too much treasure for too little challenge is too easy and leads to boredom and disenchantment, while too little treasure for too much challenge leads to frustration and resentment; both are undesirable. Your campaign will have adventure sites (i.e. "dungeons") scaled to various levels...some low-level, some high...but you must strive to be consistent with your scales. It is fine for high level adventurers to take on a low-level dungeon, wiping it out 'on a lark.' But they should find the takings therein to be of dubious value and not worth the energy expended. Likewise, it is just dandy to have high level "killer" dungeons in your game that players should (rightly) shun until they feel strong enough to tackle them...they provide incentives for their ambition with the promise of rich reward.

In practice, I've found that a 30 encounter adventure should yield (in total) treasure sufficient to advance PCs of the designated number and experience range one level. For determination of gold piece value needed, I always use the fighter advancement table.

For example: a 30 encounter dungeon scaled for 5 characters of levels 5th-7th should yield a total treasure of roughly 175,000 gold pieces in value. With regard to magic items, I look at their gold piece (i.e. sale) value for this calculation.

Dungeon of fewer or more encounter levels get proportionally less or more treasure. For example, one with 15 encounters would have only HALF the treasure (in gold piece value) needed to advance the party one level. Dungeons with 60 encounters would give players enough x.p. (in gold) to achieve TWO levels...which is probably not the same as just doubling the treasure amount. If that dungeon for five PCs of level 5th-7th had 60 encounters, it would need 450,000 g.p. because the amount of x.p. needed to get one fighter from 6th level to 8th is 90K, not 60K. 

Why do I scale based on 30 encounter areas? Time...real world, actual time. It takes time for players to play the game...to explore dungeons, to participate in combats. In practice, I find a rate of three to five encounters per solid hour of play to be average, with about 12 encounters being the practical (max) upper limit for a four hour play session (9-11 being more usual). Smaller groups of players can be more agile in their decision making, but larger groups of players have more resources to throw at encounters...speed at which players get through a dungeon is tied largely to experience (with the game) and group dynamics (leadership, organization). Also, DMs should understand that the longer a session goes on, the more resources are expended by the players, the fewer resources they have at their disposal, and the slower and more cautious they become.

So 30 encounter areas can take three to five game sessions to fully explore (depending on the quality of your players and the length of your game sessions). This could be a month or more of play depending on how often you run games (we'll talk scheduling in a later installment). And a couple more things to keep in mind:

1. It is rare for player to recover every last scrap of treasure from a dungeon. More than just "missing" things, players will tend to abandon a dungeon for greener pastures at some point...mainly because it feels "picked over" with too much challenge for too little reward remaining. And that's okay! We want players to have agency and letting them walk is a part of the AD&D game.
2. We (Dungeon Masters) want players to advance in level. It is an imperative for our game. Leveling up allows designers to expand the scope of what we do, breaking out bigger challenges, more ferocious monsters, more extravagant treasures. Allowing the PCs to level expands what we, DMs, can do with the game.

As far as scaling challenges/danger to players, this is as much an art form (refined in practice) as the distribution of treasure. With regard to traps and hazards, are you considering the player characters' ability to circumvent these things? It's not really appropriate to include half a dozen poison encounters when the party cleric is under 7th level (and thus has no access to neutralize poison). Stone to flesh is a spell only available to magic-users of 12th level so petrifaction becomes, effectively, a death sentence for mid-level parties...these are things to consider. Consider also potential hit points of PCs when assigning damage for traps: A 50' pit drop may not kill a 6th level fighter, but it can deplete hit points enough that another fight or two will finish the poor brute; damage accumulates over time, after all.

With regard to monsters and their placement, these will largely be determined by the scenario and setting you chose at the beginning. If the adventure involves invading a stone giant stronghold, the opponents will probably be stone giants (duh) and their pets and allies. This by itself should suggest the proper scale of the dungeon you're designing. It might sound cool to have the players sneak into the fortress of a lich or demon lord, but they're not going to be doing that before they hit double-digits in terms of level!

If you review the Dungeon Random Monster Level Determination Matrix on page 174 of the DMG, you'll see that every dungeon level has a particular range of "monster levels" (designated as 1-10, or I-X). When considering the scale of a dungeon, I use "equivalent level of the dungeon" the same as the average PC level of the adventure I'm designing. Thus, an adventure for 7th level PCs would see the bulk of their monster encounters come from charts IV-VI, with only few encounters being outside this range (and with reduced or increased numbers, depending on whether or not you're talking greater or lesser charts). Treasure types of monsters (given in the Monster Manual) can be key indicators for treasure distribution (both placement and amounts), and can serve as 'red flags' to the beginning dungeon designer.

[if I find myself creating a "slime themed" dungeon with all the monsters being puddings, jellies, and oozes, I'm going to have a pretty hard time justifying much in the way of treasure placement, for example]

These are the nuts-and-bolts of dungeon design, the elementary building block that is the foundation of the Dungeons & Dragons game. There are, of course, other types of adventure, but exploration of dangerous sites in pursuit of treasure is the MAIN form that game play takes in AD&D. Even the old Dragonlance modules, heavily railroaded story acs that they were, made sure to include at least one dungeon in each of their 14 published adventures. If you don't like exploring dungeon, well, there are a LOT of other RPGs on the market that are not called Dungeons & Dragons. 

We'll get into other types of adventures in a later post.

B is for Books

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for the month is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: how to approach it, how to run it, how to enjoy a system that deserves to be played NOW, nearly 50 years after its inception. Consider this a 'crash course' in the subject]

B is for Books...specifically the books you need to run the game.

AD&D is a game and, as with any game, it has instructions that explain how to play. Yes, I'm sure that seems elementary, but you'd be amazed to see how many people post on Reddit the question "how do I learn to play Dungeons & Dragons?"

How indeed.

If you've played D&D before...any version of it...you can probably jump right in to the core instruction manuals (we'll get to those in a moment). If you know nothing (or next to nothing) about the game, I strongly suggest picking up a copy of the D&D Basic Set Rulebook (a 64-page manual penned by Tom Moldvay, available in PDF form for $4.99) and read that first. It is a quick read and excellent overview of the basic principles of the D&D game with entertaining (and fairly spot on) examples of game play. Reading this first will give you a basic lexicon for understanding the Advanced version of the game.

Okay...you have the basics under your belt? Let's get to it.

To play AD&D you need a total of THREE books, although I use (and generally recommend) five. The core instruction manuals are:

The Players Handbook

The Dungeon Masters Guide

The Monster Manual

Armed with these three books, you can play AD&D for literal YEARS. Possibly decades. All the instructions you need are included in these books.  Each is available in both print and PDF form, and while the PDFs will only cost you $9.99 each, I'd save up for the hardcovers...you'll want them for use at the table. Electronic devices can be terribly distracting.

The other (optional) two books I suggest purchasing are:

The Fiend Folio

The Monster Manual II

These additional tomes are bestiaries, like the Monster Manual, providing additional monsters for your campaign, many of which are strange, horrific, or extra-planar in nature. The MMII, especially, contains many monsters first presented in "classic" TSR adventure modules, as well as a number of "normal sized" critters (when you want stats for a rattlesnake instead of a GIANT rattlesnake). Both of these books provide expanded random encounter tables that include the new inventory, and the MMII has several additional tables (including expanded ability scores) which render the need for books like Deities & Demigods/Legends & Lore obsolete.

[the procedure given for the dracolisk's gaze attack in MMII can also be useful for other gaze attack monsters, like the medusa and basilisk of the original Monster Manual]

There are many other books published for AD&D, including the aforementioned DDG/LL (the same book, just published twice under different titles), the Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, the Manual of the Planes, the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, and the Wilderness Survival Guide. None of these are necessary to play AD&D, most have few new rules or procedures, and many of these new rules/procedures are decidedly detrimental/harmful to the game if adopted. When preparing to run your AD&D game, I would steer well clear of these, only picking them up later as curiosities to (occasionally) mine for idea.

Of the "core books," you should begin with the PHB. It describes the basics of character creation and provides all the information a player might need to know. I mean that quite literally. You will not find (for example) combat tables or saving throw matrices in the PHB, but in actual play these target numbers are generally given by the Dungeon Master. On the other hand, players need to be aware of their own skill percentages (for thieves) or casting times (for spell users) in order to make informed choices regarding actions...these you WILL find in the PHB, along with descriptions of each class and race's capabilities.

Read the PHB up to the beginning of the magic section (page 43), and then read the introduction to each of the four spell casting types (cleric, druid, magic-user, and illusionist). Glance through the various spells, but do not bother reading them in total at this point...instead skip to the section SPELL CASTING (on page 100) and continue from there, all the way to the appendices. Pay especial note to the SUCCESSFUL ADVENTURES section (pages 107-109) which is essential reading for all perspective players and which negates the need for any so-called "Session Zero."

There are five appendices in the PHB, only three of which are very useful: these would be Appendix I (Psionics), Appendix II (Bards), and Appendix IV (Known Planes of Existence). While these are technically "optional" (it is an individual DM's purview whether or not they are acceptable to the game), the AD&D game assumes their presence...many iconic monsters will be lesser threats without Psionics, and if your game lacks interplanar excursions, you might as well be playing Basic D&D. As for bards, I find the class in this form to be a quite entertaining and useful addition to the classes already presented. That being said, all three of these things are best incorporated AFTER your game has been up-and-running for a few months.

Individual spells will be read and studied as needed.

Having absorbed the information in the PHB, you can now begin your study of the DMG, perhaps pausing first to browse the various creatures of the Monster Manual (it doesn't help to read about the challenges of employing a lizard man or the structural damage inflicted by a stone giant if you are unfamiliar with these creatures). You should immediate note several important things about the DMG:

1. The DMG is structured so that its sections parallel the PHB...they are meant to be read side-by-side, in tandem, with the DMG elaborating on the information already presented.
2. The DMG contains an extensive index that is applicable to both the PHB and the DMG (DMG references are always listed first, in boldface). This index will be a lifesaver when it comes to learning the system...and in actual play...until you've become familiar with where all the various bits and bobs are located in the books.
3. The DMG contains a detailed glossary that provides definitions of many of the author's obscure references and abbreviations, not to mention specific game terms. This, too, is an invaluable aid in learning the system.

Much of what you will find in the DMG should feel very similar to the systems you're already familiar with (either from reading the Basic D&D rulebook, or from delving into other editions of the game). Much of the information within the DMG will only become truly useful as your game develops over time: you will not need information on hiring armies, building castles, and traveling to other planes when you first start your AD&D game...and God help your players if you feel the need to break out the disease and parasitic infection charts right from the get-go!

What you WILL need to run your AD&D game are the following:

• a comprehensive view of character creation (pages 11-13). Pick ONE method of generating ability scores (I've found Method I is simplest and yields the best results), and pay attention to height & weight (tables actually given on page 102) and age. You might also want to read Gygax's essay on page 21 to forestall players wanting "odd" characters of the kind found in later editions of D&D
• a full understanding of armor as it relates to encumbrance, movement, and combat (pages 27-28)
• an understanding of TIME in the game (pages 37-38)
• acquisition, recovery, and casting of spells (pages 38-40); as with the PHB, spell explanations (elaborations on certain PHB spells) will be reviewed as needed
• certain dungeon procedures related to sight and hearing (pages 59-60)
• comprehensive understanding of COMBAT procedures (pages 61-82); skip the insanity parts
• comprehensive understanding of EXPERIENCE procedures (pages 84-86); while not explicit in the DMG, I STRONGLY recommend dividing treasure x.p. evenly between surviving party members, as outlined in Moldvay.
• you should read with serious attention Gygax's notes on the CAMPAIGN (pages 86-100). Of special note are his essays on monster placement (pages 90-91), treasure placement (91-93), first dungeon adventure (96), dungeon procedures with regard to traps and doors (97), and the example of play (pages 97-100). 
• a good understanding of how to run NPCs, including monsters, as given in pages 102-105. Pay attention to prices given for NPC spell-casters (103-104), as this will be your guideline for players who want to pay for healing or curse removal.
• a solid understanding of the USE OF MAGIC ITEMS (page 115); please note that this section also contains very important information on energy (level) draining monsters.
• a 100% understanding of how to read the magic item tables that begin on page 121, especially the difference between experience point value and GP sale value (please also review the notes that follow the scroll table, and the asterisked note that follows the rods, staves, and wands table). Each specific section of the magic items gives an overview of its particular category (potions, rings, armor, etc.) and these overviews should be studied and understood. Individual magic item descriptions can be reviewed as needed.

Following this we come to the various appendices of the DMG which, as with the PHB, should be considered mostly optional. Yes, even the wandering monster charts are only guidelines...DMs can (and probably should) create their own random encounter charts based on their personal setting and design; however, these are good places to start.  There are a total of 16 appendices in the DMG (depending on the printing you have...the first printing only included 14, excluding Appendix O and Appendix P). Of these, the ones you will find most immediately useful include:

• Appendix C (random monster encounter charts)...for wandering monster procedures
• Appendix E (alphabetical monster listing)...for experience point value of Monster Manual creatures
• Appendix O (encumbrance of standard items)...the text herein is extremely useful, in addition to the table itself

Everything else is only incidentally helpful and/or useful, with much of it being simply inspirational.  The oft cited Appendix N, for example, provides stories and books that allow one to see the genesis of the various ideas and concepts found in AD&D, but will tell you nothing about how to run the game. For a far better insight into the author's vision (and, in my experience, how the game can look in play) I'd suggest reading Gygax's own novels Greyhawk: Saga of Old City and (more importantly) Greyhawk: Artifact of Evil. Neither fall into the category of "quality literature," but...as stated in the previous post...Dungeons & Dragons is not a 'storytelling' game.

ASC Review: Arena AEmilia

Arena AEmilia (Zed)

B/X for PCs of 4th-6th level

Mm. I was wondering if I'd see one of these.

For my review criteria, you may check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (three page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews short.

Well, now. It seems I must explain what an "adventure" is. 

Strictly speaking, adventuring is the activity that players engage in when they play D&D; Moldvay's (B/X) glossary defines an adventure as "any session where a DM and players meet to play a D&D game." However, the textual description is a bit more specific:

Each game session is called an adventure. An adventure lasts for as long as the players and the DM agree to play. An adventure begins when the party enters a dungeon, and ends when the party has left the dungeon and divided up treasure. An adventure may run for only an hour, or it might fill an entire weekend! The amount of playing time depends on the desires of the players and the DM. Several related adventures (one adventure leading to another, often with the same player characters) is called a campaign.

In the (later) Expert set, the scope of where an adventure takes place is broadened to include the wilderness, defined as all the area outside of the dungeon. And yet, the dungeon is ever the focus of the Dungeons & Dragons game.

A "dungeon" is defined by Moldvay as "a place, underground and often among ruins, where characters adventure." Again the textual description is more broad than that:

It is the DM's job to prepare the setting for each adventure before the game begins. This setting is called a dungeon since most adventures take place in underground caverns or stone rooms beneath old ruins or castles.

Note that Moldvay states MOST adventures take place underground...not all. In the Dungeon Master Information section of the Basic D&D rules, Moldvay provides a "step-by-step guide to creating a dungeon." The second step, DECIDE ON A SETTING, makes clear that not all settings need be underground, as his list of "common settings" include castles, towers, ancient temples, strongholds, and towns. Not every "dungeon" need be a ruin, cavern, or tomb.

However, the setting (where the adventure takes place) is, as stated, the second ("B.") step of creating a dungeon, i.e. creating the place where adventuring will take place during the game. The FIRST ("A.") step is the choosing of a scenario:

A. CHOOSE A SCENARIO

A scenario is a background theme or idea which ties the dungeon together. A scenario will help keep a dungeon from becoming a boring repetition of "open the door, kill the monster, take the treasure." A good scenario always gives the players a reason for adventuring. The DM should also design a dungeon for the levels of characters who will be playing in it. A good scenario will also give the DM a reason for choosing specific monsters and treasures to put in the dungeon.

This, I would argue, is the HEART of adventure design. Without a scenario, there is little reason to adventure...D&D simply becomes a game of rolling dice until resources are expended or boredom overtakes us. The scenario provides context for adventuring; it helps focus the players and promotes active engagement with the setting (i.e. "the dungeon") where the adventuring is taking place. Readers might note that this paragraph on scenario choice provides at least part (if not most) of my judging criteria. 

SO...let's look at this Arena AEmilia. It provides a setting...a place. The place is stocked mostly with NPC characters, though there are a few beasties in animal pens. The NPCs are given some personality notes. The setting has a map. There is treasure listed...in exceptionally poor amounts for adventurers of levels 4th-6th.

But there is no scenario presented. 

There is no reason for PCs to go here. There is no adventure. There is an arena. There are people. There are shiny silver coins in their purses. I suppose you can kick open doors and stab people for their purses of silver coins, but I'd like to think we've long since evolved past that type of play. This is D&D, not Greg Costikyan's Violence RPG.

This is not an adventure. It receives the coveted zero stars (out of five) award.

Metagaming & Myopia

From the D&D Basic set, Sample Expedition (Moldvay, page B59):

Morgan: "...I'll search through the rags. Anything that looks like a cloak or boots?"

DM: "...Morgan, you do find a pair of old boots, but nothing like a cloak."

Morgan: "Fred will dump the silver and look for hidden compartments in the box. I'll try on the boots to see if I move silently -- we could use a pair of elven boots!"

DM: "...Morgan seems to be moving very quietly."

Morgan: "GREAT!"

The game of Dungeons & Dragons is a game. I know I've written that many times before; I know that other people have expounded on this idea many times before. It's not a new statement.

And yet, folks are constantly forgetting the fact.

"Your character wouldn't know that!" How many times has this phrase (or a variation of it) been uttered at the gaming table. How many times have DMs (or "helpful" PCs) policed would-be actions in the name of preventing a player from metagaming?

Per Ye Old Wikipedia, "metagaming" (i.e. approaching a game from outside the normal rule structure of the game in question) as applied to role-playing games

...often refers to having an in-game character act on knowledge that the player has access to but the character should not. For example, tricking Medusa to stare at a mirror when the character has never heard of Medusa and would not be aware of her petrifying stare.

In the above example from Moldvay's Basic, the Morgan's player is metagaming: she (the player) realizes there is a magic item called elven boots. She understands she is playing a game where players find magical treasures in dungeons. When she discovers an old pair of boots in a locked chest, she tries them to see if they function like the magical item...she uses player knowledge to inform and direct her character's action. Same as the player trying to trick Medusa into viewing her own reflected gaze.

Metagaming in roleplaying games is, generally, frowned upon. I was reminded of that recently when listening to the excellent first episode of the The Classic Adventure Gaming Podcast...a bunch of FAGs ("fantasy adventure gamers") discussing the fundamentals of fantasy adventure gaming, i.e. old edition D&D gaming.  These worthies bemoaned attempts to curtail metagaming as disrupting player agency...a bad thing in their estimation. A good example they cited was the DM disallowing a player from using flaming oil on a troll until AFTER seeing the thing regenerate from wounds sustained. 

As a longtime FAG myself, I found myself in total agreement with these youngsters (pretty sure I'm older than all of them...EOTB only started playing circa '87). But I wanted to consider WHY that is. I may be a cranky geezer, but I'm not so clueless as to believe I'm in the majority opinion here. What's the pushback against metagaming...and why do I find myself taking the opposite stance?

Back to wikipedia (*sigh*) where I find that the dislike of metagaming stems from two main issues:

1. It upsets the suspension of disbelief.
2. It affects game balance.

I'll address the second issue first. Metagaming for advantage has a loooong history, and applies to all sorts of competitive endeavors, not just roleplaying. If an umpire is calling pitches tight, you can draw more walks by making yourself smaller at the plate; if your boss cares more about friendship than performance when it comes promotion time, you go out of your way to be a "buddy." 

Gaming the system in this manner is certainly a form of cheating, but whether it is perceived as such is a matter of degree. Stealing signs in baseball wasn't illegal until 2017...and only then became illegal to use electronic devices to aid in sign stealing. Spreading rumors to your boss about a rival employee (in order to raise the boss's comparative estimation of yourself) would definitely be underhanded behavior.

But in a game like Dungeons & Dragons...a cooperative game of survival...what's the issue?  So what if the players know they need fire to defeat the troll? Oil, torches, fireballs...these are finite resources. The DM's ability to apply challenge (create monsters, etc.) is infinite. Why would a DM sweat players finding ways to circumvent challenge? Win or lose, the DM is going to responsible for creating NEW challenges anyway (in an on-going campaign). 

"Okay, JB, sure...but what about breaking the game? What about players that use the rules to their advantage such that there's no challenge AT ALL, EVER, EVER AGAIN?!"  Um...not sure what game you're playing there, pal. I guess I'd suggest you need to play something more robust...like 1st edition AD&D. In all my years of playing, I've never seen someone 'break' the system...and I've seen some pretty munchkin-y attempts.  The game scales amazingly well.

If the players aren't challenged by the game, it's the fault of the Dungeon Master, not "the meta."

So, let's look at the other complaint: upsetting the suspension of disbelief. Breaking the "immersion." Throwing sand in the well-oiled gears of the "role-playing" machine.

Mm.

D&D is a fantasy adventure game, i.e. a game that allows one to experience fantasy adventures. I know it is a "role-playing" game, but the role-playing is not the point of play...it is the medium through which the "play" gets done. You have a role to play. You are the fighter. Or the cleric. Or the All-Powerful Dungeon Maestro (trademark pending). What you are allowed to do in the game is based on the role you are playing. If you're a fighter, you don't get to turn undead or cast spells. If you are a player character, you don't get to design the dungeon. Got it?

"Immersion" (which I suppose could be loosely defined as "losing oneself in imagined escapist fantasy") DOES occur in the process of playing D&D, and for many participants...perhaps most participants...it is the main draw and attraction of the hobby. 

[I can tell you that my wife strongly dislikes playing RPGs because she is incredibly uncomfortable with the immersion experience: for her, it is NOT fun...rather it is disconcerting]

But in my experience, immersion does not come as the result of playing a role, or a character, or attending to one's background, backstory, character arc, etc.  Instead, immersion ONLY comes from being directly engaged with the gameplay at the table. That requires interest in the material and pressure applied by the circumstances of the game, as facilitated by both the DM and the system mechanics.

Now, I understand there are LOTS of human beings out there who don't give a rip about armor-clad, sword-swinging elves confronting slimy monsters in underground caves while looking for gold and jewels. I get that! Just like there are LOTS of people (like me) who care absolutely zero about whether or not they can put a round rubber ball through a netted hoop 10' off the ground. Different strokes for different folks. Hard to be engaged in a game whose premise you're just not into.

But it's the play of the game you are interested in that creates the immersive experience, the time loss where you look up and say "we've been playing for HOW long?"  You might get a kick out of pretending (internally or externally) that you are Michael Jordan, LeBron James, etc., but it's the action of playing basketball that draws you in, not the play-acting on the court. Likewise, I might enjoy putting on an accent and referring to myself as Wendell the Wondrous Wizard at the game table...but ACTING like an imaginary person is NOT the game. Confronting the challenge of the fantasy adventure at hand is the game.

Metagaming, then, does not discourage immersion...and, in many cases, can lead to deeper immersion as it allows players to more actively engage with the material at hand:

"Oh My God: a TROLL? We need fire to kill these guys!" "Who has the oil?" "I only have two flasks left and we're going to need the lantern to get out of the dungeon!" "I still have a light spell left." "Okay, we can risk it...see, this is why you save the fireball spell!"

D&D is a game. It is not a film, not a story. It does not require suspension of disbelief, because the immersion that occurs does not come (as with a film) from sitting down and passively absorbing the story that is fed through our senses. The immersion comes from participation and active engagement...as with any game.

No DM should worry about metagaming. Just worry about building the world...the game parts, run correctly, will take care of themselves. 

: )

Beating Up...er, Beefing Up Ravenloft

Was not intending to write a post today (extremely busy today), but hot on the heels of yesterday's post, I started going through Ravenloft to make it a playable, B/X one-shot. 

Oh, boy, is it awful.

And I feel a little bad writing that after giving it some (faint) praise in my prior analysis, specifically I wrote:

There is no way in hell I would ever rank Ravenloft "the second greatest adventure module of all time." I wouldn't even call it the second greatest adventure module written by the Hickmans! But it's not terrible...it's pretty great as a light-hearted one-off played for a spooky theme night. 

Perhaps I wrote that in one of my "come to Jesus" moments of trying to see things in as positive a light as possible. Because it IS terrible...back to front. It's not ALL terrible, but much of its individual parts (and the sum of its whole) is pretty bad.

At least from the perspective of D&D adventure design.

[before I dive any farther, understand there'll be *spoilers* and I will be writing this from a B/X orientation as there is substantial evidence to suggest that the original adventure was written with OD&D as the designers' frame of reference...for an "AD&D" adaptation of an adventure penned in '77, it shows quite a few missteps and misunderstandings of basic PHB/DMG/MM systems. B/X being largely based on OD&D+Greyhawk, I'm fine with using a more lenient view based on its systems]

Let's look at some of the raw data:

Total Number Encountered Areas: 128

Total Monsters Encounters: 25

Total Encounters with Treasure: 16

This does not include Strahd or the random artifacts (the Sunsword, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, the Tome of Strahd)...none of which have any monetary (x.p.) value...that will be encountered within the castle. 

That's a lot of nothing. Mmm...scratch that. It's a lot of empty padding. Every encounter area has a read-aloud bit of boxed text that will (presumably) help "set the mood" for an atmospheric dungeon crawl. Assuming your players don't get bored and start punching their DM. Even making a list of emptyrooms that had something INTERESTING in them (creaky stairs, hanging skeletons, bronze doors, a bathtub, etc.), I still find upwards of 45 numbered areas that have NOTHING WITH ANY INTERACTION AT ALL. And, I'm not counting the double "nothing" entries as multiples (for example there are two separate encounter areas marked K12 and K13 on the main floor, both with zero going on, but I'm counting those as "2" not "4" despite the potential for a party encountering the same useless box text twice).

Remember your Moldvay instructions on dungeon stocking? Here's a quick refresher: after placing special monsters and treasures in appropriate rooms (for I6, this would include Strahd and the aforementioned artifacts), the ratio should be roughly:

• one-third monsters (half with treasure)
• one-sixth traps (one-third with treasure)
• one-sixth special (one-sixth with treasure)
• one-third "empty" (one-sixth with treasure)

With 128 numbered encounters, I'd be expecting more than 40 areas with monsters (and a similar number with some type of treasure). But maybe such wasn't wanted because of the scope of the adventure (as discussed, meant to completed in a single evening's play). In which case the adventure site may simply be too large for its intended purpose?

Let's work backwards for a moment. Throw out the living tower and guardian portrait (both of which might be considered "traps" or "specials" despite having monster stats being countered with combat), and we've got 23 monsters. Still probably too many for a single evening's play, but let's go with it for the nonce. That would indicate some 69 encounter areas. Throwing out the nothing descriptions of corridors and stairways (i.e. the 45 worthless entries listed above) gets you down to 83. Remove the outer courtyard from the encounter areas (are PCs really going to explore the garden?) and you're down to 76. Toss the closets, smokestacks, slippery roofs, creaky stairs, and "mechanism" rooms (or incorporate them as part of existing encounter areas) and we're down to some 68ish, which would be just about right. Heck, I could probably shave more off (and probably will) but as I said I'm running low on time today. And, anyway, looking at the scale of a number of medieval castles, it's not terribly off, except for its height: the tallest castle tower in the world is 55m (about 180'), and Ravenloft has three that top that (190', 260', and 360'). 

Treasure is awful. A bag of coins here, a coffer of coins there, a scattering of coins under the accountant's paperwork, or a crypt with "three pieces of jewelry valued at 5,000g.p." The magical Icon of Ravenloft in the castle chapel (area K15) is described as "a small statue;" that's it. Statue of what? Doesn't say. The box text tells players that a piercing shaft of light "falls directly on a small statue." The DM text tells us "the small statue is the Icon of Ravenloft." It is carved from "purest silver" (no value given). "It is 12 inches tall and 6 inches across." Gar. Bage.

I already wrote that the total treasure amounts to a bit more than 120,000g.p. total, but I was including the witch's spell book in that total (about 47K worth of spells for the AD&D game). For OD&D or B/X this wouldn't be worth anything and the total monetary value found is very, very low. Too low to justify PCs (of the requisite levels) exploring the cavernous emptiness that is vampire Strahd's castle. And nothing about the stuff here is tempting in any way...it's placement is just an afterthought. 'Oh, here's a bag of platinum coins sitting under a chair on a balcony." Um...is this asking us to risk anything? Is it rewarding PCs for taking the time to sit down? What the hell is this?

The monsters are crappy; here's the list:

4 small (18hp) red dragons that are sometimes statues

8 gargoyles that are sometimes statues

2 "Strahd" zombies (4HD, turn as mummies)

1 vampire "maid" scrubbing floors

2 wraiths

5 giant spiders

3 black cat "familiars"

7 "witches" (2 HD magic-users)

3 normal zombies

10 skeletons

1 shadow demon (immediately attacks)

1 werewolf (befriends and betrays party)

6 "Strahd" zombies

2 iron golems (!!!)

1 ghost (jack-in-the-box)

1 spectre (jack-in-the-box)

15 wights (jack-in-the-box)

1 vampire "wife" (jack-in-the-box)

1 banshee (jack-in-the-box)

3 huge spiders

1 trapper (12 HD)

3 hell hounds

1 nightmare

[a "jack-in-the-box" monster is one that jumps out after the party pops the lid off a crypt. There's a bunch of these in the catacombs]

This is...uh...not great stuff, and it's all over the board. Huge spiders? Black cats? Skeletons? Waaay too weak for the expected character levels. And yet iron golems, ghosts, and banshees are far too powerful. I won't even go into the wandering monsters, but they are fairly ridiculous...in addition to being rather bland.

All right, I really have to go now (I'm actually 30 minutes past were I expected to cut off). I apologize for the bashing of a beloved favorite adventure of many, many folks. I still give a lot of credit to the authors for writing this when they were just kids (and creating a whole franchise from a movie Dracula knock-off)...that's, frankly, amazing. But I6: Ravenloft is bad. Really bad. 

I have my work cut out for me.

He's laughing at me. I can tell.

Killing Gods, Part 4

All right…that’s a long enough break since my last post on “killing gods.” More than enough. 

As a precursor, I need a moment to talk about the relationship between clerics and deities; I realize this will seem yet another digression, but it’s pertinent to the conversation. You see, this whole subject came up because I was unsatisfied with the way I feel (many) adventure designs of recent years have been unreasonable with their treatment of gods…but it’s quite possible that this trend (and my preferences) come in part from learning different styles of play. 

I will elaborate.

I’ve written before about the shift in perspective of What Exactly A Cleric Is that came about in 1983 with the publication of the Mentzer version of Basic. As I’ve recounted (often enough) this was NOT the brand of D&D by which I learned the game. The clerics in my first campaign (which I ran up till circa 1988) didn’t receive their spells from “the strength of their beliefs.” No. Un-uh. Spells come from the gods they worship…they are divine favors, pure and simple, miracles granted by higher powers. 

This is, of course, EXPLICIT in the text. The 1981 Moldvay Basic set described it thusly:

Since clerical spalls are divinely given, they do not have to be studied; the cleric need only rest and pray for them.

"Divinely given" is the key phrase here. I can understand if there is some confusion caused by the actual description of the cleric class in Moldvay; its text ("...they are trained in fighting and casting spells. As a cleric advances in level, he or she is granted the use of more and more spells...") could be interpreted as meaning that their magic is separate from their deity, that magical training is something only those who are initiated into the cult's higher secrets are taught. But unless Moldvay is speaking metaphorically (I don't think he is), the phrase divinely given in the Spell section makes clear just who is "granting" access to clerical magic...not higher level priests and patriarchs, but the god or goddess whom the cleric serves.

And Gygax is even more clear in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:

It is well known to all experienced players that clerics, unlike magic-users, have their spells bestowed upon them by their respective deities.

The DMG text (page 38) goes on for more than half a page detailing exactly how clerics receive their magic directly from their gods, either by being divinely empowered (1st and 2nd level spells), bestowed upon them through intermediaries (saints, angels, demigods, etc. for 3rd through 5th level spells), or granted by direct communication with the deity itself (6th and 7th level spells). It is not a cleric's "inner strength," "strong beliefs," or "mystical training" that allows the character to create miracles...it is the god itself. A cleric with no god receives no magic. Period.

As said, Mentzer changes this in his 1983 Basic rulebook...a book I never owned until the 2000s, and certainly not the book I learned to play with. But a subtle shift in thinking is evident in TSR's publications as early as 1982. I refer here to two classic modules published that year: N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God and B4: The Lost City. I imagine both modules might be held up as inspirations for the works of recent designers I cited earlier, examples of "sword & sorcery" style adventures featuring "godlike beings" who are nothing more than actual (non-divine) monsters needing to be killed...respectively a spirit naga named Explictica Defilus and the tentacled monstrosity known as Zargon. These false gods, whether through longevity and fear or powerful mind control, have created cults of worship around themselves, followers who hold them in awe and carry out their "divine will, much as one might expect of followers duped by a charlatan.

And yet both modules include actual cleric followers of these monsters...clerics with the ability to access clerical magic. N1 has multiple clerics of Explictica using spells of up to 4th level (7th level clerics). B4 features Darius, a 6th cleric (also with access to spells up to 4th level) of the "cult of Zargon" as one of the Big Bads of the adventure. None of these characters make sense under the rules of the game; none of these characters should have ANY spells whatsoever.

Contrast this with the backstory found in the 1980 module C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan:

Eventually a new Archon mounted the throne in Pontylver, one who claimed [lawful neutral] Alia as her patron. The Temple of the Correct and Unalterable Way grew in followers and prestige, and as time passed, Myrrha noticed that her peers and superiors were becoming increasingly arrogant and arbitrary....Myrrha saw they were falling into the heresy of believing that law is concentrated in the individual and not the community. Investigating, she discovered a well-kept secret: many members of the ecclesiarchy were no longer able to cast high-level spells, thus proving their estrangement from their deity!

If N1 was properly designed (that is, written to follow the instructions laid out in the rule books), neither Abramo nor Misha would have access to clerical spells above 2nd level (and maybe not even those) and Gareth Primo would have no magic at all because a spirit naga is not a god and, thus, not capable of granting spells.

That is the game, folks, and I honestly don't think it's "open to interpretation." But...perhaps because of "satanic panic" pressure over the pretending to worship strange gods (see the 1982 Mazes and Monsters where Tom Hanks plays a batshit-crazy cleric)...TSR started to move away from its own rules. Started to say, hey, being a cleric isn't really about worshipping a god, it's about your character's training and "strong beliefs" manifesting powers...you're just a magic-user in priest's clothing and it doesn't matter whether you're worshipping the One True God or some tentacled space slug that crashed on the planet a thousand years ago. We aren't teaching children about the worship of strange pagan gods...heavens, no! There is no god except God, these are just strangely deluded fantasy priests. Pay no attention!

And you see that carried all the way down to today's designers. From Jason Sholtis's magnificent Operation Unfathomable:

...clerics operate under the delusion that their deities actually exist (they do not!). In truth, clerics are merely a distinct variety of magic-user, devoted to one or more of the ten thousand Gods of Order. Clerics manipulate chaos to achieve their results through the mental constructs of their religious practices, rather than rote memorization of arcane mummery.

From 2017's Lamentations of the Flame Princess (James Raggi):

Cleric magic is divinely inspired, and is granted to Clerics through prayer. Whether these powers are granted to Clerics by higher powers, if these higher powers are what the Cleric believes them to be, or if all Cleric spells are merely ritualized forms of sympathetic magic, are all subjects frequently debated...

I would include the 2018 adventure The Red Prophet Rises in this mix of confusion, in which a heretical priest (Khazra), mistakenly worshipping an ancient vampiric entity, still (inexplicably) retains access to the spells of a 6th level cleric of "the Bull God." Why? Is the Obelisk that Thirsts a divine entity? No. Does it serve the Bull God? No. One would think spells would be withheld from the priest, if only to inform him of his delusional apostasy.  Guy uses a sword in combat anyway.

These authors (and others) seem to have been influenced somewhat by these later (post-1982) influences when it comes to explaining the relationship between clerics and their gods. Which is to say, there is little relationship, if any. Any failure of clerical magic can simply be attributed to the cleric losing faith in herself: it is not the deity that withholds magic, but the cleric's own psychological barriers to accessing a purely internal mechanism. 

I'm not a big fan of that interpretation. It doesn't jibe with the D&D I learned to play. It is not the AD&D of Gygax; it runs counter to the DMG and the information found in Deities & Demigods. And while I'll be the first to admit to being a stodgy, groggy, grumpy old man when it comes to my D&D, I'd even say that it's not very "Sword & Sorcery," either...despite what (many of) these authors hope to emulate.

Because as discussed in my first post on the subject, much of D&D is inspired by fantasy fiction of the pulp variety...and in pulp fantasy you see PLENTY of deluded cultists following charlatans and false gods, but they aren't getting any magical powers by doing so. False priests don't get spells: they use tricks and psychoactive powders or rule through fear and tradition and superstition. Real magic linked to worship is generally called sorcery and rightly so, as it is linked to the favors granted by demonic entities...but such infernal divinities are still "divine," supernatural and extra-dimensional. Only divinities grant divine powers: when Jagreen Lern or Elric conjure in the names of their chaos gods, THEN magical stuff happens. 

But maybe I need to rein in a bit and bring this all back around to the subject at hand ("killing gods"). There is, I think, a certain prevalence or attitude or orientation in the Old School Role-playing circles that has wandered far afield from the game as it was originally envisioned. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong. But here's how I see it:

• As Mike Mornard writes, the original designers "made up some shit they thought would be fun." It involved exploring strange environs, finding treasure, building worlds. It was inspired and influenced by adventure fiction, much of it "fantasy" in nature.
• As a game, D&D has a system; it has rules. It models something (a fantasy world of adventure) and the rules are applied to the thing it models (the fantasy world of adventure) up to and including things like "how/why a cleric gets spells" and "how many hit points a god like Zeus might have."
• That divine architect that Elric is always searching for? The supreme being that orders the lives of even the gods of his world? D&D has that, too: it's called the Dungeon Master. And just like Elric's "supreme being" (who would be Michael Moorcock...duh), the DM is not a creature to be encountered by the protagonists (in D&D's case, the player characters). The DM creates the world but is not OF the world. What will be encountered are game constructs, up to and including the gods that inhabit the game world.
• As a constructed fantasy world D&D has a cosmology. As a game that models a fantasy world, that cosmology can be exactly and minutely defined...right down to just how much damage Thor can do with a hammer blow, or how many greater devils inhabit the 3rd layer of the Nine Hells...should such info ever become necessary for play.
• The game (D&D) has parameters (structure) of play. It has assumptions and expectations of how play resolves.  These expectations of play resolution are determined by 1) the rules, 2) the way the rules model the world, and 3) the fiction that inspires the game...in that order. Don't (for example) tell me "well, Gandalf used a sword!" The inspiring fiction (#3) comes behind the rules (#1) and the modeled fantasy world (#2).

As originally conceived, Dungeons & Dragons was never about "telling stories." It was about playing a game of exploration and survival (adventure!) in a fantasy game world. However, some folks were quite unimaginative with how they worked within those parameters, creating murder-hobo funhouses of the poorest variety and this caused pushback in the form of front-loaded drama. We shall not wait for a story to emerge from our adventures! We shall make sure there is MEANING to these characters' (fake) lives!

Combine the success of that front-loaded drama (through company supported publications like Ravenloft and Dragonlance) with an imperative to cut anything perceived as controversial (i.e. impacting the bottom line) from a game now being marketed to children (this being the shift that began circa 1982), and one can readily see the consequences: we don't kill gods. We kill demons. We kill immortal liches. We kill creatures masquerading as gods. We kill surrogates in order to have our high stakes, high drama, emotionally invested play.

Because, originally, emotional investment in a character was mainly found in long-running (i.e high level) characters. And high level characters, by necessity, required greater challenges to stay engaged...tackling gods (modeled as part of the cosmology) and godlike beings (that giant ape from WG6) are a natural evolution of challenge for characters of the highest echelon, because lesser challenges don't cut it anymore. If you want to run a high level campaign, you're going to want to study up your copy of Sailor on the Seas of Fate because that's about "par" when it comes to suitable challenges. Good old Demogorgon has been a part of the D&D tapestry since 1976...and for good reason. 

[hell, I used to fight Demogorgon...on the playground...waaaay back before I ever laid eyes on ANY D&D book. Before I even opened my first box of the Dungeon! board game, even]

Not low level characters (I'm guessing).

Outside of WotC's latest-greatest editions, D&D designers have (mostly) moved away from front-loaded drama and railroad story arcs, but they've still passed some sort of threshold from which they can't seem to return. They want high stakes, high challenge, high weirdness in their adventure...but they don't want high level player characters. They want their players to continue playing "small ball" forever after, retiring (I suppose) should they ever, somehow, reach 8th or 10th level of play. "Too superheroic," is the refrain I hear. "The game is no fun after around 5th (or 6th or 7th) level."

Bull. Crap. But that discussion is for another post.

Throwing high level challenges (like godlings) into low level adventures is an attempt by designers to have their cake and eat it, too. It's an attempt to inject Elric-levels of amazeballs fantasy into the lives of grubby, Warhammer Fantasy-level adventurers in order to draw out low-level play while still keeping long-since-jaded players engaged with the game in front of them. Is that as bad as playing pre-generated snowflakes traveling the Dragonlance railroad? Absolutely not. But it's got to be grating after a while. It would certainly bug the shit out of me.

All right, that's it. I lied about this being the concluding post...just had too much more to say. The NEXT post will definitely be the conclusion to this series. 

Young Grognards

Maybe that should say, Young Groglings?

Yesterday, my son ran his first AD&D game for his friends (also aged 10) via a Zoom meeting. He had exactly two players (Evan and Caroline) who played a human ranger and a half-elf assassin, respectively.

[I later asked him about the potential alignment conflicts from such a pair to which he replied that he wasn't using alignment in his game...]

Per my suggestion, he is running the Tower of Zenopus from the back of the Holmes Basic book. For a first time adventure, Zenopus makes an excellent introduction to the game, offers multiple types of interaction with the game mechanics, and is easily converted to the AD&D system. 

[it is also an adventure my son has experienced first-hand (as a player) and is fairly short to read and prep]

Besides the suggestion (and providing the books), I did nothing but set-up the Zoom meeting for the kids...that is to say, I did not interfere with the experience. Diego has already been running his Star Wars game at school for the last few weeks (he's up to 7 or 8 players), so there's no reason for me to butt in and undermine his authority. It's his game, not mine. 

And they all had fun (of course), and want to meet on Thursday (tomorrow) rather than waiting till next Tuesday (of course)...because it's D&D and it's awesome (duh).

[some notes about their game: they encountered the ghouls and were able to survive. Only the ranger was hit, but he managed to make his save versus paralysis. Treasure was discovered, tunnels explored, and I believe they just finished (or are in the middle of combatting) a skeleton. They spent the first part of the session rolling characters; all the children have their own dice (provided by my son). He's using all the AD&D rules he can remember...yes, including weapon length and speed factor, etc...and is keeping careful track of time and light sources and wandering monsters and all that jazz. The main difference...besides dropping alignment...is that he is using Alexis Smolensk's experience system, which has been standard in our house since May 2019. It necessitates tracking damage inflicted and received, but that's still a lot easier than it sounds (as even a ten year old Dungeon Master can manage it)]

My kid's rulebook.

Prior to the appointed game time I did take the time to reach out to the kids' parents (via email) to explain a bit about what was going on and assuage any concerns they might have...there is still, to this day, left over impressions of negativity surrounding Dungeons & Dragons among folks who grew up in the 1980s. never played, and yet heard rumors the game was "Satanic." And, of course, our kids go to a Catholic school (though, of course, so did I and all my friends and our teachers/parents never had an issue). There were, it turned out, no worries at all, though both child's parents thanked me for taking the time to reach out to them.

Evan's mom wrote this to me as well (after the kids' game):

Thanks for giving Evan dice and letting him borrow your books too! He actually received a D&D starter kit for Xmas but Chris was overwhelmed and I didn't even try to learn, so it's great that Diego is teaching him how to play.

This...this is so much of what is wrong with the hobby as it is being marketed by its current Keepers of the Flame. Hey, does anyone remember that old red book, penned by Tom Moldvay that said "Ages 10 and Up" right on the cover? I was able to teach myself AND my ten year old friends how to play D&D just using that book. Hell, the thing even came in a box with dice and an adventure to boot!

But now, even the "Starter" set is too much for adults (let alone kids) to be bothered to learn. And the damned thing doesn't even come with dice.

And I've written about this before...multiple times...at least since 2015. These are not stupid people; they are actually very smart, educated professionals. Creative professionals even. Ones with fairly open minds...

*sigh* I will stop beating this dead horse.

ANYway...my son ran a game of AD&D for his friends, without supervision. They enjoyed it, they want to do it again. The culmination of a decade of waiting for my child to take his first step into his father's world.

I am proud.

Not as proud, perhaps, of the kids' athletic accomplishments - scoring goals, hitting fastballs, recording strikeouts - as these are things I was never able to do in my youth (still not sure where he gets it from). And, also, it is pride tempered with knowledge that the journey is long and he has only just begun. But still...I feel proud. 

And content in a way also. Even should he turn away from D&D or transition to a different form of the game (6th edition? 7th?) or even a different game altogether...at least, at least he has the knowledge now. The acquired experience of knowing "Hey, I can do this. It's fun, people enjoy it, and I can even teach it if necessary." I have passed on what I know...he, in turn, can develop it further (delving deep into the game even as I have), or even pass it on to his friends or his own children some day. I have assured that my love of gaming will not die with me.

Legacy. I think I've written about that before, too. 

Happy Wednesday, y'all. I have some dishes to clean up from last night and then I'm going to start combing through these Dragonlance modules to make my notes. Busy-busy!

: )

On (the Game of) Writing Adventures

A few weeks back Dave and Dan had another good episode discussing the "role" of the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons...what are the responsibilities of the DM, what are the expectations placed on the DM, and why they themselves enjoy running games. While I don't think their dialogue does much to put the topic to bed, the conversation raises some interesting "thinking points" for consideration.

One concept they reach, that I don't think unreasonable, is that while there clearly seems to be a number of responsibilities (hats worn) by a DM, many DMs (including themselves) have particular responsibilities they prefer more than others. To me, this is not unlike a player saying that the thrill of combat, or the solving of puzzles, or the interaction with NPCs is their preferred portion of exploring the imaginary environment of a campaign. Clearly, the majority of us play D&D because we enjoy what it offers, but some aspects of it offer more "juice" than others.

For me, MY particular preference is for designing and running adventures. Campaign or world building is actually a bit of a slog for me...it's a means to an end, that end being the parameters for a particular adventure. And yet, I would guess I am far away from the current norm of adventure design: I have little concern for plot or story arc or the design and writing of "interesting characters" (NPCs). I enjoy creating situations and scenarios for exploration and I do so in a formulaic fashion designed around the D&D system...based on whichever edition I happen to be using at the time. 

I outlined my basic design formula waaaay back in 2015 (about four years ago). It's the method I continue to use, more or less, and the method I am currently using to repurpose the 5E adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. It's a system based mainly on treasure allocation compared to the expected level of player characters participating in the adventure, mixed in the proper proportions of monster-obstacle-rest that I have found fully functional for pacing in actual play.

Has anyone here ever taken a screenwriting class? For those who haven't (but who are interested in the process), I'd recommend Syd Field's Screenplay as the non-nonsense instructional work on how to write a solid film script. Films we watch may have more (or less) interesting stories than others, they may have more (or less) developed characters, they may have better (or worse) dialogue, but nearly all of them follow the exact same formula when it comes to writing them. Good, bad, or meh. There are reasons films tend to be the same length (120 minutes, or 90 for those aimed at younger audiences with shorter attention spans). The plot points, their pacing, are all based on standards established over the many decades of the film industry. 

For me, the fun and enjoyment of adventure design is found working within the formula that I choose to use (as outlined, in the main, by Tom Moldvay). The adventure in D&D is, after all, only a means to an end itself:

- It delivers the experience of D&D to the players.

- It provides the method (through reward) by which players advance, opening additional opportunities (i.e. content) for play.

Dragon of Icespire Peak, despite some interesting and creative ideas, is an extremely simplistic and (for my money) poor design hindered by the 5E's variant system of advancement...in this case, the "milestone" system of simply awarding a level of advancement upon successful quest completion.

[fun side note: I developed an alternate system of level advancement also using the term "milestones" long before 5E was published. This was back in 2010 and was inspired in part by Saga Star Wars's "destiny points" to represent a more streamlined bonus. Since my "B/X Star Wars" game (later re-named "Kloane War Knights") has yet to be published, its original format has not yet seen the light of day (other than this blog), but you can see the same application in my Five Ancient Kingdoms, copyright 2013...a year before 5E was published. Pay me, WotC!]

[yes, 4E had a "milestone" rule procedure; it was not related to the awarding of experience/levels]

ANYway...Dragon of Icespire Peak divides its various adventure scenarios (called "quests") into the following types: starting quests, follow-up quests (divided into two tiers), and the main dragon quest/fight. Characters are awarded one level for each starter quest up until 3rd level, one level for every two follow-up quests (presumably up to 6th), and then one more level for defeating the dragon. The adventure states that characters "should be 6th level" by the end of the adventure (and indeed, the box says it is designed to take characters from levels one to six), but a group of completist players are going to end up being 7th level by the letter of the milestone rules...and I'm not sure I'd buy that.

Here's the treasure yields I'm considering, using the B/X fighter level chart as a baseline (yes, AD&D fighters need more XP starting at level 5, but if you subtract the 10% experience bonus most such PCs would expect to have, it amounts to the same numbers or less):

Starter Quests: 10,000 g.p. each

Follow-Up Quests (tier 1): 10,000 g.p. each

Follow-Up Quests (tier 2): 20,000 g.p. each

Dragon (main) Quest: 80,000 g.p.

Considering that even a white dragon has treasure type H (average yield: 50,000 g.p.) this should be pretty doable. Icespire Hold has 24 encounter areas total (counting the two H22 areas as "A" and "B"), which works nicely with my formulaic approach:

8 monsters areas (4 have treasure)

4 trap/hazard areas (1 has treasure)

4 "special" areas (1 has treasure)

9 empty areas (1 has treasure)

With perhaps 1 "extra" treasure area. 

Rough treasure yields for the main quest will thus be:

40,000 g.p.

20,000 g.p. 

10,000 g.p.

5,000 g.p.

2,500 g.p.

1,250 g.p.

1,250 g.p. (or 625 g.p. x2)

These are parameters I'm happy to work with; more, I'm excited to work with them. Even using a formulaic system, I find it a cool challenge to see what I can come up with, working within self-imposed design limitations. I'm not concerned with the XP yield of monsters, as combat/killing monsters isn't a requirement of the D&D editions I run. That XP is incidental, and will (hopefully) make up the difference for treasure the party misses; I never expect PCs to find every last scrap of loot in an adventure site. As I'll be taking the same approach with every "quest" in the book, there will be more than enough potential XP (found treasure) to advance the PCs...assuming they play well enough to survive and find said treasure. 

I can understand if this seems like a "soulless" approach to adventure design, but I find it to be the opposite. In practice, I've discovered that taking care of the mechanical aspect of the award system up front provides me the freedom to run adventures to the best of my ability, managing the minutia, playing the NPC adversaries (and allies), creating the experience (through pacing and narration) in the players' minds that allows them to enjoy playing D&D. Involved story arcs and fancy plot devices are paltry in comparison.

W is for White Dragons

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots. I got behind by a couple days because of the Easter weekend, but I'm trying to catch up as quickly as possible]

W is for White Dragons. Well, white drakes, actually.

Okay, I'm just going to have to blaze through these last four. Apologies in advance.

I've written a bit about adventure module B3: Palace of the Silver Princess in a prior post, most of which was less than complimentary. Fine, sorry. While the adventure's not great, there's some background stuff in Moldvay's rewrite of the Jean Wells original version, that's rather interesting, such as:

Arik of the Hundred Eyes: an ancient, evil being worshipped as a god (there's a chaotic cleric in the module trying to break him out of his mystic prison).

Eyes of Arik: giant, magic rubies of uncertain powers, said to be the eyes of Arik.

Faerie: a "highly magical realm" inside which "time has little meaning." Faerie is a land of peace, harmony, and eternal happiness, populated by The Protectors (translucent green elf-like beings) and "certain High Elves" (whatever that means).

Knights of the White Drakes: a group of fighters that ride white dragons; both riders and mounts are dedicated to the destruction of evil.

"The Protectors"

Moldvay was writing (rather, re-writing) in 1981 and his adventure has a lot of what I'd call "B/X flavor;" it has a bunch of coloring outside the lines, draws heavily from pulp, and fictional sources, and doesn't attempt to make a whole lot of sense in terms of rules and regulations. Moldvay (author of the B/X Basic book) isn't afraid to take things "off the rails," and even though it's got a higher level of morality and "force" against players than I prefer, it's still neither a railroad, nor the codified vanilla fantasy of later publications.

Moldvay doesn't say anything about where the Valley of Haven is (other than it being a kingdom surrounded by "the Thunder Mountains") but Frank Mentzer's Expert set places it smack-dab in the middle of eastern Karameikos, at the southern end of the Altan Tepes mountains, just north of the eastern forests (home of the Vyalia elves). This he does without explanation and context, which is (I suppose) par for the course in some ways...but even without the geographical inconsistency (no valley, no Thunder Mountains), it's yet another slap in the face of Wells, who included a full map (illustrated by the author) of the region, clearly located northwest of the Principalities of Glantri and, yes, even including the Thunder Mountains. The map is one of several illustrations cut mysteriously from the rewrite, despite a total lack of anything that might be deemed "offensive;" maybe the town of "Dead Mule?"

Anyway, as I said in the earlier post on the subject of B3, I lack the time or inclination to re-write either module at the moment, but if I did, I'd probably remove it entirely from Karameikos, and put it where it's supposed to be (as its background...with a recent faerie disaster...makes absolutely no sense in the timeline of the Grand Duchy). However, I wouldn't mind re-purposing the "Castellan Keep" icon on the map (remember, I want to move the actual Keep on the Borderlands to the Duke's Road Keep) as the stronghold of the Knights of the White Drakes. Because fighters mounted on white dragons is kind of cool (and makes more sense in an area infested by Frost Giants).

Something like this.

Here's the thing about white dragons: in B/X they are NEUTRAL in alignment, neither chaotic, nor evil (as they are in AD&D and subsequent editions). That gives a lot of opportunity for interesting stuff, especially if Knights have zero allegiance to Duke Stefan, the conquering Thyatians, or the indigenous Traladarans. I see them more of an ancient, Druid-like order...and their idea of what constitutes "evil" may be very different from that of "civilized" Archduke. Dressed in antique white scale mail (forged from the carapace of their fallen brethren), the White Drake Brotherhood is half legendary, only venturing forth from their mountain lair when drawn by strange portents and celestial events. Sometimes they bring needed aid to communities threatened by monsters and ravenous humanoids, sometime they bring icy death and destruction to innocent villages who have somehow "upset the natural order."

Interesting that Sir Ellis the Strong (the one Knight detailed in B3) is only a 3rd level fighter...clearly there is something more than Name level status or prowess of arms that are necessary for indoctrination into their Order. Perhaps one must simply brave the giant-infested mountains and find the Knights' secret fortress. Perhaps it is a brotherhood bound by blood ties (and only a relative may heed the call). Perhaps only individuals of the correct psychic thought patterns may bond with their dragon mounts. Who knows...certainly the DM will need to decide on what, if any, road to initiation is available to player characters. However, Sir Ellis himself may be something of an apostate, leaving his fellow knights to marry a fairy princes, ritually blackening his armor to show his self-exile from their glacial stronghold.

All right. X is next.