The Forgotten Magic Items

I realized I should go back and edit a bit of my dungeon creation advice to new DMs or those trying old school style play from newer school style games in TS&R. I should make it clear that there are a whole bunch of magic items, and a few spells, that exist in old school games but not in newer games. Why were they dropped? Because they're really made for helping to explore dungeons, especially megadungeons. And while Gary and Dave knew that they were useful for that, younger designers seem to have not realized their importance. 

I don't blame these younger game designers. When I was a kid, we all thought these powers were lame. We wanted intelligent swords that could heal or teleport you, or wands that cast fireballs and illusions. We didn't realize just how useful these items are! 

If you haven't already guessed, I'm talking about items like the wands of enemy/metal/trap detection, or intelligent sword powers like the above, mineral detection, shifting wall or sloping passage detection, etc. As kids, these seemed like the lamest things. I don't know why, exactly, we never considered that "mineral" detection meant gems*. We'd make jokes about swords that could help you point out the location of the nearest gypsum or limestone. Of course, there could be times when having some non-gem minerals could be handy, too. But as kids, that just seemed lame to us. 

And a potion of treasure finding? Well, the treasure was down there, you just had to keep looking around! Of course, starting with Mentzer and not 1E AD&D, we didn't often hide the treasure in our dungeons. If you beat the monsters, the treasure was there, waiting, like in a video game. Well, not really, it was there all along, just sitting in piles on the floor or in chests, but not hidden behind loose bricks of the fireplace or under twenty barrels of rotten apples. There were some examples of this sort of hidden treasure in Mentzer's sample dungeon Castle Mistamere, but the advice on dungeon creation in the back of the Basic DM Guide didn't really go into that. 

When treasure is hidden or concealed, powers like detect metal or detect minerals or a potion of treasure finding can help find it. Obviously, the powers to detect secret doors or traps help you get to the treasure. But the DM needs to be taught to hide some of that treasure. 

Another reason that my friends and I scoffed at these powers, I think, was that we didn't make megadungeons often. A lot of our dungeons were fairly small. Mentzer's dungeon creation advice, which I just re-read recently, does talk about making dungeons with many levels, but most of the advice seems to be about what I'm terming scenario dungeons. Frank starts you off with a premise for the dungeon, such as "exploring the unknown" or "rescuing prisoners" which for me got me thinking dungeons were sites for a specific adventure or two, and then done.

And even when we did from time to time make a bigger dungeon with multiple levels or a sprawling layout, they weren't campaign tentpole affairs. A lot of the typical powers of intelligent swords are designed to make megadungeon exploration easier (and save on magic-user and cleric spell slots), and repeat trips to the dungeon can make best use of these abilities, by careful mapping, triangulation, and trial-and-error use. 

So, I'm going to edit my advice for GMs new to old school play and make all this explicit...but not as wordy as this blog post. This is to help me get my ideas sorted out before I edit the GM Guidebook draft. I'll explain the purpose of these powers, and that they're only really useful if the GM designs the dungeon in a way that makes them useful, similar to thief skills. 

*In TS&R, I changed the name of this to "Detect Gems" to make it clear.

Back! Gaming! Happy!

I've been avoiding blogging the past week or so, because of the OGL whoop-de-doo. I said my peace earlier about it, and didn't really have more to add. And now, I've got my TS&R campaign started up again, and am working on notes for the next Star Wars d6 adventure (nearly done). My older boy and I also, at the invitation of a friend, started playing a campaign dungeon crawler board game called Swords & Sorcery: Ancient Chronicles. 

I mentioned this game over on BX Blackrazor's comment section, and it spawned a whole post by JB. I may have some thoughts to add to his post later. For now, though, I want to talk about the game itself.

Like many of these campaign style games, it's fairly rules heavy. The basic mechanics are pretty simple and straightforward. There are red and blue dice (d10s). Red are better offense, blue are better defense. For any task, you roll the number of red and/or blue dice indicated, and try to get the right symbols to come up. When to roll, what to roll for, and how the cards (items, abilities, etc.) interact make it complex. 

One really cool thing about the game is the way it runs monsters. After each player takes their turn, they turn over an Encounter card. This card will say to activate certain types of monsters. All monsters are colored by strength tier green - blue - red - purple, and given their primary attack method (Strength, Faith, Magic, Dexterity). The player characters also have these attack methods. So one card might say "Activate all red creatures -or- activate any two creatures." Any red creatures would then take an action, and if there are none, players decide which two creatures in play take actions instead. And each monster has a card with various if/then statements, combined with all their various attacks and defenses. So if a monster activates, we read its card to see which situation applies, and how they act. 

For example, the first two dungeons had a lot of giant spiders. The spider cards (didn't get a picture of that, so going from memory here) have actions for the spiders if there is a hero in the same area, 1 or 2 areas away, or farther than that. And within those, there are if/then conditionals. If a character is in the same area, and it is slowed (webbed up), the spider uses a special attack. If not, it bites then moves 1 area away. If a hero is 1-2 areas away, it shoots a web. If no heroes are within 2 spaces, it moves closer. 

The interaction between the Encounter cards and the various conditionals on the monster cards make the monster actions unpredictable, and emulate a DM running monsters in D&D fairly well. In fact, the monsters in this game are a lot more challenging and unpredictable than most monsters that I run in D&D... I do sometimes get into the bad habit of having monsters just rely on their main attacks once combat starts, unless I'd specifically prepared some interesting tactics for them beforehand. 

Another thing the game does that mimics D&D or other RPGs is that it has a story book. Certain markers get placed on the board, and when characters move onto them, story events happen. It's also a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure style, in that some of the events are different depending on if we're playing the Lawful or Chaotic versions of the heroes (my hero, the Thief or Alchemist, is always Neutral, so can play with either party). Also, some of the events include actual choices like a CYOA book that we can make. It's not quite the same as playing a proper RPG, but I can see why Adam (the host) prefers this sort of game to an RPG.

The premise of the game is that the gods have awakened these five heroes from their immortal slumber to stop an evil threat. Being already dead, death in the game is not the end. You become a ghost, and can rejuvenate at a shrine. The players fail the dungeon if all four are ghosts at the same time. And of course there are soul points that need to be earned during play, which need to be spent to rejuvenate...but they're also needed to level up your character. 

It's a bit of a learning curve, but we're getting better at it as we play. In the first session, we only managed to get through the introductory adventure and the first town phase (shopping, info gathering, gambling...we lost most of our cash there). The second dungeon took us two whole sessions (the picture above is where we stopped at the second session, halfway through the dungeon crawl. The third session, we managed to finish that dungeon. Each session has been 4 or 5 hours of play. It's a bit smoother, though, and probably our next session (next Monday) will go a bit faster than that. 

After we get through the winter break, we'll only be able to play on weekends, though, so that will probably have some conflicts with my D&D game.

______________

In other news, Pat of the original Busan Board Game group is finally leaving Korea soon. As he prepares to leave, he's getting rid of a lot of stuff. He contacted me the other day and asked if I wanted his RPG books. Of course I said yes. So yesterday, I drove over to his apartment and got them. He had the 2E DMG and Monstrous Compendium (original versions, I only had the black reprint versions until now), a few modules and the Ravenloft Masque of the Red Death box set. 

Also, he gave my his 4E books. That collection includes the PHB, PHB2, DMG and MM, plus three modules and some modular dungeon tiles. 

I'd mentioned to Adam that he might dig 4E more than other editions of D&D, so the books may end up with him in the end. For now though, I'm wondering if I'd like to give them another try, running the game more like this S&S board game than a proper RPG campaign. I think that's what 4E was really designed to do, after all. But I've also got my TS&R campaign, my Star Wars campaign, and I think I'm about ready to take the plunge with a PbP Gamma World game that I've got set up but haven't recruited players for yet. So probably no time for an experiment with 4E.

End of the Year

So it's New Years Eve. We're watching the annual Japanese NYE performance show Kouhaku on NHK, as we usually do. We had sushi for lunch today with my mother-in-law. Did a bit of shopping (new shirts for me and Flynn, books & stationary for Hanna and Steven). Not a bad way to end the year. 

As for the new year, I will NOT be taking part in the Dungeon23 challenge. Not that I've got anything against it. I've just about completed a 300 encounter area 3 level dungeon for my TS&R Jade game. I have about 20 rooms left to key. I don't need another dungeon of similar size in that campaign. 

I will be striving to finalize the GM advice/running the game book for TS&R in the new year. It's the book I really don't need as a reference when running the game, and it's the closest to a rehash of BX/BECMI, or your favorite retroclone anyway, so it's been a struggle to keep interest in it. Also my waffling between making it a bare bones "here are the procedures for dungeons, wilderness, urban, and dominion adventures" and full on "hey, you're new to running RPGs, so here's how to do it" levels of detail. 

A couple of months back I read through what I'd written as GM advice in both Flying Swordsmen and Chanbara. I think there's some solid advice in there. And it seems like there has been some need for something to explain not just basic procedural play, but a bit of game design philosophy for people either new to RPGs or coming to the OSR after having started with newer editions or other games. So I'd like to write the more detailed, full on book, but that's obviously more of a challenge. 

And who am I? That's a big mental stumbling block for me. 

But when I did a test of a bare bones book, it seemed so incomplete. 

Obviously, it will end up somewhere in the middle. 

I just need more free time. Actually, I have the time. I just need more "spoons" to get this done. Seems like work and family duties sap most of my mental resources these days. Not sure if this is some sort of long covid funk, or just that I'm getting older and under a bit more pressure than before. Anyway, for the handful of people waiting for me to release TS&R, the system is working well in play. I just need to get that GM book together and I'll have a complete game. Well, sort of two, since I've got "Western" and "Eastern" books for player characters and for monsters. The GM book, however I write it, will be usable with both sets of player/monster books.

Star Destroyer Megadungeon?

 Just a random idea I had this morning -- make a ruined/abandoned star destroyer into a megadungeon for Star Wars d6. This was partly inspired by the most recent episode of The Mandalorian, but also Rey's scavenging the crashed star destroyer in Episode 7, and the thought of the ruined ship/dungeon in Metamorphosis Alpha.

Actually, I don't think dungeon crawling really fits the WEG rules so well, at least not as they're presented in SWd6. And I'd rather not get the game bogged down in one location like that, especially now that the party has their ship back and can go nearly anywhere. But if I did...

The ship would be a derelict in space, not crashed on a planet. It would need to be somewhere in the Outer Rim, most likely, or the Imperials would reclaim it. But it would need to be near enough to a space lane or trading hub world that lots of factions would have contingents in it. And there would need to be something of value scattered across the ship to keep the players interested in exploring it. 

Actually, instead of an Imperial star destroyer, maybe one of the similar capital ships from the Clone Wars? Or something older than that even?

On the down side, I don't think I've got the time and patience to map out the interior of a star destroyer, let alone key areas of interest. Even if most of it is left blank, it would be a monster of a task. 

Anyway, still an interesting idea, I think.

Demon Castle Design

 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.

Demon Castle Dracula

 Castlevania games have long been among my favorites. I still regularly replay the old NES games via emulation. And I enjoyed the hell out of the Playstation/PS2 era games, especially (no surprise) Symphony of the Night.

When I was a teenager, and finally got around to mapping out the Haunted Keep in Karameikos (I had Mentzer, not Cook's Expert Set), of course it was pretty heavily inspired by the original Castlevania game. 

Back when I was still using 3E, I took a break from developing the campaign that would eventually provide the setting for Flying Swordsmen (and my Chanbara play tests), I tried to make a Castlevania inspired megadungeon. But like SotN, I had limited paths from zone to zone, and strict challenge levels, and whatnot, and it got to be too much of a burden. 

While I don't really have time to try and create a megadungeon at the moment, the approach of Halloween has got me thinking about it again. IF I were to create it now, with more years of experience and evolved ideas on what makes for a good game, the plan would be a lot more open. If low level PCs wanted to head straight to the Clock Tower and Dracula's Turret, they'd be able to do it. Not likely a good idea, but the option would be there. 

And like in Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, there would be some towns and other smaller dungeons around besides just the castle proper. They would allow the players chances to learn about the zones of the castle (and the threats likely to be encountered there), and also places to buy/sell/trade loot and magic items, and "side quests" to find weapons and artifacts useful against the denizens of Castlevania. 

And of course, I'd need to decide if this would be done in Classic D&D, or with RetroPhaze (which I apparently have an older edition of, John keeps working on this great little game!).

A disputed saving throw

Recently in a PbP game I run (house ruled Classic D&D), this situation happened.

Context:
The player in question is no stranger to older editions of D&D. He's been playing longer than I have (says he started in '79), and he's played most editions of the game although he mostly plays 5E now.

The game is set in my megadungeon.

To speed up PbP gaming, and to get a bit of rivalry/competition like I read about in the old days, each player runs their own party through the dungeon.

I make no bones about it being deadly. Only one person who signed up to play the game has managed not to lose a character, and that's because he quit as soon as he had his first encounter.

The Situation:
The player in question has his party (all still level 1, with 2 hirelings) exploring the ruins above the dungeon. There's a tower in part of the wall that opens up on two different courtyards at different elevations (it's a hilltop castle ruin with a sprawling dungeon beneath it). The party was at the middle level but didn't know that.

The party thief examines the door for traps, listens and hears nothing.

The player then says that his two fighters "barge into the room" and that the NPC hireling "is on their heels." This is even though, as I said, they heard no sounds from inside and had no reason to expect a creature inside. But if there was one, I guess they were hoping to surprise it.

What was really inside was a 3' wide landing (with no railing...it's a 400 year old castle ruin!) and a 20' drop.

My Ruling: 
If this were real life, there would be a good chance that they would not be able to halt their movement and plunge over the side. But I'm usually generous about these kinds of things. The clincher was that the player said the NPC was "on their heels."

If three dudes are charging through a doorway and there's only about 1 or 2 steps they can take inside before they fall, it seems logical to me that the third guy in would crash into the first two who had just managed to stop short. So I gave them all saving throws with a +2 bonus. Seemed fair to me.

The Result:
One Fighter made his save. The other failed. The NPC hireling failed. The PC was uninjured (9hp), but when I rolled 2d6, of course I got a 9! 0 is dead in this game. The NPC had 4hp and I rolled a 6. Also dead!

The Controversy:
Now I'm OK with how I ruled this situation. It's comical and sad that the fates did this. And it's not the first time this player has lost a PC. It's the third time. But he was apparently surprised and a bit upset at how the situation had unfolded.

My Take:
But really, he could have phrased his PCs' entrance to the tower in so many different ways that wouldn't have required the PCs to make saves to avoid falling. If he'd just said "We open the door," then I would have described the landing inside. He was careless in his orders IMO. And since this is Play-by-Post gaming, he had all the time he could want to decide how to phrase his post.

He seems to feel that I was setting up a "gotcha" moment, and not treating his characters as if they had any common sense. Well, I do make a lot of assumptions for the players in this game. I assume that thieves will be checking for traps when time allows. I assume that everyone in the party is trying to be as quiet as possible unless the player says otherwise. I try to assume competence on the part of the PCs. But in this case, I think an assumption of competence doesn't come into the picture.

Or maybe it's just that I'm a "Mel Brooks" sort of DM. He called it a Three Stooges moment. Either way, it's slapstick. And I'm fine with that. I guess he isn't.

He's not too terribly upset, though. He's still in the game, and rolled up a new Dwarf Fighter to replace the Human Fighter he lost.

Mentzer Basic Cover to Cover: Creating Dungeons

Alright folks, I'm gonna power through the final sections of the Basic Set to wrap up the series in this post. About time, I know, right?

Creating Dungeons
Frank starts out this section of the book by defining a dungeon as "any place where monsters and treasures may be found. A dungeon is usually a group of rooms, connected by corridors. It could be a castle (new or ruined), some caves, or anything else you can imagine" (p. 46). I do like this definition, as it frees up the DM to go crazy and not worry too much about needing to stick to subterranean mazes (although those can be really fun). This is followed up with a reminder of the basic risk-reward scheme of the dungeon, the "level" where higher levels mean tougher monsters but greater rewards. It's a bit brief, but described in more detail below.

Types of Dungeons
This section is more about dungeon level orientation than type of location that could be used as a dungeon. Levels increase in number as you go down, or up, or farther from the entrance. Multiple entrances, especially entrances straight to higher levels, is a good thing. Frank closes the section suggesting to stick to traditional vertical dungeons at first, and gradually experiment, possibly after looking at a few modules.

Good and Bad Dungeons
Here, Frank is defining a "good" dungeon as a logically constructed one, and a "bad" one as a random mismash of rooms, monsters, traps, etc. "A good dungeon is reasonable. Its design is carefully thought out, and the monsters and treasures are placed for a reason" (p. 46). Of course, he does admit in the next paragraph that a randomly generated dungeon could still be a good dungeon if it has some sort of theme tying the otherwise random encounters together, and monsters that should logically be found in that sort of location. He admits that the Solo Adventure isn't really a "good" dungeon, since it was designed to help new players experience a variety of game mechanics and situations, but with a few changes could be made better.

I'm not sure that I agree with Frank 100%. The random, nonsensical dungeon can still be a lot of fun. And since people have a natural desire to see patterns when none exist, players will often construct a more logical narrative from a random experience. Frank does mention that dungeons shouldn't just be places to fight monsters -- it should have other forms of entertainment like puzzles and RP situations as well. And on that I fully agree. If I just want to grind through some random monster battles, I'll go fire up Dragon Warrior on my NES emulator.

Step By Step
This is the heart of the section, as Frank gives a six step process to create a dungeon. Of course, the above description of dungeons and levels seems to assume a "mega-dungeon" setting, this step-by-step section assumes dungeons as one-shot type deals, made specifically for that adventure (like in many modules). This did color my early dungeon crafting. I stared out with fairly random multi-level caves, then moved on to smaller, mission-specific dungeons as I grew as a DM.

1. Choose a Scenario
By scenario, Frank means both a theme for the dungeon, and a hook to get the PCs to explore it. He lists several good rationales for adventure. The only flaw with the presentation is that it left me assuming that the DM would just provide the players with their motivation, rather than letting players dictate their motives and me as DM creating the dungeon in response. I think this must have been fairly common (maybe it still is) due to the number of "You've been captured by..." adventures DMs love to spring on players. Yes, I've been guilty of this in the past as well.

The scenarios listed are: Exploring the Unknown, Investigating an Enemy Outpost, Recovering Ruins, Destroying an Ancient Evil, Visiting a Lost Shrine, Fulfilling a Quest, Escaping from Enemies, Rescuing Prisoners, Using a Magic Portal, Finding a Lost Race.

I do like how a lot of these don't require the PCs to go in guns blazing to complete the objective. I really think something like this, slightly modified, presented as a "Reasons to Adventure" advice section in the Players Manual would have been useful. As I mentioned above, this section seems to assume the impetus for adventure is on the DM. "Hey players, I wrote up a dungeon. Wanna run through it?" rather than "Hey DM, we want to do this next time..."

2. Decide on a Setting
This gives us a short list of potential dungeons (expanded in the Expert Set to include wildernesses, but for here it's fairly traditional): Castle or Tower, Crypt or Tomb, Caves or Cavern, Ancient Temple, Abandoned Mine, Stronghold or Town.

That covers a good amount of adventuring locations, and provided me with enough fodder for dungeon creation for years.

3. Select Special Monsters
Before making the dungeon map, you should have a few ideas about what monsters live there. In other words, make sure there's some thematic monsters to face that are appropriate to the scenario and setting selected.

4. Draw the Map
There's some general advice on dungeon map drawing, starting with setting the scale, defining the general shape/style, and finally filling in the details. It references the dungeon symbols on the inside front cover of the book, and again these did help inspire me to create more interesting dungeon maps than simply a connected series of rectangular rooms and 10' wide corridors.

5. Stock the Dungeon
Fill up the map key! First place the Special Monsters and their treasures, then select or randomly roll for monsters and what not in the rest of the dungeon.

6. Fill in the Final Details
Now that you know what monsters are where, you can add details about dungeon dressing, sounds, smells, etc. Frank gives some good advice to keep it simple, as players get bored by excessive descriptions. Just give them the feel of the dungeon. This is one area I could improve on, personally, as I'm often a bit too sparse in my dungeon keys, and rely on improvising such things in play, which means I sometimes for get to give enough description, or useful clues for players to work with.

Frank also suggests making Wandering Monster charts for each dungeon to fit the scenario. I used to do this often, but more recently I've gotten lazy (with the exception of my Megadungeon). I need to make wandering monsters a more important part of the games I run, especially Chanbara. It (and Flying Swordsmen before it), lacks that in the rules.

Random Stocking
This section (and the original version in Moldvay's Basic Set which developed a very simple system in OD&D) has rightly received much praise from various old school bloggers over the years. It's a simple system of rolling two six-siders, one of which determines room contents, the other treasure. The OD&D version simply said roll a d6, with a 1-2 being a monster, anything else is an empty room. Another d6 roll then determines treasure (1-3 for monster rooms, 1 for empty rooms IIRC). The same basic system is presented here, but fleshed out (by Moldvay) so that:
1-2 Empty Room (1/d6 treasure)
3 Trap (1-2/d6 treasure)
4-5 Monster (1-3/d6 treasure)
6 Special (usually no treasure)

This means that, aside from intentionally placed monsters (and treasures), about one third of all rooms are inhabited, one third have dangers or oddities, and one third are empty. Approximately one third of all rooms will also have some treasure.

We get a Random Treasures Table for use with this system as well. In my early days, and even up until more recent years, I tended to ignore this table, and just use the Treasure Types tables. That meant that sometimes fairly small groups of monsters would be guarding fairly large treasures. Sometimes that's not a problem, but it does make monster encounters more of a lotto style. Using this Random Treasures table, small amounts of treasure will be found more often, and every now and then there will be a jackpot. From what I've read about modern game design, that's a winning method. When I revamp my Megadungeon, or if I go ahead and prepare the 5E Dragonlance game I'm thinking of trying to run, I'll probably use this table more often.

Room Contents
This section gives advice and suggestions for Traps and Specials indicated by the random stocking method described above.

Traps
We tend to think of D&D traps as killers (Tomb of Horrors casts a long shadow), but Frank is explicit that traps should not usually be deadly, or at least not always. He defines traps as "anything that could cause damage, delay or a magical effect to occur" (p. 47). He mentions that Thieves are good at finding and removing traps (failing to mention Dwarves' special detection ability), and that while an area may have a combination of traps, they shouldn't be too dangerous. "Deadly traps are not recommended until the 2nd level of a dungeon (or deeper) is reached" (p. 47).

He then gives us a list of types of traps, and some possible variations, and while many do result in damage, poison, etc. there are quite a few non-lethal traps as well. He lists out:
Blade (damage), Creature (attacks with surprise), Darts (damage, paralysis, poison, curse, etc.), Explosion (damage), Falling Item (damage), Fog (strange but non-damaging effects), Illusion (as phantasmal force), Light (temporary blindness), Pit (damage, or chute to lower level), Poison Gas (damage or instant death), Poison Needle (unspecified).

Special
A lot of the fun of D&D, and many memorable encounters, are with specials, which Frank defines as "anything you place which is not normal, but is not a trap, monster or treasure" (p. 48). He provides a list of these as well:
Alarm (summons a monster, opens a door, or just makes noise), Illusion (a dungeon feature or creature is not really there), Map Change (shifting walls), Movements (shifting rooms), Pool (lots of strange potential effects), Sounds (moaning, screaming, talking, etc.), Statue (may be treasure, magical, alive, etc.), Transportation (hidden doors or stairs, elevators, magical portals, etc.), Trick Monster (examples are either variant normal monsters, or pun monsters), Weird Things (flying weapons, reverse gravity zones, shrinking/growing zones, etc.).

Basically, specials are there to add complications, mysteries, unexpected twists, or just plain old color.

Wandering Monsters
The final textual section of the book explains what wandering monster encounters are and what they are for, and how to run them. Having some monsters on the move makes the dungeon feel more alive. They also serve as a subtle reminder to players to keep things moving, although the book doesn't lay that out explicitly here.

Frank gives some advice on deciding when to have wandering monsters appear. Check once every two turns by rolling a d6. On a 1, wandering monsters appear. Noises, curses, or special areas may increase the frequency or probability of monsters appearing. Wandering monster numbers are typically less than a full room encounter, but the monsters rarely have treasure with them.

The inside back cover has wandering monster tables for dungeon levels 1 to 3, along with some Dungeon Master Reference charts (all saving throws, including for Fighters up to level 12 for use with monsters, and Monster Hit Charts up to 17+ hit dice).

For the Wandering Monster tables, there isn't much rhyme or reason to them. There are of course plenty of normal animals/giant insects, humanoids, some undead, and a few oddities on each level. While there are a few tough encounters on the first two levels, the third level chart does up the danger a fair amount with medusa, wererats and shadows making appearances. One handy thing about these charts is that it lists the page number on which each monster can be found in the book.

Index
The back cover of the Dungeon Masters Rulebook gives us an index of both volumes, with entries listed as P# for Players Manual entries, and D# for Dungeon Masters Rulebook entries. It's pretty useful to have, but I don't remember using it that often. I read through these books so often that first year I had them that I was able to find anything I needed so easily for years afterwards. But it is nice to have a good index in the book.

____________________________________________________

And there you have it, folks! Mentzer Basic D&D, cover to cover. fin

Keebler's Journal - Yeffal's Great Dungeon

Last Wednesday I ran a session of my Megadungeon.  Michael, I guy I know from the local board game group, joined the game as Keebler, and Elf of course.  Dean was playing his converted 2E Elf Ranger Copperleafy, and Jeremy was playing Uriah the Mage.  Along for the ride were all the NPCs they know of, plus a new one Uriah charmed after Felix the Cat and Frog the Toad were slain, Gomer Pyle.  He didn't make it back either.

Although they never set foot inside the dungeon, they did find a new entrance to the lair of the Orcs of the Dripping Fang, while pursuing bounties on the leader and witch doctor of said orcish tribe.  Michael wrote up a journal entry from Keebler's perspective.

The diary of Keebler, mystic warrior, purveyor of fine snacks

How the tangles of time twist us on our journey! This day I did make the acquaintance of another of our people. Copperleafy, he calls himself, and an odd elf he is! He is, though solid in all other masculine virtues, untutored in the arts of magic. Mind you, he is an excellent and able tracker, and (despite the unfounded suggestions of the humans in our midst) very, very hetero. What makes these humans think that frolicking with fairies is indicative of a predilection for man-on man action is beyond me!
In any event, there was hunting to do, and the menu was—orc!
This Copperleafy had some information leading us to the hideout of the Dripping Fang clan, which he had acquired from some leprechaun or other. Along with our human companions (a mage of both ability and instability along with some hirelings) we laid in wait for the foul creatures—only to be set upon by many walking skeletons, aberrations of the foulest kind. Only with great effort did we fell the animated corpses, and only at the loss of some of our humans.
At this point, we took some time to return to town to… well, not to put too fine a point on it, to acquire more humans. The young mage seemingly charmed some half-witted yokel and invited him to join us. A plan was hatched to use this sad little farmer and a lovely human female as—I believe the phrase was “rape bait.” Half-orcs indeed!
In any event, the trap was set, and after some time we unleashed our ambush upon an orc foraging party. The mage and I used our power to render the orcs asleep and, as they were few in number, the slaughter was on. The tracker, Copperleafy (whose exploits with women—and women only—are well renowned), followed the tracks of the orcs and animals to the doors of what appeared to be a large redoubt. Clearly, there were more orcs than we had reckoned upon meeting. Feeling that more intelligence was needed, Copperleafy returned to the woodland creatures to gain more knowledge about the orcish host, while the rest of us set about returning to our ambushing.
Sadly, instead of more orcs we were attacked by several rather large frogs, one of which devoured the hapless yokel Gomer. Shame.
In any event, upon Copperleafy’s return, we determined to call it a day for the moment, and see what progress we can make in this quest upon the morrow. What I would not give for a fine oven in which to bake some quality snacks, but for now, it is the open air and battle for this elf.

More Megadungeon Art

Dean posted this to our FB group, and I just gotta share it.  It's a scene from our last outing in my megadungeon.  They found a talking painting covering a secret door, and tricked it into giving up the password.  Unfortunately, the vault was already plundered...but by whom? 

The ogre was in the next room, counting out his money.
The mage with wispy mustache was eating bread and honey. (or running away from the larger party of adventurers...)

In places deep, where dark things sleep

Last Saturday, I brushed the dust off of my DMing skills (the file box where I keep the megadungeon maps, notes and miscellanea being dust free already due to recent work being done on it) and ran my Classic D&D megadungeon for the guys.

I used a bit of time at work last week to spruce up my house rule document, so I was using that as my go-to rules instead of BFRPG, but FLAILSNAILS so for the players I allowed anything within reason.

Dean brought the Venerable Carolus across the Veil from Ur (and being 6th level, he was the powerhouse of the team, even without a hand).
Jeremy played a new Magic-User, Uriah, who scribed tattoo scrolls into his skin.
Justin rolled up a new Halfling named Paisley, who was the life of the party.
Alexei had managed to get Maya Culpar back into her rightful body, so brought her along.

So, L6 Cleric, L3 Elf, L1 M-U and L1 Halfling.  Jeremy and I role played his MU's attempts to charm some henchmen in the days leading up to the expedition, and he ended up with all three: Ferdinand the Bull, Felix the Cat, and Frog the Toad (or "the Three Fs").  Elder Karl again hired mercenary dandies Geisler and Kessel, and loaned them his magical drumstick and stone bow, respectively.

So with a party of nine, they ventured into the dungeons.  Rather than write up what happened, I'll post the three pictures Dean has done of the session, and the portraits Jeremy and Justin did, with a few notes.  ++there's still 100 XP waiting around for anyone else that wants to write up what happened, or draw more pictures++

Justin's PCs, Paisley the Halfling and Lorque the Cleric (from last time we played)

Uriah of the 18 Constitution, Jeremy's PC

A workshop run by the "gnomo-sexuals" where Uriah got fitted for new shoes, and the party got a magi scroll meant for a previous party that suffered a near TPK. 

Nymph and Dryad caryatid columns, fancy wood paneling on the walls.  The next room held medusas...or was it an illusionist with a whispy first growth mustache?

Among the ogre's treasures was a helm of alignment changing.  Paisley's new chaotic nature still left his basic nature unchanged.  His battle cry: "I foresee the worst!"  The Venerable Carolus was able to remove the curse.

Some monsters were slain, some treasures were found, some monsters escaped to fight again, and some mysteries were discovered.  Lots of laughs, which is my biggest measure of success when I run a game.

The Wheel of Testosterone

What's this?  An actual content post instead of just play reports and me bemoaning my lack of time to do anything?  Surprise surprise!

I'm working on a fairly big undertaking for what will end up being just one single room/encounter in my megadungeon, but once it's discovered I can guarantee it'll be a popular location to visit: The Wheel of Testosterone.

Spinning this wheel will make you a sexual tyrannosaurus.  Just like me.

Remember this post on the awesome Planet Algol blog?  I remember when it first went up, thinking I needed to both steal that and make a Samuel L. Jackson version.

Never got around to that, until I was reminded of the post on a G+ thread a week or so ago (or maybe it was two weeks back now?  Time flies).  Now, instead of scrolls scattered here an there (I may still do that, and maybe have a researchable M-U spell linked to it), I'll have a bit old "wheel of fortune" that if spun, produces a random avatar of an action movie hero.  I'm thinking d12 rolled twice, for 144 spots worth of badass.  Of course, that means collecting enough badass characters and then giving them stats!  Crowd-sourcing could be done on this...

At the moment, following Blair's scroll, I've been making lists of actors and then listing characters they've done that I like.  But some actors end up playing very similar characters over and over again (Jackie Chan, for example), and some are just sorta badass all on their own.  And then there are actors who had one or two badass roles, but that's it (in my opinion, of course). 

So instead of trying to pick the twelve baddest of the bad, or eleven plus one slot for "others" I think I'm going to just write up a big chart with 144 slots, and just fill things in.  That way, I could feel free to include some classic 80's WWF wrestlers like Hulk Hogan (yeah, I guess he did do a few movies/TV shows) and Junk Yard Dog. 

Planning to pull from standard action movies (contemporary), fantasy adventure, pulp, film noir/hardboiled detectives, westerns and war movies.  Chuck Norris, John Wayne, Schwarzenegger, Stalone, Harrison Ford, Val Kilmer, Toshiro Mifune, Jet Li, Will Smith, Mr. T, and plenty more.

If you've got some ideas for who should be on the Wheel, lemme know in the comments!  If you want to go ahead and do a write-up like Blair's for his scroll of summon aspect of Kurt Russel (all yoinked, by the way, thanks Blair!), that would help me out a ton! 

And of course, should there be a Pool of Estrogen which randomly summons Ellen Ripley, Chun Li, various Charlie's Angels, etc. in the same way?

A Rest Mechanic

During the flurry of postings to our Busan D&D Facebook page, and some KakaoTalk between Jeremy and myself, there was a brief discussion of whether or not old school D&D should use a "rest mechanic" similar to 4E (and apparently, I stopped checking the updates, D&D Next).

For those unfamiliar, in 4E they break 'rests' down into Short Rests and Long Rests.  In a Short Rest (5 minutes or so), characters can spend their Healing Surges (limited per day) to recover hit points.  All "encounter powers" also refresh.  In a Long Rest (8 hours), all damage is recovered, all healing surges are refreshed, and all encounter and daily powers are refreshed.

I mentioned to Jeremy that there already is a rest mechanic in Classic D&D/AD&D.  It's called going back to town.  He thought I was being snide at first, I think.  But it's that simple.  If you want to get hit points back, and spells back, when you're playing in a dungeon setting, retreating from the dungeon and returning later is the way to do that.  Sure, you can camp in the dungeon/wilderness (in Ur, we often do that).  That gets some hit points back, and all spells.  But if time is not of the essence (and unless you're running a tournament module or a Dragonlance style adventure path it may not be), then town is the smart way to do it.

Back when I ran some sessions of D&D at our old Board Game Group, that bugged the crap out of Alex.  Josh had a Fighter and a Magic-User with Sleep.  Alex had a Fighter and a Thief.  They went into the dungeon, ran into kobolds, say, and the M-U cast sleep, the Fighters took care of any unaffected, and then the Thief would look for traps, treasure.  With that one monster encounter finished, Josh would then say he wanted to go back to town to rest.  And unless they ran into undead where sleep didn't work, every time he would want to do this.  As a DM, it didn't bother me.  I was able to plausibly bring in reinforcements or think about how the kobolds or goblins would react to the loss of that patrol.  The players got to take on each combat at full strength, but at the cost of having an enemy prepared for them later on.  Alex hated it.  He was interested in covering territory and getting a sense of progress.  Josh was interested in surviving to second level. 

For me, that's the essence of the strategic/tactical play needed in RPGs.  4E style rest mechanics seem like a way for players to have their cake and eat it too.  There's no need to make the tough decision to go back to town and risk having enemies prepared for you versus pressing on and facing the unknown at less than full strength (or darn near it).  And that, Jeremy, if you're reading, is why I will not be using a modern "rest mechanic" in my games. 

Another Delve, Another Dollar

After a brief discussion and several requests, I ran my Megadungeon again last night for the... can't really call us the "Busan Gamers" anymore, since Justin's up in Pohang and Rick's up near Seoul (forget exactly which city he's in, sorry Rick!), and they plus Jeremy (who is in Busan, along with me) were my players. 

I think I may have to bring back the Mao-tze Tigers group name.  One of these days, I am hoping that Jez Gordon of the Kanga-Rat Murder Society games with us again, he was a blast to play with.

Anyway, the dungeon.  The adventure.  The horrors.  The glory.

I'm really gonna keep it short, as I'm hoping one of the guys will do a proper write-up for bonus XP.  Four PCs and one NPC (Valeria the Fighter from the previous session) again went through the side entrance guarded by the "gnomosexuals" and three came out alive, with a bit of treasure to show for it, and a plan to get at a bow they assume to be magical that they can see but not reach. 

The plan's a good one, and if they can afford enough booze to keep the gnomes happy, it just might work!

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog silence and grad school readings.

Lost in the Dungeon

Last night, several of us were in the mood to play - including me, since I will be busy tonight with grad school stuff and will miss our regularly scheduled Saturday game.  And since Justin was out, I offered to run my Megadungeon.

Jeremy and Rick were the only players to show up, and they rolled up a couple of new level 1 PCs, Evinarus the (Elf) Thief and Max the Fighter.  Rick didn't have the Basic Fantasy RPG and I was too lazy to look it up since I had my homebrew players' guide right there, so he ran a normal Thief class character and role-played the Elf parts (I did let him have infravision and better secret door detection and we didn't meet any ghouls so the paralysis never came up).  Jeremy of course rolled another 18 Str Fighter with a polearm (great axe), and while he's perfectly fine to imagine for himself massive anime bulging muscles that would put the Incredible Hulk to shame, my world just doesn't work that way.  ;)

They gathered some rumors in the town of Silverwood and set out for the dungeon.  They circled around the outer curtain wall and found a boarded up wooden shack against the outer wall.  Discussions with the occupants (who refused to show themselves) sent them back to town to get a pony keg of beer and they also hired Valeria, a buxom mercenary, to accompany them for 10gp up front and a share of any treasure.

Back at the shack, they found it was manned by thirsty gnomes, who happily let them pass and use the stairs down to the dungeon in return for the beer.  At the bottom of the stairs, there was a closed doorway and Evinarus heard singing beyond.  Going out into a wide corridor running north-south, they heard the singing coming from a side passage straight ahead - and after some cautious moves, discovered it to be a party of young halflings having a party in the dungeon!  Much discussions hinted that goblins lived to the east. 

They explored a bit more and found and set fire to a rickety barricade with alarms that summoned a large warband of kobolds, who shot at them and wounded Max with a crossbow.  A patrol of more gnomes had passed them and had rushed off to get the beer their companions were swilling, but the party followed them back up and convinced them to help take on their ancestral enemies, the kobolds.  Big battle led to all but two kobolds dead, the last two fled, with only one gnomish loss.  Then the party tried to sucker the gnomes into tangling with the halflings over beer, but the halfling party was just wrapping up and they were about to head back to their village, all the beer consumed. 

With promises to bring more beer once they found some treasure, the party next investigated a hallway with many doors.  One led to a makeshift latrine.  Another had a basin collecting run-off water.  Yet another had two strange walls, one a shifting wall trap of some sort which they avoided setting off, the other a secret door.  In the secret chamber was a strange crystal wall blocking them from reaching an alcove where they could see a finely crafted elven bow.  While searching for secret levers or some other mechanism to move the crystal wall, a pair of hungry giant racer snakes slithered in and attacked.

Rolls went against our party.  Although they managed to slay one snake, Max was eaten and instead of fleeing, Evinarus decided to keep fighting and his 4 hit points didn't last him long.  Valeria the NPC fled with the measly 200 cp they'd managed to loot off of the kobolds.

She does, however, now have a map of the area explored, and along with Geissler and Kessel, will join the rouster of local NPC armsmen for hire.

Missing Dwimmermount

Today (mid-day Sunday here in Korea, Sat. evening in Canada), James Mal was planning on running a session of Dwimmermount on G+.  Dean, who plays the Venerable Karl in our Vaults of Ur game, had played a few sessions of it already and when I mentioned that I'd love to get in on that game, he asked and I was invited.

Then, due to technical difficulties, James wasn't able to run the game. 

Dean suggested I pull out my megadungeon and we run through that instead.  So Dean, playing a level 1 version of Elder Karl (hey, time travel happens in the FLAILSNAILS multiverse), and two gamers I was unacquainted with until today, Nathan Easton - who quickly rolled up an Elf, and Roger Brasslett who had a spare Druid lying around, ventured out from the town of Silverwood into Yeffal's Great Dungeon.

Here's Dean's recap:

In his youth Elder Karl had a memorable spirit quest into a strange world of elves (very like his companion from the other world, Maya Culpa) and short bearded dwarves. There he met a Druid of the wilds named Elethea and a shifty-eyed shadowy elf who called himself the Black Lotus. In the town of Silverwood these adventurers hired two stout spearmen named Geissler and Kessel, and then all five of them ventured into the huge ruins of the castle of the Mad Wizard Yefal.

The outer courtyard contained a two-storyed building which showed both the signs of recent occupation and of recent intrusion. A room with a suspicious grate yielded only parchments with the scribbled false starts of a frustrated epic poet and an attack by razor-sharp blades from the grate.

The party started to head downstairs but was discouraged by the sight of mysterious magical runes. Going upstairs instead they found the after-effects and skeletal remains of a mighty battle. Investigating the smaller rooms revealed a thieves’ map of Silverwood, a book of prayers and rituals to the Chaos God Loki as well as a dangerous and cursed statuette of the same in a shrine.

The shrine itself was guarded by a ward which made the viewers either flee in terror or think to see their heart's desire. Finally! A hobbit wrapped in a mithril shirt and left to soften for later ingestion. Elder Karl desecrated the shrine with prayers to the Bear and improvised blessed water. There were also two beautiful suits of nobleman’s clothes which we gave to our two retainers to wear. Elder Karl also insisted on laying to rest the corpses of three victims of the bandits who had recently met their just desert.

In the midst of our plunder, three elves stumbled upon us and asked us if we had seen any hobgoblins. The heroes decided that a joint expedition against the hobgoblins would be good, and they also hoped that the elves could get them past the runes on the stairs going down. One of the elves had memorized Read Magic and was in fact delighted to find that the runes were a record of Tenser’s Floating Disc, which he hastened to inscribe into his book.

The now larger party descended en masse into another room filled with the after-effects of battle: this time, three hobgoblins. A search revealed a burlap pouch containing an electrum necklace. Thus without a single fight, the heroes had successfully explored part of the castle and won much treasure, and so all returned to town before any disaster should reverse the day’s good fortune.

 So the lucky buggers got off with only springing a couple of non-lethal traps and only encountering friendly wandering monsters.  They did this by following in the footsteps of an earlier adventuring party, unbeknownst to them (read about it here and here).

It was a fun, impromptu session, and it wasn't even until we were almost done that I realized that I'd only brought my dungeon maps/key/supplementals to the desk.  I didn't have a rule book at all.  Guess my DMing skills haven't atrophied after all!

Anyway, it was fun to be back in the DM's chair, but I'm still looking forward to playing in Dwimmermount with James M.  Hopefully in two weeks.

Knowledge is half the battle

It's been two years since I've blogged about rumors.  Time to do so again!

I've been stocking my megadungeon using a "keystone treasures" idea.  There are certain extremely valuable items of treasure in the dungeon, and some known magic items as well.  Rumors about these treasures are easy to come by.  The idea is that by giving rumors of these sorts of treasures, it gives players some goals to shoot for when exploring.

I've also now got lists for the first two levels plus the outer works that provide rumors about monsters, traps, tricks, and red herrings and a few outright lies (but hopefully lies that still lead to interesting locations in the dungeon). 

Now I've thought up a new wrinkle: Class Specific Rumor Tables.

Or if using AD&D, Basic Fantasy, or LL AEC, Class Specific and Race Specific Rumor Tables.

I'm thinking of sorting out all the rumors into areas of knowledge.  Magic-Users are more likely to learn about what sorts of magic items there are down there (and what sorts of spells could be learned, or spellcasting monsters abound).

Clerics learn about relics and shrines, undead, and holy magic items.

Fighters mostly learn about monsters and magical arms.

Thieves learn about tricks and traps and what monsters are likely to have treasures.

Dwarves and Halflings get a mix of Fighter and Thief rumors.  Elves get a mix of Fighter and Magic-User rumors.  There would likely be some demi-human specific rumors on their tables as well.

Also, I can then break down rumors about keystone treasures into groups.  The Adventurer's Guild and the Thieves' Guild can tell you about most monetary keystone treasures.  The old hedge wizard or the alchemist can tell you about wands/staves/rods and miscellaneous magics.  The old arms-master can tell about most magic weapons and armors.  The priests at the temple (or the druids in the grove) can tell about holy relic treasures.  Things like that.

This would give players a bit more of a reason to play a variety of classes (get more rumors), as well as give everyone a reason to be adventuring.

Also, one more idea - every henchman or man at arms hired knows one random rumor.  Another reason to hire help!

Megadungeon Pictures

Dean drew a couple of pictures of his and Jeremy's expedition into my Megadungeon.

First, Elder Karl travels astrally between the ruined city of Ur and the strange land of elves, dwarves and non-ruined wattle-and-daub Silverwood, and explores the Great Dungeon of Yeffal the Cursed and Mad Wizard.  In those dungeons, he and Ripper the Orc encountered strange small dog-like men riding goats, and a trio of "elves" who were looking for hobgoblin thieves.

Another encounter the pair faced was that of a zombie mule.  Karl quickly turned the foul beast, only to be tormented by the sound of clinking coins in the saddlebags of the necrotic pack beast!

Some of you may have seen his pictures on G+ already.  I just wanted to get them up here on the blog.

Dean, 200 xp for Elder Karl!  And thanks for the pics!

Enter the Dungeon

Last night, I tried to get a game going to try out the D&D Next playtest stuff.  Didn't happen.  Josh, Pat and Alex had all expressed interest, but were busy playing Axis and Allies.  A few of the other Busan Gamers were busy, so couldn't play.  It was just me, Jeremy and Dean.  I put out a call on G+ to see if anyone's interested, but since I'm not a big G+ user, I didnt' attract any players.  Or maybe it's just that D&D Next didn't attract anyone.  Maybe there's the feedback for WotC.  Put out a random call of "Wanna play some D&D Next?" and get no responses.

Anyway, with just the three of us, and Jeremy beat from the previous night's excursion, we switched gears and they ran their Vaults of Ur PCs in my Megadungeon.  It went alright.  Elder Karl and Ripper awoke in the town of Silverwood, and quickly learned of the existence of the dungeon, and several rumors about things therein.  They hired a pair of spearmen, Geisler and Kessel, bought them crossbows as well, then set out for the ruins.

In the above ground castle ruins, they explored a dangerously ruined and empty tower, then worked their way along the curtain wall to anther tower in better shape, where they found an unguarded treasure chest full of silver coins.  While hauling it down the tower with ropes (the tower had a ladder, not steps), a trio of Elves came and just watched them at work.  When they finally got the chest down, the Elven spokesman asked rather abruptly if he could search the contents of the box.  After a bit of skeptical questioning from our heroes, the Elf explained that he and his companions were searching for an heirloom gem of their lord's, stolen by Hobgoblins.*  They were allowed to search the box, didn't find their gem, and left.

The party took their loot back to town, bought jewelry to carry the treasure more easily, had lunch, then headed back to the ruins.

The explorers next decided to head down the main entrance to the dungeons.  The first room was full of broken gear, spoiled rations, and other detritus left by previous explorers, and there was plenty of graffiti on the walls.  Ripper decided to write up his exploits in Ur, while Elder Karl and his spearman went to investigate the north door.  They found a large hallway, and a little ways up encountered a zombie mule.  Karl quickly turned it, then heard the saddlebags jingling as it ran away.  The whole party gave chase.

They found the mule being skewered by some strange quadrupedal, two headed shapes at the edge of their light.  Ripper yelled out an insulting challenge, and the shapes charged.  Kobolds riding goats, and armed with lances.  Their initial charge and the heroes' defense resulted in 0 hits for double damage (a shame).  Four of the kobolds, and one of the goats shield bashed by Ripper, soon went down, with the last kobold captured.  The party was able to recover the zombie mule's loot, and was retracing their steps when they heard iron-shod boots approaching, and in greater numbers than their party.  They made a run for the exit, assuming they were approaching hobgoblins, and went back to town.

It was a fun little session, and it's got me wanting to run my dungeon more.


*The gem was actually found by Jeremy and Brian's other characters when I ran my megadungeon for them a while back.  Those Elves will be pissed when they find out...

Airport

Sitting in Narita airport, stocking rooms in my Megadungeon.  It's as good a way as any to spend layover time.