Mentzer Cover to Cover: Dungeon Level 1

Third time's a charm, and I'm on my netbook instead of my phone. Should get through this no problem. (fingers crossed)

So, we've finally gotten to the actual dungeon part of the sample/starter adventure. The first thing Frank notes is that the first level has been stocked according to the Random Dungeon Generation Table (later, on pages 46-47. I've seen a lot of blog posts about that little d6 for contents, d6 for treasure table over the years. Like it or hate it, the sample provided here gives a novice DM a pattern to study and analyze if they're into that sort of thing. I sure wasn't as an 11 year old. My early dungeons had something in every room, and often in the corridors, as well. It took a while for me to learn the importance of the empty room.

Next, we're warned about Room #27, the harpy/yellow mold room, which can only be entered once one of the PCs gets to 2nd level. So probably the Thief or Cleric, if there is one in the party (and they don't die). The room is a killer encounter, potentially, much like the warm-up carrion crawler outside. I think I remember Frank saying in one of his Q&A threads on Dragonsfoot that he loves to start off new players with a TPK just so they're warned that such can and will happen.

Anyway, the most interesting bit of this introduction to the level is the advice that the party should be able to easily return to town, rest up, and come back fully healed and with spells replenished whenever they want. It also says that later, when dungeons are farther from town, the party may want to rest in an empty room, to get back spells, and RECOVER FROM INJURIES. Frank says, and I quote, "A brief stay overnight in an unoccupied room may allow spell casters to relearn their spells, curing any badly wounded characters in the morning."

There's no mention of 1 hit point per night, or 1 hit point per level per night, or 1d3 hit points per night. Just that "badly" wounded characters recover after a night's rest.

So the "Extended Rest" that totally heals you in 4E and 5E has its roots right here in Basic D&D. Glad I discovered this. And yes, the interpretation I'm taking from this is not the only possible reading of the line, but it's certainly one that could be drawn from the text.

Finally, there's a list of standard dungeon features.

Now, we get to the keyed entries. And like a normal module, now the map has numbers and the entries match. So we've gone from a barely interactive story (Player's Book) to a more interactive story (players' book again) to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style game (this book) to a normal map-and-key module format. Well done, Frank!

I'm not going to go through the entries for each room. There are kobolds, giant rats, giant bats, zombies, and some weird stuff in there. The bedrooms are tricky because there's not enough information about them that can be learned by testing to fully make use of them, and there are no clues to them otherwise. And as I mentioned above, even at level 2 the harpy room can be tough.

For level 2, we're given a map (very simple, similar in fact in some ways to the quick digital map I posted a couple of days ago) and a list of possible creatures that might be found there. And we've been told that on Level 1 there were no wandering monsters, but from Level 2 there should be.

Level 3 we're left to our own devices to map out, and given a few ideas for monsters, including a lair for Bargle, everyone's favorite villain. And there's the suggestion that there could be more levels lower down, including portals to other sections and a dragon's lair.

All in all, this is not a bad little adventure with a nice learning curve. There are some problems with the layout of the keep section (level 1), but this is a game, not an exercise in medieval architecture so I can let them slide (although I try to be more realistic when designing castles myself, with lots of functional space rather than dungeony maze rooms, and yes, even as a kid my castles had some thought about what each area was used for, while dungeons were chaotic messes.)

Mentzer Basic Cover to Cover: Your First Adventure

Pages 2 through 8 of the Mentzer Players Book contain the tutorial "adventure" that walks the nameless Fighter through some caves to encounter a few monsters, Aleena the Cleric, and the evil Bargle the Magic-User.

It gets slagged on a lot these days.  It's written for idiots!  It's a baby version of the game!  Blah blah blah.

Let me tell you something.  I'd read some Choose Your Own Adventure type books, some fantasy stuff like Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, and of course watched plenty of Saturday morning Cartoons, including the D&D Cartoon before I got this set.  But even then, I still had no idea how to actually play the game.  And this section taught me, in an interesting way, quite a few tropes of D&D play that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

It teaches you how to make attack rolls and saving throws.  It explains the six ability scores.  It lets you know what the different classes are, what they are good at and why it's good to have a variety of classes in a party.  It teaches you a bit about a few monsters, and some basic dungeoneering advice, like lighting, listening at doors, what are the good treasures, etc.  And it'll break your heart when Bargle slaughters Aleena with his magic missile.

Yeah, looking at it today, as experienced gamers, it looks like 7 wasted pages in the book.  But it served its purpose well with me back in the day.  I didn't have anyone to teach me the game, I just had these books.  And despite making quite a few mistakes early on (which didn't really matter, we were having fun and it was the spirit of the rules more than the RAW that matters anyway), I got it and was able to teach my friends from this.

Now, more recent RPGs, like the Lamentations of the Flame Princess game, came with the learning to play tutorial in a separate booklet.  Actually, back in the day Star Frontiers also had a "basic play" 16 page booklet along with the 64 page main booklet.  It's a good idea.  But since they already had two booklets going in, I guess it made sense to have this in the Players' Book rather than have it and the CYOA-style adventure that comes next in a small booklet, the players' info in another small booklet, and the DM stuff in a bigger book.

Anyway, last word on this section is about the final section of the tutorial, "Winning."  Of course it tells you that there are no "win" conditions in an RPG, and that if you have fun, that's considered winning.  Even if you die.  You can always just roll up another character.  Still good advice, 30 years later.

Disney, hmm?

Just cogitating on some things in the news besides Obama's victory (qualified yea!) [That's about as political as I'm gonna get here, don't worry.]

Disney bought up Marvel a while back, but pretty much have left Marvel to do their own thing. 

Disney repurchased Pixar, but pretty much leave them to do their own thing.

Disney has just purchased ILM, including Star Wars.  After thinking about this, I say good!  At worst, anything they turn out won't be any worse than something Lucas might have done were he inclined to do so.  And thinking about the general quality of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (first and fourth were good, middle two were decent enough) and the John Carter movie (movie was fine, Disney just stuffed it up on marketing and accounting), they'll likely do a good job with any future Star Wars movies.

And getting things away from the Skywalker story would be a good thing, IMO.  We don't need movies about Leia and Han's kids or old Jedi Master Luke, there are novels that already cover those if you care to read them.  Give us some awesome new stories in awesome new parts of the Star Wars Galaxy, please!

Arnold Schwarzenegger is returning as Conan!  King Conan of Aquilonia!  Awesome!  Looking forward to this, even if they don't use one of Howard's original tales (although the Scarlet Citadel or Hour of the Dragon would both make good movies, IMO).  I'm cool with letting original Conan be Original Conan, the comics Conan and the movie Conan being alternate universe things, like how the comic book, old Fox cartoon, and movie X-Men are similar but not the same.

And now Disney is thinking of picking up Hasbro, and WotC.  Well, at least I guess we know who will be making any future Star Wars CCGs and RPGs if this goes through.  Again, if Disney takes a fairly lax hand with WotC the way they have with Marvel and Pixar, this could be good.  If the Mouse House tries to micromanage the gaming business, well, at least we've got the OSR.

Plus, a Bargle movie, or something in the Star Frontiers or Gamma World universes would be cool.  You know Disney will be in charge of future D&D movies, maybe we'll get one that doesn't suck!

Solo Game with the Wife

My wife, back before we were married, was of course interested in my hobby.  RPGs aren't at all common here in Korea, and in Japan they're known but it's a really small minority that play them.  Most Koreans and Japanese stick to the computer RPGs.

Well, back then, I was still enamored of 3E, but that was just way too much for my wife.  Even buying the 3.5 PHB in Japanese (only 3E era book still own) didn't really help.  Too much math, too many options, too complicated rules.

A few years later, after I'd rediscovered the joys of Classic D&D, we tried that for a while, and it worked much better.  She had an Elf, and some NPC retainers, exploring the Ruins under Zenopus' Tower from the Holmes book.  The Elf died (as did lots of the retainers) and was replaced with a Halfling who I think made it to 3rd level.  But we played during my wife's pregnancy, and the birth of our son ended that game.

Well, our son's nearly 3 now.  And my wife is wondering how to improve her English faster than it has been going.  I suggested we restart that D&D campaign, and she agreed.  This time, to refresh her with the rules, I think I'll have her read through/play the solo adventure in the Mentzer Basic, then run her through the Ruins of Castle Mistamere, also from the Basic Set (with my new completion of it, available for download over on the right side of the screen). 

Some scans of old dungeons

Over on the right is my more recent stocking of the lower levels of the Mentzer DM's book sample dungeon. Here are some scans of my original version (a few rooms restocked judging by the eraser marks).


I redrew the second level map for some reason, and in pen!


The stocking of the dungeon on the back of the map.


The third level, keyed on the map, featuring Bargle's lair and a teleporting portal to the dragon.


A random dungeon, not sure what this is part of, on the back of the third level.

[edit--of course, Blogger put in all my pictures backwards. Fixed now.]

Adventurers beware, Bargle awaits!

For those of you who, like me, have a soft spot for Mentzer's Basic set, with the introductory adventures involving Bargle and Aleena, and the ruined castle in the DM's book, I have something for you.

This is a version of the 'rest of the dungon' that I made a few years back. I've got my original version from 25 or so years ago and I plan to scan them and post them sometime in the future. But for now, here's a revisioning of that starter dungeon's second and third levels -----> (Over there, in the Free Resources section)

Of course, it goes without saying that you'll need a copy of the Mentzer Red Basic DM's book to get full use out of this, or else make up your own new first level and map for the second.

Have fun!