Dungeon Campaign: The "Noob" Level

[Zulgyan]

So I'm preparing my next campaign, centered around an archetypal OD&D dungeon, the proverbial "ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses".

About half of the players (6 out of 12 approx.) will be total newbies to D&D. So I want the first level of the dungeon to be challenging but also a "tutorial level" of sorts. This does not mean it has to be a "goblins in a cave" or something that's generic and has been done to death.

I want to make my own level, but I'm looking for good inspirational material:

Keep on the Borderlands & In Search of the Unknown are good examples of "beginner" dungeons aimed at new players (and DMs, but in my case I already have many years of experience running games, so I'm not looking for "beginner DM" dungeons specifically).

Tomb of the Serpent Kings is an OSR module designed deliberately as a tutorial dungeon (it even includes notes explaining what each particular encounter or room is supposed to teach).

beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/2017/07/review-tomb-of-serpent-kings.html

Any recommendations of other modules?

Any recommendations in general? Tips, guides, articles, etc.? Of course I'll aim for a complex, non-linear map that gets the OD&D exploration game right!

Thanks!

[Melan]

Good to see you are going forward with your dungeon project!

One device I would rely on in a tutorial level would come from the old proverb, "The wise man learns from the misfortunes of others". Add a few dead adventurers who had been foolish, and succumbed to the perils of the Underworld. Someone caught in a deathtrap or open pit (to drive home that traps may be present). An adventurer who had died in darkness, or without rope. A body riddled with rot grubs (this might be a gift that keeps on giving...).

Open-ended challenges to be solved by player ingenuity are a good way to set them on the right track, too. A room where they have to climb to a high position to obtain an object, or a room filled with toxic fumes is a clear environmental puzzle with multiple ways to tackle it.

Telegraph clues less subtly than deeper down. A portcullis trap has crushed a skeleton's spine. A secret door has left deep grooves in the stone floor (which will be found by anyone searching the room).

Use all the classics. The pit trap, the one-way door, the secret passage, the powerful band of enemies ruling part of the level, the enigma you have to come back for later, the mysterious pool of water, the magic statue.

Of course, allow them to die and allow them to get rich, too!

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2019 17:36:28 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

Any recommendations of other modules?

Any of the level 0 DCC adventures are a good place to start. They have memorable encounters and are generally the right difficulty for starting players.
Portal Under the Stars is their sample adventure from the rulebook. It's about the right size for a single session. But, best of all, the party enters and exits through a magical portal. Which means you can have them exit at any point and time in the universe. Good for setting up a genre switching campaign or, if you want to go real old school, for transporting the "real" players into a fantasy world.
www.goodman-games.com/downloads/FRPGD11.pdf

[grodog]

Jul 28, 2019 17:36:28 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

Any recommendations in general? Tips, guides, articles, etc.? Of course I'll aim for a complex, non-linear map that gets the OD&D exploration game right!

I've prepared some recommended reading material for players who don't have access to the sources, and are actually interested in the info (ask first---many players don't want homework ):

1) Matt Finch's "Megadungeon Tactics: Mission-Based Adventuring" in Knockspell #4 (Spring 2010): the gold-standard for player advice
2) "Successful Adventures" from pages 107-109 of the AD&D PHB
3) "How To Make the Most Out Of FRP Tournaments" by Ken Rolston in Dragon #70
4) Gygax's "Up on a Soapbox" articles include many colorful anecdotes that can offer object lessons to Gentle Readers; I summarize them on my site @ www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_castle_sources_soapbox.html
5) "Tips for Players" from Matt's Old School Primer is also useful (although in general I think of it as more oriented toward DMs than players overall)

A lot of the dungeon/adventure design articles/guidelines can be reverse-engineered into player advice too, but it takes experience and perspective to connect those dots, which brand-new players won't have.

Jul 29, 2019 9:30:12 GMT -6 Melan said:

One device I would rely on in a tutorial level would come from the old proverb, "The wise man learns from the misfortunes of others".

Open-ended challenges to be solved by player ingenuity

Telegraph clues less subtly than deeper down.

Use all the classics.

Of course, allow them to die and allow them to get rich, too!

All great points!

To reinforce the "use the classics" further, when I was teaching some of my sons' friends to play, I used the DMG Monastery sample dungeon and made sure to include various standard dungeon design tropes:

To the top half, I added a few more "learning" features; this way the players (who are mostly new to AD&D) will gain a little experience with some standard features/tricks, including a pair of portcullises (one of which will function more like a barred window, since it's unraiseable/unbendable without giant strength [between 22 and 16]), a teleporter, an illusionary wall, and an audible glamer. I should add a magic mouth somewhere too, I think. 14/16 are now combined, and feature a fungus garden tended by an evil druid in 15.

Some further details (including my expanded map of the monastery level 1, and my version of the level 2 map) @ knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14906 if you're curious

Allan.

[Zakharan]

My megadungeon's first level is built around weak undead and deadly traps. There's not a lot to teach regarding combat, but trap-training is pretty important.

Of course, the wandering monster tables have a chance of summoning something from much deeper, making alacrity important.

[eotb]

Jul 28, 2019 17:36:28 GMT -6 Zulgyan said:

Any recommendations in general? Tips, guides, articles, etc.? Of course I'll aim for a complex, non-linear map that gets the OD&D exploration game right!

I go against the grain here. Unless a DM is designing specifically to exclude monsters of such a strength as able to kill a 1st level character in a single blow - don't limit what you use to stuff that only "just" kills in a single blow.

That just makes a dungeon level of no threat once characters get a bit higher in level.

Put another way, if a DM is willing to put a trap on a noob level that does 2d6 damage, or a poisonous spider, consider instead putting a trap on a level that can kill almost any PC in a memorable way. I'd rather die from being frozen in a save-or-die frost ray that turns me into a curiosity within a gigantic cube of ice than a spear trap to the belly. One is a memory and the other is nothing but sting and non-plus. The odds of survival are approximately the same, but a 4th level PC with some knowledge of the latter won't be intimidated while the former will still terrify them.

Especially with new players, I emphasize the "wow!". It's why they're willing to invest their time in something only heard about, and what they hope to experience from that investment.

This isn't to say that zero proportional traps should be used for noobs; just don't sacrifice the wow for barely-different survival odds. Go light or go memorably large.

[Scott Anderson]

A1 worked well for us. There are fun surprises and choices.