So apparently Undermountain = EPT

[jeffb]

Sort of

Interesting fun-fact I did not know:

According to the product history for the first Undermountain boxed set, the maps are actually Dave Sutherland's maps from his EPT game

www.dmsguild.com/product/16785/The-Ruins-of-Undermountain-2e?src=newest_in_classics&it=1

[grodog]

Interesting find, Jeff! Here's the relevant quotation:

Origins (VII): Changing the Maps. Though The Ruins of Undermountains offers the nearest thing to a look at a primordial megadungeon of anything that TSR ever published … it's turns out that it's still somewhat distant. That's in large part because TSR didn't actually use Ed Greenwood's original maps. Greenwood says that The Ruins of Undermountain uses the "original keys to the area around the shaft down from the Yawning Portal", but that the rest of the maps are actually "an old Empire of the Petal Throne home-campaign map that the late Dave Sutherland … had lying around". Apparently TSR didn't want to spend the time redrawing Greenwood's faded maps with their "cramped, tiny, wandering-all-over-the-pages keys". You can see the differences between the two styles of mapin printed product when you look at the smaller rooms around the Yawning Portal entrance and compare that to the larger rooms everywhere else — though those larger rooms were sometimes broken up by Ed Greenwood, Steven Schend, and other TSR staff to make them more reasonable!

I wonder if they're the same maps that rjkuntz played through in DCSIII's EPT campaign? I wonder if Victor badger2305 has any further context that he can add?

Allan.

[foxroe]

Now the real question is, what are they maps of? Where did DCS's campaign take place?

[Morandir]

It's so weird to see this, I was just looking at the map for Undermountain level 2 last night and thought it would make a great EPT style underworld! All the large columned rooms seemed like perfect underground temple complexes. Now I know why!

[geoffrey]

Fascinating.

[Melan]

Downright bizarre. Ruins of Undermountain has a bad reputation in old school circles, but it was the only credible large dungeon we had access to in the 2e era. Many good memories, especially that one time when a party transported a charmed bullette up the Yawning Portal and let it loose in Durnan's inn.

Now this info tells us that TSR not only published the maps for an EPT home game, but that Greenwood's original dungeon notes are different, and might still be extant. That's doubly interesting because the core rooms (that area around the start) was the best part of Undermountain - not just in terms of development, but also in terms of structure.

[grodog]

Sept 5, 2017 1:52:09 GMT -6 Melan said:

Downright bizarre. Ruins of Undermountain has a bad reputation in old school circles, but it was the only credible large dungeon we had access to in the 2e era. Many good memories, especially that one time when a party transported a charmed bullette up the Yawning Portal and let it loose in Durnan's inn.

I only ran Undermountain once, over an extended series of sessions, and it didn't stick---either for the group as a place of adventure, or in my memory with any meaningful gaming occurring there.

Sept 5, 2017 1:52:09 GMT -6 Melan said:

Now this info tells us that TSR not only published the maps for an EPT home game, but that Greenwood's original dungeon notes are different, and might still be extant. That's doubly interesting because the core rooms (that area around the start) was the best part of Undermountain - not just in terms of development, but also in terms of structure.

I would be interested in seeing Greenwood's original Undermountain content, since I enjoyed reading Greenwood's many articles in TD and Dragon before the FR Greybox was published.

I'll have to see what I can find about Rob describing his old campaign with DCSIII, but IIRC it was not only an EPT game, but I think he mentioned it as including a big dungeon. This is from RJK's old ERKME newsletter #10 (the last one from 2006):

David also DMed his own D&D game for me personally, a treat when I could get
him to do so, as he was so busy. To my knowledge there were no other
participants in Lake Geneva who also played in it. My character was an elf.
David had me roll dice to determine his background, and I rolled exceptionally
well and was elevated in station from the start to that of a prince, albeit one
lower on the totem pole, as there were brothers before me in the pecking order for
the crown. He assigned me two elven retainers as my personal guards and off I
went into a fantastic landscape created by David’s equally fantastic
imagination. In fact his hand drawn pencil and inked maps were enough to
make me appreciative of my own lacks and were an inspiration for me to do
better in that regard. On these maps David noted the major areas such as
kingdoms, cities, towns and strange fortresses but left them unnamed, however
he kept many master sheets with names and histories of all of these, all quite
detailed, plus information regarding movements of armies, events in his world,
and notable rumors, both local and continental--in all a very well realized and
detailed world which immediately made me appreciative of its many superlative
qualities and its conceptual depth.

Will need to dig further.

Allan.

[jeffb]

DCS is one of the "secondary" folks I really miss in this day and age of the "OSR" movement. I so wish people like him and Tom Moldvay were still around to be participating in the conversations and even better, producing materials. Dave got some flak, but I have always enjoyed his art. His combat scenes always had me thinking about what had come just before and what would come next (usually the PCs demise)

[badger2305]

Sept 3, 2017 15:35:44 GMT -6 grodog said:

Interesting find, Jeff! Here's the relevant quotation:

Origins (VII): Changing the Maps. Though The Ruins of Undermountains offers the nearest thing to a look at a primordial megadungeon of anything that TSR ever published … it's turns out that it's still somewhat distant. That's in large part because TSR didn't actually use Ed Greenwood's original maps. Greenwood says that The Ruins of Undermountain uses the "original keys to the area around the shaft down from the Yawning Portal", but that the rest of the maps are actually "an old Empire of the Petal Throne home-campaign map that the late Dave Sutherland … had lying around". Apparently TSR didn't want to spend the time redrawing Greenwood's faded maps with their "cramped, tiny, wandering-all-over-the-pages keys". You can see the differences between the two styles of mapin printed product when you look at the smaller rooms around the Yawning Portal entrance and compare that to the larger rooms everywhere else — though those larger rooms were sometimes broken up by Ed Greenwood, Steven Schend, and other TSR staff to make them more reasonable!

I wonder if they're the same maps that rjkuntz played through in DCSIII's EPT campaign? I wonder if Victor badger2305 has any further context that he can add?

Allan.

I'll have to take a look at this to see. Allan, if you have a PDF to share with me, I might be able to shed some light on this.

[grodog]

Curious eBay lot that aligns here: www.ebay.com/itm/292605279580

badger2305: I'll see what I can dig up!

increment: any further insights?

Allan.

[increment]

Jun 16, 2018 17:39:59 GMT -6 grodog said:

increment : any further insights?

The maps photocopied here are excerpts from one of Sutherland's 17" x 22" EPT dungeon levels, the one that corresponds to the Level 3 North map of the Undermountain boxed set. The fidelity of the Undermountain version to Sutherland's original is quite good, only very minor differences in dungeon architecture are noticeable. This would pretty decisively corroborate that story about the origins of the Undermountain maps (apart from Level 1), which I've heard for some time from folks who should know, like Jeff Grubb.

In the accompanying seven-page hand-written letter, written late in 1978, Sutherland provides a key for a small cluster of rooms on the map which he numbered by hand; you fight your way through Serudlas and Saguns and various other Tekumel beasties, and then a Level 7 Priest with 11 fighter minions, before confronting a Level 10 Magic-user. This is given as a tutorial to someone who purchased EPT and wrote in to TSR to complain that it was totally incomprehensible. Sutherland takes an extraordinary amount of time and effort to explain what role-playing games are and how to play them, but urges attending a convention to learn in person. A very interesting document for the period. 

[grodog]

Thanks Jon!

Allan.

[grodog]

Jun 16, 2018 17:39:59 GMT -6 grodog said:

Curious eBay lot that aligns here: www.ebay.com/itm/292605279580

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DbHC6paPQX-Nt56XEtz2guOYDXo_safk

Allan.

[foxroe]

Wow, Allan, thanks!

I find it interesting to note that the maps seem to follow the "original" method of twisting passages and dense room distribution (a la the original Greyhawk - fill the paper!), but the walls are 10' thick. Was Undermountain like this? I don't recall. The letter is great, too.

[grodog]

Aug 12, 2018 0:17:33 GMT -6 foxroe said:

Wow, Allan, thanks!

I find it interesting to note that the maps seem to follow the "original" method of twisting passages and dense room distribution (a la the original Greyhawk - fill the paper!), but the walls are 10' thick. Was Undermountain like this? I don't recall. The letter is great, too.

You're quite welcome! I'd still like to pull out my UM maps to compare the DCSIII map to the UM maps, and then to see if I can determine if the maps from DCSIII were those from the EPT campaign that he ran for robkuntz (which seems likely to me), or not....

Allan.

[grodog]

Aug 11, 2018 20:06:24 GMT -6 grodog said:

Jun 16, 2018 17:39:59 GMT -6 grodog said:

Curious eBay lot that aligns here: www.ebay.com/itm/292605279580

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DbHC6paPQX-Nt56XEtz2guOYDXo_safk

You see this yet, Victor?: badger2305

Allan.

[asaki]

This might be old news to some, but I was thinking about Undermountain tonight, and found a few newer tidbits:

unvisiblecitadel.blogspot.com/2020/06/undermountain-map-origins.html <- it's not just Dave's maps in there

Also, a quote from Ed's Twitter page: (source)

The encounter areas really only drew on Level 1 of Undermountain (not its top level, as it had 2 of those, one the thieves' citadel inside Mount Waterdeep {see Room 23} and the Fireplace Dungeon), and to swiftly get the set out, TSR drew on an existing Dave Sutherland Empire of the Petal Throne dungeon map; that's where most of the gigantic rooms came from.
At the same time, I was writing all of those mini-adventures in one week (around my library day job and its 100-mile-each-way daily commute). :}
The "home" Realms campaign was and is all intrigue and PCs have 'day jobs' as well as adventuring, and developing relationships with NPC neighbours, so Undermountain was crammed with burnt-out torches and other remnants of previous adventurers, as well as mysterious magical effects and hidden storage niches inside pillars with odds and ends and cryptic written messages inside them, so my players were constantly piecing together mysteries and stumbling over guild master and noble conspiracies in the Deep.
It was all great fun. Steve Schend was editor for the Undermountain boxed set, and had the unenviable task of paring down all of my mountain of details into something that'd fit inside that box. I think we managed to hand DMs a fun toolbox.

[greentongue]

It's old "old news" if you have seen it before.

[badger2305]

Nov 18, 2018 23:15:12 GMT -6 grodog said:

Aug 11, 2018 20:06:24 GMT -6 grodog said:

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DbHC6paPQX-Nt56XEtz2guOYDXo_safk

You see this yet, Victor?: badger2305

Allan.

Well, three years late. *sigh*

Dave Sutherland was a really kind and decent guy. He seemed to have gotten overwhelmed, I think, but the various pressures in his life - but that's a different story. As far as Empire of the Petal Throne was concerned, Dave got Tekumel, and Prof. Barker recognized that. I played in Dave's EPT game at GenCon one year (it was at UW-Parkside), and he had a fascinating approach to mapping: He laid the map out on the table, and then had a sheet of black cardstock with a circular hole cut in the middle, about 3-4 inches across. The circle had crosshairs, made from two lengths of wire, IIRC. The party traveled around the map, and we could see where we were based on the crosshairs. It gave up SOME idea of where we were, but not a lot more than that - and you still had to map, if you wanted to get the bigger picture. It was an elegant way to move things along in a convention setting, but I think Dave said he used it for his own campaign.

[geoffrey]

Mar 31, 2021 16:54:38 GMT -6 badger2305 said:

I played in Dave's EPT game at GenCon one year (it was at UW-Parkside), and he had a fascinating approach to mapping: He laid the map out on the table, and then had a sheet of black cardstock with a circular hole cut in the middle, about 3-4 inches across. The circle had crosshairs, made from two lengths of wire, IIRC. The party traveled around the map, and we could see where we were based on the crosshairs. It gave up SOME idea of where we were, but not a lot more than that - and you still had to map, if you wanted to get the bigger picture. It was an elegant way to move things along in a convention setting, but I think Dave said he used it for his own campaign.

[simrion]

Mar 31, 2021 17:55:34 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Mar 31, 2021 16:54:38 GMT -6 badger2305 said:

I played in Dave's EPT game at GenCon one year (it was at UW-Parkside), and he had a fascinating approach to mapping: He laid the map out on the table, and then had a sheet of black cardstock with a circular hole cut in the middle, about 3-4 inches across. The circle had crosshairs, made from two lengths of wire, IIRC. The party traveled around the map, and we could see where we were based on the crosshairs. It gave up SOME idea of where we were, but not a lot more than that - and you still had to map, if you wanted to get the bigger picture. It was an elegant way to move things along in a convention setting, but I think Dave said he used it for his own campaign.

THAT is a marvelous idea!

[Baron]

I use Roll20.net for my online gaming, and there is an optional feature called Dynamic Lighting that basically does the same thing. You designate which tokens are carrying a light source, set the radius of illumination, and then the players can only see the area of map they're standing in. The darkness returns when they move on. So if they don't keep a hand-made map somehow, they won't be able to re-trace their steps or know the way out.

My players, all of whom were veterans of actual tabletop gaming, nevertheless hated the feature in their online games. They'd become used to seeing where they'd been right there on the screen.

So now I use a blank screen on Roll20 and all they get to see is what they draw there. Not nearly as pretty. Quicker for me in set-up. But adds extra time to the game itself while they draw.

[tombowings]

Apr 10, 2021 10:38:28 GMT -6 Baron said:

I use Roll20.net for my online gaming, and there is an optional feature called Dynamic Lighting that basically does the same thing. You designate which tokens are carrying a light source, set the radius of illumination, and then the players can only see the area of map they're standing in. The darkness returns when they move on. So if they don't keep a hand-made map somehow, they won't be able to re-trace their steps or know the way out.

My players, all of whom were veterans of actual tabletop gaming, nevertheless hated the feature in their online games. They'd become used to seeing where they'd been right there on the screen.

So now I use a blank screen on Roll20 and all they get to see is what they draw there. Not nearly as pretty. Quicker for me in set-up. But adds extra time to the game itself while they draw.

I find the extra time the players spent mapping very valuable as a DM. I need time to plan, scheme, and consider. Mapping is a natural break in the DM narration that allows me to breath.