OD&D Dungeons vs. AD&D Dungeons vs. B/X Dungeons

[countingwizard]

This is going to be a cross-post with the K&K Forum community because I want a variety of opinions.

I am creating my first really large dungeon (and by large I mean 11+ floors, with a starting footprint of 4 sheets of graph paper, + an extra 2 sheets used to map a cave system). I've made a few tightly focused multi-floor dungeons before, usually sticking to OD&D material and doing my own thing without referencing much except the monster tables and the light guidance provided by the LBBs. But with such a large dungeon, I'm going to need to rely a little more on written sources to get my creativity percolating. I'm not familiar at all with B/X dungeon design, and I've only just began to skim over AD&D dungeon design, so I feel like I'm still very much in the dark as to what the strengths and weaknesses are of each resource. What I want to know is: "What do you like/dislike, or consider strengths/weaknesses, about dungeon designs built using the various original rulesets?" This includes the design guidance suggested in the rules themselves, as well as the published modules for each system.

[geoffrey]

The single thing that most stands out for me is that Gary got monster density right in B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. The kids going through my dungeons swiftly became bored and frustrated when they entered room after room (after room after room...) with no monsters therein. So I switched to roughly 80% of the rooms containing monsters, and the game took off.

This of course describes only my group. Perhaps everyone else enjoys dungeons with the majority of their rooms without monsters.

Overall, my group and I have found that most everything I've read about dungeon stocking and map drawing (whether in the OD&D, AD&D, or B/X rulebooks, or on the internet) was beside the point or even simply not fun. You want a fun dungeon? You need look no farther than module B2. Use that as your example, and crazy fun times await.

In a nutshell: "the Caves of Chaos, only a LOT more of it".



(A brief overview of my latest dungeons: odd74.proboards.com/thread/13573/level-dungeon-pure-fun-recipe )

[delta]

I think for me currently there's two things at the forefront of my thinking re: design advice in the LBBs.

(1) How very quickly the original designers seemed veer off from the advice in Vol-3, i.e., "As a general rule there will be far more uninhabited space on a level than there will be space occupied by monsters". For published modules, maybe S3 resembles that, but nothing else does. The most popular/successful examples, e.g., G1-3, are distinctly the opposite of that. (Nonetheless that advice seemed to be sticky through later rulesets, even though the sample dungeons tend not to resemble it.)

(2) How dependent the treasure (and hence PC leveling rate) is on pure DM fiat. There's multiple signals that the lettered Treasure Types should be used only for wilderness, not dungeons. Yet many people used them for dungeons and seemed pretty happy with it, of course.

Another random thing is I think I would encourage a person to develop a dungeon architecture style that is sympathetic with the tools they have available. E.g. if you have graph paper and a pencil, maybe "thin wall style" is good. If you have ink & brush, maybe something different. If you have a computer paint program, maybe yet another style suggests itself.

[countingwizard]

Jul 17, 2019 10:42:10 GMT -6 delta said:

I think for me currently there's two things at the forefront of my thing re: design advice in the LBBs.

(1) How very quickly the original designers seemed veer off from the advice in Vol-3, i.e., "As a general rule there will be far more uninhabited space on a level than there will be space occupied by monsters". For published modules, maybe S3 resembles that, but nothing else does. The most popular/successful examples, e.g., G1-3, are distinctly the opposite of that. (Nonetheless that advice seemed to be sticky through later rulesets, even though the sample dungeons tend not to resemble it.)

(2) How dependent the treasure (and hence PC leveling rate) is on pure DM fiat. There's multiple signals that the lettered Treasure Types should be used only for wilderness, not dungeons. Yet many people used them for dungeons and seemed pretty happy with it, of course.

Another random thing is I think I would encourage a person to develop a dungeon architecture style that is sympathetic with the tools they have available. E.g. if you have graph paper and a pencil, maybe "thin wall style" is good. If you have ink & brush, maybe something different. If you have a computer paint program, maybe yet another style suggests itself.

I prefer thin walls for pen-and-paper myself, although I do switch to thicker walls if there is an aesthetic purpose for it. I've run into this problem when trying to create digitally explorable versions of D&D maps, like through grid cartographer or minecraft.

To me, paper thin walls are actually ~5ft thick and don't take up corridor space. I just chalk up the mapping errors from how this fits or adjusts the dungeon geometry as a "built-in" mapping error and accept the contradictory nature of them. I've actually been designing my dungeons to be easier to describe, show visually, or generally make easier to map. I refuse to use complex geometry anywhere except in caves.

I've also tried creating dungeons with as much empty space as vol. 3 guidance tells me to, but it's just plain boring. Empty rooms should be the exception, not the rule. Players should have things to interact and play with, even if no treasure or monsters are involved. That's why I like tricks so much.

My school of thought is that dungeon level treasure guidance are for inhabited rooms (and that other empty room but guarded by traps type of rooms), not lairs. If I put a lair in a room/area, you better d**n well expect similar numbers of monsters and treasure rewards. I usually scale down the number of monsters in the lair since the lair is already in a dungeon full of monsters.

[talysman]

The thing about "empty rooms" is: they should not be empty. What U&WA says is that 2/3rds of the rooms should be uninhabited (no monsters) and 5/6ths of those uninhabited rooms shouldn't have treasure. I'd argue that you should always have something to do, even in those "empty" rooms. Make several of them storage rooms, or garbage heaps, or dung piles, or mushroom farms. Stuff to search through and possibly find usable items, a few meager coins, or nuisance critters (which I'd count as traps rather than monsters.) And other "empty rooms" will have secret passages, or statues/murals/inscriptions that might provide clues useful later, or red herrings... or weird useless devices... or lots of other things.

And as Gygax said in later commentary, all of this comes after you've placed your special rooms with unique monsters, tricks, or unusual treasure, none of which counts against the standard stocking rules for monsters/treasure. I recommend coming up with 1 to 4 special rooms per level that help define areas of the dungeon (mausoleum region, bugbear caves, lost library, wizard's zoo) and defining your "empty" room types in terms of those "hub" areas (smaller crypts or funeral monuments surrounding the mausoleum, for example.)

If you are going to use the "wilderness" treasure types, I'd use that for the total treasure in a particular level or sublevel, distributing it in several rooms, rather than placing that treasure in a single room. Use the main "dungeon" treasure tables for miscellaneous treasure of lesser filler monsters or hidden/trapped treasure stashes.

[eotb]

I agree with the sentiment that many DMs take "empty" too literally. All such uninhabited rooms are the DMs foreshadowing tools - the "WTF" scenes that increase player dread through conveying the echo of past action and near-danger.  For kids, sure, fill the place up and let them gloriously hack; it's fun and there's nothing low-brow about it, the precursor to what took off as 1st person shooter games.

But what makes a horror movie tick?  The tension.  It builds and builds, and then when action happens that's a cathartic release of uncertainty.  Dungeon rooms should do likewise.  

Another plus: your players will give you some of the best ideas in their fanciful reaction to placed red herrings.  Many times I've listened to my players conjecture on what this or that must mean and thought "wow, that's really cool" and ended up using it for another group or running with it with the group that proposed it as the "x" tying what they knew to what they suspected they knew.

But ultimately know your players as this is far more effective for long-running campaigns than some formula which might have been based off a single game group in Lake Geneva.  If I have an "action movie" group that wants simple and direct challenges I will weight to that, and can reweight on the fly even.  Same with other style preferences.  Cleaving to published formula without practical experience certifying its effectiveness in making play better is usually a sign of someone unsure, wanting the false security that comes with following direction.

[artikid]

I concur with all that's been said so far.
I do not own a copy of OD&D, but between AD&D and B/X, AD&D has the most tools to generate random Dungeons.
However B/X has a very concise part on devising adventures that really gets my immagination going.
And you know what? You don't have to chose. It's not an either/or proposition.
Use both!!!!!
Mix and match at your leisure.

[tetramorph]

Aug 6, 2019 3:09:59 GMT -6 artikid said:

I concur with all that's been said so far.
I do not own a copy of OD&D,

It’s just $10 to get a PDF.

I highly recommend it!

[countingwizard]

I've learned quite a lot while putting together a framework for dungeon building using the tools of the period. For example OD&D has lots of guidance on f**king over the mapper and thinks its hilarious to teleport the group without informing the group. The JG modules I've examined in detail f**k over the mapper with room descriptions that are off by 1'. You get rooms like are 39'x30', but the hallways and adjacent rooms are left unmodified so the ref map works but the player map is f**ked. From what I can tell, Gygax loved this sh*t.

Another interesting thing are the Frontier Forts of Kelnore. AD&D 1e DMG has a table full of all kinds of trick and trap ideas including teleports or more complex room sized traps that are good for general dungeon design. The JG products (Tegel Manor specifically) have maps with traps indicated across them, but not the nature of the trap. These maps also have other trap type things indicated in detail, like one way teleporters, one way doors, etc. So what are we supposed to use for general traps? The Frontier Forts of Kelnore introduces a trap table that determines what those general traps are on the map when encountered. Not to mention the Frontier Forts of Kelnore also introduces some light randomized dungeon design elements of its own.

[Deleted]

In the old Europa fanzine, Gygax goes through the steps to create a campaign. His section on dungeons doesn't match the actual steps shown in the rulebook; either in OD&D or those rules that later only showed up in AD&D's random dungeon generation tables. It's basically draw a map and then pick a theme for the level. Then populate the level according to that theme. No mention of empty rooms or even of assigning random monster and then figuring out the theme from that. This was all written early in '75 and I suspect that an OD&D dungeon created this way would feel quite modern by OSR standards.

B/X does have an advantage over OD&D and AD&D in that their random treasure tables produce less powerful magic items for Basic players over those found by Expert players. An important feature that only appears otherwise in the old Monster & Treasure Assortments.


If you don't have the fanzine in question.
archive.org/details/Europa_6-8-1975-04

[Zenopus]

Good citation @hedgehobbit. And we also have a thread here at ODD74 dedicated to that article, where one can find a reformatted version:

odd74.proboards.com/thread/9040/gygax-1975-dungeons-dragons-campaign

[fingolwyn]

Jul 17, 2019 22:43:33 GMT -6 talysman said:

The thing about "empty rooms" is: they should not be empty...I'd argue that you should always have something to do, even in those "empty" rooms.

Absolutely true. Some rooms should be empty just to keep players honest (while giving them a bit of stress relief to alleviate burnout from constantly being in mortal peril...it really does add up after a few sessions). But most "empty" rooms should have something to do...useful information to be gained from reading inscriptions or viewing murals on the walls, secret doors that provide easier or more direct access to locations, old adventurer camp sites which might contain a very few things they can add to resupply their stock of goods (a pint of lamp oil, a wineskin of rank but potable water, a couple rusty but still usable iron spikes, etc), or even tracks or a trail recently left by a monster lairing nearby.

As for "paper thin walls" (as posted by Delta), the mapping program I use (Dungeoncrafter v 1.4.1) is based on 20x20 squares (when blown up to 800% in MS Paint) with a basic grid that is 2 "dots" wide. In a typical 10 ft square map, that means each grid line is 1 ft wide. I add 1 ft on each side to make actual walls more distinct from the grid, which results in 3 ft thick walls spread over 20 ft (meaning the grid line is 1 ft, the 10 ft square on the left contributes 1 ft, and the 10 ft square on the right does the same). I'm sure that, due to material strengths and all that, this would be insufficient for realistic, large underground complexes, but at least for me it adds enough realism while allowing "paper thin walls".

But why is it even necessary? I'm not sure why, but for some reason I find that adding a full square (10 ft) between two rooms, or a room and a hall, often is rather aesthetically displeasing as I'm creating the map. I certainly don't want to just fill every square on the map with rooms and halls, but for some reason four interconnected rooms all separated by a full square just looks bad, or maybe amateurish, or maybe lazy...kinda like a picture that has been oversized and pixelated (thus looks like 8-bit rather than 32-bit or better). 

[countingwizard]

Aug 18, 2019 2:55:11 GMT -6 fingolwyn said:

Jul 17, 2019 22:43:33 GMT -6 talysman said:

The thing about "empty rooms" is: they should not be empty...I'd argue that you should always have something to do, even in those "empty" rooms.

Absolutely true. Some rooms should be empty just to keep players honest (while giving them a bit of stress relief to alleviate burnout from constantly being in mortal peril...it really does add up after a few sessions). But most "empty" rooms should have something to do...useful information to be gained from reading inscriptions or viewing murals on the walls, secret doors that provide easier or more direct access to locations, old adventurer camp sites which might contain a very few things they can add to resupply their stock of goods (a pint of lamp oil, a wineskin of rank but potable water, a couple rusty but still usable iron spikes, etc), or even tracks or a trail recently left by a monster lairing nearby.

As for "paper thin walls" (as posted by Delta), the mapping program I use (Dungeoncrafter v 1.4.1) is based on 20x20 squares (when blown up to 800% in MS Paint) with a basic grid that is 2 "dots" wide. In a typical 10 ft square map, that means each grid line is 1 ft wide. I add 1 ft on each side to make actual walls more distinct from the grid, which results in 3 ft thick walls spread over 20 ft (meaning the grid line is 1 ft, the 10 ft square on the left contributes 1 ft, and the 10 ft square on the right does the same). I'm sure that, due to material strengths and all that, this would be insufficient for realistic, large underground complexes, but at least for me it adds enough realism while allowing "paper thin walls".

But why is it even necessary? I'm not sure why, but for some reason I find that adding a full square (10 ft) between two rooms, or a room and a hall, often is rather aesthetically displeasing as I'm creating the map. I certainly don't want to just fill every square on the map with rooms and halls, but for some reason four interconnected rooms all separated by a full square just looks bad, or maybe amateurish, or maybe lazy...kinda like a picture that has been oversized and pixelated (thus looks like 8-bit rather than 32-bit or better). 

I think paper-thin walls feel more organic. You can fit much more dungeon onto a sheet of paper; there are no rules or expectations about how the dungeon is going to be laid out; if you can't get to a unexplained gap it may be because it is a secret room or passage, or just solid terrain. Using paper-thin walls you can still keep to reasonable simulated architectural methods: outer walls are thicker, support beams and pillars throughout the interior, etc.

[ffilz]

Hmm, a thought I have on paper thin walls (my preferred style): Actually walls are 2' thick, assume any edge with a line on it protrudes 1' on either side of the graph paper line. Thus a 10' corrridor is actually 8' wide and a 5' corridor is actually only 3' wide (which is still quite reasonable)... Continue to describe things in 5' and 10' increments, just take into account actual dimensions when relevant. Or if you really want to keep 10'ish and 5'ish wide passages, make the squares 2 yards instead of 5 feet or 4 yards instead of 10 feet (and using meters instead of yards works too). Of course I would then change everything like ranges, movement rates, and area of effects from 1" is 10' to 1" is 2 yards (or 2 meters). Now your passages are still as wide as you expect, and the game works as expected.

[countingwizard]

Aug 23, 2019 14:35:20 GMT -6 ffilz said:

Hmm, a thought I have on paper thin walls (my preferred style): Actually walls are 2' thick, assume any edge with a line on it protrudes 1' on either side of the graph paper line. Thus a 10' corrridor is actually 8' wide and a 5' corridor is actually only 3' wide (which is still quite reasonable)... Continue to describe things in 5' and 10' increments, just take into account actual dimensions when relevant. Or if you really want to keep 10'ish and 5'ish wide passages, make the squares 2 yards instead of 5 feet or 4 yards instead of 10 feet (and using meters instead of yards works too). Of course I would then change everything like ranges, movement rates, and area of effects from 1" is 10' to 1" is 2 yards (or 2 meters). Now your passages are still as wide as you expect, and the game works as expected.

The great thing about D&D is that the 8' wide corridors can still be 10' wide because it's about ease of use and abstractions rather than exactitude, and contradictions don't matter in the tesseract of our imagination.

[countingwizard]

I've been making my way through the AD&D DMG Monster Level Tables and the earlier M&TA listings/summaries, and I have to say that Gary had absolutely no rule of thumb when it comes to "monster level". It has been incredibly difficult to tease out the two things I want for building encounter tables:

1. At what dungeon levels is it appropriate to introduce each monster.
2. What is an appropriate amount of monsters appearing for each dungeon level. My tendency is to to give conservative numbers since this is an exploration game, and there are static encounters built in already.

At the moment I'm trying to build my encounter tables as a list of d8, d10, d12, or d20 results that are specific for that dungeon level/area; with a rare occurrence indicating the use of a side-dungeon table or tables from the level above or below.

Does anyone have any advice or insight about monster level or appropriateness of number appearing?

[talysman]

Aug 28, 2019 8:55:37 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

1. At what dungeon levels is it appropriate to introduce each monster.
2. What is an appropriate amount of monsters appearing for each dungeon level. My tendency is to to give conservative numbers since this is an exploration game, and there are static encounters built in already.

At the moment I'm trying to build my encounter tables as a list of d8, d10, d12, or d20 results that are specific for that dungeon level/area; with a rare occurrence indicating the use of a side-dungeon table or tables from the level above or below.

Does anyone have any advice or insight about monster level or appropriateness of number appearing?

It's been a while since I examined monster levels and wandering monster charts closely, but I'm looking back at my notes. I figured out a formula that works for what range of hit dice fits each monster level, but there's no corresponding formula to translate hit dice into a specific monster level for HD 4+. There's an overlap.

Monster Level	HD Range	Dungeon Level Range
1	up to 1	1 to 2
2	2	1 to 3
3	3 to 4	1 to 4
4	4 to 6	1 to 6
5	4 to 10	2 to 12
6	5 to 12+	3 to 13+

The best suggestion I can give is that for 4 HD to 10 HD, use the lowest monster level if it's mostly a combat beast, but kick it up one or two levels if it has supernatural powers.

As for when to introduce monsters, the tables suggest a minimum dungeon level = monster level -3. So, no 5th level monsters on the 1st dungeon level. Number appearing is supposed to be adjusted based on dungeon level, my theory being that low-level monsters aren't going to venture deeper unless they are in larger groups to make up for their relative weakness, while high-level monsters are going to feel less threatened the higher up they go, so they may even go solo. But this is supposed to alter a base number appearing, and there's no actual guidelines in M&T for wandering monster numbers... Number Appearing is for wilderness encounters or entire lairs, not patrols.

My suggestion: count the digits in the high value for Number Appearing. If it's single-digit, use either 1d6 or Number Appearing as-is for the base number. If it's double or triple digits, roll 2d6 or 3d6, respectively, for base number. Double, triple, or quadruple this if the dungeon level is greater than monster level. If dungeon level is lower than monster level, halve the base number for every level of difference, minimum 1 monster appearing.

[eotb]

Aug 28, 2019 8:55:37 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

I've been making my way through the AD&D DMG Monster Level Tables and the earlier M&TA listings/summaries, and I have to say that Gary had absolutely no rule of thumb when it comes to "monster level". It has been incredibly difficult to tease out the two things I want for building encounter tables:

1. At what dungeon levels is it appropriate to introduce each monster.
2. What is an appropriate amount of monsters appearing for each dungeon level. My tendency is to to give conservative numbers since this is an exploration game, and there are static encounters built in already.

At the moment I'm trying to build my encounter tables as a list of d8, d10, d12, or d20 results that are specific for that dungeon level/area; with a rare occurrence indicating the use of a side-dungeon table or tables from the level above or below.

Does anyone have any advice or insight about monster level or appropriateness of number appearing?

I'm not sure if your question if after looking at the text/table on the bottom of DMG p 174 and very top of p 175?  I.e., you've read that and are looking for more/different info?

[ffilz]

I've got these tables I worked up for my BX Yoon Suin game:

docs.google.com/document/d/1du8VuPQB4XklR_yTJ1TGbx435lf3hOH65WlRkoQkdZc/edit?usp=sharing

It doesn't include most of the faerie type creatures and a few others I thought were too Eurocentric and doesn't include a few humanoids that have more Yoon Suin appropriate counterparts.

The monsters are drawn from Holmes, BX, BECM, AD&D, and Creature Catalog (there's an index at the end that shows where everything came from). Since I am using BX for the campaign, I favored BX and BECM monsters over AD&D. Nothing is specifically drawn from OD&D, but anything that is in there that was appropriate would have been drawn from the sources I did use.

I changed the encounter level vs dungeon level chart from BX, and made an indication of quantity modifier (BX has Number Appearing rolls for both wilderness and dungeon). My plan was to use this for both random encounters and dungeon stocking.

Frank

[countingwizard]

Aug 28, 2019 11:09:13 GMT -6 eotb said:

Aug 28, 2019 8:55:37 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

I've been making my way through the AD&D DMG Monster Level Tables and the earlier M&TA listings/summaries, and I have to say that Gary had absolutely no rule of thumb when it comes to "monster level". It has been incredibly difficult to tease out the two things I want for building encounter tables:

1. At what dungeon levels is it appropriate to introduce each monster.
2. What is an appropriate amount of monsters appearing for each dungeon level. My tendency is to to give conservative numbers since this is an exploration game, and there are static encounters built in already.

At the moment I'm trying to build my encounter tables as a list of d8, d10, d12, or d20 results that are specific for that dungeon level/area; with a rare occurrence indicating the use of a side-dungeon table or tables from the level above or below.

Does anyone have any advice or insight about monster level or appropriateness of number appearing?

I'm not sure if your question if after looking at the text/table on the bottom of DMG p 174 and very top of p 175?  I.e., you've read that and are looking for more/different info?

Yeah, the info about how to adjust and stuff is clear there for AD&D, but it is vaguer the more you move towards U&WA. I'm chasing after an answer that exists somewhere between the LBBs and codified AD&D; that leans more towards OD&D. I'm starting to think I'm stuck in the weeds and need some perspective again. My perception was that AD&D uses tougher monsters with more HD, reduces the number appearing, and has a slightly different set of monsters (ex: snakes, spiders, apes, etc.)

[Punkrabbitt]

When it comes to monsters, there is no reason not to have something crawling about that can easily cause a TPK; there just needs to be away to escape/avoid it. Knowing when to run is your Wisdom stat.

[talysman]

Aug 28, 2019 14:01:37 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

Aug 28, 2019 11:09:13 GMT -6 eotb said:

I'm not sure if your question if after looking at the text/table on the bottom of DMG p 174 and very top of p 175?  I.e., you've read that and are looking for more/different info?

Yeah, the info about how to adjust and stuff is clear there for AD&D, but it is vaguer the more you move towards U&WA. I'm chasing after an answer that exists somewhere between the LBBs and codified AD&D; that leans more towards OD&D. I'm starting to think I'm stuck in the weeds and need some perspective again. My perception was that AD&D uses tougher monsters with more HD, reduces the number appearing, and has a slightly different set of monsters (ex: snakes, spiders, apes, etc.)

If you need more info than what I posted above, here are a couple blog posts on the topic of monster level in OD&D.

Stocking Rolls (First half of post is about treasure and can be skipped. Part you are looking for is near the end, where I discuss the patterns in the main wandering monster table.)

Wandering Monster Levels (Follow-up to other post, where I break down the relationship between hit dice and monster level.)

Wandering Monster Tables (From Delta's blog. Uses different methods than I did, but came to more or less the same conclusions I did.)

[delta]

Aug 28, 2019 8:55:37 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

Does anyone have any advice or insight about monster level or appropriateness of number appearing?

I've probably got more blog posts on this than you want to know about. My culminating piece is here (you can search for other preliminary pieces by searching for the same title).

[Deleted]

It depends on what you want.

My thoughts, take them or leave them.

Design wise - If you look at Greyhawk dungeon it's a lot like my own dungeon from when I was 14. The maze of rooms right next to each other is not very realistic for most underground structures. If the walls are supporting stone above, then how thick do they need to be? Rock is heavy. A deep place will literally shrink from the weight of the stone that lies above, if it is deep enough. Look at real tunnels, they make a bore and then they build an arch within that to support the bore. A mine is just the bore with drifts, but they have to re-enforce that with wood pillars in place of arches.

Grids or no grids - And then the whole thing of having the walls all follow the grid is a bit ridiculous too. Anymore, I draw on blank paper and then estimate distances during play. My mappers hate it, but I ask them 2 questions out of game: Got your surveying gear on you, and are you willing to take the time to map it right while I roll for wandering monsters? If yes, I measure more closely, otherwise it's described as about 20 by 20 feet, and the tunnel angles left some...

Access and vertical design - My personal preference is for the Twin Cities style dungeon where the rooms come off of tunnels and often you can avoid rooms as you travel to where you want to go. No hassle with room by room moving if you have a map from previous adventures. Another thing about the Twin Cities style is that they had a lot of angled passages to confuse the players. The Twin cities mega dungeons had a very vertical design style as well. You could pop down to the 4th level, go down a passage, then pop up to the 1st level where you wanted to be.

As to the massive size of your mapping paper - Consider starting with a central area and work both side ways and vertically to prevent yourslf from thinking only in a horizontal way. It's a hoot to watch players take a winding stairwell that ends up on the 5th level and they have no idea how deep they are.

In-game terror - EOTB's comments about building tension regarding empty rooms is very apt. Even if fantasy games do not have rules for fear, good DM's create the sense of dread and fear. When Dave Arneson invented the dungeon, he did so after spending a day watching old horror films. Despite the label of fantasy, we all really are playing gothic horror. AS EOTB says horror is all about winding the mechanical toy before releasing it to cause chaos.

Rob Kuntz talks about information flow in some of his articles. If things are unclear the players begin to doubt what is going on. As you press them you raise their state of doubt to the point where they will become afraid and even may feel terror.

I always use cold air as an indicator that something supernatural is about to happen. My apparitions draw the warmth out of the air and the players are suddenly aware that they can see their breath -- scares the begeesus out of em. Come up with your own fear inducing clues.

Monsters - Monster balance is not something to worry about. What most newer players fail to realize, is that there are always 3 options: talk to the thing; fight the thing; run away from the thing. It's actually good as a DM to play fair. Roll dice in the open for combat. And kill players who choose to get into situations with monsters that are too powerful.

My players have always found retreat in panic games to be the most fun. You go somewhere and the monsters are now hunting you!

Dungeons aren't static. Things change after each game. Passages may get moved for some reason, they players themselves may blow out sections of the dungeon. Monsters re-inhabit cleared areas.

As you make your dungeon you may want to redo sections too. Just change it! It's a magical and terrifying underground place full of all kinds of things most people would avoid.

This is how I play. Most Ref's don't like some of my ideas.

[Desparil]

Sept 1, 2019 2:31:54 GMT -6 @secretsofblackmoor said:

Grids or no grids - And then the whole thing of having the walls all follow the grid is a bit ridiculous too. Anymore, I draw on blank paper and then estimate distances during play. My mappers hate it, but I ask them 2 questions out of game: Got your surveying gear on you, and are you willing to take the time to map it right while I roll for wandering monsters? If yes, I measure more closely, otherwise it's described as about 20 by 20 feet, and the tunnel angles left some...

I always assumed that by-the-book movement speed was accounting for fairly careful and precise mapping, possibly including some amount of measuring using ten-foot poles or other objects of known length. Otherwise I couldn't justify needing 10 minutes to cover a distance of 120 feet (or less, possibly 60 feet or less after considering men in plate armor and/or dwarfs and halflings), even considering a reasonable amount of slow-down from proceeding cautiously. I won't quibble over a couple of feet, but I assume that they've got the measurement to the nearest 5 or 10 feet, and give them a rough description of the path that an angled or winding passageway takes.

[delta]

Sept 1, 2019 6:35:31 GMT -6 Desparil said:

I always assumed that by-the-book movement speed was accounting for fairly careful and precise mapping, possibly including some amount of measuring using ten-foot poles or other objects of known length. Otherwise I couldn't justify needing 10 minutes to cover a distance of 120 feet (or less, possibly 60 feet or less after considering men in plate armor and/or dwarfs and halflings), even considering a reasonable amount of slow-down from proceeding cautiously. I won't quibble over a couple of feet, but I assume that they've got the measurement to the nearest 5 or 10 feet, and give them a rough description of the path that an angled or winding passageway takes.

FWIW, this gets explicated by Gygax in AD&D PHB p. 102. Once you have an area mapped your movement gets multiplied by 5 there.

[rsdean]

Sept 1, 2019 9:24:41 GMT -6 delta said:

FWIW, this gets explicated by Gygax in AD&D PHB p. 102. Once you have an area mapped your movement gets multiplied by 5 there.

One of these days, I want to sit down and reread the AD&D books carefully...to see how many rules I missed and/or ignored BITD. That’s certainly one of them...

[countingwizard]

So I've read through all the monster guidance you guys have given me and it has been a very spiritual journey. Last week I decided to base my dungeon monster lists off of AD&D. From what I can tell the benefits are:

• AD&D has a more comprehensive monster list than any other OSR source except maybe BECMI.
• AD&D has a very structured approach to assigning monsters to a specific level based upon experience rewarded for defeating that monster.
• AD&D has stronger guidance on the number of monsters appearing at each level vs. the level of monster.
• The AD&D difficulty is still just as arbitrary regarding difficulty due to the ambiguous nature of special abilities. Difficulty is uneven (which is to be valued since it challenges expectations).
• Monsters are spread across a wider spectrum of levels; a benefit to me since my megadungeon will be more than 10 levels.
• I can still use OD&D stats, which create more uneven difficulties, but aren't drastically different.

My goal is to build a dungeon design tool resource where I can group monsters by personal categories, level, and source. At a glance, I want to be able to look at the level 1 roster for the Monster Manual and see a list of all the monsters partitioned by category; or filter out to show the lists within 2 or 3 levels of the level I'm working on. My rule of thumb is probably going to be something like: a monster listed for a level 1 or 2 deeper can build a lair or have a unique room appearance in the shallower level, but they will not appear on the wandering list except at the level they are listed, or in very small numbers one level higher.

Does anyone know where I can find a comprehensive list of AD&D monsters from MM1, FF, and MM2 that also lists the level of the monster? I haven't been able to find one looking through Dragonsfoot and K&K Alehouse on my own. As a result, I spent this past weekend building a big spreadsheet trying to figure out the levels, until I realized they are listed for each monster in FF and MM2, but not included in MM1. Thankfully Delta pointed out I can still figure out their level by using their calculated XP and referring to the big monster list with stats at the back of the DMG; but a few monsters from the MM1 are still missing and I've had to manually calculate their minimum values.

If I'm the trailblazer, I guess it's important to show how I came up with the numbers rather than just putting down what I feel is correct; so I can share it with the community.

[ffilz]

Sept 3, 2019 8:01:32 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

So I've read through all the monster guidance you guys have given me and it has been a very spiritual journey. Last week I decided to base my dungeon monster lists off of AD&D. From what I can tell the benefits are:

• AD&D has a more comprehensive monster list than any other OSR source except maybe BECMI.
• AD&D has a very structured approach to assigning monsters to a specific level based upon experience rewarded for defeating that monster.
• AD&D has stronger guidance on the number of monsters appearing at each level vs. the level of monster.
• The AD&D difficulty is still just as arbitrary regarding difficulty due to the ambiguous nature of special abilities. Difficulty is uneven (which is to be valued since it challenges expectations).
• Monsters are spread across a wider spectrum of levels; a benefit to me since my megadungeon will be more than 10 levels.
• I can still use OD&D stats, which create more uneven difficulties, but aren't drastically different.

My goal is to build a dungeon design tool resource where I can group monsters by personal categories, level, and source. At a glance, I want to be able to look at the level 1 roster for the Monster Manual and see a list of all the monsters partitioned by category; or filter out to show the lists within 2 or 3 levels of the level I'm working on. My rule of thumb is probably going to be something like: a monster listed for a level 1 or 2 deeper can build a lair or have a unique room appearance in the shallower level, but they will not appear on the wandering list except at the level they are listed, or in very small numbers one level higher.

Does anyone know where I can find a comprehensive list of AD&D monsters from MM1, FF, and MM2 that also lists the level of the monster? I haven't been able to find one looking through Dragonsfoot and K&K Alehouse on my own. As a result, I spent this past weekend building a big spreadsheet trying to figure out the levels, until I realized they are listed for each monster in FF and MM2, but not included in MM1. Thankfully Delta pointed out I can still figure out their level by using their calculated XP and referring to the big monster list with stats at the back of the DMG; but a few monsters from the MM1 are still missing and I've had to manually calculate their minimum values.

If I'm the trailblazer, I guess it's important to show how I came up with the numbers rather than just putting down what I feel is correct; so I can share it with the community.

Monster Manual II does have dungeon encounter charts sourced from MM, FF, and MMII, but that only has 19 monsters for each level so is almost assuredly incomplete. I'm not sure if there's a complete list anywhere. It's too bad monster level wasn't one of the stats in the Monster Manual stat block for each monster...

The nice thing about monsters is that for the most part they are totally portable among OD&D, BX, BECM, and AD&D and anything else designed to be compatible with one of those versions of D&D. Sure, there might be one or two things you need to figure out yourself, but very few.

As to monsters appearing closer to the surface ("lower" level) than they are rated for, I'd actually mostly go the reverse, they can be wandering on a "lower" level, but not have a lair unless it's a special placement (and I think that's something worth considering, place one or two lairs for creatures that should be on deeper levels).

Frank

[delta]

Sept 3, 2019 8:01:32 GMT -6 countingwizard said:

Does anyone know where I can find a comprehensive list of AD&D monsters from MM1, FF, and MM2 that also lists the level of the monster?

Unfortunately, not me. I have a spreadsheet of all the AD&D monsters and even made columns for XP/level, but never filled them in!