Dungeons, Character Leveling, Restocking?

[Deleted]

I've been reading a lot of the material published in the 1970's in preparation for an OD&D campaign. I'm trying to get a handle on the levels of the dungeon beginning with low level monsters and progressively getting tougher and how characters leveling related to this progression. A group of first level characters could explore the 1st or 2nd level, but probably would be unable to do much below that unless they were higher level. So was the game expected to have the adventurers explore the first couple levels and then move onto a new town where they explored the first few levels and so on until they leveled up and could revisit old dungeons farther down or was the leveling of the character primarily done in one dungeon?

The First Fantasy Campaign mentions that the Blackmoor dungeon maps "comprise the ones used over the first five years, and at various conventions" and that "at the height of my participation as chief co-ordinator, there were six Dungeons and over 100 detailed player characters to be kept track of at one time."

Volume 3 of the D&D rule books states: "A good dungeon will have . . . new levels under construction so that players will never grow tired of it." Additionally, it has a section titled Maintaining Freshness which says, "As monsters inhabiting the rooms, spaces and corridors of a level are killed or captured, the level will become drab and dull. Coupled with this problem, players will have made fairly accurate maps of the level, so it will be challengeless this way also. Remembering that egress to lower levels is desirable, one must nevertheless revamp worn levels by one or more of the several methods suggested below" and lists such things as alterations, extensions, and "Replace monsters in new areas as well as those less-frequented old areas where monsters were located and removed sometime previously." The section ends with: "Using these suggestions, and whatever else you dream up, there is no reason why participants in the campaign should not continue to find mystification, enjoyment, excitement, and amusement in the challenge of the myriad passages of the dungeons."

Should I take from these passages that early campaigns focused on characters initially beginning with entering a dungeon and clearing out sections, then returning to town to rest and restock, then going back into the same dungeon each time returning to find a restocked dungeon? I've also noticed a lot of mentions of ways to trick the mapper or confuse the mapper in early materials. Is this also a result of using the same dungeon repeatedly? That is, was the repeated use of the same dungeon the reason that there was a need for such trickery?

If Dave or any of the players from the campaign back then could help me out, I'd appreciate it.

[tank]

Let me start out by saying that I was not alive in the 1970's, so anything I have to say on the matter should be taken with a big whopping grain of salt.

Your first question is about whether 1st level characters were expected to move to a new town and explore new dungeons. My impression from what I've read is the big-time campaigns centered around one dungeon (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, El Raja Key), and that wilderness exploration was typically too dangerous for first level whelps and was something best left for more experienced parties. Once a group had explored several levels of the main dungeon, however, and got a hankering for something a little different, they would tend to move around the hex map (perhaps Outdoor Survival), finding castles, settlements and new dungeons. These additional dungeons may have been large, multilayer affairs or just simple "lair" style dungeons, abandoned monasteries, or forgotten towers.

With regard to adventurers coming back to find a fully restocked dungeon, I think the issue would be how much time had passed since their last sortie. I would expect that if they took a couple weeks off, neighboring monsters would expand to inhabit the cleared space and bring some of their treasure with them. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all!

Adding random teleportals, tricky mapping sections that prevent the party from knowing what level they are on, and so on seems a little mean unless used sparingly. The "sample" dungeon in U&WA in particular is pretty tortuous. I can't imagine it was intended as an actual dungeon.

Then again, what do I know? I'm looking forward to reading some responses from the Old Guard.

[Finarvyn]

What I always did "back in the day" was to try to make the dungeon large enough and stocked with enough treasure that characters could advance in levels along the way. That way they could go up in levels as their characters descended down in levels, if that makes sense. :-)

Nowadays I have the same basic philosophy, only I quit counting XP a long time ago. I just find a good breakoff point and allow characters to advance, then let them continue to delve in the dungeon.

[foster1941]

Per my understanding (and I also wasn't around in those days -- I was born the same year OD&D was published) the idea was that most dungeon-adventuring would be in the same single large dungeon (rather than several such dungeons) but that this would be supplemented with various other sorts of "adventures" -- in town, in the wilderness (a very dangerous prospect for low-level characters), or in other smaller dungeon-like locations (caves, abandoned towers and monasteries, etc.) to provide both variety of experience and supplemental XP (since with multiple groups of players adventuring in the same dungeon simultaneously it's going to be hard for all of them to get enough XP (which is to say enough treasure) to advance in levels as quickly as the dungeon is being cleared out).

Regarding restocking of the dungeons, this is a GM judgment call based mostly on common sense -- if a group of adventurers clears out an area on Day 1 and then returns (or another group enters the dungeons) on Day 2 it isn't likely that the area will have been restocked (although if they left a lot of corpses lying around some carrion-eaters may well have moved in), but if a couple weeks have passed some new monsters could definitely have taken up residence in the area, especially if it's a desirable location -- defensible, off the main path but close enough to it to allow easy egress and ingress (or easy access to those trying to do so), and so on. Unintelligent monsters and those without treasure will tend to move around more, while intelligent monsters will tend to find a good, defensible lair and stick to it.

There's usually an implicit balance of power within the dungeon (the goblins in area A are being in kept in check by the bandits in area C who are in turn being kept in check by the orcs in areas F and G, who are being kept in check by the goblins, etc.) and if the adventurers mess that up by decimating or eliminating one group then the others will move in to fill the vacuum. Likewise, monsters who were met but not defeated will likely have taken steps to upgrade their defenses by setting traps and recruiting new allies (or perhaps they'll have realized their days are numbered and decided to leave the area).

There are all kinds of reasons for monsters to come and go in the dungeons, and as time passes the dungeon shouldn't be a static environment with the monsters that haven't been met yet hanging around their lairs waiting for somebody to come kill them and those rooms that have already been explored sitting empty. After each expedition the GM should take some time to consider what impact that will have on the monsters in the dungeon and how they will react, and adjust the matrices accordingly (which is one of the reasons it's so hard to do a detailed module-style write-up of a large dungeon, because the whole thing will necessarily only be applicable on the first party's first foray and thereafter will become less and less accurate as monsters move around, change tactics, etc.).

[coffee]

Volume III has this to say about time:

Recon the passage of time thus:

Dungeon expedition = 1 week
Wilderness adventure = 1 move = 1 day
1 Week of actual time = 1 week of game time

The time for dungeon adventures considers only preparations and a typical, one day descent into the pits.

Note how, in this way, a lot more time might pass between dungeon expeditions than you might think. There might indeed be plenty of time for new/different monsters to move into the vacant spots in the dungeon.


On another tack, I think it relevant to point out that in writing the manuscript for D&D, Gary Gygax most likely thought of it as a game first, and a cohesive world-building exercise second. In other words, changing the dungeon around was likely intended to keep the players interested, rather than strictly representing what actually would happen in such a (fantasy) world. (I'm talking about changing the dungeon itself, such as changing walls around with a pencil and eraser. Compared to that, monsters moving about would be commonsense.)

[ffilz]

Lots of good thoughts so far. I think it really depends how logical you want your campaign (and the dungeon) to be? Do you make it make sense within some kind of "ecology"? If so, then use that ecology to decide how things change.

My thought is that my dungeon will be relatively static, though if large sections are cleared out, they might repopulate, or not. It will probably depend on the needs of the group. If they aren't ready for level 2, and pickings are slim on level 1, and it doesn't make sense to expand level 1, then there will probably be extensive re-stocking. Some re-stocking will happen just to keep the players on their toes though.

Another consideration is changing the random encounter charts as the dungeon changes. The bandits have been wiped out? Remove them from the charts (or at least reduce their frequency, and perhaps change their composition - perhaps all that remains are a few small bandit parties that were out when the PCs cleared the lair).

I think it's also important to keep the re-stocking manageable. Don't kill yourself trying to re-stock the dungeon after every play session.

I think it's also important for their to be lasting evidence of the players progress. If the dungeon completely re-stocks after each session, the players may feel no sense of progress.

You also don't want to re-stock level 1 so much that 2nd level PCs resources are exhausted before they reach the stairs down on their next expedition.

On the other hand, some aggressive re-stocking might make room for player ingenuity in keeping the dungeon clear or bypassing low level encounters.

Frank

[coffee]

Frank, as always, some very good points there.

I especially like the one about removing the bandits from the encounter tables. I hadn't thought of that one.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the responses so far guys.

[dwayanu]

Jun 20, 2008 17:03:04 GMT -6 ffilz said:

I think it's also important to keep the re-stocking manageable. Don't kill yourself trying to re-stock the dungeon after every play session.

I think it's also important for their to be lasting evidence of the players progress. If the dungeon completely re-stocks after each session, the players may feel no sense of progress.

You also don't want to re-stock level 1 so much that 2nd level PCs resources are exhausted before they reach the stairs down on their next expedition.

The need to find the right balance in a big dungeon is one reason I have turned to smaller ones. If one of the latter is cleaned out, there's always another.

I find that I need to have a lot more available for low-level characters because (a) there tend to be a lot more of them; (b) level differences are more pronounced; and (c) they tend to face too great a challenge in the wilderness.

[Deleted]

So no input from the old guard of players? Oldgeezer, The Great Svenny, Robert, Dave?

[gsvenson]

Jun 28, 2008 12:43:32 GMT -6 @ptingler said:

So no input from the old guard of players? Oldgeezer, The Great Svenny, Robert, Dave?

I figured enough had been said about it already...

But since you are still asking, we would have an adventure in the dungeon, then return to the surface and recoup or heal before returning for another adventure. The dungeon under Blackmoor castle, after sections of it were cleared, were also gradually repopulated and it changed over time. Of course, many of the changes were made by the actions of the various players, both 'good' and 'bad'. I don't recall any 'trickery' involved in that. Very early on we started also having adventures in the surrounding areas rather than just dungeon crawls. Within six months we were interacting with the 'Great Kingdom' and the Egg of Coot'. Within a year we had been to many of the surrounding areas and had participated in adventures to many distant places.

I am not really sure what else you are looking for...

[havard]

Jun 28, 2008 15:11:36 GMT -6 gsvenson said:

Within a year we had been to many of the surrounding areas and had participated in adventures to many distant places.

Greg, do you recall any details on any of these adventures or locations?

For instance, these "distant places" you mention, do you recall what any of them were like? I'm assuming you are talking about realms outside the Blackmoor map here. Any details are of interest. I would also love to hear details from your adventures in the Great Kingdom.

Feel free to start a new thread about this as it might derail the OP's intent.

Havard

[Deleted]

Jun 28, 2008 15:11:36 GMT -6 gsvenson said:

I figured enough had been said about it already...

I am not really sure what else you are looking for...

I'm getting ready to start a new campaign in July that will be using the original rules from the PDF of "white box" D&D and I'm just trying to get a good idea of how it all was done during the early years. I ran a lot of Basic D&D and 2nd Edition AD&D back in the later 80's and 90's, but my campaigns never really dealt with dungeons and the way that wilderness adventures are handled in the original D&D.

[gsvenson]

Jun 28, 2008 17:18:52 GMT -6 havard said:

Greg, do you recall any details on any of these adventures or locations?

For instance, these "distant places" you mention, do you recall what any of them were like? I'm assuming you are talking about realms outside the Blackmoor map here. Any details are of interest. I would also love to hear details from your adventures in the Great Kingdom.

Initially, all we had was the town of Blackmoor and we even had some exploration adventures in the town, as there was a troll living under the bridge that went over the creek that ran through the town.

Soon, we were exploring the nearby countryside. Visiting the ruined Temple of Id just to the west of town. There were chasms to the south of town to explore and the Wizard of the Wood and the elven forest to the east. Zvenzen's Freehold was built near a stump to the east where we usually met with the prince of the Elves (played by Jim Barber). Then we had adventures to nearby towns like Glendower and Booh. We then started interacting with the Great Kingdom and the Egg.

After the successful attack on Blackmoor by the Egg and the Orcs, we (the heroes) were all banished to Loch Gloomin where we started having outdoor adventures in swampy areas and the Duchy of Ten became part of the equation.

You can see how it evolved. More areas started getting filled in as we played.

[coffee]

Jun 29, 2008 11:50:46 GMT -6 gsvenson said:

...

Initially, all we had was the town of Blackmoor and we even had some exploration adventures in the town, as there was a troll living under the bridge that went over the creek that ran through the town.

...

You can see how it evolved. More areas started getting filled in as we played.

So then, as I understand it: You started in the Town of Blackmoor, where there was a dungeon, but then you decided where to go, and Dave created it.

Is that pretty much it?

Because the current term "sandbox" pretty much describes that mode of play. It's nice to see that current theorists are finally getting caught up to the default mode of the very early '70s!

[gsvenson]

Jun 29, 2008 18:45:46 GMT -6 coffee said:

So then, as I understand it: You started in the Town of Blackmoor, where there was a dungeon, but then you decided where to go, and Dave created it.

Is that pretty much it?

Well, yes, except that we couldn't really go somewhere until after Dave set it up and told us that it was out there. Dave did give us a great deal of freedom in choosing where we went and what our goals were, so it felt like we were making the decisions as to where we went and what we did.