Continuing my series on developing your D&D sandbox. This week: the Town. I talk racial demographics, numbers of character-type NPCs, henchmen, stronghold-ruling, faction-controlling high level NPCs, inter-faction intrigue, districts, & random encounter tables. #D&D #AD&D #OSR
In the 5th session of our AD&D 2e B1 campaign, we had our first player character death, & the players returned to town & confronted the grim reality of taxes in AD&D. #D&D #AD&D #OSR
The first in a series describing how I developed my B1 sandbox (& how you might develop sandboxes more generally) for play, beyond the initial minimalist sketches of locations. First, I describe how you might determine the order of operations by which you'll detail each location in the area of play.
In session 4 of our B1 campaign, the party gets lost in the dungeon, finds Quasqueton's library, & stumbles back to the dungeon entrance. They decide to return to town with their treasure, but have to negotiate with the goblin leader to get it out. #D&D #AD&D #OSR
The play report from our third session of Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown. The players do battle with giant rats, explore a labyrinth, & have a close call with a 4 HD giant tick.
Well I got four rooms in before I ended up with TWO “dead end” rooms with FOUR secret doors each
Well the best way to find out is probably to just try to muddle my way through it again.
How long are sections of passages supposed to be? Table II suggests 30'. Table I suggests 60'. When I roll on Table V.E., how long are those passages meant to be?
I have no idea what "Check again immediately on TABLE I. unless door is straight ahead" means in this context. Are there meant to be doors immediately after doors? Is this a way of generating door labyrinths? Or vestibules between rooms?
We roll for number of exits & their locations using the following tables. I'm guessing that Table V.E. is used to determine which way the passage beyond the exit goes. For some reason, doors use a different table. But it isn't clear to me when an exit is supposed to be a door or not.
This is Table V. We're starting with a room, so we use the right column. We might end up with an unusually shaped room, in which case we use Table V.A. Then we roll for exits, contents, & treasure.
This is clear enough - start in the middle of the graph paper & go to Table V:
There needs to be like, a tutorial for using the AD&D Appendix A. I've tried it so many times & as someone who has made it their job to parse Gygax's writing, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to navigate the maze of tables.
Totally, I just think safe in the party’s base back in town is very different than “safe” in a (potentially untrustworthy) faction’s headquarters in a dungeon
That would make sense, but it still seems odd that wandering monsters are a problem. & if the party has too much treasure to carry, can they stash it here? What if the faction betrays them & steals the treasure, but they already got XP for it? I guess that could happen to treasure in a town as well.
I don't know, doesn't seem like there's anything there...
Interesting! If the boulder cuts off the way to the southwest section of the tier, this map can tell the party there's something there for them to investigate. Maybe this will spark a search for secret doors.
Which also blocks off the only way down to Tier 5! (So far - we'll see if there's another way down described later.)
This boulder trap is interesting because if it is allowed to roll to its final resting place at the end of the corridor, it cuts off the only non-secret door access to the southern half of Tier 4.
Jack in the box burial chamber lfg
Which brings me to another issue: The description of the faction headquarters say "The DM may make this a 'safe' area." But they also say "While the party waits, the [faction] will aid them against wandering monsters." So is the area safe or is it subject to wandering monster encounters?
Hanging out in one of the faction headquarters fending off wandering monsters every 2 hours (one check with a 1 in 6 chance of an encounter every 20 minutes) while a member of your party sleeps for 1 MONTH to shake off a rat bite. ☠️ I am once again begging you to let the characters go back to town.
"The skeletons are not undead. They are merely bones." A+
King Alexander is a banshee now, by the way, which is interesting. I guess this was before the banshee became yet another Scary Woman monster.
Yeah they definitely all hate each other, which seems weird considering the three gods are seemingly part of the same pantheon. For the "restoring the Lost City" quest or whatever to work, I imagine you'd have to get them all to work together somehow.
Love a false tomb. LOVE seemingly invaluable treasure that is actually just poorly disguised trash. "Oh, those 16,000 coins you hauled back to town? All copper. Sorry." One of the nastiest tricks in the DM toolbox. But hey, at least the place isn't also trapped!
That illustration, by the way, is from Queen Zenobia's burial chamber. She's a wight now. Tier 4 is scary!
Okay, an underrated bit here is how the illustrations all seem to depict the same party of adventurers encountering the dungeon's various threats. Remember the dwarf giving a thumbs up in front of the statues? There he is! & he's on the cover, too. Neat!
Tier 4 is scary! You got ghouls in one room, & shadows in the other!
Yeah the gears are turning in my head trying to figure it out. I'm thinking the Madaruans are action-oriented & want to take the fight to the Zargonians, but maybe the Usamigarans are waiting for the stars to align & the Gormans are waiting for their god to return water & life to the desert.