Secrets of Blackmoor: A D&D Documentary

GRIFF'S ALTERNATE DAMAGE SYSTEM FOR OD&D

10/4/2020

All artwork by Walter Moore from the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg Book

QUESTION: What is your reach when it comes to fighting?

Should a human do more damage on smaller creatures?

Many of the ideas that are applied to combat in RPGs were established very early on within a few years of the invention of the genre via Gygax and Arneson's, Dungeons & Dragons. Just a year later Tunnels and Trolls adds the 2nd approach to the genre.

D&D presents the chance to hit + damage done approach. Tunnels and Trolls uses a dice pool system for total damage rolled with the difference being applied as damage to the losing side. In Tunnels and Trolls Armor has no impact on the chance to hit, what it does do is subtract damage from an individuals damage taken. Both games offer a simplistic and fast playing game mechanic.

OD&D creates the problem of longer battles at higher levels which may not be easily solved with this system. The point of the OD&D and later systems is to even out odds and give players a better chance of living

The concept of having dice pools is an interesting one, yet it doesn't exactly work with how OD&D presents combat. On the other hand, OD&D was super simple and everything caused the same amount of damage per hit. When Greyhawk supplement came out, it added variable dice types based on weapon type. This would get carried into AD&D as the standard practice for weapon damage, what is more, the method ends up in most RPG's since the release of Greyhawk supplement in 1975.

RPGs are about simulating results and not necessarily about simulating every little detail involved in getting from Point A to Point B. A lot of games claim to be simulating combat, but really it's just another way of achieving a result that has nothing to do with reality. But some kind of basis in reality is needed. At the same time, I feel the greatest flaw in design I see these days is what I call subtractive design where a player's actions are limited by conditional rules that disallow actions. I am much more partial to an additive approach, which goes back to David Wesely's statement that "A player should be allowed to try anything, though not always successfully."

So lets look at Weapon Damage by Type. It has several built in flaws that make the approach a bit too limiting. As an example, lets say your character Grond decides to challenge someone to a fight to the death in single combat. The other party accepts, yet demands the battle be fought without armor and the weapon of choice should be daggers. This sounds good except Grond and his opponent are both 5th level fighters with 5x hit dice due to level and daggers only cause 1d4 damage when they hit. It is at this point that all the other players leave and go to a movie, since this combat is gonna take a while. How can we speed this up by at least half the time needed?

The greater issue in combat is the one of reach. Longer weapons always have an advantage in a fight. Sorry, the M.U. with a dagger shouldn't even get a chance to hit someone armed with a long sword. Yet, I never design in anything that says "You Can't Do That." I like to design toward incentives and I always design toward minimalism, simplicity, and playability. As I keep saying, just let your wizards use swords, but they only do half damage, or some other penalty, but do not stop your players from exploring possibilities.

I recently had one of those ideation moments where I decided to approach how damage is applied in D&D and came up with a different system from the Greyhawk weapon base damage approach that allows for standard base damage in most cases, yet also allows for greater damage in many of the commonly found situations. As with everything I post as a OD&D Variant, feel free to cut and paste the text and then alter it to suit your needs.

Following is a set of very rough rules for basing damage on both weapon size and creature size.

Some optional 1st Round Advantages
Any weapon vs. a surprised opponent does not suffer length difference minuses. Consider that it may even get a bonus die for damage of it's value vs. a 0 for the un armed defender. Or, you may even multiply the damage done on one die by the target's number of hit dice to simulate the chance for an instant kill.

i.e. you have your dagger out and stab someone who has not drawn their weapon - it's gonna hurt, a lot.

A pole arm charging or defending against a charge will gain a bonus modifier in the first round vs. all but similar weapons of +1 due to their added reach.

If you thank of anything else that could happen, or if something does happen in your game, simply make a note of it here for future game sessions.

Initiative
OD&D has no such thing as Initiative and to my way of thinking it should never use it - EVER!

OD&D uses Parallel Actions; everyone does what they do in a round and then results are applied.

You engage the orc and you are both circling and looking for an opening… roll your attack, oh you hit it for 7!

The orc falls to its knees mortally wounded, in a last effort it swings at you missing and falls face down on the ground in front of you.

The orc got its attack in even though you killed it.

Oh Oh, sometimes things should not happen in a parallel order.

What you can do is apply reasonable results to any situation. Lets say our heroic fighter decides to attack a troop of orcs armed with pole arms. The pole arms should do about the same damage if they get a hit as our hero's sword. Yet our hero has decided to be The Man in this situation and is charging at pole weapons, this is not a good idea. He needs to clear those pole weapons before he gets his attack roll. Thus I would judge that the orcs get to roll their attacks before he gets past their pole weapons and can strike with his sword.

The same can be said for spell users. While our more pointy weapon obsessed friends are dancing around and swinging and dodging wildly, the Magic-user is conjuring. That is all they do this round. Then after everyone is done doing their thing the result of their spell is applied to their target.

Base Damage is always 1d6 per OD&D unless there is a weapon size difference, thus we get these values.

smaller creatures 1d4 in combat, or what is listed in the MM if you are using that.*

Human sized 1d6 (All characters generally do 1d6 per OD&D rules.)

Larger than human 2d6

Very large 3d6

*a dagger armed person fighting another dagger armed person should do 1d6 damage.

If you want to switch to this simpler system with Holmes or AD&D then all D6 dice should be D8. The same applies for Greyhawk based d8,d6,d4 hit dice. Consider that HD are a d8 and a Sword is a D8 in Greyhawk. OD&D uses the d6 as the base unit of hits and dmage caused.

Weapon Classes Defined by Length
Values applied to combat based on weapons.

Small weapons such as daggers and small javelins, smaller creatures like rats or snakes = 1

Most average swords and spears, and average monsters with physical weapon traits use this mod. = 2

Above average swords and pole arms 2 handers and halberds and larger monsters= 3

Large pole arms like Pikes, larger than ogre sized creatures get this as a bonus = 4

Creature Size
1 -smaller than human, dogs, giant rats, halflings kobolds have a shorter reach.

2- Man sized as well as beings about the same physical strength as men like dwarves.

3 - Larger than man sized, trolls and ogres.

4 - Very large, Dragons.

You then tally up your weapon + physical size and you get a value. Compare your value to your opponent's. value to see how much damage a hit does.

The difference in size totals is a damage die bonus.

i.e. A giant rat is a 1 + 1 vs a human with a sword for 2 + 2, thus 2 vs 4, for a 2 to 1 advantage for a 1d6 damage roll by the lower value and a 2d6 damage roll for the greater value.

Spill Over Damage, or slashing damage. A damage roll that is greater than an opponents total hit point will affect a creature either behind, or adjacent to the figure attacked without the need for a second attack roll.

Using this System
Lets put it together to see how the numbers actually work.

1. All creature have an abstracted base damage they do.

2. Everything has a combat value that is a fixed value of: Creature Size + Weapon Length

3. Compare size and weapon lengths to see if the base damage is modified.

Commence to Fightin' Y'all!
A dragon attacks a party of adventurers. The front line is human sized fighters with spears and swords. The dragon is very large for a 4. It also gets 4 for its weapon length of large claws on long arms, and long neck for biting of 4+4 = 8 our humans are only 2+2 = 4 The dragon can already do 3d6 dice damage vs the 1 die for each fighter. Yet in this system dragons and dragon sized creatures are doing their base damage of 3d6 plus they get a +1 die damage roll for a total of 4D6.

Our meat shield fighter types in the party are having more chances to hit, but they are only doing 1 die damage. Meanwhile our Dragon is doing an average of 14 points damage on every hit.

Consider that 14 points can also mean a lot of spill over damage in a big fight too. Now the mere mention of fighting a dragon will chill the blood of any party coming across one.

Optional ideas
None of this is written in stone and you may want to explore some changes of your own.

Maybe the base damage is ignored when a weapon discrepancy is encountered?

Rather than size, you can use hit dice as an indicator of skill and force combined. Thus you can make some kind of chart up, like so:

HD less than 1 is a value of 1
HD1-2 is a value of 2
HD 3-4 is a value of 3
HD 5-6 is a value of 4
Etc.

You may want to play with this a bit.

My high level Character should get a bonus!
Perhaps do it by class and level of fighting skill increase that they get based on experience, thus you do a gain of +1 for each 3 levels for fighter, 4 of cleric, and 5 of M.U.

Hopefully this is all fairly clear and easily understood. And… I haven't left in too many confusing typos as I wrote this. Sorry, I do that a lot.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section.

I would also be curious to hear from anyone who tries this system where damage is modified by what your opponent has in their hand.

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ARNESON AND BLACKMOOR

10/1/2020

13 Comments

The following is a sample from an upcoming Blackmoor setting book. All rights Griffith Morgan and The Fellowship of the Thing, LTD.

The Essential Blackmoor

Core Concepts for Play in Dave Arneson’s Living World

Griffith M. Morgan III

Chapter IV - The Origin of a Blackmoor Campaign

Any RPG campaign is difficult when it comes to starting points. These days players often expect some kind of background for the setting. Many DM’s bog down in creating histories for a setting. Of course in the early days of Dungeons & Dragons it was possible to design a dungeon and players were so fascinated by the experience of underground exploration that everything else could remain vague and not codified in any detail at all. Many games still revolve around gathering at the Inn and then going off to the dungeon where the stories and mayhem happen, then returning to the Inn to recover from injuries and exhaustion and recount the tales of epic struggle.

The campaign is another beast entirely. Launching a campaign requires some understanding of what can possibly happen within an entire world setting. In the case of Arneson, the scope of what he employs even with the first simple adventures he runs, reveals a great deal of sophistication and understanding of what he has created. One can infer this from all the descriptions of play in early Blackmoor, and yet, what is left of Arneson’s own commentary about Blackmoor’s beginning is very vague. As a historian, I find this absence of detail perplexing. I have yet to find a cohesive statement from Arneson in any of his writings, or interviews, as no one would ask him to pause and go back over specifics.

Photo of the Blackmoor Bunch

“From the first excursions into the dark depths of Blackmoor Castle’s Dungeon, it became apparent that these first hardy bands of adventurers would soon seek out new worlds to pillage. From the castle the small town of Blackmoor grew, then the surrounding countryside became filled with new holes to explore and beyond that talk was already spreading about visiting the Egg of Coot. Each of these steps entailed a great deal of work upon a naive judge who felt that there was enough trouble already to satisfy any band of adventurers, a phrase no doubt heard rather frequently since then, in other areas. In general, a fairly loose procedure was set up for the establishment of these new areas, with a great deal of emphasis being placed on the players themselves setting up new Dungeons, with my original Dungeonmaster role evolving more into the job of co-ordinating the various operations that were underway at any given moment. 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 any one time.”

Dave Arneson
From The First Fantasy Campaign (1977)
Judges Guild Game Company

It is necessary for each historian to piece together what they know and create some kind of cohesive timeline, as well as a narrative, of how Arneson created a new kind of Role Playing Game. Often it becomes too easy to inject what one knows and assumes to be a cascade of events into how one thinks Blackmoor begins.

There is a problem with binary logic. It fails to address the point between sublimation when the form of something is neither a solid nor a vapor.

It is best to tell the story of the genesis of Blackmoor as the participants themselves tell it, with the first dungeon adventure.

According to Dave Arneson and Greg Svenson, the very first blackmoor game is a dungeon adventure. In a nutshell, the game ran like so, an evil wizard and his companion balrog snuck into the castle and stole something precious from the baron. They then descended into the dungeons below the castle to hide. Greg Svenson along with others of the Blackmoor Bunch are asked by the Baron of Blackmoor Castle, likely Baron Arneson himself at this point, to retrieve what was stolen.

Well, if this is the first Dungeon Adventure, it seems pretty well fleshed out already. We have a reason for the players to go to the dungeon. We have a good idea of who the bad guys are going to be down in the dungeon. And we have a patron who is paying our hapless adventurers to go risk their necks.

Not only is it the very first Dungeon Dive, it is also the first Total Party Kill, or TPK.

All if this sounds fairly standard except for one thing. Arneson hadn’t gotten to the stage of running the entire dungeon as a one sided game, with a Referee who runs the monsters vs the players as we see today. This is three years before D&D is published and something astounding occurs in this game, he will do a mix of styles in this one game.

The evil wizard is being played by Kurt Krey and the balrog is John Soukup. The bad guys waiting in the dungeon are actual players. Arneson has no experience to draw on, or to know any better than to run what most Referees today find really difficult - The Split Party. What is more astounding, is that in this case the divided players are playing against each other. Arneson takes turns playing with both groups of players; Wizard and Balrog vs. Flunkie Adventurers, describing what they experience and then asking them what they are doing and where they are going, “What do you want to do?”

We are told this entire game was done without miniatures and that it was all a verbal exchange, much as one would tell a story or play a game of make-believe.

From a game perspective this is perhaps drawing on ideas from several games, yet as if to say this is not enough, Arneson takes the game session farther into uncharted territory.

As the players explore the tunnels below Blackmoor Castle he asks them to all go to the laundry room of his parent’s basement and line up in the marching order their characters are in. He then shuts off the lights and lets out a scream. When he turns the light back on he makes note of how everyone reacted and explains that a strong breeze blew out their torches and while standing in the darkness one of the Non Player Characters was attacked by a strange creature that looks like a large grey amoeba, or more precisely The Blob from the 1950’s horror film. The scream they heard was their compatriot being eaten by the creature, which is now known as a grey pudding.

In a sense, this could be the very first Live Action Role Playing in an RPG.

After dealing with the Grey Pudding the players continue their exploration and discover more wondrous adventure.

Here we come to another significant event. It has to do with the discovery of a magical sword. When picking it up some of them are shocked by a magical force and thrown across the room. It is only Bill Heaton who manages to pick it up without any adverse effects, as he does so his character is immediately promoted to a higher level of ability becoming a superhero.

Yet another milestone happens in this first dungeon adventure - Character Advancement.

Arneson takes turns with both groups of players, wizard and balrog vs. flunkie adventurers, asking them what they are doing and where they are going. Eventually the groups come together and wizard and balrog demolish the hired swordsmen. Greg Svenson is the fortunate one as he survives and is told to return to the surface and warn everyone not to come down and harass the new rulers of the dungeon. What is more, Greg comes to be known as The Great Svenni.

In a sense the entire Blackmoor campaign will become the story of The Great Svenni as he is the most notable and heroic of all player characters in Blackmoor. That’s not to say there will not be other famous characters to come out of Blackmoor such as the Wandering Elf, Robert the Bald, The Blue Rider, Mello the Hobbit, The Wizard of the Wood, and Boozero. Their tales have been told around gamer tables for nearly five decades.

The entire Role Playing Game Industry owes a collective thank you to Dave Arneson for his contribution to the creation of the modern Role Playing Game and the play style that was first implemented in Dave Arneson's basement.

This may seem like no big deal at all to those familiar with how these games are played. Yet, Dave Arneson was merely 23 years old when he decided to tinker with a new kind of game. There was no one there to guide him toward the invention of dungeon games. No one had ever thought to do anything in a game with the expansive scope that Arneson applied to this new home brew campaign game set in the Black Moors.

Strangely enough, I went onto social media last night and searched for posts about Original Dungeons & Dragons as well as Blackmoor, it was surprising to find so few people playing the original D&D game system anymore or even talking about Dave Arneson and his Blackmoor Bunch.

Thanks Dave, Chris and Griff

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The Essential BLackmoor - Draft Chapter

9/15/2020

2 Comments

Art courtesy of Ken Fletcher (1976)

The following is a sample from an upcoming Blackmoor setting book that I am working on. All rights Griffith Morgan and The Fellowship of the Thing, LTD.

The Essential Blackmoor

Core Concepts for Play in Dave Arneson’s Living World

Griffith M. Morgan III

Forward to Blackmoor!

Blackmoor is obscured by the mists of time, and in its purest form, only ever existed when a group of gamers would gather in the Arneson family home, and later in Gail Gaylord’s dining room, in the early 1970’s. Yet, since the release of the feature documentary Secrets of Blackmoor, many are asking: What is Blackmoor? More importantly, they are asking: how can I play in this seminal world setting?

Blackmoor is the very first Fantasy Role Playing game setting. It originates in the Twin Cities of Minnesota where different kinds of play methods were being explored by a group of wargamers Dave Arneson referred to as, The Blackmoor Bunch.

It is difficult to pinpoint an exact date for when the Blackmoor campaign begins. Some would say as early as the fall of 1970, others would argue for March of 1971.

Led by Dave Arneson, their Campaign Referee, much of what we gamers call Role Playing today, evolved organically through the actions of players in the early Blackmoor game sessions. It is significant that everything the Blackmoor Bunch did, yes even those who played in these adventures, lent a hand in the invention of RPGs. Many of these players can claim the title to being the first to do something that has become common in the fantasy games we play today. Most notable being Pete Gaylord who asked if he could be a wizard. Arneson allowed and even encouraged these infusions of new ideas into his world setting. Thus Blackmoor is a quandary, in that it is highly collaborative and synergistic, unlike what one sees in the published versions of modern RPGs since D&D in 1974.

Because of the nature of how RPGs are played, as a performance art form that only exists in the moment, very little remains today that can fully reveal exactly what happened during those first few years of gaming and how to reproduce the entirety of what was being played at that time in Dave Arneson’s basement game room. It is doubtful anyone can reproduce a true Blackmoor Campaign, as it came out of Dave Arneson’s unique vision for how a game campaign should be conducted which goes far and beyond what any game referee is capable of creating today.

Certainly there is a great deal of lore about the world that has been revealed by Arneson’s players. Much of it is still preserved in the online forum, The Comeback Inn. Yet documented facts have a way of obscuring the essential truth to past events.

This is the core premise here: how can one re-capture the essence of Blackmoor?

Perhaps one needs to firmly understand that although Blackmoor originates as a role played historical war game campaign, almost immediately one see’s fantasy elements appear, The Red Wizard Coven, and even more surprisingly, a great deal of tongue in cheek humor, such as when a toll bridge gets embellished by Arneson and becomes a troll bridge.

Blackmoor is constantly evolving. Consider that within a few years of having started the campaign, Arneson is sharing Referee duties with several other Referees and there are easily over a hundred developed characters exploring Arneson’s creation.

Up until the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, and likely even afterward, the rules for Blackmoor are a moving target and are constantly changing. Arneson, and a select few referees, are home ruling based on what direction players are choosing to direct their activities. Rules are being quickly drafted and used, many of them are just as quickly discarded. Thus most of the rule concepts one finds in modern RPGs, that many would think are novelties, have already been explored within Blackmoor in its early stages, along with many more that most game world settings are not even capable or willing to attempt.

Dave Arneson’s genius is expansive and what one sees of his ideation when his vision is then merged with Gary Gygax’s in Dungeons & Dragons is merely a glimmer of what is Blackmoor.

The scope of Blackmoor as demonstrated by Arneson, cannot be presented within a small volume such as this, as Arneson conceived and implemented the only truly living fantasy campaign world setting in the history of tabletop games. What at first may seem simplistic and almost childish in this game setting, once comprehended and fully understood, reveals a highly sophisticated and expansive milieu, both within the game world and within the minds of Arneson and his Blackmoor Bunch.

Arneson’s Blackmoor is highly complex and exists on several modes of scale that are operating parallel to each other in time. These overlapping modes can be described like so - a referee’d game with: Strategic Role Play between lords of realms, Socio-Economic internal management of domains, Strategic land, naval, and air maneuvers, Tactical tabletop war games between armies navies and sometimes flying creatures, Individual exploration and Role Play with personal development, and skirmish level tactical man to man/man to monster conflict.

Ok, that seems overly complicated and I realize that after having spoken at such length about the scope and complexity of Blackmoor, you may be intimidated and even afraid to try your hand at creating a Blackmoor campaign of your own. Fear not, all of this complex ruling and background is not something anyone would expect you yourself to implement in your own Blackmoor campaign.

Yes, it is possible to snap off just one piece of Arneson’s creation, just as D&D did, and explore the most fascinating element of his creation, the make believe story telling aspect; what most people have dubbed Role Playing, and what I refer to as The Adventure Game.

All of this information is meant to guide you into creating your own Home Brewed setting based on Blackmoor and allow you to fully explore a variant of your own, because Blackmoor is at its best when a Referee takes Arneson’s unspoken yet fundamental philosophy for a Role Playing Campaign and then weaves their own story into what is already there. Most of all, Blackmoor is an easy setting to get one’s head around and you can easily bring this ‘First Fantasy Campaign’ to life in your own game room.

Please let me know if there is anything that is of interest to a new Blackmoor referee and I may even add it to my outline as something that needs to be discussed within the manuscript. I am always open to criticism and suggestions.

Thanks Griff

Oh oh, I nearly forgot this.

I love learning about gaming. You may want to check out this Blog post about different kinds of Experience Awards. I found it quite interesting:
https://merricb.com/2020/09/20/milestones-and-experience-points/

2 Comments

Griff's Spell Points for Original D&D

7/29/2020

10 Comments

I really should be finishing up the Cave Adventure series which starts here:
www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/quick-and-dirty-disposable-dungeons-part-5-the-moaning-cavern

Per my usual scatter shotgun blast of overthink I remembered I had mentioned my simple spell point system for OD&D.

Many people asked if I could share this system. I had it on a separate hard drive which I had to dig out and pore over to find. You have to understand that I have piles of hard drives. As I glance across my desk area I can see 9 drives. I have many more. Film makers create a lot of data.

I did find it today and I went through and tidied up some things, I hope the system makes sense.

Worth noting:
-It is intended to be fairly simple to use
-It makes Magic Users more flexible and fun to play at lower levels
-Magical use being based on Intelligence means that wizards are more variable in ability
-It draws on ideas from several games, most notably: Steve Jackson Games, Wizard
-This is yours to tinker with. Feel free to play with the equations. Do consider that as you get more 'simulationist' and detailed you may lose some of the old school simplicity and abstraction that I personally strive for
-I have barely used this system, since I misplaced it after my previous computer exploded, try it out and let me know what you think
-This may also work for AD&D just as well.

Hopefully I didn't miss anything as I rewrote this. Let me know if anything seems confusing, I will return and edit some more!

Griff's system for Magic Spell points for OD&D
Something worth noting and that completely astounds me, is that despite decades of time in which role playing games have evolved into better systems, the same old magic system remains in place for d20 games as was being used in the 1974 version of D&D; with charts for spell acquisition by level and no real influence on performance related to the casting character's main attribute. I realized this had to go, so I have devised my own Concentration or Spell Point system for both Magic Users and Clerics.
In order to make low level characters more fun to play, I have allowed them to access more spells at first level. The caveat is that spell failure is also possible. If you compare an 18 Intelligence 9th level wizard’s spell totals in this system to OD&D, you will find that at that level, both systems are equal in terms of total spells.

OD&D wizard of 9th level gets spells * level: 4 x 1; 3 x 2; 3 x 3; 2 x 4; 1 x 5. This is equal to 32 spell points. An 18 Intelligence, 9th level, wizard in this system is bonus of 3 + (level 9 * 3 Bonus) = 30 Spell points.

OOPS! it's pretty darned close though.

Determining Spell Points
Spell casters gain spell points based on their main attribute modifier. This number is then multiplied by their character’s experience level. i.e. a second level character with a +2 modifier has 6 spell points.

Modifier + (mod * level)

Spell Cost
In order to cast a spell a character must expend spell points equivalent to the level of spell being cast. Since casting spells requires intense concentration a spell caster uses these points like hit points that represent mental exhaustion.

-A spell caster can cast a last desperate spell and use more points than what they have left.

-Falling to zero causes the character to fall unconscious. A negative number results in a coma state, much like Sparrow Hawk in a Wizard of Earthsea. It requires another more powerful wizard to draw the player out of the coma between adventures. This is a magical problem, clerics need not apply.

-A spell caster recovers 1 spell point per hour rested.

-Caster Intelligence also affects how well and for how long they cast spells.

Intelligence Based Modifiers
10 or less Cannot use magic.

11 No bonuses, yet can be a very bad wizard.

12- 14   +1 Spell Points (SP) and bonus to chance of success when casting.

15-16   +2 SP and bonus to chance of success as well as +1 duration . -1 for enemy saves..

17-18   +3 SP and bonus for casting +3 duration -2 for enemy saves.

Memorizing Spells
Spells require a minimum Attribute and Experience Level to know and cast them. 10 + Level + Magical Bonus.

A 3rd level wizard with intelligence of 15 can thus only know spells of levels 2nd and under.

i.e. 10 + (level 3 + 2 intelligence modifier) = 15

Required points to Know Spells based on level:
Level of spell       Value needed to cast

1st 12
2nd 14
3rd 16
4th 17
5th 21
6th 23
7th 25
8th 27
9th 29

Spell Success and Failure
Spells require a D20 roll of less than Intelligence - spell level while in combat.

A 16 Intelligence wizard casts a 3rd level spell, thus they must roll 16 - 3 = 13 or lower to succeed.

Spell failure is common, yet now a wizard gets to cast spells more often.

A wizard can opt to concentrate more deeply and be slower thus they have no spell level difficulty modifier, yet their spell is released at the end of the combat round. A successful attack on a concentrating wizard negates the spell entirely.*

Spell casting while not in combat gets a free success. i.e. casting a light spell is a good example of this.

*I run OD&D as it was originally intended, thus initiative is not in the game system. All actions occur in parallel.

Known Spells, Spell Books, and Magical Scrolls
There are generally two kinds of written spells. Spell scrolls that are non-magical instructions allow a caster to learn the spell, and magical scrolls allow a caster to use the spell once without expending spell points and allowing the player to cast a spell above their ability level they also never fail as the failure roll comes when making the scroll.

Other than scrolls, wizards can only cast spells they know. Known spells can be re-learned if a week is spent between adventures doing so; this allows wizards to pick different known spells.

In non-combat situations a spell caster can read a spell that is not memorized from a book or non magical scroll.

The limit to a wizard’s known spells is Int + Level.

Spell Acquisition
10 + caster bonus

When a wizard first wants to acquire spells for their spell book they must choose a spell and then make a die roll modified by the attribute chart casting bonus. Beating a ten means that spell is known, a fail means the wizard cannot try to have that spell in his spell book.

Thus a wizard with a 15 Intelligence must roll 10 + 2 bonus = 12 or under in order to gain a specific spell.

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store.secretsofblackmoor.com/

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QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 9: Everything is Story

6/21/2020

5 Comments

Images by Von Allen @ https://www.vonallan.com/

This is a continuation of a discussion about making up your own adventures, or as it is commonly called: Home Brewing.

A previous entry here:
https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/june-17th-2020

I constantly see people making comments about Story in RPGs. I feel many of these comments are not very well thought out. It is a lot like how people describe Role Playing which I also feel is much more nuanced than merely play acting. From my perspective everything within the RPG experience is both role playing and story.

As I discuss the various locations in the Riverine Cavern Complex my descriptions are having to become more and more detailed and complex. This is a bit misleading. I am describing these locations as examples for an adventure, but I never write them out like this for my own game. In fact, entire dungeons have been created with really simple descriptions and maybe a tiny note to go with.

Quick and dirty notation was like so:
Qty Monster HD AC
Treasure...
or,
4 Skeletons Hd: 1/2 AC: 6
Treasure: 100 CP, 300 SP, 500 GP, +1 sword, scroll 1 spell, potion

And this is where a great deal of confusion occurs when today's players see an old dungeon. Their first response will be "There is no story here!" I'm here to tell you that everything has a narrative, or story, even this simple room key.

Some players like Big Arc Story, others like Subplots, a lot of people like the little Micro Narratives they engage with and solve immediately whether it's a combat encounter, or something more sublime - It's all story.

Micro Narratives
My room example doesn't appear out of thin air. Those skeletons are an animated magical undead. They were created by someone. Maybe they have been in this room for hundreds of years and began as zombies. By now their flesh has fallen off leaving just the skeletons. If the wizard who created them passed away ages ago I can know how they were created and I don't need to deal with my wizard at all. She's gone gone gone. I do know my Micro Narrative and can expand on this simple theme.

As this is just one room of many I can decide that our wizard placed these creatures here to guard a minor treasure. Because these skeletons are still here I can also know that no one has succeeded in pilfering their treasure.

Maybe I neglected to draw in an extra hidden chamber for the treasure when I drew my map. Yet, if I were a wizard I wouldn't go leaving my treasure in plain site. I would be sneaky. I can infer that perhaps this treasure is inside of a trapped wooden chest concealed in a low nook behind a secret wall panel.

What I am doing is creating a tiny little story. Who put the skeletons here and what is the purpose for them being here. Why is there treasure here and why is it concealed?

When you create these stories they can become as varied and complex as you like, yet it's a good idea for around 80% of them to be really simple. If you have too many encounters that tie into a big arc story, you create an info overload for your players. They're going to be so busy parsing all their data in order to solve the greater mystery that they won't have time to explore and adventure.

Each room can have a tiny story of its own that is not in any way connected to the greater story in a campaign. I have several stories running in my game that are so big I don't even expect my players to solve them. The big arc story is more for me as referee. I want to know why some of the places and objects my players find came into existence.

If I am playing off my big arc story my major plot points are simple:
-An ancient queen was betrayed by the elves.

-Dwarven lore hints of this event, thus the dwarves aren't too keen on Elves.

-Only certain elves can know this suppressed history, an elf player would not know this. Yet they could be drawn into a secret order of elven spies.

-Somehow the goblins are a key to this, yet most consider them to be evil.

-Oh yeah, there is a rumor that the queen is waiting to be brought back to life so she can exact revenge on the elves.

My predominantly human players are going to be stuck in a moral quandary of epic proportions if they ever do locate her. They already accidentally released a trapped demon in one of their other adventures. I've also made a point of seeding some details to the greater story in this adventure. It's my campaign story arc, perhaps you have your own you can throw into this game.

Here I go again: Everyone and everything has a story, this is true for real life and also true for our games.

More locations from the Riverine Cavern Complex follow.

Secret Base
This location is what remains of a semi permanent base created by a troop of dwarves working in conjunction with a scholar named Piume. They tunneled out a little base within the cavern complex in order to be able to remain here for some time as they explored the caverns.

It's a small complex of rooms as dwellings for the Dwarves. Lots of once ornate broken furniture can be found here; all in smaller dwarven proportions.

There is a hidden passage that is merely 3 feet wide leading to Piume's chamber.

Piume's Chamber
The first thing players will note is the body of a hapless adventurer that died here some time ago. The room is dry enough that the corpse has become mummified. A close examination will reveal many small stab wounds most likely caused by a dagger.

Info: human, leather armor, rotted clothes, a pouch with some coins of little value.

This room has not been inhabited for a long time, yet some of the furniture remains. All of it is very ornate and gilded in gold leaf, a chair, a table, a bed, and a wood chest. Dwarves will find this style of furniture familiar as it is of dwarven manufacture. It's fairly valuable stuff if you can find the right buyer, but it is also a bit awkward to carry out of this place. The table and bed would need to be dismantled in order to get them through the entrance passage.

The floor has many pieces of broken crystal glass. A telling detail is a goblet stem.

Sitting on the table is a book that is so old it will fall apart if opened. A crystal decanter with a stopper full of dark liquid; this is old wine that has turned to vinegar. There is also an old dagger.

If anyone touches the dagger, they've made a grave mistake. This is a cursed dagger that was left here to guard the room when the place was abandoned. It will activate and fly through the air lunging at whomever happens to be here. It does damage like a normal dagger. It has an Armor class of 2 in my OD&D game, meaning that it is hard to hit. It will deactivate if it kills everyone in the room, or if someone can hit it for 6 points damage. It then falls to the floor until someone else touches it.

If the wood chest, which is empty, is moved from the wall and old parchment will be found. It is an old unsent letter.

My Dearest Cleomi,
I miss you dearly. I am nearly done with my exploration of the caverns. I have made some important discoveries in the past months. It seems clear that the ancient Ghebelin used these caves as a secret pathway through the mountains. There is even a portal that leads to another land far far away. Yet the place is now a sunken water logged labyrinth of stones. Having traversed the portal for a short visitation, I was able to read some of the ancient writing and I believe that this place is none other than the ancient seat of power of the great Ghebelin Queen Aruanni. The ruins are clearly of a large city. It is full of mystical traps of all kinds and much too dangerous for me to explore without the aid of a sensitive who can detect all these grave dangers ahead of time. Sadly, we lost one of my dwarven companions when she was devoured by an invisible creature. The dwarves are in mourning over the loss of their friend and have begun to write a song about her that will be placed in the ancestral records of their clan.

I look forward to reuniting with again, yours - Piume.

This should be printed out and folded in half and then handed to the players during the game. I use a lot of props. Sometimes opening and reading is a bad thing; like reading a cursed scroll. They're lucky this time, but they know me as a referee, and this will be a moment of anxiety and chance taking for whomever opens this piece of paper.

The Gateway to the Marshes
This location has a set of 7 prominent stalgamites in a perfect circle. A detect treasure, or gems spell would reveal that 7 Gems are encased within these natural pillars of stone. one can remove them by chipping away the stone, yet it will also damage the true purpose of this location, which is as a magical teleportation portal to the location of an ancient city that is now sunk into the fetid swamp full of all sorts of dangers.

Stepping inside the circle will cause the player to disappear and reappear in a ruined city that has been consumed by a marsh. Lucky for them, they appear on high ground.

There is a set of 8 foot tall pillars in the other location as well. One can step out of the circle of pillars and then step back into it and get teleported back to the caverns.

The marsh area is surrounded by fallen ruins of buildings. The place is very dangerous. Any wandering monster encounter here will be with something entirely supernatural that is partly invisible.

Going back thrugh the portal is a very good idea.

That should take care of todays discussion on creating adventures quickly. There isn't much more to go as far as the described areas are concerned. Strangely enough, I still haven't bothered to create a map.

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QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 8: Mapping your Dungeons, adding mood and scale

6/17/2020

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Continued from this post:
https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/quick-and-dirty-disposable-dungeons-part-7-the-side-quest-to-retro-rpg-terror

As I continue the design of my caves, I think it's time to talk about mapping a bit.

If you are an older gamer, much of what I write is useless to you. You likely already know all of this info via your own gaming experience.

As a side note. I grew up partly in Italy during the 1960's. I've been in a lot of castles, thus my mental image of our dungeons is a bit different. My father's research program was located in a napoleonic fortress. Strangely, my parents would let me wander the place alone. It was very unsafe. The central stairwell, a big round shaft, had no railings and I recall the steps being at about a 45 degree angle. One day I decided to explore the third story of the place. Going up was easy. Coming down was frightening. I think the drop to the floor below was about 60-80 feet. I was probably 4-5 years old and my little knees were shaking.

Did I mention scorpions? The place was crawling with scorpions. My sister and I would catch them.

Visualizing your Dungeon
Make no mistake, Dave Arneson invented dungeon adventures. Although his dungeon was only 6 levels deep when he first created it, it would later expand much deeper and become a 10 level mega dungeon.

We actually made a 3d model for the film to show just how big Blackmoor Dungeon is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y7fYY1JUPI

Not only did Arneson expand his dungeon vertically, he expanded it sideways. His understanding of an underground place was very imaginative. Thus while his maps may not seem too exciting I am convinced his descriptions as he ran these maps in a game must have been amazing.

Many people have examined his maps and wondered why the stair wells do not match up. You can lay the maps one on top of the other and no two stair wells will align properly. This is because his stairs are not like stairs in an apartment building. We aren't looking at modern architecture in his dungeon. This is tunnel work down into the ground. Once you step on a stairwell you could be traveling 50' down before you end up on the next level. Arneson's maps reveal that these stairs are often curved, winding, and narrow. They corkscrew through the stone and can be disorienting. Stairwells are often overlooked by Referees. You can put things in stairwells, or have encounters there.

The stair treads in the Orcian way would suddenly flip down and become a slide and you would be delivered to the deep levels of the dungeon where the orcs waited for victims.

This brings me to another important aspect of RPG play, the descriptive role playing done by the Referee.

Immersion is the Name of the Game
Our underworlds are dark and terrifying places. Yet I often see players and referees turn their games into a simple: 10' 20' 30' a door at the end of the passage. I also see many gamers assume that talking to each other and the people played by the Referee, the NPCs, is role playing - NO NO NO!

Everything you do in the game is Role Playing. The most important aspect is when your referee describes a location. Nothing in reality is empty and devoid of information. Look around you right now and examine everything as if you'd never seen it before? Now imagine you are exploring deep underground in a place that is completely alien to you.

As a referee one wants to fill every place in the dungeon with mood setting detail. This means Role Playing these things as your players encounter them. Ask yourself what is unique about this location?

As you enter the room you notice that this place is very dry. Rock dust has accumulated on the floor and you can see chaotic imprints from the passage of many feet. The impressions range from single bare footprints to long dragging snaking patterns. Although these walls are made of mortared stone blocks, someone has taken the time to draw eyes on every inch of the walls and ceiling in chalk. In the middle of the floor you see a single candle burning. As you draw close to examine it you realize the candle is actually a severed human finger that has been left upright in the middle of the floor. The flame of the finger-candle is actually a tiny magical fire.

Ok, in my book eyeballs and severed fingers will elicit feelings. These aren't good feelings either. This place is getting creepy.

My example is a bit special. Yet, you should be making everything a little creepy. Cobwebs, streaks of dried blood, water dripping, creaking sounds, the air feels heavy, a profound tomb like silence. These may seem cliche but they work!

Referees don't just adjudicate games, it's their job to create cinematic ambience and hopefully a feeling of dread. All of this leads to player immersion. Not every description needs to be extensive, you can mix it up with shorter ones. Yet it is these details that draw players into the game reality.

Consider that what the referee is doing, is a kind of hypnosis. When it works, your players will become terrified of your underworld.

Of course you can't make notes for all these details and many of them are superfluous. You are going to have to make it all up as you go, right in the moment.

A while back I wrote about dungeons actually being a gothic horror setting transposed into a fantasy setting. I may not have emphasized how important feeling is. Horror settings are all about feeling. It's your job to make a dungeon creepy. You can over-ride a player's tendency to play the game as a game if you succeed in triggering an emotional response by manipulating their sense of what is normal. I'm sorry to tell you this, there is no safe gaming in my dungeon, because dungeons aren't safe. The entire point of running a dungeon is to trigger uncomfortable feelings for your players during the course of a game.

You can read more about gothic horror in dungeons here:
https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/what-if-you-arent-playing-the-game-right-or-on-the-origin-of-the-dungeon-adventure-game-as-the-first-gothic-horror-rpg

Ok, so what I am saying is that the DM role plays reality. Pretty simple really.

Lets get back to talking about maps.

Ok, we've come to a better understanding of how dungeon maps should be interpreted. There's a lot of stuff that never gets written down, it's made up during a game. And each level should be separated vertically by some distance.

Scaling the Map
Arneson's Blackmoor was drawn in several scales. The upper levels were drawn on a 1 square is equal to 10' grid. The 4th level and the 5th level were much more expansive. Those two levels come with a standard map and a larger map drawn to a 30' per square scale. The reason for this is that those levels run right under the town of Blackmoor. You can start up in the castle and work your way down and pop up anywhere in town.

The deepest level is drawn on a 20' per square scale. This is where the big critters live, so you are going to need wider tunnels for them to get through.

On the larger scale maps that show sections below the town, tunnels are drawn as lines. The caves down here can now be really large.

Scaling the Riverine Cavern Complex
I wanted this tunnel complex to be very large. Big tunnels that go for hundreds of feet. It should be a mix between a dungeon and a wilderness.

I've decided not to scale my map at all. I will just put breaks between points of interest and note the distances. The players will begin at the top of a tall mountain and then come out at the bottom thousands of feet below.

I will describe each location, yet I am not going to bother with a detailed map until the players are exploring the location.

The Ice slide
The entire cave complex is cold. Hopefully everyone has brought a cloak.

One side passage is so damp that ice has formed on everything. Before long the front rank of players will find themselves on a steeper incline as the passage winds downward. They will have to keep from slipping and sliding further down. Iron spikes and rope would come in handy here. Anyone one who loses their footing will slide 100 feet to the next location.

The Wraiths
At the bottom of the ice slide is the chosen haunt of some wraiths. These ladies are very affectionate and willing to give a PC that special experience level draining touch.

If you play OD&D, or AD&D, consider having 2 of these creatures vs. a party of 1st level characters. Keep the encounter level inappropriate, IMHO.

This is a really high risk encounter. i.e the best option is to run away.

One should expect to lose a couple PC's here if they aren't careful.

If the players do manage to kill these undead, they should find a lot of treasure here. High risk means great reward. Everything from coins to a variety of magic items will help boost up who ever lives through fighting these wraiths.

That takes care of today's venture into the caves.

If you haven't already, you can check out some of our free videos on You Tube. This one is a favorite of mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM8GHeFVHyA&t=131s

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QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 7: The side quest to RETRO RPG Terror

6/16/2020

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As I have been writing up my little adventure, I've also been watching people discuss things in Social Media. Sometimes a real gem pops up. In this case it was a write up by a gamer who plays contemporary D&D, but says he misses something about the earlier editions.

He intuited the same lack of true danger that I often speak of. The feeling of not knowing what is next and how dangerous it could be that keeps players on the edge of their seats.

I asked George Wilson if he was a blogger, because I felt this should be preserved somewhere where gamers can see what he wrote and consider running a much more out of control game, where players have to earn their experience, or die trying. Since he is not a blogger, I will post his words here. (Yes, I have permission.)

I found his comments worthy of signal boost because he isn't shaming, or belittling anyone or their game. He is merely observing that an element of what he loves about gaming is missing.

I was playing a solo session a couple nights ago with a friend of mine, and realized what has been missing from the other campaigns I have played in over the past year.

The other campaigns are run by very creative young men. They have great ideas, interesting campaign worlds, and their games are a lot of fun, but in the back of my mind there has been a nagging feeling that something was missing.

The game I played in Thursday night is run by someone who, like me, has been playing since the 70's. The something I realized I had been missing in those other campaigns was that feeling that the campaign existed outside of my character being in it.

In the younger guys' campaigns everything always feels like it is there specifically for the PC's. The encounters are generally balanced and there is a reasonable chance of winning the encounter.

In the game the other night, I stumbled into something that was just there, and clearly was not an encounter that had been designed with me in mind. I ended up in a running fight with nine NPC's, that I only survived because of a good use of terrain, tactics, and one hell of a lucky string of die rolls. It was the most alive I've felt playing the game in many years.

That used to be the norm in the AD&D games of my youth. My campaign was built around the idea that it was a living world, that not everything and everyone was level appropriate for the party, because nature just isn't like that. The natural world is a mix of everything from the lowliest to the mightiest side by side. It wasn't something I remember any of us consciously thinking about when we designed things, it was just something that was and our campaigns and our random encounter tables reflected that. It was common back then to stumble onto something you knew right off that you couldn't handle, and spend the next while desperately trying to figure out how to get out of that situation alive.

It was also something that I hadn't noticed was missing in the games run by these young men, all of whom are younger than my dice, and who have grown up on WotC's editions of the game. Their encounters are all widely varied, but I hadn't realized that in all the many sessions I've played with them, there hadn't been a single "Oh Sh*t" moment where I realized we were in way over our heads. The newer editions don't encourage that sort of thing, preferring story and balanced encounters instead.

I didn't realize how much I had missed that, that feeling of despair as you realize that you probably aren't going to get out of this one, mixed with the feeling of determination to at least die well and take as many with you as you can, mixed with that tiny glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, you can find a way out of this, mixed with that sense of exhilaration when you roll ridiculously well over and over again, and the DM can't seem to roll higher than a seven over and over again.

I was exhausted after that encounter, and not because it was almost 1am, but from the encounter itself. But it felt good (even though I lost two weapons and didn't gain anything at all from the whole thing) in a way that an encounter hasn't felt good in many years and reminded me why I love the old editions of the game far more than I love the new.

You can certainly make the new feel like the old, there is no denying that, but those sorts of things aren't built into the new editions like they were in AD&D. They were native to it, a natural part of it, and I had no idea how much I missed that until I was confronted with it the other night.

- George Wilson, 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons group on Facebook, 6,13,2020

I know, many of you are sick of me flogging this old old corpse. Yet I think that if you've never played high stakes D&D, you may not know what you are missing out on and how fun it is.

With this adventure I am outlining, you should consider the idea of making things a little harder. You don't have to make it so everyone dies on the first encounter either. Consider wearing the players down. With each consecutive encounter they will use up more of their abilities from hit points to spells.

No Sleeping!
The Moaning Cavern and associated Riverine Cave Complex should be challenging. It is not possible for players to rest and recover because something can pop up at any moment and begin thrashing the party. These disturbances will interrupt any kind of extended recovery. Even the fear and anxiety of something showing up precludes more than just a simple stop to take a breather. If your players aren't used to the retro dungeon games, be sure to warn them. The DM and players should discuss how this place is not a place to take a nap because it is a really bad place to visit and adventurers only come here because of the possibility of finding rare treasure which is equally as viable as finding an unmarked grave.

WANDERING MONSTERS
Every other turn there is the possibility of a wandering monster appearing when you are in the Riverine Cave Complex.

Roll 1D6 and on a 1 something has appeared. Here is a simple chart you can use. Feel free to modify it for your own dungeon dives.

Roll 2d6
2 - Purple Worms (exactly how many is up to the DM.)
3 - A special NPC encounter. Can be a mixed blessing. Maybe a group of thieves who fleece the party while talking?
4 - Create something supernatural like a ghost that likes to throw things around.
5 - A band of ornery Humanoids (Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, etc.)
6 - Undead (Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, etc.)
7 - Dungeon Clean up Crew (Oozes, Jellies, Slimes, Molds, Etc.)
8 - Insects (Any kind of bug you feel like choosing.)
9 - Dungeon Master Special (Create a monster that is all your own that players can't know the stats for.)
10 - How about a strange weather event, a powerful wind storm, or rain?
11 - Maybe a Balrog and his associated group of monster followers?
12 - Something really terrifying like a Beholder, or two...

You'll notice I use the word create a lot in this chart. A good DM is always making up their own encounters. Whether you use something right out of the book, or you create your own monster, it's fun to create an encounter. If you have a certain feeling for an encounter you will make it more interesting and believable.

What do you want to do?
As George mentioned in his comments, an encounter does not need to be balanced. Players always have at least 3 options when dealing with anything: Talk, Fight, Run Like Hell!

Running away is really important. It's the players who balance encounters based on which they choose of these three options. Players always choose their fate.

Surprise is more than just a die roll to see who moves first. If a party is smart they can hide and let the monsters go by. Maybe the Hobgoblins are sitting around taking a much needed rest and the players can encircle them and conduct an ambush. There are so many options for the players to make random encounters fun and exciting.

Of course there is also the famous Monty Python battle cry: RUN AWAY!

Sometimes, you gotta run away. This is when a web spell comes in handy to slow down some of the monsters. Maybe you throw down a sack of hard earned treasure in the hopes the monsters will stop to check it out. Or, one of you will have to take one for the party and stay behind to delay the monsters. A truly epic character sacrifice is a worthy way to die. Most gamers you talk to will recount their fondest game as one where they chose to save the party.

The Glittering Cave
This is another location in the Riverine Cave Complex. It is completely benign, or is it? As the players travel down one of the many large tunnels full of stalagmites, they will come upon a small side cavern that reflects back their torches and lanterns with twinkling speckles of light.

Entering this place will reveal a room completely covered in sparkly precious stones. These are mostly bling yet still mildly valuable. Players can collect them if they want to. you can determine their value after the adventure. But it should be in the range of about 100-600 GP per sack full.

Q: Ok, is this a freebie?

A: Nope, this is a trap!

Chipping gems out of the wall takes time and makes noise. Did the players think to place some guards at the opening to this cave? All the noise is bound to bring something to investigate. Now the players are weighted down by bags of rocks which make it hard to run fast.

Hmmm... how about 1-3 on a D6 for every ten minutes of chipping brings a wandering monster around...

Stay Tuned
That's it for today. Maybe tomorrow I'll draw a super high quality ball point and college ruled paper map.

Please tell your friends to check out Secrets of Blackmoor. If you post on a forum about your experience of watching the documentary, drop us a line. We'd love to come chat. We're gamers too and we love talking about games.

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More of this adventure series is here:
https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/quick-and-dirty-disposable-dungeons-part-6-the-riverine-cave-complex

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QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 6: THE RIVERINE CAVE COMPLEX

6/15/2020

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The Moaning Cavern (cont.)

The first installment is here: https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/quick-and-dirty-disposable-dungeons-part-5-the-moaning-cavern

In the previous discussion I left off after having provided a bit of info about possible events that may occur on the way to the moaning cavern. There is a bit of a problem with how all of that is written up. It is beginning to look and read like a commercial module, which to me is too much of a railroad.

If you've never heard the term, it is used by gamers to describe an adventure that is set up as a sequence of events that players must deal with one after another.

If I was running this adventure for my group. I might have made up the charts in short hand. Everything else would just be a simple entry in the same way we did it back in the day.

The troll encounter would only say - 5 trolls.

That's it. I would make a mental note of how these trolls will behave, but the rest would not be there.

With the advent of commercial modules back in the 70's, Game Masters began to assume they had to write everything up exactly like they saw it appear in published modules, or, heaven forbid, they aren't doing it right!

Well, I have news for you. The RPG police are not going to be showing up at your game session to tell you that you are a bad referee and hand you a summons to gamer court. In fact, if you play using crib notes, you are actually playing the way the greatest DM's in RPG history ran their games. Everything was noted in brief, sometimes on 3x5 cards, yet the encounters would come to life and evolve right in the moment as the situation was being played. Of course a referee should always be fair to their players, but I will let you in on another secret, often a really good idea for how to make an encounter better can pop into the referee's head in the middle of a game session. I will improvise about half of my encounters right on the spot if it feels like I can make the game better. You learn to watch your players for cues as to what is really working for them and you follow their lead.

One of my truisms that I abide by as a referee is this:

A referee must present a game experience that seems fair to players, thus the rules, often made up by the referee, yes, in the old days we'd just make up rules on the spot, have to be fair.

The same goes for rulings. Rulings also must be fair. You cannot say bang you're dead, but rather, if you want to do X you will have Y chance of success. Always make players back up a second when they say they want to do something dangerous and state their odds. Then you can also negotiate with the player.

More importantly, a referee cannot be bound by a rigid adherence to the planned story, or adventure. A referee should always have the freedom to flex their creative muscle and alter or expand on anything.

Why?

Because the referee is God!

Now lets turn to some other concepts that are worth exploring.

First off, how many encounters should any area contain?

Unless you are creating a mega-dungeon where you want to have hundreds of interconnected room and passage encounters this kind of adventure should only have around 8-12 'keyed' encounters. Your players will take any single situation and it can end up being played for one minute up to an hour. I had an entirely ad-libbed dream sequence at the inn turn into about 90 minutes of fun without a single die roll. You can't predict what your players will do, or how long it will take.

Ref's who make up campaigns want to give the players a bit of the taste of a location within our worlds, but we also want to keep them moving through our world settings and our grand arc stories. Thus a single location like this cave complex needs to be simple and you only want a handful of encounters.

I want this game to be limited to perhaps 2-3 game sessions and I know that more than 10 situations will turn this one game into several months worth of sessions, so I am going to create several interesting things to explore. Some of my encounters are hidden chambers. It players do not find the hidden chambers, I will take the ideas and put them in another dungeon. I collect my ideas and I keep them in lists, thus my creative energy is not wasted.

Don't fudge die rolls, if the players miss their chance to see something you can re-use it later.

I haven't bothered to draw up a map. I really need to do that. Here are some other locations for my adventure.

The Left Hand Passage
While the main cave may be a little damp, things are about to get colder and wetter as the players enter this side passage. They will not have been told that The Moaning Cavern is actually just the first step into a series of caves. These are very old and were carved out of the lime stone mountains eons ago by an underground river tha has since shifted is course.

Did I mention wet and cold? Make sure to describe how dripping sounds echo through this place.

This section leads downward. Roughly a hundred feet farther in the players will encounter an area that is lit up by a magical glow. The glow comes from several pairs of stones that have been implanted in the ceiling. Did I mention this tunnel is large. At this point it will widen out to about 70 feet across and the these stones are roughly 60 feet above the players.

The stones have been here a long time. This is goblin magic. Goblins do not cast spells, they imbue gems with magic and cast gems. In this case it's a simple light spell that is activated when two gems are placed next to each other. If a player can figure a way to get to the ceiling, they could pry these gems out and keep them.

As a side note. Dwarves are always enchanted and pleased to find ancient goblin spell gems. Elves will want to destroy them. This poses a problem for mixed parties. Dwarves see elves as a bit prissy and not to be trusted, in fact in dwarf language they refer to elves as The Traitors. Elves are not fond of dwarves and think of them as obsequious and hairy little runts. Dwarves can be incredibly charming.

Foggy Cross Roads
At this point the tunnel will be full of a fog so thick that everything the players own will get damp. This place is mildly haunted and voices can be heard whispering, along with the ever present dripping sounds that can be heard in this cave complex. These voices come from every direction. Sometimes they will make clear statements such as:
-come over here
-no one can save you
-the warrior wants your cloak
-you are all alone

Get creative with this paranoia inducing information. You can even hand slips of paper with notes on them to individual players.

Maybe one of the players will see and feel something like a hand come out of the fog and brush across their arm. I like to stand and wander around the room as I describe these things and actually brush my hand across a player's shoulders. This place is creepy.

On a 1 on a D6 a random player will be 'handed' a glowing gold bauble. No other player will see this. This is a curse. The player is allowed to decide whether to grasp the object when it is handed to them out of the mist, or let it drop to the ground. If it drops it will be lost in the mist. A cursed player will immediately hear a voice that says, "I am yours and yours alone." It will guide the player to keep the bauble hidden and only speak to it in whispers so no one else can hear. The player will be told that they can now read other creatures minds. All of the E.S.P. is a trick. And once cursed, this will not go away without the intervention of clerical magic. The player should not desire to be cured.

Perhaps the player will become aware that the thief player wants to steal their bauble. Yet there is no bauble. It's all in the player's head!

The players will not be aware that this cross roads will magically re-orient the party to walk one of the four directions. In fact, they won't even see an intersection.

A dwarf may notice something changed after leaving the fog.

"Hmmm… we were heading north and now we're headin' east - Something ain't right here!"

Give your dwarf players a 1-2 on a D6 chance to note the change.

Also, If the players do not stay within sight of each other, it is possible for the party to get split up here.

Still Water
This cave has a strange anomaly in it. A pillar of still water comes up out of a hole in the floor and reaches all the way to the ceiling.

Describe this as a pillar made of a glassy watery substance.

You can stick your hand in this water and it comes out dry. Even a torch stays lit when placed into this wall of water. In fact, you can step into it and you will not drown, but your movement will be like someone swimming through water.

If you want to, you can swim down and after a drop of about 100' feet you will appear in a lower cave where you can step out into another tunnel

Any wandering monsters that appear while you are here, are just as likely to come into the room via the water as through one of the passages.

As always, once I get to rambling about something I can't stop. I seem to have missed talking about the scale of one's maps. This also relates to the original Blackmoor Dungeon. I also need to talk about wandering monsters and how players cannot fully rest while underground.

The cave images come from two separate cave complexes in Slovenia. I was lucky enough to visit one of them. It really changed my perspective on natural caves. Caverns are like an underworld wilderness setting.

Until next time...

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QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 5: The Moaning Cavern

6/14/2020

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I couple years back I was ruminating and posting about the idea of quick and dirty dungeons. It seems like gamers aren't home brewing as much as they used to and I feel DM's should give home brew a shot and I think it's time to revisit the discussion.

Oh yeah, I am taking the day off work and building a dungeon seems like a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

Making up your own is actually pretty easy. All you have to do is think to yourself what kind of adventure you want to create and where you might want to put it in your world.

I make simple lists of events. I come up with lists for these events and I tend to work from the middle out. I use a lot of scratch paper, or in this case scratch documents; this way I can cut paste between them.

Sometimes I make a map first, generally ball point on blank paper which is nothing anyone would praise as fine map making. In this case I decided to work on events and then expand off of these situations. I had no map to consult, just some odd ideas.

Seriously, just make a list:
Tomb
Temple
Trick trap room
Room with undead
Etc.

It's just that easy. Each little note will mean more to you than anyone else because everything is story. Even an empty room is story, or will be as soon as your players begin to explore it.

This is an example of my quick a dirty style. Normally I would not even write down half of the descriptions because I just keep them in my head. If I forget between now and running this dungeon what I put where, I just make it up on the spot. The players never notice. Since I am making an example, I will try to make some clear explanations as needed, and leave a bit of it for you to fill in the blanks.

Of course, this location is entirely generic and can be used with any system, or any fantasy world. I'm aware very few people play the original Dungeons & Dragons and that is fine. You can even lift some of the encounters and put them in your own underworld. Why not? That's what I think modules are for, stealing ideas and then running them as your own.

Keep a couple things in mind as you modify this adventure. Play balance is irrelevant. Players will balance any situation by running away. Character loss is crucial to making the game believable, do not shy away from character death. Smart players will bring a large troop. None of this 4-5 PC's, this place requires a party of 8 - 12. Anyone visiting this cave complex should bring a large party and some extra hirelings to help out as well. If anyone does die, they get to take over one of the hirelings. This is an extremely dangerous place and your players should be warned that it's likely half the party will die.

The Moaning Cavern
FYI this is a horrible name, but this is meant for my home group and they will not care. D&D is not competitive and it is kind of private as we play with close friends. If you've never made an adventure just relax and have fun.

Perhaps a simple map, or a rumor will lead a group of adventurers to explore a place known as The Moaning Cavern. West of Blackmor and east of Vestfold, which in my campaign I have renamed Fastness Fold, lies a small mountain range with a pass that must be traversed in order to travel between the two cities.

It is said that an ancient road leads away from a place known as the Three Sisters and that if one follows this road they will come to an ancient cavern full of treasure. It's also said that hardly anyone who goes there ever returns because it is a truly evil place.

Rumors have a way of getting distorted thus you can say anything you want to the players, yet they are still likely to want to check it out for themselves as the key word is: Treasure!

Maybe the place could be renamed to the Cave of Jewels?

The Three Sisters
At the top of the pass is a clearing with three 80 foot tall stones placed in a circle. If one examines them closely, it might become clear that these are actually ancient statues that have been worn down over the millennia into large rounded blobs.

An area of about 50 feet around lies between the stones. Bunches of dried flowers can be found placed in this area. More examination reveals broken pottery. These are the remains of offerings left by travelers. Even today, as caravans come by the "Three Sisters" some kind of offering will be made. And any cleric may be aware this is an ancient sacred place not to be trifled with.

Leaving an offering in this area does have an effect. Study your players, and their actions to see if someone deciding to make an offering is sincere. Merely copying another player is not a true gift. The value of the offering is important as well. You can decide for yourself if the offering is sincere and whether a player is deserving of an audience with the three sisters.

Take a PC's prime attribute as a number to test against. If the class has several attributes that apply, add them up and divide to reach an average ability score.

Then the fun begins as the player gets to roll a D20 where everyone gets to see what the roll is.

Rolling over the given value:
1-6 nothing happens

7 -or higher results in 2d6 damage and a horrible disease

Natural 20's result in a Save vs. Death. Missing the roll means you had a heart attack. Making the saving throw should leave the player feeling shaken for some time, take 2D6 damage. Most caravan leaders make a hireling deliver the offering out of fear of divine retribution. ;)

Rolling equal to, or under the given value:
0 the Player is blessed for three days.

1or 3 less, the player gets bathed in a golden light. As the light diminishes they realize they have a wine flask in their hand. (cure light wounds 2-12 doses)

4-8 less than the number required, the player experiences a similar glow, yet this time they receive 1000-4000 Exp. Points.

7 or more and the character receives a random magic item as a gift.

If player rolls a natural 1, they are granted an audience with these deities.

An offering should only work once per day. No hanging out dropping things in the circle folks.

Audience with the Sisters
If a player manages to get an audience. They will experience themselves appearing in the presence of three giant sized women seated in thrones. These woman look more like elves except for the greenish pallor to their skin. They are incredibly beautiful; think 22 Charisma. In fact a PC will feel compelled to fall to their knees in awe. They wear thin gowns that are nearly transparent, and yet their nudity does not evoke a physical response as much as one of mental clarity and understanding. The usual pointed elf ears and slender human shape is very much the same. When they speak their voices will be sensed within the player's head.

They can provide information to anything the player would like to ask of them. Yet, their time sense is not like normal world time. Events from the future are the same as events from the past to them. For instance, they might mention that they will give the three crowns to the Ghebelin the day after tomorrow. These deities are somewhat of an analogy of the greek muses, yet they represent the three inspirations of the peaceful warrior, restrained wizardry, and pious wisdom.

The sisters are kind in their own way and will also grant wishes, or gifts, up to a limit.

The audience with the sisters should only last about 5 minutes before they wish the visitor goodbye and the visitor returns to reality.

As this 5 minutes passes, no time in the real world has gone by. No one else will know that the character left to go to another plane of existence.

Taking the Old Path
As described there is an over grown track leading away from the standing stones. It eventually becomes too treacherous for a horse to traverse. Mules might be able to make it, as they are smaller. Then again, maybe a 10% chance one of these goes crashing into oblivion. Describe the path how you want. It will eventually lead along a near vertical cliff with no way up or down for most players.

Random events can occur along the path. Roll every 2 hours and on a 1 in 6 an event occurs.

1. A thick cloud bank envelopes the party. Move rate is half.
on 1 on a D6 some kind of super natural event occurs. It can be anything from whispering voices, to a cold clammy hand touches someone, or something tries to either give someone an object, or steal an object. Get creative.

2. A rock comes crashing down from above. Roll to see who has to dodge it. Roll under your prime attribute or take 1d4 smashing damage. Laughter can be heard from above and then nothing can be found that would have rolled the rock.

3. A sudden blinding snow storm. Duration of 30 mins to 90 mins. roll a D6 and on a 1 a giant icicle spider attacks the party!

4. Rain and lightning. Again, get creative and roll a die.

5. The 5 Trolls.
Bone Cruncher, Sleepy Tooth, Pinky Bender, Drool, and Grunch.

I like dopey monsters. These trolls are mostly just hungry and will be sitting around on a wider section of the path gnawing some really old dried bones. They will hold up their hands in the international gesture for parley if given a chance. If you talk to them, they will likely talk back in broken common. They've been living on these craggy peaks for some time and may just climb up the rocks to leave if things look too lethal to them. Yet, if you do talk to them, you'll notice that they keep eyeing your pack mules, if you have them. They will talk about the lack of quality food for trolls up on these crags. Lichens are not good troll food. Eventually you'll be asked the burning question.

Troll "You planning on eating that one? Waddya want for it? We got 12 coppers."

Or, if you do not have any mules, they may point at a hobbit, or weaker party member, "Are you gonna eat that one?"

They can also reveal that there is a dragon in the first cave. "Careful up ahead, our buddy Roundy Snout went in there and got roasted and eaten in one bite."

It's up to the players. They can offer up some rations and avoid a fight, or fight 5 trolls with only 12 coppers between them.

6. An uncanny silence along with the presence of evil. Players may even think they are being watched.

The Moaning Cavern
After a 6 hour hike, unless a storm strands you on the mountain side for longer, the path will arrive at the mouth to a great cavern.

Just as its name implies, as a breeze blows by the mouth of this cavern, it makes a sound like low moaning from several voices. The opening is very large; 40 feet across and 80 feet high.

This is a very old and worn place. The ground inside this cave is covered with scattered debris from small rock falls. This place is big, perhaps the size of a football pitch. The ceiling rises up into the darkness.

The middle of the room is taken up by a large stone structure. Ornately carved pillars hold up a stone roof. Close examination by a scholar with knowledge of ancient languages might be able to translate a fragment of the inscriptions "[…] blessed gatherer of souls, she of a thousand eyes…." A scholar may also know that the ancient races and cultures are matriarchal.

If for some reason there is a goblin with the party, they will treat this place as a sacred shrine to one of their old gods, consider it as being similar to the egyptian goddess Nuit. Mind you, this is more like a spider goddess. Also, a goblin will be told what this is, yet they should not reveal this information to the rest of the party. This is sacred goblin stuff and not for outsiders.

For players who want to make exacting maps, ask them if they brought any surveying equipment. And make sure measuring takes time.

Inside the temple is a pile of stones, it may almost appear to be a giant stone nest. If someone climbs the slope of this haphazard structure, they will find themselves looking at the inside of a dragon nest. 1-3 it's just dozing and opens one eye to examine who is visiting, 4-6 it's sleeping soundly.

Let's be clear, this is a very old and powerful dragon. It might talk to the PC's, or it might begin to decimate the party. It should be a TPK, yet it's up to the party to decide if they want to initiate a TPK. If they're stupid, a fair Referee should wipe them out without batting an eye- Dragons Deserve Respect!

If the players are smart and leave the dragon alone, they will discover that about 200' down the left side of this cave there is a smaller cave opening leading into a tunnel…

That is all for today. I will talk more about things like number of encounters one should design, mapping, and how to scale our underworlds.

Make sure to tell a friend to check out the movie:

Vimeo https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sobfinal

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087QMYZ4R

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Come for another visit soon! - Gary

5/13/2020

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This is a letter Gary sent to Dave discussing the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. It isn't even called Dungeons & Dragons yet. Gary uses a more descriptive title that makes no reference to Role Playing at all, he calls it: Fantasy Wargaming.

Despite everything that happened between Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, and TSR, it's important to remember that in the beginning and in the end the two D&D creators were were not enemies.

The two men collaborated extensively on the creation of Dungeons & Dragons.

While there would be a schism between them, the personal drama at TSR was also between other people who were employed by TSR. Consider that of the original six gamers from the Blackmoor and Dungeons of Pasha Cada demo of 1972, four of them would be gone by the end of 1976.

Everyone tells their own story from their own perspective and of course as with all events such as this, it's possible that everyone was right in their own way.

Yet, around 1985 Gary Gygax flew out to see Dave Arneson and also meet Dave's family, his wife Frankie and his daughter Malia. It was during this visit that Gary Gygax proposed for Arneson to return to working with TSR and produce the DA series of Blackmoor Dungeons & Dragons modules.

Despite everything that Gary says later about sitting down to write a manuscript over two weekends it seems pretty clear that he worked with Arneson and they actually spent quite some time on the phone and also passed rules sections to each other via the postal service.

If you examine the original rules it is difficult to parse who created which sections, yet here and there one does find the individual fingerprints of each. Alignment is clearly a Gygax creation, whereas the magical intelligent sword rules come from Arneson's, Blackmoor.

No matter what anyone says, Dave and Gary co-wrote the first ever published role playing game in history. To detract from the genius of either is to misunderstand a magical time when the synergy of both their creative efforts produced a masterpiece that changed how we play games forever.

Secrets of Blackmoor now available for streaming online PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW after watching the film.

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GRIFF'S ALTERNATE DAMAGE SYSTEM FOR OD&D

All artwork by Walter Moore from the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg Book

ARNESON AND BLACKMOOR

The following is a sample from an upcoming Blackmoor setting book. All rights Griffith Morgan and The Fellowship of the Thing, LTD.

The Essential Blackmoor

Core Concepts for Play in Dave Arneson’s Living World

Griffith M. Morgan III

The Essential BLackmoor - Draft Chapter

Griff's Spell Points for Original D&D

QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 9: Everything is Story

QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 8: Mapping your Dungeons, adding mood and scale

QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 7: The side quest to RETRO RPG Terror

QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 6: THE RIVERINE CAVE COMPLEX

QUICK AND DIRTY DISPOSABLE DUNGEONS - PART 5: The Moaning Cavern

Come for another visit soon! - Gary

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All artwork by Walter Moore from the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg Book

The following is a sample from an upcoming Blackmoor setting book. All rights Griffith Morgan and The Fellowship of the Thing, LTD.​The Essential BlackmoorCore Concepts for Play in Dave Arneson’s Living WorldGriffith M. Morgan III

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The following is a sample from an upcoming Blackmoor setting book. All rights Griffith Morgan and The Fellowship of the Thing, LTD.

The Essential Blackmoor

Core Concepts for Play in Dave Arneson’s Living World

Griffith M. Morgan III