B1 and Toyetic Dungeon Rooms

Over on Bluesky, I did a walkthrough of B1: In Search of the Unknown. I already wrote about how B1 tells the story of Rogahn and Zelligar, two adventurers motivated "by greed and vague evil" who in their retirement became dungeon sickos and built Quasqueton, a labyrinthine dungeon stronghold, as a monument to their own egos and sadism, and as a middle finger to the upstart adventurers who would one day surely come to plunder its riches.

But how, exactly, does the module tell that story? Well, it's largely through its room descriptions.

By default, most of the rooms in Quasqueton are empty. A few contain incidental or major treasures, tricks, or traps. But, being a teaching/introductory module, the intention is for the DM to manually stock each of the rooms (excepting a few) with monsters or treasure from a provided list.

When I stocked my version of B1, I treated a roll of 1 or 2 on d6 as a monster. If there was no monster, a roll of 1 on d6 would indicate a treasure should be placed. This is based on OSE's stocking procedure, minus special rooms because those are already written into the module:

That still leaves something like 56% of rooms empty. My version of B1 ended up with 33 empty rooms out of 56 total rooms - that's 59% (here I'm counting traps and special rooms already written into the module as "empty" in the sense that I'm not adding anything that isn't already there - these are not strictly-speaking empty rooms, so the numbers aren't wholly accurate).

That number is fairly consistent with AD&D, where 60% of dungeon rooms are empty:

Overall, I was impressed by the quality of B1's rooms. Even without monsters, tricks, traps, or treasure, few of them are ever actually truly empty. This is consistent with modern OSR design philosophies, wherein empty rooms can be actionable, containing mundane items to use, clues to or warnings about encounters elsewhere in the dungeon, environmental storytelling in the form of artwork and other set dressings, or dangers other than monsters, tricks, and traps, such as hazards or obstacles.

Interestingly, despite what the common wisdom may be regarding empty rooms, there is some evidence to suggest that Gygax (in the earliest days, at least) imagined empty rooms as being truly empty - or at least, not worth detailing. Even so, truly empty space in a dungeon can still serve a purpose by facilitating tension or mystery, or by helping with the pace of the game, providing breathing room between dungeon factions or a safe place for the party to rest or think.

For the most part, B1's rooms, when empty, are of the mundane items and environmental storytelling variety. As my previous post describes, many of the rooms tell the story - by way of carvings, tapestries, paintings, torture devices, and manacled skeletons - of Rogahn and Zelligar's egos, cruelty, and paranoia. Many others are filled with mundane equipment and barrels, bottles, and casks of various unremarkable substances.

One thing that struck me when reading B1 was that even those rooms without prewritten tricks, traps, and treasure, when my stocking method revealed them to have no additional monsters or treasure, still ignited my imagination. Specifically, they made me imagine how these rooms might play if there was some additional element like a monster or treasure. That is, the descriptions made me imagine the rooms' potential.

Take for example Area II, the kitchen. You could easily just describe this room as "An old kitchen. Y'know, there's moldy food and utensils and crap all over, but there's nothing else here." And that's basically what the room is. There are two big cooking pits, a very narrow chimney, moldy food on the tables (including a "particularly noxious" chunk of cheese), hanging utensils, pots and pans, and a large cast iron kettle hanging from the ceiling by a chain.

The room isn't empty. It's got stuff in it. At the same time, none of the stuff here is particularly useful to adventurers (unless they want to cook a monster they kill later), it doesn't provide any clues about the rest of the dungeon, there isn't much in the way of environmental storytelling (besides establishing that people used to eat here a long time ago), and there are no other dangers present.

But I can't help but imagine what if there was something here. What if a huge spider hid in one of the cooking pits? What if giant centipedes nested in the chimney? What if you got into a food fight with some hobgoblins? Is the "particularly noxious" cheese an especially potent weapon? Would it have the same effect if the enemies were instead stinking troglodytes? What if you stabbed a goblin with a fork or smashed it over the head with a cooking pan? Could you use the kettle on a chain as a wrecking ball against a band of kobolds?

Or take Area X, the storeroom. This one contains barrels of stale but still edible foodstuffs. This room falls into the "mundane but useful stuff" category, since the party can provision itself here (albeit with old, nasty food), but the room takes on a different aspect if, for example, giant rats are currently getting their way into the barrels. Or, if the party does plunder the room's contents but isn't careful to avoid spillage or to reseal the barrels, vermin and monsters will be attracted to the place on future delves.

Or Area XXXVII, the recreation room. This is basically Rogahn's gym, complete with archery targets, barbells, a pullup bar, a climbing rope, very heavy weapons, and battered shields. The party might make use of some arrows, lug around a notched sword, or replace a broken shield with one in less than pristine condition. 

But I can't help but imagine if there were orcs in here. Would they challenge the party to some sort of sporting competition? A single player character would get exhausted if they tried to defeat the orcs - who are probably universally quite strong - in every competition themselves, so the whole party would have to get involved. A thief could likely win an archery contest or climb a rope pretty quickly, but what will the magic-user do?

And you might say, "That's all well and good, but the rooms are still 'empty'. They may have potential as the scene of such an encounter, but in the absence of one they're just places for the party to poke around for a bit, maybe pick up one or two useful items, take a breather, and move on. The potential isn't used!"

But that isn't true, because empty rooms might only be empty when the party first encounters them. If you're checking for wandering monsters (which you should), any one of those rooms could suddenly not be empty at the roll of a die. This is doubly true if you're restocking the dungeon or having the monsters that remain in the dungeon react to the party's actions in between delves - both of these practices can result in originally empty rooms becoming occupied.

If a room's dressing is simply barren, there's little creative juice to squeeze when and if a monster ends up being encountered there. The gnolls are simply passing through, camping out, or maybe looking for secret doors - what else could they be doing in a barren environment? But in the kitchen they might be roasting some slain gnomes in the cooking pit, in the storage room they might be reprovisioning, and in the recreation room they might be pumping iron.

What I'm getting at is that empty rooms should be "toyetic" - that is, they should contain lots of little elements that the players can mess around with like knobs and levers. I'm cribbing this particular term from Prismatic Wasteland's Encounter Checklist. That post describes a goblin encounter wherein each of the goblins has a sort of prop that invites interaction or experimentation by the players. The encounter should be designed "like a child’s playset—something with elements the characters can interact with. These can come in many forms: ladders, rope swings, trap doors, greased floors, functional stove tops, round boulders begging to be pushed, things that can be opened or locked or launched, etc., etc." That sounds a lot like a well-designed dungeon room!

The Encounter Checklist is in turn derived from Goblin Punch's Dungeon Checklist, which includes "Something to Experiment With". In the Dungeon Checklist, this role is filled by what we might ordinarily call a trick or special room, but those are relatively rare (1-in-6 rooms in OSE and 1-in-10 rooms in AD&D). 

What I'm arguing for in this post is that every room in your dungeon should have something to play with. That might be something more or less mundane like a bunch of adventurer's corpses to examine, a potentially valuable object like a nude statue of a bodacious babe to leer at, or a magical oddity like a mica formation you can chip pieces off of and eat for various magical effects. 

That might be all that's in the room, but if there does happen to be a monster or a treasure, the set dressing gives you something to riff on. There are kobolds picking over the bodies, orcs leering at the statue, or gnolls sticking pieces of rock in their mouths. One of the adventurer's corpses still has treasure, there's a jeweled pendant hanging from the statue's neck, or one of the pieces of mica transmutes itself into a valuable gemstone when removed.

Because B1 is a teaching module and is intended to be manually stocked with monsters and treasure by the new DM, it's especially important that each and every room has such elements to work with. There are certainly truly empty rooms in B1 - the second level of the dungeon in particular is filled with empty caverns, many of which are barely described - but they are few and far between. 

And that should be the norm. Design all of your dungeon rooms under the assumption that, even if there's no monster, treasure, or whatever there now, there could be something there later. In that case, you'll want there to be some toys with which to play.

Greed and Vague Evil: B1 and the Retired Adventurer as Dungeon-Brained Sicko

I did a fun little walkthrough of B1: In Search of the Unknown over on Bluesky. While you can read the detailed play by play over there (including my step by step stocking of each and every room per the module's instructions, with some interesting results), I thought I'd use the blog to discuss some more high-level impressions of the module's contents overall.

One thing that immediately struck me about this module is that it's essentially the embodiment of my blog post Retired Adventurers Long for the Dungeon. That is that high-level adventurers, upon retiring to their (typically) wilderness seats of power will, for whatever reason, feel compelled to construct "dungeon mazes thereunder." Dungeons are all that adventurers know. They stake their claim to power and wealth by plundering them, then apply that same wealth and experience to perpetuating their existence. Inadvertently or not, they create the proving grounds for the next generation of adventurers.

This is basically the premise of B1. Rogahn the fighter and Zelligar the magic-user built a single tower for lookout purposes, but it isn't detailed at all in the module and may not even still stand. Instead, the focus is on the mazelike dungeon beneath the tower, which contains all of the retired adventurers' living quarters and utility rooms.

But the dungeon isn't just a place where Rogahn and Zelligar once lived. It's also filled with impracticalities like needlessly long hallways, twisting corridors to nowhere, door labyrinths, pit traps, and portcullises which drop from the ceiling to trap hapless wanderers in dead end passages. The dungeon is not incidentally hazardous to plunderers, but intentionally so. Rogahn and Zelligar lived alongside these contrivances, presumably because they anticipated that one day, their spiritual successors would arrive to overcome the challenges they had created.

This can all be written off as dungeon weirdness typical of TSR modules of the time, but I think this would be a disservice to the legacy of the great Rogahn and Zelligar. The dungeon is not just a lair with some weirdness necessitated by gameplay expectations. Rather, it is a place that tells a story about who these two characters were - they had huge egos, were without moral scruples, and were massive trolls.

Rogahn and Zelligar are a perfect representation of the character of adventurers in D&D. "Their motives were based on greed and some kind of vague (or chaotic) evil." Using "the work of hundreds of slaves and laborers" they built their stronghold far from civilization, "since both men disliked visitors and intruders." 

They ventured out only occasionally to do adventurer stuff, until for some reason they emerged to defeat a barbarian horde which threatened the valley which the stronghold overlooked. This was either because they expected a substantial reward from the populace (which they did receive) or because their massive egos simply could not tolerate barbarians within their domain (this is my read on the situation). They then went on campaign in the barbarian lands, never to return.

But their stronghold, Quasqueton, remains, and it is a monument to both men's legacies. The place is thick with ego:

• The entrance corridor contains a pair of magic mouths which declare one after the other and then in unison: "WHO DARES ENTER THIS PLACE AND INTRUDE UPON THE SANCTUARY OF ITS INHABITANTS? ONLY A GROUP OF FOOLHARDY EXPLORERS DOOMED TO CERTAIN DEATH! WOE TO ANY WHO PASS THIS PLACE - THE WRATH OF ZELLIGAR AND ROGAHN WILL BE UPON THEM!" Then they both laugh as the enchantment fades away. Keep in mind that this effect would have been triggered any time anyone entered the stronghold even when Rogahn and Zelligar were still alive.
• Zelligar's chamber contains a 70-foot wall carving of himself casting the spell which turned away the barbarian horde. 
• His laboratory includes a wall hanging which reads "What mysterious happenings have their birth here? Only the greatest feats of wizardry, for which every element of earth, water, and sky is but a tool!" 
• The library has blocks of white granite in the floor which form "R&Z".
• Rogahn's mistress's chamber contains a tapestry depicting himself rescuing her from a burning village with enemies watching from afar.
• Rogahn's own chamber contains tapestries which depict him personally slaying a dragon (his companions are also there, but he is striking the killing blow), his and Zelligar's battle with the barbarians, he and his mistress holding hands on horseback, and him and Zelligar shaking hands atop the hill where the stronghold now sits.
• Rogahn and Zelligar gifted their advisor what is essentially an autographed painting of themselves which hangs in the advisor's chamber.
• The unfinished second level contains a museum dedicated to Rogahn and Zelligar's own lives and deeds. Who's to say how else the two would have managed to stroke their own egos had they lived to finish their construction?

Quasqueton is filled with indications of not only Rogahn and Zelligar's egos, but also their sinister nature:

• Rogahn and Zelligar used orc slaves in the stronghold's construction, and some of those slaves can still be found within the dungeon.
• Zelligar's laboratory contains a barbarian chieftain's skeleton hanging from the ceiling and also serves as a torture chamber.
• The stronghold's trophy room contains not just trophies from monsters but also a dwarf skeleton suspended in irons from the ceiling.
• The worship area contains an idol of a horned head with an evil visage.
• There is another barbarian skeleton on display in the museum on the second level.

Finally, Quasqueton contains many elements which seem to exist for the sole purpose of inconveniencing, annoying, or otherwise thwarting adventurers:

• The aforementioned needlessly long corridors, hallways to nowhere, and labyrinth of doors.
• The "wizard's annex" where Zelligar practiced his magic contains, for seemingly no reason, an illusory treasure hoard. It is not tied to a trap or any other element of danger which would justify its existence.
• Zelligar's laboratory contains a glass jar with a black cat in clear liquid. If someone opens the jar, the cat yowls, jumps out, and flees, even passing through closed doors, never to appear again. This is there explicitly "to surprise and/or mystify the adventurers."
• Two teleportation rooms in close proximity connected by winding hallways exist solely to confuse intruders attempting to map the dungeon.
• The room of pools contains some elements which might be of practical use, such as healing liquid, drinking water, and fish, but also acid, sickening syrup, wine which compels imbibers to drink to excess, liquid which puts the drinker to sleep, another illusory treasure hoard, and water which causes muteness.
• A guest chamber contains a false door which seemingly exists solely so that intruders will attract monsters while trying to open it.
• A hallway outside an empty utility room contains false steps which trick intruders into thinking they've descended a level.
• A statue on the second level points to a rocky outcropping of no significance.

There are other tricks and traps to be found in Quasqueton, but those which I haven't mentioned at least serve an apparent purpose in deterring intruders or meddlers who may have been present during Rogahn and Zelligar's lives. The poison needle trap on the nightstand in Zelligar's chamber is protection against thieving guards or apprentices. The portcullis or pit trap in the dead end hallways could be used to trap or kill visiting dignitaries or enemies. The treasure cave on the second level is guarded by animating statues because slaves working in the caves might stumble upon or know about and seek to plunder that room.

The tricks and traps listed above, however, seem to have been included with the assumption that one day Rogahn and Zelligar would be no more, and that upstart adventurers like they once were would come to rob the strongholds of its riches, just as Rogahn and Zelligar did to similar dungeons in their youth.

B1 is a good teaching module, not just for its advice for players and Dungeon Masters, but because it gives us a look into the psyche of the retired adventurer: reclusive, inscrutable, and egomaniacal. Maybe that's not the kind of retirement you as a player see for your character, and maybe as a DM you don't want all your retired adventurers to be this type, but it's an interesting place to start when thinking about what all those deserted castles are supposed to look like from a gameplay perspective.

As should always be the case when preparing to run a site-based adventure like a dungeon crawl, the place should tell a story. In the case of Quasqueton, with its elaborate tapestries, proudly displayed skeletons, and middle fingers to adventurers, B1 tells the strange story of Rogahn and Zelligar, dungeon-brained sickos.

The Implied Setting of AD&D Towns & Cities: Four Themes

This is a topic I've been dancing around a lot for the past few months. As my observations have accumulated, I've begun to feel that it would be beneficial to collate my findings into a broader "master post" which paints a more comprehensive picture of the subject. To summarize my findings so far (more or less sorted beginning with broad ideas down to specific details):

• Player characters are assumed to be strangers to the land in which they adventure, including the local town or city, and will have to learn the lay of the land when they first begin their careers. Even things as simple as entering through the gate and finding lodging, a place to buy equipment, and where to meet fellow adventurers is intended to be a challenge.
• Towns and cities are home to high-level NPCs. They represent the established order, and view player character adventurers as a threat to that order. While they generally have no interest in adventuring themselves (allowing the player characters to rightfully be the main agents of change of the campaign), they are more than happy to use the player characters as pawns, both to accomplish their own ends as well as to remove these threats to some distant border region where they will pose less of a danger and hopefully build their own domain well removed from the NPCs'.
• NPCs are expensive and irritating to deal with, and because of the high density of NPCs in towns and cities, adventures in these places will as a result be particularly expensive and irritating. While towns and cities offer many amenities and services to the player characters, actually obtaining these is a challenge of the player characters' wealth and the players' patience.
• Encounters in AD&D towns and cities are intended to be disguised "using vagueness and similarity". The players are meant to never be quite sure who or what exactly they're encountering. While many encountered people and creatures will be indifferent to the party, many others will be actively seeking to prey upon them (using their mistaken identity to their advantage), or more than ready to throw a fit if they're offended or mistreated (likely because their identity is mistaken).
• AD&D towns and cities are supported by a robust system of duties, excises, fees, tariffs, taxes, tithes, and tolls - including tolls to use roads to dungeons. Towns and cities do not exist solely to house and support the player characters but also to lord over them and drain their resources. If the player characters conspire to dodge these annoying inconveniences, they might pay for it by way of the usual complications involved in engaging in criminal activity or by becoming indentured servants to the city guard or watch.
• Towns and cities are the best place to find henchmen and hirelings. 1 to 2% of NPCs are "suitable for level advancement", and of those, only 10% are looking for work as henchmen. Recruiting them takes time and - like other interactions with NPCs - is likely to be costly and frustrating. There's a cottage industry of criers, tavernkeepers, and printers who make substantial amounts of money on the side helping adventurers advertise to prospective henchmen. It's also suggested that there is a complex web of social taboos and expectations when recruiting henchmen, which may apply more broadly to interacting with other NPCs in towns and cities - alignment and religion are touchy subjects, and speaking the language of alignment is a social faux pas, reinforcing that in these environments the player characters should never know exactly who they are dealing with.
• Larger towns and cities will usually have a market for subdued dragons as well as other enslaved monsters, their eggs, young, hides, and other parts - that is, there exists in AD&D towns and cities an adventurer-fueled "monster economy" of sorts. Occasionally, adventurers (player characters or otherwise) will pull a subdued dragon, a train of giant beavers, a cartload of pegasus eggs, or a barrel full of mind flayer brains into town to sell, which is probably an occasion worth noting. If followed to its logical conclusion, this presupposes that wealthy and/or high-level NPCs will own pet dragons, griffons, and the like, and be decorated with the pelts of giant otters and winter wolves.
• Cities are infested with disease, which proliferates due to crowding, filth, and plague-bearing beggars and rats. These diseases can be quite lethal, and because curing them is relatively expensive and difficult at low levels, these characters would be wise to spend as little time in cities as possible.
• Most towns and cities will be home to both a Thieves Guild and an Assassins Guild. Thief and assassin player characters will need to choose whether to join them or supplant them. Even in the absence of such player characters, there will likely be conflict between these entities and their upstart rivals, generating conflict which the player characters can choose to avoid or become embroiled in.

To these points I'll add a few others before concluding. From the PHB, in the section titled MONEY, AD&D cities and towns are analogous to gold rush boom towns:

This not only justifies why equipment prices are so high compared to what might be "historically" accurate (I'm to understand that some people are concerned about this), but also lends additional character to the town or city. Towns and cities are vital places to adventurers due to the availability of goods and services, but they are also money sinks where opportunistic merchants and service providers will test them to see just how much they're willing to spend for what they need. Also, D&D is a Western.

From the PHB section titled THE ADVENTURE:

Town adventures are described as "interesting, informative, and often hazardous", requiring "forethought and skill". "Care must be taken in all one says and does" and in these environments one can find "many potential helpful or useful characters" as well as "clever and dangerous adversaries".

Later, in the section titled SUCCESSFUL ADVENTURES, we are told that, compared to underworld and wilderness adventures, "City adventures are the toughest of all":

Like underworld and wilderness adventures, successful adventures in the city depend on "Setting out with an objective in mind, having sufficient force to gain it, and not drawing undue attention to the party." Why then are city adventures "the toughest of all"? 

Probably it is some combination of the aforementioned high-level NPCs and powerful factions, hidden dangers, meddling officials, social landmines, and the overall size and complexity of the place. Crawling through a dungeon filled with monsters and traps is one thing, and assaulting a wilderness monster lair or stronghold is another - engaging in a protracted war with the Thieves Guild in the city streets is an order of magnitude more complex because of the many different characters and factions in proximity to the scenario, each of which will have their own goals and opinions about the matter and will intervene or otherwise react in ways befitting their personalities.

I would be remiss not to mention that in addition to criminals, officials, character-type NPCs, and other mundanities of municipal life like laborers, merchants, and rats, the city/town encounter table is also filled with demons, devils, dopplegangers, lycanthropes, and undead:

The town or city is home to Evil temples guarded by devils, wizards who conjure demons, deserted places, entrances to the underworld, and ruins where dopplegangers and shadows lurk, haunted charnel houses and graveyards, and shapeshifting beasts and vampires almost always in search of victims.

Each of these points reinforces one or more common themes in the portrayal of AD&D's towns and cities:

• They are fantastic places - maybe not as mythic as the dungeon, but nonetheless inhabited by the game's highest-level NPCs and warring guilds, and the sites of the occasional market day featuring the sale of everything from exotic monster pelts and eggs to live dragons. Conjured demons and devils, haunted graveyards, deserted ruins, predatory shapeshifters, and entrances to the underworld are common.
• They are also mundane places, where player characters are subject to real-world annoyances like overbearing taxes and other drains on their wealth, meddling officials, easily-offended nobles and merchants, beggars, drunks, rowdy laborers, and common diseases.
• They are useful places. Player characters can rely on them for common services and resources such as lodging, equipment, meeting with fellow adventurers, selling treasure, and recruiting henchmen. Due to the presence of the aforementioned high-level NPCs and the monster economy, they are also places where player characters can procure powerful spellcasting services and purchase rare ingredients needed to ink scrolls, brew potions, and craft other magic items.
• They are adversarial places. They are strange to the player characters, and will require some investigation to become familiar with. The player characters are viewed as troublemakers at best and threats at worst, and NPCs will require significant persuading before offering aid to them. These environments are social mine fields and money pits, with powerful authority figures and hidden dangers eager to exploit the player characters, do harm to them, or otherwise embroil them in trouble.

These themes help to lend a unique character to these environments which the DM can keep in mind when running scenarios therein. They also suggest that, like dungeons and wilderness environments, towns and cities serve a dual purpose when it comes to gameplay. 

Dungeons are dangerous places, but they're also a reliable source of treasure in a somewhat "balanced" gameplay environment suitable for lower-level characters. The wilderness is often even more dangerous and unpredictable, but the treasure hoards possessed by monsters there are often much greater in value, and the environment provides ample room for characters to establish and carve out their own domains around which higher levels of play are centered. Towns and cities are essential to characters because of the goods and services they offer, but rather than being purely beacons of safety, they are perhaps the most dangerous, complex places in which gameplay takes place.

In AD&D, no environment exists solely to benefit or serve the player characters. Nowhere is without peril or challenge - and towns and cities are no exception.

Where are AD&D's High-Level NPCs?

This is a question I've pondered quite a bit in my exploration of AD&D. Theoretically, my assumption would be that there's nothing to restrict a character-type NPC from reaching the same level of experience as a player character of the same type. That is, a human character can become a cleric of 29th level, a fighter of 11th level or higher, or a magic-user of 18th level or higher (no upper limit is provided in the latter two cases, whereas 29 seems to be the cleric's limit for whatever reason). 

Non-human NPCs would also presumably abide by the same restrictions imposed on player characters of that type, so an NPC elf could advance as far as 7th level as a fighter and 11th level as a magic-user, and no more, just like a player character. Interestingly, NPC dwarves, elves, and gnomes can be clerics, and NPC halflings can be druids, even though these options are not available to player characters:

The PHB, in the section titled THE ADVENTURE, describes three different adventure types, characterized by the setting in which they take place: Town Adventures (which include not just towns but also cities and large villages, and so are probably more accurately described as settlement adventures), Dungeon Expeditions, and Outdoor Exploration (this is, for my money, a better configuration of modern editions' "Three Pillars of Play" - which are Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction).

The DMG provides some guidance as to what level character-type NPCs encountered in each of these scenarios will be, so I'll analyze the subject within this framework.

I'll begin with Dungeon Expeditions, because NPCs encountered in these scenarios will tend to be of lower levels. Character-type NPCs are encountered in dungeons as early as the 1st dungeon level:

They can also be encountered all the way in the deepest levels of the dungeon, and on every level in between:

Here is the relevant section describing the level of these NPCs:

Character-type NPCs encountered on the 1st through 4th levels of the dungeon are of the corresponding level in their class. Such NPCs encountered on the 5th through 15th levels are level 6 to 12. NPCs encountered on the 16th level or deeper can be as high as 13th level. 5th level NPCs are oddly never encountered in dungeons, nor are those higher than 13th level.

This suggests that 13th level is the maximum level at which player characters should continue to embark on dungeon expeditions - that's before clerics or magic-users gain access to 7th level spells, for context.

Next, let's look at Outdoor Exploration. For whatever reason, character-type NPCs are encountered in temperate and sub-tropical uninhabited/wilderness areas and nowhere else - not in arctic, sub-arctic, sub-tropical, or tropical areas, and not in waterborne environments. Not even in inhabited areas! The occasional high-level NPC is still encountered in groups of men (bandits, berserkers, brigands, etc.) and demihumans (dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc.), but full parties of fellow/rival adventurers are not.

According to the special footnote to these encounter tables, character-type NPCs in the outdoors are always of 7th through 10th level:

But random encounters are not the only way to encounter character-type NPCs outdoors. We must also account for those NPCs who rule strongholds:

Excepting the bard, which is an outlier by design, there is a good deal of overlap with those character-type NPCs found in the lower levels of dungeons and in random outdoor encounters. Only magic-users, thieves, and assassins exceed 13th level - and, as I mention in my post on Thieves and Assassins Guilds, this table is not totally reliable when used to stock an outdoor area, since the PHB states that thieves can only build small-type castles within or close to towns and cities, and only Grandfather/Grandmother assassins (15th level) rule wilderness strongholds (14th level assassins' strongholds are always in a town or city).

Where are all the higher-level character-type NPCs, then? According to the rules presented by the DMG, characters adventuring in dungeons and outdoors will never encounter a cleric capable of casting 7th level spells or a magic-user capable of casting 8th level spells (16th level in both cases), an illusionist capable of casting 7th level spells (14th level), a Great Druid (14th level), a Grandfather/Grandmother assassin (15th level), or a monk of higher than 13th level.

This has gameplay significance because players may need to be able to find such NPCs. They may need a cleric to cast resurrection, a magic-user to cast wish, or an illusionist to cast vision. Druids, assassins, and monks will need to find higher-ranked NPCs of the same type and defeat them to advance in their own class. Where are they?

As I've already mentioned, the Grandfather/Grandmother assassin should be in a wilderness stronghold. Druids, likewise, according to the PHB, "do not dwell permanently in castles, or even in cities or towns", but "in sacred groves...set in woodlands and similar natural surroundings":

While no such restriction is imposed upon higher-level monks, it seems fitting to me that these too would be (literally) cloistered away in some remote wilderness monastery. It seems to me that the highest-level druids, assassins, and monks are left off the castle sub-table merely because they are unique individuals who should be deliberately placed in the play area with careful consideration by the DM - though this rationale again is not applied to monks in the same way, who appear on the sub-table despite the fact that those of 9th level or higher are, according to the PHB, one-of-a-kind:

That still leaves the higher-level spellcasters, which brings us to Town Adventures.

In my post on henchmen, I mention that 1-in-100 humans and 1-in-50 demihumans are "suitable for level advancement". Of those, generally, 1-in-10 are "interested in offers of employment as a henchman". Since newly recruited henchmen can only be 1st through 3rd level, this means that 10% of the character-type population in a settlement is of 1st through 3rd level, but no guidance is provided for the level distribution of the remaining 90% of character-type NPCs.

The city/town encounters detailed in the DMG shed a bit of light on the level of NPCs found in these environments:

• Assassin encounters are with assassins of an indeterminate level (my guess is that one is to refer to the Thief encounter below to determine the level of the assassins).
• Bandit and Brigand encounters at night will include "1 or more leaders" (based on the Monster Manual there could be a fighter from 8th to 10th level, a magic-user of 7th to 10th level, or a cleric of 5th to 6th level, but it's unclear how to determine which leaders and of what level will be present because the Monster Manual deals with much larger groups of bandits).
• City guard encounters include fighters of 2nd to 5th level and indentured magic-users of 1st to 4th level.
• City official encounters include fighters of 1st to 4th level.
• City watchman encounters include fighters of 1st to 5th level and indentured clerics of 2nd to 5th level.
• Cleric encounters are with a cleric of 6th to 11th level and can include lesser clerics of 1st to 4th level.
• Druid encounters are with a druid of 6th to 11th level and include either lesser druids of 1st to 4th level or fighters of 1st to 6th level.
• Drunk encounters can include individuals from many of the other encounter types, presumably at similar levels.
• Fighter encounters are with a fighter of 6th to 12th level and include henchmen of 1st to 4th level.
• Gentleman encounters can be with fighters of 7th to 10th level.
• Harlot encounters may be with a harlot who is a thief or is working with one (presumably of the same level as those described under Thief, below).
• Illusionist encounters are with an illusionist of 7th to 10th level and include either illusionists of 1st to 4th level or fighters of 1st to 6th level.
• Magic-user encounters are with a magic-user of 7th to 12th level and henchman magic-users or fighters of 1st to 6th level or 4th to 7th level, respectively.
• Mercenary encounters include 1st level fighters and may include fighters of 2nd to 5th level.
• Merchant encounters include a fighter of 1st to 4th level.
• Monk encounters are with a monk of 7th to 10th level.
• Noble encounters include fighters of 1st to 4th level, and the noble may even be a fighter or cleric of 5th to 12th level.
• Paladin encounters are with a paladin of 6th to 9th level.
• Pilgrim encounters may include a cleric (or druid) of 2nd to 8th level, a monk of 5th to 6th level, a fighter (or paladin or ranger) of 1st to 8th level, a thief (or assassin) of 2nd to 7th level, or a magic-user of 6th to 9th level (as with Bandit and Brigand encounters, it's not entirely clear how to determine which of these character-types will be with the group, as the Monster Manual details much larger groups).
• Press gang encounters will be with 1st level fighters with a leader of 2nd to 5th level.
• Rake encounters will be with fighters of 5th to 10th level.
• Ranger encounters will be with rangers of 7th to 10th level.
• Ruffian encounters will be with 2nd level fighters and may include an assassin of 5th to 8th level.
• Thief encounters will be with a thief of 8th to 11th level and may include lesser thieves of 1st to 4th level.

So, that's a lot of information that I probably didn't need to type out. Do you notice anything? The highest-level character-type NPC which can be randomly encountered in a city or town is of 12th level (and that's only individual fighters and magic-users and noble clerics). Again, where are the higher-level NPCs?

Well, they must be somewhere. The DMG contains the following list of prices for hiring NPC clerics to cast certain spells:

(Interestingly, there is no such list for druid, magic-user, or illusionist spells, suggesting that while clerics are probably happy to accept tithes to their faith in exchange for service - if the character requesting such is "of similar alignment and religion as the cleric" - those other classes will probably only provide their services in exchange for magic items or service in kind.)

This list includes 7th level cleric spells like astral spell, control weather, earthquake, gate, regenerate, and restoration. Higher-level NPCs are present in the world (and specifically in large enough settlements), but for some reason are never randomly encountered in dungeons, outdoors, or in settlements.

This suggests that such NPCs are essentially retired from adventuring (they do not go into dungeons or the wilderness) and insular (they do not leave the place in which they reside to wander the streets of towns and cities). They have to be deliberately sought out where they live, and they probably won't be happy to see you.

So where do they live? Clearly not in dungeons, and apparently not in wilderness strongholds. However, while there are certainly domain-less high-level NPCs in D&D, I have a hard time believing that retired, insular, very high-level NPCs would be without them. 

Rather, I suspect that these individuals have ruled their strongholds for a long time - long enough that they are well a part of the established order. Strongholds maintain order in the borderlands, attracting people to settle around them in tax-paying single dwellings, thorps, hamlets, and the like. Eventually, I imagine, those communities grow into villages, towns, and even cities, with those old strongholds at their core. Is this where the highest-level NPCs live?

I think so. I think cities especially probably have lots of strongholds within them - those may be ruled by NPCs like those found on the castle sub-table in the DMG, but I imagine others will be ruled by even higher-level ones. Unfortunately, there's no guidance as to what the distribution should be.

In my post on settlements (which leans towards 5e), I stated that the character-type NPCs in my settlements are broken into groups corresponding to the "Tiers of Play" - 65% will be Tier 1, 20% tier 2, 10% Tier 3, and 5% Tier 4. In a later post, I wrote about how a similar "Tiers of Play" framework might be applied to AD&D (specifically 2e). While in that post I found that the "Tiers of Play" framework did not clearly map onto AD&D, I do still find it helpful to consider here.

In my post on henchmen, I provided an example AD&D city of 35,000 people with the following character-type NPC demographics:

• 280 humans
• 35 dwarves
• 35 elves
• 14 gnomes
• 35 half-elves
• 14 halflings
• 3 or 4 half-orcs

Since the total is 416 or 417, and 10% of these will be henchmen of 1st to 3rd level in accordance with the AD&D DMG's rule of thumb, that leaves 374 to 376 character-type NPCs to be distributed as follows:

• 243 to 245 low level (level 1 to 3 but not interested in work as henchmen)
• 74 to 76 medium level (level 4 to 7)
• 37 to 38 high level (level 7 to 12)
• 18 to 19 very high level (level 12 to 20 - or 20+ in AD&D 1e's case)

We can use AD&D's Character Subtable for dungeon encounters to get some idea as to what classes those very high level characters are:

Since this is for dungeon encounters, it may not apply to cities exactly, but it's what we've got. It's also worth noting that I'm not taking race into account, which would affect the distribution somewhat. Dwarves can't be magic-users, for example, so allowing all of these NPCs to be of any class will result in skewed numbers - but this is just a broad overview.

We can expect the average AD&D city to have the following very high level character-type NPCs in residence: 3 or 4 clerics, 7 or 8 fighters, 0 or 1 paladins, 0 or 1 rangers, 3 or 4 magic-users, 0 to 1 illusionists, 1 or 2 thieves (each of which might have their own guilds or gangs at war with one another), 0 to 1 assassins (but no higher than 14th level), and 0 to 1 monks. There will be no druids, because druids do not live in cities, and you might opt to rule the same for rangers and monks depending on taste (this is how I'm leaning).

While the demographics I'm using to divide the NPCs into "tiers" are entirely of my own invention and not based on anything in particular, I think they work reasonably well for the setting AD&D is depicting. The assumption seems to be that player characters will be able to find very high level NPCs in large settlements if they go looking for them, and these numbers support that. It also makes sense that player characters will be bumping into NPCs of up to 12th level in the streets, since there are a decent number of them living in the settlement.

Hopefully this is helpful to someone, and hopefully I've demonstrated that this is not just worldbuilding and number crunching for its own sake, but that these numbers actually have gameplay implications and are important to consider when running a game. What are the chances that a high level cleric of the player character's alignment lives in the city? What is the political landscape among the city's fighter lords? If the party has earned the ire of one powerful magic-user, is there another they can call upon for powerful magical aid? How many Thieves Guilds are active in the place, what is the status of their internecine turf war, and which would it be best to align with?

The player characters are not the most important or powerful individuals in the setting, and they may never be. I for one think it's important to know who those individuals are, how many of them there are, where they can be found, what they want, and most importantly, how the player characters might have to deal with them.

Strangers in a Strange Land

From the AD&D PHB, page 34:

In AD&D, it is presumed that "in all likelihood", the player character is unfamiliar with the campaign setting. They are a stranger in a strange land, and must work from the get-go to familiarize themselves with their environment.

It is also worth mentioning that players are expected to name an heir or next of kin to inherit their possessions should they die. This certainly isn't a new idea to me, and I'm sure plenty of old school games were filled with siblings and children of dead player characters who were eerily similar to the recently deceased. Yet, it feels like this doesn't get nearly enough attention in play. Player characters are assumed to have families, but too often, they are played as if they're purely individuals.

According to the DMG, player characters might have one or two "non-professional" skills (i.e., those unrelated to their training in a particular class). These represent those skills acquired "from early years or incidentally picked up" during their training:

Add to it that player character starting money intended to represent an inheritance or savings:

This to me suggests that, while player characters are exceptional (and thus fit to adventure), they also get their start as ordinary people. They have jobs and families. They give those things up to travel to a place they don't know, to adventure and seek treasure. This could be intentional - saving up every silver to someday embark on this adventure - or incidental - perhaps the character is the fifth son of some noble and happened to inherit a small windfall of cash. Either way, they leave their old life behind to seek their fortune.

But not exactly, because they also name someone from their family to inherit their belongings when they die. The connection is still there. I could be reading too much into it, drawing a link where none exists, but it almost sounds like adventurers leave their families to delve dungeons and battle dragons the same way immigrant workers come to America to support their families back home.

Or maybe not. Gygax is very thorough in detailing all of the expenses player characters must pay, and supporting a dependent family is not one of them. Maybe adventures are just deadbeat parents?

Continuing on with the PHB, under ESTABLISHING THE CHARACTER:

In this strange new land, the player character must first negotiate with a guard to gain entry into the settlement. Surely this interaction will be appropriately expensive and irritating. Likely, the character will need to dip into their life savings to pay some sort of gate fee to enter. 

Then the player character will need to find a place to live and sleep. In a town there might be one inn, or in a city, several - in a village or smaller settlement, the character will probably need to sleep in a barn or stable, or convince a homesteader to put them up somewhere else. Since the character will be known to all as an adventurer and assumed to be dragging unimaginable wealth from the depths of the nearby dungeon and storing it in such a place, that place must be secure. It is assumed that there will be unsavory types looking to rob the player character. I can't imagine many villagers wanting to house someone like that unless they anticipate a considerable upside (or plan to rob the adventurer themselves).

Finally, the player character can begin asking around to learn about the place to which they've come - including where to buy equipment and find other player characters with which to adventure.

It reads more like the opening scene of a movie than like the first session of a D&D campaign. If a campaign features a party of five player characters who are all just starting to adventure, is this same scene meant to be played out with each of them in turn? It seems laborious. 

I personally prefer to start my campaigns with the characters having met and already decided which adventure they'll embark on first. Others may even begin play with the characters at the entrance to the first dungeon - although I think this misses out on the fun of trekking across the deadly wilderness to get there. I had never considered starting a campaign with this level of detail, though it does sound fairly interesting/immersive to play out this scene if, for example, I had just a single player.

The final paragraph in this section even accounts for this, explaining that a lone player character - alone either because there are no others available or because those available "are not co-operative" (how quaint!) - may seek out men-at-arms or even henchmen:

This all stands somewhat in contrast to what is later written in the DMG under THE CAMPAIGN:

Here is is instead suggested that the DM "hard frame" the scene when beginning play - the characters have already met and chosen to adventure together. They are familiar with common knowledge of the area, but Gygax reiterates that otherwise "they know nothing of the world".

I think the advice in the DMG is much more practical than what the PHB tells players to expect. I don't think there's any hard and fast "rule" to follow here - even the presumption that the player characters know nothing (or very little) of the play area when the campaign begins seems flawed and will probably vary from one game to another. Take it or leave it as you see fit.

Alignment Languages are Socially Repulsive

In my last post on languages in AD&D, I teased that alignment languages were a topic worthy of their own post. Was I right? Let's find out.

It's fitting, for context, to start with original D&D to understand the intended function of alignment languages:

Here we see that alignment languages are treated much the same as other languages in terms of their function as a tool of communication, except that creatures who do not speak a particular alignment language will nonetheless "recognize a hostile one and attack". This I take to mean that if you speak Law to a creature aligned with Chaos, the creature will not understand you, but will recognize the language and recognize you as an enemy. If you instead speak Neutrality to the same creature, it will neither understand nor attack (and may not even recognize the language at all).

Now let's switch over to AD&D (specifically the PHB, in the section on CHARACTER LANGUAGES), where, in keeping with that edition's extremely thorough list of languages (and many other things), the number of alignment languages has exploded to nine:

There are two things to come back to here - the parenthetical about The Assassin and the fact that a character who changes alignment no longer knows the language of their previous alignment. For now, we'll leave these be.

Continuing on in that same section of the PHB, we have one of the more interesting tidbits:

"Open alignment speech will be frowned upon as a serious breach of social etiquette." Huh. That's kind of similar to the OD&D thing where a creature attacks if you speak a "hostile" alignment language in its presence, except here that specific rule of thumb is made a lot more general. Any open alignment speech, regardless of the audience, is a breach of social etiquette. Why is that?

Later in the PHB, in the section on THE ADVENTURE, the use of alignment languages is described as "socially repulsive":

Furthermore, "questions about rank, profession, god and alignment are perilous". In my post on henchmen, I mentioned that, during the recruitment process, "direct questions about alignment and religion are usually taken poorly" or "amiss". Interesting.

First, let's try to grasp what alignment languages actually are. Here we will move on to the AD&D DMG:

There's a lot here, but the most important part - the actual definition of alignment language in AD&D - is highlighted, namely that they are sets of "signs, signals, gestures, and words which intelligent creatures use to inform other intelligent creatures of the same alignment of their fellowship and common ethos". Well, that makes sense. 

But...speaking alignment language openly is "socially repulsive" and "a serious breach of social etiquette." This same paragraph says that "alignment languages are NEVER flaunted in public" and "are not used as salutations or interrogatives if the speaker is uncertain of the alignment of those addressed." How then, if it is so taboo to speak openly, is alignment language meant to be used to inform others of "fellowship and common ethos"?

It is worth noting that Gygax compares alignment language to Thieves' Cant (more on that later), Latin (as used by the Catholic Church), and the languages of secret organizations and societies. These example languages include "recognition signs" and "recognition phrases" and are used "as a common recognition and communication base". Basically, you use alignment language to identify people who are of the same faction as you. So why is the use of alignment language so taboo unless you're already certain of the recipient's alignment?

Gygax goes on to clarify that "alignment languages are of limited vocabulary and deal with the ethos of the alignment in general, so lengthy discussion of varying subjects cannot be conducted in such tongues". The next paragraph expands on this:

Again, alignment language is identified as a means to recognize like-aligned creatures. Again, Gygax says that the language is used "to discuss the precepts of the alignment in detail" and that all other communications in the language will be rudimentary at best. You can discuss the ethos of Lawful Good with a dwarf, but you can't use the language to plan a counteroffensive against the orcs.

Here too Thieves' Cant (and Druidic) come up. It's interesting that these are lumped in with alignment languages. This is because they are "specialty tongues" which, like alignment languages, are used exclusively to discuss those topics which are within their sphere of interest - crime and nature-y stuff, respectively. Presumably, like alignment language, it is considered rude to speak them openly, but they can be used to recognize members of their respective factions. Also presumably, if a druid converts to some non-Neutral deity or a thief forsakes skullduggery, they would likewise somehow suddenly lose the ability to communicate in those tongues.

The next paragraph describes the consequences of open alignment speak more thoroughly:

As in OD&D, a creature which is hostile to the alignment which is spoken will recognize the speaker as an enemy (although, unlike in OD&D, they will not necessarily immediately attack). However, even creatures of the same alignment will refuse to associate with the speaker out of embarrassment, because speaking the language openly is "unmannerly, rude, boorish, and stupid."

The final paragraph in the section clarifies the situation in which alignment language is to be used:

The discussion about which creatures can actually speak their corresponding alignment language is not particularly germane to this post. Suffice it to say that a creature of a given alignment can only speak its alignment language if its Monster Manual entry explicitly says that it can. Thus, just as blink dogs do not speak Lawful Good, neither do animals speak Neutral, nor do undead speak Chaotic Evil.

What picture is being painted by all this information? Alignment language is a set of signs, signals, gestures, and words which allow creatures of the same alignment to discuss the concepts pertaining to that alignment and little else. It is used as a tool of recognition, but never publicly, and only after communication has been established between the two parties. 

One does not simply walk into a tavern and ask in the language of demons, "Anyone else Chaotic Evil?" Rather, you scope out the place first, recognize the Evil High Priest in the dark corner bearing the subtle indicators of a follower of Orcus, pull up a chair and introduce yourself, and, when you're absolutely certain that no one else can overhear, offer them a Sign of some sort. You might discuss the latest schism in the faith presented by the anti-pope's recent declaration, but you wouldn't use that language to negotiate the cost of a raise dead spell or to recruit the priest as a henchman.

Think of alignment language as ideological jargon. If you're well-versed in Marxist political philosophy (Lawful Good), you can probably carry out a conversation with someone similarly educated at a party, but a third person who is not fluent may have a hard time following along. Even that same well-versed person might be put off if you launch right into theory without introducing yourself first. If you start loudly talking about it to anyone and everyone who will listen, you will put people off. Someone who otherwise agrees with your ideology may nonetheless be hesitant to associate with you out of embarrassment. If you do it at Thanksgiving with your conservative family, they will probably become hostile towards you.

But it's not exactly a 1:1 comparison, because you can only speak an alignment language if you are of that alignment. You can't speak it by merely being familiar with its ideas, and you lose the ability to speak it if your alignment changes. But in real life, a fascist can learn Marxist buzzwords, and a Marxist can become a fascist and still speak the language of Marx.

Or can they? Speaking alignment language is basically a means of determining if someone is truly of a given alignment. It's a test. The fascist might be fluent in Marxism, but if you have a long enough conversation with them, you'll probably figure out that they don't really believe it, or perhaps don't understand it. They don't embody it. They're not a true Marxist. They're a fascist.

Perhaps you are Lawful Good, trying to pass yourself off as a follower of Orcus to learn what the Evil High Priest is up to. Since you're both Chaotic Evil, the priest switches to speaking in that tongue. He's not speaking an unintelligible Black Speech - he's talking (maybe in what we would call the common tongue) in a ideological jargony way about eating babies and having sex with zombies (or whatever it is they do). You're familiar with the ideas of Chaos and Evil so you're like "Yeah, haha, I love doing that stuff too", but you can't really hang in the conversation for long. The priest will know you're not what you're pretending to be. He's testing you to see if you know the Signs.

In that sense, alignment language makes a lot of sense to me. It's off-putting to most people, but when employed with tact, it can be used to identify your true allies and reveal hidden enemies. This is maybe best represented when we dig into the assassin (I said we would get back to it), specifically the assassin's ability to learn alignment languages other than their own:

High level assassins are the only ones capable of speaking the language of an alignment to which they don't belong (including Druidic and Thieves' Cant, which are again lumped in with alignment languages), and thus the only ones able to pass themselves off as belonging to an alignment other than their own when tested in this way. Since assassins are the masters of disguise and subterfuge, this makes a lot of sense. They're kind of like the COINTELPRO/CHAOS agents of AD&D - the rats who will infiltrate your movement, give your plans away to your enemies, and kill your ideological paragons. And just like those agents in real life, their alignment can only be Evil.

How you feel about alignment language will of course be dependent on how you feel about alignment. It is a famously difficult concept to grasp. Is alignment a cosmic faction of which your character is a part? Is it a set of ideological guiding principles which influence their behavior? Is it their religious beliefs? Is it simply the distillation of who they are? Is it what they do? Is it their position on a graph?

It's kind of all those things! From the DMG:

Here alignment is described broadly as an "ethos of thinking". It does not "dictate religious persuasion", but "religious beliefs will dictate alignment". For NPCs, alignment determines behavior, but for PCs, behavior determines alignment. Alignment not only defines/is defined by behavior and religious beliefs, but also groups creatures basically into factions which are (usually) friendly, unfriendly, or neutral based on their alignments' relation to one another, similar to OD&D, where alignment is simply a "stance" the character takes:

All of this, of course, you're somehow supposed to graph:

I'm not graphing shit, Gary!

Fortunately, despite providing definitions and examples for each of the nine alignments, Gygax gives us permission (not that we need it) to decide for ourselves what exactly is Lawful, Chaotic, Good, or Evil:

So yes, you can simply ignore that one forum post where Gygax says it's Lawful Good to kill orc babies or whatever. Or not. It's your game.

Even after you're done grappling with alignment, you may still struggle with alignment language. Why does the Lawful Good paladin who kills an orc baby and becomes a Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil fighter suddenly lose the ability to speak of the Lawful Good ethos with his former contemporaries? Can the truly Lawful Good somehow recognize that the fallen paladin no longer truly believes that killing children is wrong? This is exactly what AD&D suggests.

And why is the Lawful Good paladin unable to converse in the tongue of Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good? Can the paladin not at least discuss the precepts of Law and Good, if not those of Neutrality? If we view alignment language as less a full language and more a set of codes for recognizing what someone actually embodies - which is again what Gygax suggests - then I would argue that the Lawful Good paladin can converse with a Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good creature in the language of those beliefs which they have in common. The two would simply come to recognize that they do not fully agree with one another and thus are not of the same alignment (although not necessarily enemies).

To simplify this, and because I don't like the nine alignment languages, I would reduce the number to five - Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality. Most creatures can converse in two of these languages, True Neutral creatures being the exception (not sure how I feel about this - should there be an Order-Neutral language and a Moral-Neutral language?). Lawful Good creatures can converse with Lawful Evil creatures about the ideology of Law, or with Chaotic Good creatures about Goodness.

I see no reason why a character shouldn't also be able to speak in the language of a former alignment. The Lawful Neutral fighter who was once a paladin still knows the language of Good, but actual Lawful Good creatures would recognize him as not being truly Lawful Good. If you conceive of alignment language as something bestowed upon the character by some higher power - which is kinda sorta what AD&D suggests - then this probably seems wrong, but it preserves the originally intended gameplay function of alignment language while reducing cognitive dissonance in the fiction.

If there's a serious drawback to the use of alignment language, it's that deception is much more difficult. You might be able to convince the Evil High Priest that you too are Chaotic Evil, but if he is wise enough to test you to see if you know the correct phrases (and he is a high level cleric, so he is likely wise), you have no hope of tricking him (unless you're an assassin, in which case you are Evil by necessity, if not Chaotic, although this is treating the example too literally). This reduces player agency, as subterfuge is suddenly off the table.

Then again, detect evil/good and know alignment are spells in AD&D, and they are available at low levels, so this kind of deception is tricky anyway (the availability of those spells also makes this use of alignment language somewhat redundant, but then again not every creature is a spellcasting cleric). I would err on the side of allowing characters to bluff proficiency in alignment languages, rather than treating them as a totally binary detection system. 

Just as I allow characters to more or less "get by" in languages with which they're not proficient, I imagine a Good character would have some familiarity with the beliefs of Evil and might know some of the correct phrases. This would work well with a skill-based system (to determine how well the character passes as the desired alignment), or in an old school system you could adjudicate it using reaction rolls.

Another option is to forego alignment language entirely as presented in AD&D - that is, as a language an intelligent creature automatically knows by nature of their alignment. Instead, the languages of Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, and Neutrality are simply additional languages characters can learn. Gandalf is not Evil, but he knows the language of Mordor all the same. This is similar to how modern editions of D&D handle it. There are no languages named Law or Chaos, Good or Evil, but there is Celestial, Infernal, and Abyssal - languages generally spoken by creatures of a particular alignment but which anyone can learn.

Hopefully I've demonstrated an interesting use case for alignment language and have shed some light on the way in which it was originally conceived. Like alignment itself, I feel that alignment language has gotten a bad reputation as a weird AD&D thing and has been doomed to be the butt of jokes made by people who learn about it from memes and never really try to understand what its purpose originally was. I've come to find that alignment language is actually quite interesting, and my gears are churning trying to figure out how I'd use it in my games.