Developing the Sandbox: Prioritizing Points of Interest

This is the first in what will probably be a series detailing my method for developing a sandbox. I will be using my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown (which I am currently running and writing play reports for) as an example when appropriate. That post provides only a minimalist sketch of each location in the sandbox. Where do you go from there? This series will hope to provide some guidelines for proceeding.

To briefly summarize that post, my B1 sandbox contains the following locations:

• 01.05 Zerelda's Camp: A temporary camp for a party of high level adventurers who are looking to build a stronghold.
• 02.02 Timbershore: A large town ruled by an evil high level wizard and an evil high level cleric.
• 02.05 Giant Eagle Nest: The lair of a flock of giant eagles.
• 03.01 Fayette's Hold: A high level fighter's castle, now occupied by brigands.
• 03.02 Ebongrove: A humble thorp, terrorized and occupied by the brigands of Fayette's Hold.
• 03.04 Okorg's Den: The lair of a band of ogres.
• 03.05 Quasqueton: The dungeon which itself is the subject of Dungeon Module B1.
• 04.03 Owlbear Den: The lair of a pack of owlbears.
• 04.04 Jinglepuff's Burrow: The lair of a tricksy leprechaun.

I already have perfectly adequate sketches of each of these locations. I know who are the adventurers that make up Zerelda's Company, who rules Timbershore, who the brigands' leader is, how many giant eagles and owlbears there are, what the ogres want, what Quasqueton is like, and what Jinglepuff gets up to. I know that the evil wizard is plotting against the adventurers, that he was once aligned with the brigands but now desires to be rid of them, and that he is courting the ogres. I know that the ogres are pissed at the townspeople because they suspect them of stealing their treasure (when really Jinglepuff is responsible).

That's all gameable, and a DM who's comfortable with improvisation can probably make a little bit of detail go a long way. But the benefit of having a sandbox of this size is that you can go really detailed and still probably have most or all of the material fully prepped before or shortly after starting to run it. As of this writing, I have one and a half important locations within Timbershore left to detail. Everything else is pretty much done, and we're only a few sessions in.

But where do you start? Surely, Jinglepuff's Burrow, buried and secreted away deep in the woods, is not as important as the starting town or the dungeon. If I prepped all the monster lairs first, then showed up to the first session with only those ready for play, we wouldn't have much to work with. Surely there's some order of operations to follow. Where to begin...

Fortunately, I have a blog post which points the way. Here, I take a deep dive into settlements, strongholds, ruins, and monster lairs, describing each location type's gameplay feel and purpose. I also place each on a complexity/player agency gradient. Less complex location types like small settlements and dungeons offer the players a great deal of agency even at low levels, while more complex location types offer little agency until the characters accumulate the power and resources to deal with them as they wish. 

At 1st level, the players have more agency in the dungeon than they do in the 20th level wizard's stronghold. They can go to either place and poke around if they wish, but their lack of power and resources will limit the extent to which they can do so. They can go most places in the dungeon with the proper use of tactics and spells, but in the wizard's stronghold they might be limited to an audience with one of his henchmen in the receiving chamber, whereas at high levels they might be able to use their superior abilities to teleport directly into the wizard's inner sanctum to confront him.

To summarize, the final gradient I ended up with looks like this (from least complex to most complex): dungeons/simple settlements (thorps, hamlets, and villages) > simple monster lairs (where monsters are unintelligent/unorganized or very few in number) > moderate complexity settlements (towns)/moderate complexity monster lairs (where monsters are intelligent/faction-like but not huge in number)/strongholds > complex monster lairs (where monsters are intelligent, organized, and vast in numbers) > complex settlements (cities).

Looking at my B1 sandbox, the order of operations might be: Ebongrove/Quasqueton > Giant Eagle Nest/Owlbear Den/Jinglepuff's Burrow > Zerelda's Camp/Timbershore/Fayette's Hold/Okorg's Den. We do not have any complex monster lairs (this would be something like the lair of 300 orcs) or complex settlements (like a city), although we will see that Timbershore is plenty complex on its own.

This makes enough sense. Quasqueton should certainly be the first place I detail (and much of the work is done for me already), and Ebongrove should be simple enough. However, there is a wrinkle - the road into the region leads directly to Timbershore. This will likely be the first place the characters visit (unless, for some reason, they decide to navigate around it) and will probably be their base of operations. That should be a priority as well.

The town will prove to be plenty complex, however, and I will not need all of it fleshed out to navigate the party's first visit. In fact, I'll end up detailing the town in a series of passes, starting first with broad, important details, then drilling down into specific locations within the town, once again according to our complexity/agency gradient. It will be important to know the general layout of the town and where certain services can be procured immediately, but the thieves' dens, ruined mansions, and haunted tombs can wait, as can the strongholds where high level NPCs live.

Instead, my order of operations might look more like this: Timbershore (first pass - districts and broad details) > Quasqueton > Ebongrove > Timbershore (second pass - keyed locations and monster lairs) > Giant Eagle Nest/Owlbear Den/Jinglepuff's Burrow > Zerelda's Camp/Fayette's Hold/Okorg's Den > Timbershore (final pass - high level NPC strongholds).

Your order of operations may vary. If the characters enter the region in a hamlet before reaching the town beyond, you will start with the hamlet. If there is a monster lair blocking the way to the dungeon, you'll want to detail that before the dungeon. You should identify locations that your players will definitely encounter first, then anticipate those locations they are likely to want to investigate early.

Looking at my map, I might be more flexible with my order of operations. Timbershore and Quasqueton will still be first, followed by Ebongrove, but after those, I might want to mix things up and take a look at Zerelda's Camp, Fayette's Hold, and Okorg's Den (due to their proximity to inhabited lands). The Giant Eagle Nest, Owlbear Den, and Jingelpuff's Burrow can come later because they're more remote. Or, because they're relatively simple and easy to detail, I might wish to knock them out early. I might want to jump around for more variety, or simply maintain momentum by focusing on whatever seems interesting to me at any given time.

Just as I created minimalist sketches for every location before detailing any of them, I might do a "second pass" at each of them before diving in further, just to give me a little more to work with. For example, I might roll up exact numbers of monsters and their treasure and jot down their stats at each location before digging in to actually key them. That's the kind of stuff I definitely don't want to do at the table, but I can probably improvise an owlbear den on the fly if the players zig when I thought they would zag.

Don't panic if you don't have everything prepared by session 1. It doesn't have to be perfect by the time play begins. The intention is to anticipate the players' actions as best you can, but to also give yourself just enough to cover your bases when and if the players do something unexpected. If it goes according to plan, you'll have each location fully realized before it makes contact with the players. 

Then, they get to wreck it. That's where the fun is. But you have to build it for them first. Future posts in this series will describe how that's done.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 4)

We played the fourth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.

The roster for this session was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 1 (Adam)
• Pommernar, CE elf mage 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)

Last session, the party reconvened with Grilk's goblins near the entrance to the dungeon and traded a ring for an updated map. Nearby, they found a secret room filled with barrels and casks and battled some giant rats inside. They turned the rats over to the goblins and catalogued the room's contents, including a barrel full of exotic spices which would be worth about 1,000 gold pieces. 

They closed the room behind them and continued on into the dungeon, becoming lost in a labyrinth of twisting corridors. Eventually, they found what seemed to be Rogahn's training room, where Rory the Small was attacked by a giant tick. When last we left them, they had slain the giant tick, saving Rory's life.

We picked up from there. Llombaerth recalled that ticks employ a toxin which numbs the body when a bite is delivered, and wondered if he might be able to harvest the substance. While we're not using nonweapon proficiencies per se, when these sorts of things come up that might otherwise be handled as skills, I do defer to 2e's list of nonweapon proficiencies for guidance. There are five nonweapon proficiency groups: General, Priest, Rogue, Warrior, and Wizard. Each class gets skills from certain groups according to Table 38:

Rather than have each player select skills with which their character is proficient, I assume each character is proficient in all skills within their class's groups. All are proficient with all General skills, and Llombaerth is proficient in Rogue skills, Pommernar is proficient in Wizard skills, and Rory is proficient in Warrior skills. I don't have all of the skills and what they do memorized, so this is largely vibes based.

For example, here is the list of Warrior proficiencies:

In this case, I saw that warriors get Animal Lore, so I thought "Sure, Rory might know something about how to extract this substance from a giant tick." (This is not really what the Animal Lore proficiency does, but again, this is mostly vibes based.) I had Rory make an Intelligence check with no modifier, and he succeeded, so was able to guide Llombaerth through the process of harvesting the toxin. There's no real skill for this that I know of, so I had Llombaerth make a Dexterity check with a +4 bonus (basically advantage). Unfortunately, Llombaerth failed, making a mess of tick's innards and rendering the toxin unsalvageable.

The party found nothing else of interest in the training room, so they returned to the labyrinth. They exited the room and went right, then left, left again, right, descended a flight of steps, and turned left again. They found a long hall with three doors on the right. After some investigation, they found each door contained a nearly identical room with identical furniture arranged slightly differently - a bed, a table, and a chair.

One room had a door at the far end which, while not stuck, would not open, as if locked. Llombaerth tried to open it, but he is not the party's lockpicker, and so only had a 5% chance of success, and failed. The party did not think it worthwhile to keep trying. They tossed the three rooms, but found nothing significant, and continued on.

At the end of the long hall of doors they found a long, winding, serpentine passage to the left. Following that, they emerged at the end of a long hall that stretched on into the darkness to their left. There was a side passage just to their right, another 20 feet ahead on the right, and another 60 feet ahead on the left. They took the closest passage and followed it to a door with an empty alcove across from it.

After searching the alcove and finding nothing, they opened the door. In the far corner of the room was an unfinished stone wall with a crystal formation protruding from the rock. When the light of Pommernar's lantern shone upon the crystal, it cast dizzying patterns on the walls. Pommernar dimmed the lantern so they could see better and spotted a gleaming white stone in the middle of the floor.

Pommernan stepped inside the room to pick up the stone while Llombaerth held the door. Pommernar identified the stone as a pearl and pocketed it. He examined the crystal formation, but didn't notice anything unusual about it. He chipped off a piece and took that as well.

While Llombaerth waited, he looked around and noticed something peculiar. Where behind him there was once an empty alcove, now there was a long corridor, with a side passage on the left. Nobody had noticed anything unusual happen.

The party explored the side passage and found a corridor with a pair of carved oaken double doors straight ahead and a side passage immediately to the left which curved to the right. They opened the doors and found a library illuminated with dim red light from some sort of lighting fixture set into the far wall. The floor was polished red granite with white granite blocks forming "R&Z" in the center.

Thinking this was an ideal place for a trap, they searched thoroughly, but found none. The library was pretty well stocked, just not with magic tomes or any particularly valuables books. I told the players that they could find books on a number of topics here and could return and use it as a resource if they wanted. I wished I had stocked it with a few specific books, which I usually do. I'll prepare that for the future.

While perusing the bookshelves, Pommernar found a bronze statue of a nude woman (Rogahn and Zelligar love their statues of nude women) inlaid with gold and silver. He pocketed it. On closer inspection, the light fixtures in the far wall appeared to be bioactive terrariums for fire beetles, which were the source of the red light.

Finding nothing else of interest, the party returned to the corridor and took the curving side passage, which looped all the way around the library and turned right. Upon emerging into a wide corridor at the end, they found Narka, the rat-obsessed goblin scout. Somehow, the party had wound up back at the goblins' headquarters. 

The players had long since lost track of where they were (the mysteriously appearing hallway outside the crystal room hadn't helped), and their heads were spinning. This seemed like a good time to return to town.

The party decided to reopen the secret room with all the barrels and casks, intending to bring the exotic spices with them. Narka was all up in their business, wanting to know how the door was opened and if there were more rats inside. The party told her that the door could only be opened with magic, and that the room contained treasure they wished to bring back to town. At this, Narka summoned Grilk.

The party had a testy negotiation with Grilk, who, after being gifted a barrel of ale and the chunk of crystal Pommernar had collected, agreed to let the party take the treasure out in exchange for a 50% cut, which the party negotiated down to 20%. Grilk wanted the party to leave the door open for the goblins to make use of what they wanted from inside. The party reasoned that just as Grilk carefully guarded information about the dungeon, they would carefully guard this.

Grilk respected this, pointing out that all good friendships are built on jealously guarded information and resources and the equivalent exchange of goods and services. He spit a goblin loogie into his hand and shook on it with Llombaerth, who did the same (Llombaerth had to remove his glove because, as Grilk pointed out, only liars shake with gloves on).

We reasoned that the party could probably lash a barrel to either side of their mule, so they took the barrel of exotic spices and a second barrel of as-yet-unidentified spices. They retrieved their hireling, Bronson, from the goblin kitchen. He was elbow deep in giant rat innards and was hoping the party would be staying for dinner, but they had other plans. They convinced Bronson to come with them back to town by promising him that they would procure supplies to restock the kitchen upon their return.

That was where we wrapped for the night. This was a bit of a slow session, with the party navigating confusing corridors and ransacking mostly empty rooms. They just so happened to explore areas of the dungeon with no monsters or traps and just a handful of treasure. When you play multiple sessions of a game you sometimes get these quiet sessions without much action or roleplaying, and that's totally fine.

Next session, the party will make the trek back to town and risk getting lost in the wilderness or running into deadly outdoor encounters. If they make it back, they can offload their treasure, get some XP, heal, and reprovision. We'll see what they get up to next.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 3)

We played the third session of  our In Search of the Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. My session 2 report is here.

We were missing Matt (Barthalo-gnome), so our roster was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 1 (Adam)
• Millisant, LE human mage 1 (Aidan)
• Pommernar, CE elf mage 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)

Last time, the characters learned that some ruffians had stolen a sentimental ring from Grilk, the leader of Quasqueton's goblins. Wanting to get in Grilk's good graces in exchange for hospitality and information, the party agreed to track the ruffians down. Since the whole party at the time had infravision, they left their torchbearer, Bronson, with the goblins. 

They headed north, passing Narka, a goblin listening carefully at a wall. Narka warned the party that there were rats in the walls. If they found any, they should bring them back for the stewpot. The party set out into the dark. They left a few corridors unexplored as they headed towards a light source and the sound of humans arguing.

They found the ruffians trying to free their leader, who was trapped behind a portcullis. Llombaerth tried to sneak up on them, but was spotted. The party convinced the ruffians they were here to help, explained their plan, and got the ruffians to enact it. While they were occupied, the party snuffed out their torch and struck in the darkness, killing two of the ruffians, bringing the third within an inch of his life, and forcing the leader to surrender. The ruffians surrendered their valuables, including Grilk's ring, and the party slew them anyway.

We began session 3 with the party returning to Grilk, their dungeon map allowing them to backtrack quickly. Grilk could see by their bloodstained clothes that they had killed something. Pommernar tossed Grilk his ring, and Grilk was delighted. He asked the party to indulge him by describing how exactly they killed the ruffians. Pommernar explained how the party fell upon them, but left out the subterfuge and the false mercy they offered to the remaining ruffians. Grilk seemed disappointed.

The party debated for some time as to what exactly they should ask of Grilk in return - hospitality or information. If information is what they wanted, what was most important? They decided to ask if the goblins could fill in their map with whatever information they knew.

Grilk summoned Narka, who went to work on the map. She drew in where the orcs laired to the southeast, and indicated a spiraling room to the southwest. She also drew in rats in the western wall of the northward corridor (where the party had gone to track down the ruffians), and indicated that a different northward corridor was where some goblins scouts had headed, but hadn't returned. Near that corridor, she also drew in a room which Grilk said the goblins had "secured" but were not currently occupying.

Throughout this process, Grilk and Narka went back and forth in goblin. Narka seemed to be looking to Grilk to determine whether she should fill in certain details, and Grilk seemed be instructing her not to. Information is Grilk's most valuable currency. For now, he was being tight-lipped.

The party had several options to explore. For the goblins, they could go confront the orcs or track down the missing scouts. They asked if bringing back some rats would be considered a favor, to which Grilk said no. After some protest from Narka, he conceded that he would trade a favor for dead rats. The party also had the option to explore the spiraling room to the southwest or some of the side passages branching off of the corridor which led to the ruffians.

They chose to pursue the latter course of action. With some humans back in the party, they went to retrieve their torchbearer, Bronson, who was in the goblin kitchen scraping mold off of old food. Bronson still seemed rattled by the magic mouths the party had encountered upon entering Quasqueton, and said he wouldn't mind staying with the goblins for a bit. The party decided he was better off staying safe with the goblins so that he could help them carry treasure back to town later, so they let him stay. Pommernar would carry the lantern.

As they headed north, they decided to investigate the wall in which Narka had indicated the rats lived. They noticed several empty grain hulls spilled across the floor in front of a section of wall which did not match the others. The walls sounded unusually thin, and the party could hear something inside moving and squeaking.

After taking a beat to search, Llombaerth found a switch which opened a secret door. On the other side, the party found a triangular room with stacks of barrels and casks against the wall, with five rats as big as small dogs feasting on a barrel of spilled grain. The rats turned their attention to the party, raising their hackles, baring their teeth, and hissing. Llombaerth backed away.

As the rats looked poised to strike, Llombaerth poured some oil onto the floor in front of the doorway. Pommernar readied his lantern for Rory to light a torch. Rory fumbled retrieving the torch from his pack, allowing two of the rats to strike. Llombaerth was back at the front of the group, so the rats leapt at him. Llombaerth is unarmored, with just 6 hit points.

The first rat hit AC 3 for 2 damage. The second rat hit AC 2 for 2 damage. Rory finally produced a torch, lit it, and threw it onto the oil slick in which the two rats were standing. One managed to leap out of the way, but the other went up in flames, twisting and shrieking. Millisant fired off a trio of darts, one of which planted itself in the back of the fleeing rat's neck, killing it. The remaining two darts bounced harmlessly off the walls of the room beyond.

I made a morale check for the remaining rats, who failed. They turned and squeezed their way into nooks and crannies within the stack of casks and barrels, disappearing.

Narka came running around the corner at the sound of screaming rats. Millisant nudged the burning rat corpse out of the fire, and Narka stomped on it until the flames were extinguished. The party waited for the oil to burn off, then went inside the room. Narka dragged out the other rat behind them.

Inside, the party found 60 barrels and casks labeled with one of 20 different one- or two-letter codes. They decided to spend 40 minutes cracking open one of each and cataloguing the contents. This is yet another of B1's rooms with a big list of things. They found barley, flour, salt pork, pickles, raisins, brined fish, dried apples, whole peas, ale, honey, wine, water, soft soap, salt, lard, "seasoning", sunflower seeds, hard candy, and dried mushrooms.

According to the module, the contents "are by no means 'fresh'", "although usable or edible still, they nonetheless have an off-taste which suggests staleness." As the players discussed, I started looking at the 2e equipment table to figure out how much some of this stuff was worth:

Since three types of spice are listed, I decided to roll a d6 to determine how rare the "seasoning" they found was: 1-3 would be uncommon, 4-5 rare, and 6 exotic. I rolled a 6! I decided that each barrel had about 70 pounds of contents. At 15 gp per pound, this barrel was worth 1,050 gp! This prompted a discussion as to whether or not the party should immediately return to town, but they decided to keep exploring.

Pommernar melted two candles to reseal the barrel of spice and the barrel of hard candy (which I decided were those delicious lavender candies) and rolled two barrels of barley out into the hall for the goblins to take. The party searched for a second switch to reseal the room behind them, and Llombaerth once again came through with the clutch roll, securing the party's prize.

Since Llombaerth was injured and unarmored, and the ruffians the party had killed wore studded leather, the party returned to the murder scene to pilfer some. Then, they explored a side passage heading eastward.

They entered into the labyrinth of corridors which takes up most of the northeast quadrant of Quasqueton layout. The party left a door to the left unexplored. The corridor went 130 feet and turned left. It went another 20 feet and turned left again. Then, another 30 feet and a right turn. Then, 20 feet and a T intersection, and 10 feet further, another T intersection. They took the first left to a pair of dead ends. They backtracked and took the first right. The corridor went 40 feet and turned right. 10 feet ahead, a left turn led 30 feet to a dead end. 40 feet beyond that, the corridor turned right again. That corridor went 60 feet and continued on and turned left. The players marveled at the stunning craftsmanship of the stronghold dungeons.

They took the left, ignored another left 10 feet ahead, and took a right 20 feet beyond that. 20 feet down that corridor, they found a thick, heavy wooden door with a fancy R carved on it. 

It was stuck. Rory tried to force it, but failed. I checked for wandering monsters, but got nothing. I told David he could try as many times as he liked, but each attempt would prompt a wandering monster check. He tried once more, and this time the door gave way.

Inside, they found what looked like a gym. Woven mats were piled on the floor to form a wrestling ring-sized cushion. Iron bars leaned in the corner, and weapons and shields hung on the wall. A rope dangled from the ceiling. Lying on the floor opposite the door was a crumpled humanoid shape which looked like a little old person.

Rory entered to investigate. Millsant followed inside. Pommernar held the door to keep it from swinging shut. Llombaerth lingered behind him. Rory poked the thing on the floor with his halberd. It was dry and fragile like old paper, crumbling beneath the softest touch.

I called for surprise rolls. Rory and Millisant passed, but Pommernar and Llombaerth failed. Rory and Millisant looked up just in time to see a large tick hanging from the ceiling just above Rory, ready to drop. Millisant threw three darts, scoring a critical hit for 4 damage and hitting AC 1 for 3 damage. His third attack hit AC 5, which was a miss, the dart bouncing harmless off the insect's carapace.

Rory prepared to slice the bug as it fell, but was slow to ready his weapon. It landed on him, sinking its proboscis into his flesh (it hit AC 5 - Rory's AC exactly - for 2 damage). It latched on, sucking Rory's blood. Rory switched to his dagger to stab at it, but rolled a critical failure.

As Rory thrashed about which the bug latched on, I notified the players that any ranged weapon attacks would have a 50/50 chance of hitting either the tick or Rory. With Pommernar holding the door, he was unable to help. Llombaerth and Millisant drew their weapons and charged in.

Millisant struck first with her quarterstaff, whiffing entirely as Rory's thrashing made it difficult to land a blow. Rory stabbed with his dagger, but this time his weapon glanced off the creature's carapace. Llombaerth attacked with his long sword, landing the party's second critical hit of the encounter for 7 damage, slicing the tick clean off of Rory's chest and killing it.

That, by the way, was a 4 HD giant tick. They have an average hit point total of 18, but by the grace of Rogahn, I rolled just 12 hit points for this one. If it had stayed latched on, it would have done an automatic 1d6 damage per round, likely killing Rory in three rounds. Its low hit point total, combined with the party's two crits, means they got very lucky!

And I'm happy for them. This is one of the more dangerous monsters in my version of Quasqueton, and I was pretty concerned that Rory was about to go down. I'm glad that he'll live to fight another day.

But between the rats and the tick, Quasqueton is beginning to wear the party down. They don't have a cleric or any healing potions, and natural healing in AD&D is slow. They are playing a dangerous game now.

With their triumph over the tick, we ended the session. We seem to be having quite a bit of fun with this so far, and I'm excited to see where it goes next.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 2)

We had the opportunity to play the second session of our In Search of the Unknown AD&D 2e campaign last night. My session 1 report is here.

For this session, we were missing Aidan (Millisant) and David (Rory the Small), so the roster was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 1 (Adam)
• Barthalo-gnome, CG gnome fighter 1/thief 1 (Matt)
• Pommernar, CE elf mage 1 (Nael)

We started by recapping the last session (and bringing Matt up to speed). The party had reached the town of Timbershore with a map in hand pointing the way to long lost Quasqueton. There, the party had gathered some rumors, inquired about securing passage on a boat downriver, and recruited Colton, a dockworker, as porter and torchbearer. They set off across the southern farmlands and into the forest towards Quasqueton. On the way, they encountered a handful of hobgoblins, whom Pommernar turned away with a clever use of dancing lights. 

Upon reaching Quasqueton, the party delved inside. They discovered what they believed to be a pair of secret doors, but not how to open them. A pair of magic mouths warned them of what would become of them if they pressed on, which rattled Colton. While looting some corpses, they encountered some goblins. After a tense standoff, they met their leader, Grilk, who was more amicable, and informed them of some orcs to the southeast, led by a priest, who now held many of Grilk's goblins under his sway.

We picked up the session where we left the last one. Grilk invited the party to indulge with him in the "finest ale in Quasqueton", and led them through a dining room (where a fourth goblin was scrubbing lichen off of a carved wood throne) and into a room dominated by a large marble statue of a totally bodacious nude woman.

Grilk passed around some ales. The ale was definitely old and sour and tasted nasty. Llombaerth shared some vinegared herring with Grilk. Grilk confided in the party that a band of human ruffians had recently come to Quasqueton and had also passed through the goblins' territory. They had been rude and bullying, insulting the goblins' food and drink and stealing Grilk's special ring, which he had pilfered from a dead wizard some time ago. Grilk would be much obliged if the party could retrieve it.

This would be in addition to helping to liberate the goblins now under the sway of the orcs, who Grilk said worshipped a stone they believed they could speak to. Grilk told the party that the ruffians had headed north, deeper into the dungeon. The party asked about the secret doors in the previous corridor, and Grilk told them that they only opened from the opposite side - a way for the stronghold's defenders to ambush intruders from behind.

The party asked if Grilk could share any other information about the dungeon, but he said he would feel more comfortable if he was more certain that the party was operating in good faith. If he gave them all the information he had up front, there was nothing stopping the party from killing him and stealing his treasure.

This sounded fair. The party asked if they might be able to benefit from the goblins' hospitality in the future in exchange for helping with either of these two tasks. Grilk was agreeable to this. The party deliberated some, and decided to go after the ruffians first. Grilk directed them towards Narka, just down the hall, who could point them in the right direction. On their way out, Llombaerth left some more herring for the goblins to enjoy.

The party met with Narka, who seemed preoccupied listening at one of the walls in a wide corridor. He pointed them in the direction in which the ruffians had gone. He said there were rats in the walls, and if the party found any, they should club them and bring them back to Narka to throw in the stew pot. The party said they would do their best.

Realizing that all present were demihumans with infravision, the party decided to leave Colton to hang back with the goblins. I made a loyalty test to see if Colton would agree to this, with a slight penalty since the magic mouths had already rattled him. To my surprise, he was okay with it - better to hang out with some friendly-seeming goblins than to go venturing off into the dark.

Without Colton, venture off into the dark is precisely what the party did. They proceeded north, as Narka had directed them, and found two parallel corridors heading east. There were muddy boot prints around both corridors - smaller prints in lesser numbers down the northernmost corridor, and larger prints in greater numbers down the southernmost one. They decided to explore the latter.

Llombaerth, being the sneakier of the thieves, crept slowly up ahead. Rounding a corner and heading north, he spotted flickering torchlight from a corridor that went west. He beckoned the rest of the party to catch up, then went to investigate alone, creeping down the westward corridor.

He heard human voices arguing. It sounded like someone was stuck, and others were trying to find a way to free him. It sounded like people were rummaging in a room on the other side of the corridor's north wall. The light source seemed to be just around a corner up ahead, the westward hallway turning north.

Llombaerth proceeded, succeeding on his first Move Silently check, and was able to peer around the corner and spot a rough-looking human man in studded leather, holding a torch, with long sword, shield, pike, and short bow. Beyond him, the corridor turned back towards the east.

The party reconvened out of earshot and planned to listen for a bit to see what would happen. Since the people in the other room were being loud, I made a wandering monster check during this time, but nothing came of it. After a few minutes, they heard additional voices claim they had found a way to get their "boss" out of his predicament. They heard the sound of iron grating against iron, as if multiple people were trying to saw through iron bars.

Llombaerth attempted to sneak further ahead to lay eyes on the scene, but made too much noise, and the whole group turned and spotted him (he failed both his Move Silently and Hide in Shadows checks one after the other). There were three men trying to use hacksaws to cut through an iron portcullis, behind which the fourth was trapped. They demanded Llombaerth show himself, and he did. The rest of the party hurried to join him, pretending to be a family of archaeologists mapping the ruins. In the flickering torchlight, they saw the glint of a ring on the fourth ruffian's finger.

(The assumption in B1 is that the player characters will get stuck in this portcullis trap. When I was stocking the dungeon and rolled up a group of bandits in this room, I thought it would be a great opportunity to have one of them trapped behind the portcullis when the party arrived. +1 for B1's room design.)

The ruffians seemed perplexed and a little suspicious, but weren't looking for a fight. The party offered to help find a way to lift the portcullis and, as a pair of ruffians watched them closely, they searched the adjoining room for any tools which might be of use. There they found:

• A box of wooden pegs
• A 50’ coil of light rope
• A 70’ coil of heavy chain
• A 20’ coil of fine copper wire
• 32 unusable mining picks in poor repair
• 15 chisels
• 13 shovels
• 11 empty barrels stacked against the wall
• 8 mallets
• 29 1” x 8’ iron bars
• A 12” iron vise
• 2 broken mining jacks
• 2 two-man crosscut saws
• A mason’s toolbox containing trowel, stone chisel, plumb line, etc.
• A cobbler’s toolbox containing a small hammer, a knife, heavy needles, etc.
• A small barrel of 60 unfletched arrows
• A 10’ long wooden bench

Great stuff here. Pommernar suggested they use the mason's toolbox, iron bars, and his own block and tackle to engineer a mechanism that could lift the gate. This sounded like a reasonable idea to the ruffians. Since everyone in the party was shorter than an average human, Pommernar suggested one ruffian stand on another's shoulders to hammer some iron bars into the wall near the ceiling.

As the ruffians did as they were told, Pommernar told Llombaerth in Elvish to get ready to snuff the third ruffian's torch and attack.

"What did you say to him?" one ruffian asked.

"Oh, just an Elvish prayer for good luck," Pommernar replied.

"Ha, we're going to need it if this plan is going to work," another remarked.

Then, the party launched their attack. I decided that the ruffians would be surprised, so the whole party had a chance to act first. Llombaerth threw a burlap sack over the first ruffian's torch, plunging the corridor into darkness, then went for a backstab with his short sword - +4 to hit for the backstab attempt, +1 because the ruffians were surprised. Llombaerth hit AC 8 - literally just enough to hit studded leather with no shield. 10 damage (5 x 2 for backstab) slew the ruffian instantly.

Barthalo-gnome similarly made a backstab attempt against the ruffian who was holding the other one up (similarly with a +5 bonus to hit), hitting an AC of 1 for 16 damage (max damage with a short sword, +2 for specialization, and x2 for backstab), killing him as well. The ruffian on top fell down. Barthalo-gnome failed a Dexterity check, so the ruffian fell on top of him, each of them taking 1 damage from the fall.

With the third ruffian prone, Pommernar fell upon him with his dagger (+5 to hit again - this time +4 because the ruffian was prone, and again +1 for surprise). He hit an AC of -2 for 4 damage - the maximum amount, but not enough to kill him outright.

I rolled morale checks for the remaining ruffians (-4 because they had lost 50% of their numbers and -2 because they were surprised - they had a chance to succeed, but it was unlikely). They failed. The third ruffian was spurting up blood, feebly begging for his life, while the leader fell to his knees and pleaded for mercy, not even entirely sure what was going on due to the total darkness.

Pommernar said he would spare the third ruffians' life if the leader handed over his ring and his valuables. The leader tossed the ring and some coins through the bars. Then, Pommernar killed the third ruffian anyway. Barthalo-gnome, incensed by the ruffians' treatment of the goblins, climbed out from beneath the corpse, marched over to the leader, seized hold of him through the portcullis's iron bars, and cut his throat. 

(We talked about this afterward and discussed how it was not exactly a Chaotic Good thing to do - nor was killing the seemingly neutral ruffians in the first place - but players' blood tends to run hot when friendly goblins are being bullied. Alignment is a murky thing, and at some point I'll probably suggest that one player or another change their character's alignment, but I don't think I'll penalize them for this by way of experience points the way AD&D suggests.)

With the ruffians dead, the party pilfered their corpses and took some choice items from the room with all the tools, then we called it a night. They got some XP for defeating the ruffians, and the thieves got some bonus XP for using their special abilities. They'll get some XP for the treasure they recovered once they bring it back to town.

This was a very fun session. Considering the party had one and a half thieves, a mage, and only half a fighter, they approached this encounter very smartly, using the situation to maximize their advantage. The Chaotic Evil Pommernar seems to be an insidious influence on the rest of the characters, so we'll see if he is able to turn a few of them towards the dark side.

Aidan and David were our mapmakers in session 1, so Matt took over mapping duties for this session. The dungeon is definitely difficult to describe, and it seems that the party lost track of the many corridors and twists and turns somewhere along the way. We'll see if that hinders them at all in the upcoming sessions.

We talked for a bit afterward about how THAC0 isn't really that complicated in practice and how refreshing this snappy combat was compared to something like 5e. The group seems to be enjoying their experience with AD&D thus far. I'm eager to see what they get up to next time.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 1)

We played the first real session of our In Search of the Unknown AD&D 2e campaign last night. My session 0 report is here.

For this session, we were missing Matt (Bathalo-gnome), so the roster was as follows:

• Llombaerth, CG elf thief 1 (Adam)
• Millisant, LE human mage 1 (Aidan)
• Pommernar, CE elf mage 1 (Nael)
• Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)

I started the session with a bit of housekeeping. First, I explained that we'll be using gold for XP. I'm not sure when exactly XP is meant to be awarded in AD&D, but I really like B1's suggestion that it's not awarded until the treasure is actually safely returned to town, not just in the character's possession. This incentivizes the players to leave the dungeon and return to town to collect XP and level up, which allows me to do all sorts of nasty tricks with the dungeon while they're away.

I'm also intending to use 2e's individual XP awards based on class:

Thus, in addition to getting XP based on monsters overcome, Rory the Small, being a fighter, will get an extra 10 XP per HD of monster defeated in battle. Millisant and Pommernar will get an extra 50 XP per spell level when they use their spells to overcome problems (or, much later on, when/if they create magic items). Llombaerth gets 200 XP whenever he uses a thief ability successfully. Since I'm already awarding XP for gold and rogues get 2 XP for each gold piece of treasure obtained, Llombaerth will get instead get double XP for treasure.

In our session 0, I also had the players roll to determine what additional languages their characters knew. This was amusing, as the characters started out speaking water naga and white dragon, but I decided to roll it back. It's not so much the silliness I object to, but more so the fact that these languages won't be useful in the sandbox I've prepared.

Instead, the additional languages granted by the character's Intelligence score represent languages the characters have the capacity to learn. This is informed by AD&D's suggestion that characters spend downtime with any speaking creature to learn that creature's language:

Naturally, characters have the option of capturing a monster and forcing it to teach them its language:

With all that out of the way, we got to playing.

I explained to the players that they had come into possession of a map pinpointing the location of Quasqueton (the ruin to the south), the former stronghold of Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, who had disappeared while on campaign in the barbarian lands to the north. The stronghold was reclaimed by the wilderness and lost to time, and the characters had reason to believe that the treasures of its mazelike dungeons had yet to be plundered.

I had determined that the town or city nearest to the play area was 150 miles away. The characters had been on the road for six days. I actually rolled up the weather for those six days so I could provide a brief synopsis of their journey to that point. It is Spring (I always start my campaigns during the Spring, because it seems like a natural time to embark on an adventure). The rivers are engorged with rainwater and snowmelt. It had been blustery and had rained for a miserable two days, but had cleared up for the final day of the characters' journey. As they broke camp for the final time, the town of Timbershore was in sight, just over the horizon.

Timbershore is a large walled town of about 5,500 people. It had once been a humble village within Rogahn and Zelligar's domain, and paid homage to Quasqueton in exchange for nominal protection. When the valley was threatened by barbarian hordes, it was Rogahn and Zelligar who turned the barbarians to flight. Many decades had passed since, and the village had grown into a bustling town. Rumor is that the town is now ruled by a powerful wizard.

Inspired by AD&D's section on ESTABLISHING THE CHARACTER, I decided to roleplay the party's approach to the town's gate. The guards hailed the characters and demanded they state their business, informed them of the fee to enter (5 copper pieces per head, including the mule), and opened the gates. 

Keeping in mind AD&D's robust system of taxes and fees, the guards looked over the characters' possessions and asked if they had any goods for sale to declare. Since the party is just beginning adventuring, they have very little. Normally I would also point them towards the money changer, but since they were traveling from a city which is presumably part of the same domain, I assumed they are using the local coinage.

The party asked the guard where they might find a tavern to gather some information. The guard gave them rough directions. They had entered town in the High Ward. To the northeast was the Chapel Ward, to the southeast the Timber Ward, and to the south the River Ward. All have taverns. The High Ward is home to town officials and wealthy merchants. The Chapel Ward is mostly clergy. The Timber Ward is home to hunters, loggers, and trappers. The River Ward is traders, dockworkers, and others just entering town from upriver.

The party decided to head to the River Ward in case they could secure passage on a vessel to carry them downriver. As they moved through the High Ward, they wandered through courtyards and gardens and passed courthouses, administrative offices, shops, and guard barracks. They noted a high hill with many rich villas along its slope. At the very top, they could see a large castle overlooking the town.

The party passed through the River Ward en route to the Mooring Post, a tavern and inn which had been recommended to them. The River Ward is noisy and bustling, with many keelboats and barges docked along the wharf. Dockworkers unload the boats' cargo and mercenary guards escort caravans of goods to warehouses for storage. The party passed merchant guildhouses, sawmills, caravan yards, and flop houses before arriving at the Mooring Post.

The tavern was loud and rowdy, but not out of control or dangerous. It was crowded with traders, dockworkers, fishermen, ferrymen, and caravan guards, all drinking dark ale. It smelled strongly of fish stew. Pommernar focused on inquiring about passage downriver while the rest of the party gathered information. They bought a round of ale for the house.

Llombaerth, Millisant, and Rory the Small gathered a few rumors:

• A fearsome spirit haunts the ruins of Quasqueton. It is the ghost of Zelligar, demanding intruders surrender his stolen treasure!
• Quasqueton's stronghold houses a trophy room full of unimaginable valuables.
• A beast or beasts has been stalking the Timber Ward at night. Hunters believe a pack of wolves from the forest to be responsible.

Pommernar met a river boat captain, Colton, who offered to take the party downriver to the southeast lake for 18 silver pieces per head (including the mule, of course), plus 2 gold pieces per day for him. Here I used the 5e rule of thumb. In 5e, passage aboard a ship costs 1 silver per mile, and skilled hirelings (like a ship's captain) cost 2 gold pieces per day. I had not especially prepared for this, so I neglected to use the AD&D rule:

Thus, the smallest river barge or raft would have a crew of 20, plus a captain, a lieutenant, and two mates. It's not clear if the crew is meant to be sailors, oarsmen, or marines, but in this case I would assume simple oarsmen. That's 100 gold pieces per month for the oarsmen, 60 gold pieces per month for the mates, and 100 gold pieces per month each for the lieutenant and captain (360 gold pieces total). I imagine the intention is that these crews are only hirable on a per-month basis, much like other expert hirelings in AD&D, but in this case I would allow them to be hired for just the two days, which would be about 24 gold pieces total. 

This would be more costly if the party expected the crew to wait for them while they explored the dungeon, and in that case the crew would be entitled to shares of any treasure recovered - 25% for the captain, 5% for the lieutenant, 1% for each of the mates, and 5% for the crew. Considering all of this, my lack of preparation allowed the party to get away with a pretty good deal (11 gp for a one-way trip versus 24 gp)!

In the end, they decided not to take the boat for their first trip. Instead, they would hoof it on foot to Quasqueton, and reconsider the river passage once they had more gold to their names. While they were there they hired Bronson, a strapping young dockworker, to be their torchbearer and porter.

They had only traveled for two hours that morning to reach Timbershore, so they had 6 hours left of travel in them. It was 10 am. They decided to set out immediately, exiting Timbershore through the River Ward's south gate.

The first day of travel passed without incident. The party crossed the bridge an hour south of town and traveled through the southern farmlands for two hours before coming upon the southern river bordering the forest. This river had no bridge, so they spent another hour searching for a crossing, which they found in the form of a fallen tree. This left them just enough time to plunge into the forest before making camp. It was 4 pm and they had plenty of daylight.

They had just begun to make camp when they heard the sound of stomping boots, rustling armor, clattering weapons, and harsh voices in a language they did not understand. Pommernar correctly identified it as hobgoblin. There was dense growth in the area which would grant the party 75% concealment (I rolled d100 and got 75 exactly, otherwise I would round up or down in increments of 25). Most of the party scrambled to hide, but Pommernar had another idea. He cast dancing lights.

Here's the description of the spell in 2e:

Pommernar decided to create the "faintly glowing, vaguely manlike shape...similar to that of a creature from the Elemental Plane of Fire", then sent it flying towards the hobgoblins (they were 70 feet away, so well within range of the spell). To the hobgoblins, I imagine it looked like a flaming ghost or fire elemental coming towards them. They loosed their arrows at it, which of course had no effect. I called for a morale check, referencing the table below:

With a -8 penalty to their morale check (2d10, roll under) and a morale of "Steady (11-12)", they had a very slim chance of succeeding. The "fire elemental" terrified them, and they fled in the opposite direction, sparing the party from a potentially dangerous encounter.

I really liked the way this played out. It didn't even register with me that the spell was capable of this, and Nael came up with a very ingenious application of it which saved the day - exactly the kind of thing a 1st level wizard should be doing with that one precious spell slot.

On the other hand, I can't help but mull over some failed considerations. For one, the hobgoblins were only 70 feet away - well within earshot of a spell being cast. Also, while the lights took the shape of a creature from the Plane of Fire, they were in the forest, and it wasn't setting fire to anything. It also didn't radiate heat. They probably should have suspected something was up. Perhaps I could have made an Intelligence check to determine if the hobgoblins were able to put two and two together, then a saving throw versus spell to determine if they could disbelieve the "illusion".

Things to consider for next time, but no harm done. The whole party got experience for "defeating" the hobgoblins, and Pommernar got a little bonus for using his spell in a useful situation. The rest of the day and night passed without incident.

The next day, the party continued on through the forest for two hours, then spent three hours hiking through the forested hills where they hoped to find Quasqueton.

They found an overgrown, ruined tower atop a black crag, tall enough to see over the tops of trees, but mostly collapsed, its stone blocks tumbled down the hillside in all directions. It did not look like a proper fortification, but more like a simple watchtower. A treacherous path wound up the crag to a cave opening beneath the tower, choked with roots and vines.

The party wanted to scout around the crag for secret entrances, but the other faces of the hill were too sheer from where they were. It would require perilous scrambling around narrow rock ledges and along knotted roots for handholds. I suggested that they could try approaching the ruin from a different side of the hex on a return visit. It wouldn't be feasible right now because it would require another three hours to hike back down the hill.

The party had Bronson hack away the overgrowth which closed off the cave mouth, allowing them enough room to head inside. They found a wooden door that looked like it had been forced. Carefully proceeding inside, they found a long hallway which stretched into the darkness, lined with alcoves. As they lit a torch, they heard something about 100 feet down the corridor scamper off in the opposite direction. They called out to it, but got no response.

Inspecting the first set of alcoves, they found a pair of stone busts which seemed to depict Rogahn and Zelligar. Upon further inspection, they seemed totally ordinary. At the second set of alcoves, they found muddy footprints leading to and from the alcove on the right. The floor in front of the alcove's rear wall was worn. Nael asked if it was worn in a half circle or quarter circle shape, which I thought was a a very good question (it was a quarter circle). The floor of the alcove to the left was also worn, but less so, and there were no footprints near it.

The party spent some time trying to figure out if there were secret doors here and how to open them, but found nothing. Rory grabbed the bust of Rogahn and tried to use it as a battering ram on the rear wall of the alcove to the right, but only succeeded in damaging the bust and making a lot of noise.

They continued down to the third set of alcoves, whereupon a pair of magic mouths appeared. They yelled: “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!” The mouths cackled madly in unison and then gradually faded from view. This again made a lot of noise, and rattled Bronson, who suggested that maybe they should listen to the mouths. The party attempted to assuage his fears, but didn't seem to help.

At the end of the corridor, they found the site of an old battle. Three adventurers and two barbarian warriors laid in disarray on the floor (except for the wizard, who was impaled to the wall by a sword). The party began searching the bodies, when suddenly two goblins emerged from a door and a passage just ahead, with weapons drawn.

The players' map of the dungeon

Pommernar spoke to the goblins in the language of Evil. The goblins warned the party to leave, as this was goblin territory. Pommernar warned them that one of his companions was a powerful sorcerer, at which point the goblins called their boss, Grilk. I'll have to remember for the future that you're not really supposed to be able to have conversations like this using alignment languages.

Grilk was more congenial, and spoke the common tongue. He told the party that he wanted no quarrel with them, and agreed to let them plunder these corpses in exchange for their services. Some of Grilk's companions had fallen under the sway of a tyrannical orc priest to the southeast, who turned the goblins into fanatical slaves. If the party would help Grilk's companions, then things could be copacetic between the party and the goblins.

The party collected some minor treasure from the corpses (7 gold pieces and a ring worth 10 gp). Grilk invited them to share the goblins' ale and stew ("mostly rat meat and moldy cheese").

We had played for 30 minutes longer than we had agreed to, so we ended the session there. Overall, I think we had a good time. I've never played with any of these people before, so I'm simultaneously learning the players' names, the characters' names, and also learning to recognize the players' voices so that I know which character is doing what. Honestly, that has probably been the biggest hurdle so far!

We're on a roughly every other week schedule it seems, so hopefully I will be back with another play report in two weeks!

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown Session 0

I've had a hankering to test out my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown. I enjoy coming up with these sandboxes for their own sake, but the intention has always been to actually run them. 

Since the beginning of 2025, I've aspired to play more games more often with more players and to run these games with less effort. Specifically, I wanted to run games other than D&D, run more modules instead of original content, and run the same modules with multiple groups of players. Work smarter, not harder, more bang for my buck, and all that.

I've sort of done that. Instead of D&D, I've run Mörk Borg, but only Mörk Borg. I've only run published adventures in Mörk Borg, which is less work. But I've run only a few of those modules for multiple groups. I've played a lot more systems since making my resolution, and have played in those games with a wider variety of referees and players. So I have been running a game other than D&D and have been playing lots of games other than D&D. I've been spending less time prepping for the games I have run. For the most part, any effort I might normally put towards preparing for and running games has instead gone towards the blog

D&D always calls me back sooner or later, and with how much time I've spent writing about AD&D this past year plus my newfound interest in classic TSR modules, it only felt natural to try running one of these modules in the system that has always appealed to me as a nostalgic and quaint artifact of the hobby's history. So, I'm going to run a B/X module in a 1e sandbox using 2e rules. It should be fun. Why 2e? Well, I explained myself a bit here. This time, I'll be bringing along all my newfound knowledge of AD&D's intended vibe from my obsessive analysis of 1e.

The upside to running B1 is that the dungeon is done for me. The downside is that I can never make anything easy for myself, so of course I had to embed the dungeon within a sandbox filled with high level NPCs, strongholds, and monster lairs which all take a ton of additional work to detail. Fortunately, I'm almost done. Once it's finished, I can run this sandbox with as many different groups as I like.

I'm definitely patting myself on the back for making this sandbox very small. Even at just 25 hexes and nine keyed locations (one of which is already done for me, more or less - real B1-heads know), this has taken me weeks to prepare. It would be significantly more effort to do the same with my sandboxes for B2 or (especially) B3, which are two and three times as large, respectively. If this one goes well, though, we'll see...

I've recruited five players from the Prismatic Wasteland Discord server, and we'll play for about two hours any Wednesday on which we have a quorum of at least three players. I want this to be a casual drop in/drop out kind of game, so I wouldn't mind recruiting a few more just so players can skip sessions as needed without worrying that their absence will mean the game is cancelled for everyone else. Maybe as the campaign picks up speed, we'll draw in a few more by word of mouth. 

I'm hoping to publish regular play reports as a way of not only recording the experience (which in hindsight I've found extremely beneficial for my last 2e campaign, short-lived though it was), but also as a means of boosting the campaign's signal. If I can make it sound fun, maybe more people will want to check it out.

Our cast of characters so far includes:

• Adam (playing Llombaerth, CG elf thief)
• Aidan (playing Millisant, LE human mage)
• David (playing Rory the Small, LN human fighter)
• Matt (playing Bathalo-gnome, CG gnome fighter/thief)
• Nael (playing Pommernar, CE elf mage)

What's this? No clerics? Evil characters? This seems like a disaster. How did this come to pass?

Well, my players are exceptionally game for discovering their characters via random character generation. We rolled randomly for ability scores (3d6 in order), race, height and weight, starting age and maximum age, alignment, starting spells for mages, and even handedness! 

We don't have any clerics because only two players rolled a Wisdom of 9 or higher, and they wound up with 14 and 15 Strength respectively, so understandably they wanted to be fighters instead. 

No one has an ability score higher than 15, and one character's highest score is 13. No one has any to hit or damage adjustments from Strength or hit point adjustments from Constitution, only one character has an AC adjustment from Dexterity, the most intelligent mage can only cast up to 7th level spells, and two characters receive penalties to saving throws versus mind-altering magic due to low Wisdom scores. 

No one rolled good enough scores to be a paladin, ranger, specialist mage, druid, or bard - apt because these are meant to be exceedingly rare.

Regarding Evil characters, I explained that I don't mind if player characters are Evil, so long as they're not disruptive. AD&D strongly implies that characters have free reign to slaughter villages of peaceable elves, raid merchant caravans, and enslave intelligent giant beaver children. That's all solid gameable material rife with complications, and I wouldn't mind exploring it. There will be tension between the characters, and that's fine - alignment changes and lost levels are at stake, after all! As long as the Evil characters have goals which drive play and the players aren't Evil to one another, I'm comfortable with it. Being Evil is fun sometimes.

The players really enjoyed rolling for their starting and maximum ages. They learned that new human fighters are 16 to 19 years old, whereas mages are 26 to 40. It takes time to study to become a magic-user, and they're adventuring with people who are essentially children (every other human class besides illusionists start at 18 to 25 years old). They also learned that humans can live to be 130, whereas elves can live to be 750 years old. It's hard to imagine this ever coming up in play, especially in the course of exploring just a small sandbox, but it's fascinating nonetheless.

Lastly, spells. We have two mages in the group, Millisant and Pommernar. Both know read magic (they must, to be mages). In addition, Millisant knows charm person, detect magic, and protection from evil, while Pommernar knows burning hands, dancing lights, and erase, a spell that allows you to...erase two pages of writing! Okay it can also erase glyphs and explosive runes and the like, which could come in handy, but wow. Each of them can prepare and cast just one of these spells each day, then they are reduced to feebly wielding their daggers, darts, and slings.

One benefit of having two thieves in the party is that they can specialize. Llombaerth leans more towards sneaky stuff and skullduggery whereas Bartholo-gnome is specializing in finding and removing traps and opening locks. Since AD&D's thieves are relatively inept at their skills at early levels, this is beneficial to the party overall.

In the next few weeks I'm hoping to publish not just play reports with details regarding my behind the screen process, but also more general posts describing how to develop a sandbox beyond its initial conception. I've done some considerable work to bring this one to life since originally posting about it and am excited to describe what that's been like. I'm also hoping to eventually run this same sandbox with the group that played in my past 2e game, so hopefully there will eventually be two different series of play reports detailing two different groups' approaches to the same content.

I'm excited to play this game and see where it takes us.

A Treasure Map Could Be Your Next Adventure Hook

Let's do some quick dungeon math. According to the AD&D DMG, 4 in 20 (or 1 in 5) dungeon rooms contain treasure (three guarded by monsters and one unguarded):

When determining exactly what treasure is in a room, you roll on this table once for unguarded treasure and twice for treasure guarded by monsters, adding 10% to the roll in the latter case:

There is a 3% chance of an unguarded treasure room containing magic items and a 26% chance of a treasure room guarded by monsters containing magic items (13% chance because of the +10% to the roll, times two because we're rolling twice). 

Again, 1 in 20 (5%) of rooms will contain unguarded treasure, and 3 in 20 (15%) of rooms will contain treasure guarded by monsters. Thus, 0.15% of all rooms will contain unguarded magic items and 3.9% of all rooms will contain guarded magic items. 4.05% of total rooms will have treasure containing magic items - roughly 4 in 100 or 1 in 25. Interestingly, while all other treasure types scale with dungeon level, number of magic items does not.

Here's what I'm interested in - 10% of magic items are actually maps. What kind of maps? Treasure maps, of course:

"But wait!" you might say, "This excerpt says 'This system can be used for monsters you place on the outdoor map as well as for monsters randomly encountered by a party exploring the wilderness.' It doesn't say anything about dungeons. And TABLE V.G. above even says to 'Roll once on Magic Items Table' - nothing about maps!"

And you would be right. The MAP OR MAGIC DETERMINATION table likely refers to the rightmost column on the treasure table in the Monster Manual:

These treasure types are typically found only in wilderness monster lairs. Some are found as "individual treasure" (i.e. coinage carried in the pockets of goblins and such), but none of those types have a chance to contain maps.

So there you have it - no treasure maps in dungeons. Except:

This seems to indicate that treasures maps can be found in dungeons. Presumably, when the term "monster's lair" is used in the previous excerpt, it is meant not only to apply to wilderness lairs but also dungeon rooms in which monsters are guarding treasure.

Note that "A map should never list its treasure, only show its location." There will be some guidance later as to where and what kind of treasure the map leads to, but no guidance is provided as to how to actually create a treasure map for your game, "for how can it be possible to direct each DM properly considering the infinite possibilities under which the map will be located?" If you want gameable examples, Phlox has some good ones.

Taking a step back, we know that 3% of unguarded treasure rooms and 26% of guarded treasure rooms contain magic items. Of the guarded treasure rooms containing magic items, 98.31% will contain one magic item and 1.69% will contain two magic items. Considering that 10% of magic items will actually be treasure maps, 0.3% of unguarded treasure rooms containing magic items and 10.169% of guarded treasure rooms containing magic items will contain maps (10% of guarded treasure rooms containing one magic item = 9.831% + 20% of guarded treasure rooms containing two magic items = .338%).

Again, 5% of total rooms contain unguarded treasure and 15% of total rooms contain guarded treasure. 0.015% of total rooms contain unguarded treasure maps and 1.52535% of total rooms contain guarded treasure maps - 1.5255% of total dungeon rooms contain treasure maps. That's 1 in every 66 rooms. If your dungeon is big enough (and particularly if you're aspiring for anything of the "megadungeon" classification), there will probably be a treasure map in there somewhere. I hope I did my math right! I am happy to be corrected.

Note that tricks found in dungeons might also release maps, as found in APPENDIX H: TRICKS:

Treasure maps found in dungeons usually point the way to treasure inside that very dungeon, but might point to "another lost dungeon" or somewhere "along the course of a long underground river."

Let's dig into those wilderness lair treasure types (associated monster types are sourced from here):

• Type A and F hoards (e.g. humans, centaurs, vampires, basilisks, medusae, shadows, rakshasa, rhemoraz, salamanders, leprechauns, and chimeras) have a 9% chance of containing a map
• Type C hoards (e.g. minotaurs, gargoyles, lycanthropes, gnomes, and pixies) have a 2% chance
• Type D hoards (e.g. orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, mummies, dryads, griffins, chimeras, manticores, and purple worms) have a 3% chance
• Type E hoards (e.g. giants, wraiths, gorgons, and wyverns) have a 7.5% chance
• Type G hoards (e.g. dwarves) have a 14% chance
• Type H hoards (e.g. dragons) have a 6% chance
• Type I hoards (e.g. rocs) have a 1.5% chance
• Type W hoards (e.g. buccaneers) have a flat 55% chance of having a map
• Type Z hoards (e.g. demigods and demon lords) have a 15% chance

Buccaneers, of course, have the greatest chance of possessing a treasure map. There are plenty of genre tropes to draw upon in this case. Demigods and demon lords are next in line. Do the maps in their possession point towards their own secreted away hoards? Dwarves are next, and it's easy enough to imagine why if you're familiar with The Hobbit. But what of the others? Whose treasure maps do these monsters possess, and how did they come to acquire them?

Here's what the DMG says about maps found in wilderness lairs:

Treasure maps found in wilderness lairs can themselves lead elsewhere within the lair (an underground "labyrinth of caves") or to some other location 5 to 500 miles away, which may be buried and unguarded (in the classic way that pirates bury treasure), hidden in water, guarded in another monster's lair, in ruins or a crypt (presumably themselves dungeons), or even "secreted in a town".

In rare cases, the player character might also obtain a treasure map by drawing the Key card from a deck of many things:

Note that treasure maps are written in a cypher. Like a spell scroll, a read magic spell must be employed to decipher one:

This means that treasure maps are also subject to all kinds of trickery on the part of the DM, like curses and traps triggered by reading their contents - explosive runes and magic symbols the like. The text states that "a map will appear magical until the proper spell is used" (emphasis mine), suggesting that the map itself is not necessarily magical.

You can also get your highly-intelligent sword to read the map for you:

Treasure maps come in four types: false maps (which presumably lead to nothing at all), those leading to monetary treasure, those leading to magic treasure, and those leading to "combined hoards" of both money and magic items. Note again that a treasure map should never indicate what it leads to. 

MONETARY TREASURE "is weighted towards large quantities of coins which will require a train to remove - or must be left entirely if foreplanning is not observed":

If not carried away immediately, the DM is encouraged to set a percentage chance that the treasure will be stolen by someone or something else. This is more likely if the treasure was guarded by some other monster, not unlike the Five Armies showing up to claim Smaug's treasure after he was slain. This meshes nicely with my post about treasure as a source of challenge in AD&D, in which the comparison to The Hobbit is made explicit.

Less of an inconvenience will be MAGIC TREASURE, which can be easily carried away:

This table is weighted towards potions, scrolls, armor, and weapons, "so as to prevent imbalance in the game" and to "Keep potent magic items rare." The DM is encouraged to "Increase scarcity by destroying or stealing what is found!"

One might wonder whether the "Any [X amount of magic] items" results might in turn yield another treasure map. I don't think this is intended to be the case, as this possibility is made explicit in the COMBINED HOARD table:

With a result of 81 or higher, you will find the best possible monetary or magic treasure plus a map to either a separate magic treasure or a separate monetary treasure, respectively. Since these are the most valuable hoards, the DM is encouraged to hide them far away and to guard them with traps and monsters. There's something very funny about completing a long and arduous adventure following one of these maps only to immediately come into possession of another.

So what's the point of treasure maps? Well, they're built in adventure hooks! When found in dungeons, they point the players towards some destination within the dungeon or to another dungeon entirely. When found in the wilderness, they can point the players towards some other location in your sandbox or somewhere beyond the current area of play entirely. 

Want the players to go deeper into the dungeon? Give them a treasure map. Want them to visit a different dungeon? Give them a treasure map. Want them to trek out into the wilderness, venture underwater, track down a monster's wilderness lair, or get mixed up in the deadly social fabric of urban gameplay? Give them a treasure map.

If you're flying by the seat of your pants, rolling for treasure as the players find it, a treasure map gives you the chance to detail a new location in which to house the hoard - a fun little surprise for you. It's quantum treasure - even you don't know it exists until it comes into play. Unfortunately, you can't do much with something you don't know about.

If on the other hand you're prepping everything ahead of the campaign's start - including rolling for treasure in dungeons and lairs - then rolling up a treasure map somewhere gives you the chance to hide the hoard from the very beginning. You know there's a massive hoard of treasure buried in an inconspicuous location right beneath the starting town, but the players don't, and they won't know unless they find that map. 

Maybe the treasure hoard is the stuff of legend, and your setting's factions and NPCs are all after it, but no one knows where the map is. Rumor has it that it was lost deep within the dungeon, or that the ancient red dragon counts it among its hoard. The legendary Dread Pirate is rumored to have hidden his plundered goods on one of those steamy jungle isles off the southern coast, but the map was lost when his flagship sunk a decade ago.

Another possibility is that whoever or whatever possesses the map is actively trying to find the treasure. Maybe the evil wizard who rules the town has the map already, but is seeking the means to acquire the hoard their self. A clan of dwarves seeks a burglar to help them reclaim their lost gold. The buccaneers are scouring the coast for something, plundering as they go. What are they looking for? Perhaps the orcs, hobgoblins, or gnolls are harassing human civilization because they know there's treasure buried beneath one of those towns. Perhaps a dragon with a treasure map is responsible for martialing that host to acquire the treasure on its behalf.

Once the player characters have the map, the adventure is only just beginning. They have to plan an expedition into the dungeon, the wilderness, or out to sea. They might have to recruit a caravan of drovers and porters to help them haul the hoard away when they find it. They have to contend with all the usual dangers of the environment its found in, any monsters that guard it, and any traps laid upon it. 

They have to do all of this while somehow keeping it a secret from those same factions and NPCs who are after it, even as the logistics may require recruiting dozens of hirelings or hauling the treasure out in the middle of town right under those same NPCs' noses. Hopefully it isn't a false map. That would be most unfortunate.

Please excuse the pun, but that is a veritable treasure trove of juicy gameplay implications. Go on. What are you waiting for? Put a treasure map in your game right now.