Analyzing Appendix A

I've wanted to do a deep dive into the AD&D DMG's Appendix A for a while, but have struggled to get started because this section of the DMG is really difficult to wrap my head around. How could I write effectively about something I did not understand?

Time and again, I broke out my graph paper, my pencil, my dice, and my handy DMG to randomly generate a dungeon using Appendix A. I was always very quickly confounded by the sprawling complex of rooms, chambers, and passages that stretched out in all directions at once, twisting and turning out towards the edges of the page and then unexpectedly back in on itself to bump up against where I had started.

It was nonsensical and confusing. What table am I supposed to roll on, and when? What is the difference between a room and a chamber? Why are there so many diagonal passages? Just when I thought I was done with my dungeon, I'd randomly roll up a set of stairs down one level, then a trap door in a corridor which drops the player characters down two levels. That's two more levels I have to map! Will it ever end?

The short answer is no. It won't. And that's by design, probably. Most likely, Appendix A is meant to generate the kind of tentpole megadungeon capable of sustaining a lengthy campaign with dozens of players. The dungeon is never "finished" because the players need to be able to keep exploring so that they can continue to extract treasure and level up, until their characters are powerful enough to move onto other things. Then, there are always new people joining the campaign, and they will need to exploit the dungeon to advance their characters as well. Appendix C's Dungeon Random Monster Level Determination Matrix (a real mouthful!) goes all the way to level 16!

I've been spending a bit more time attempting to randomly generate dungeons lately (trying to get out of a bit of a creative block). I've had some degree of success, though I am still refining the process. I'm using Appendix A, sort of. I am modifying it as I go. At first I was only using it to stock my rooms with monsters, tricks, traps, and treasure. Then I decided to use it to determine how many exits where in a room based on its size. Then I started using it to add some more zaniness to my passages. Then I saw the tables at the end with lakes and magic pools and I felt I had to use those somehow. I'm slowly but surely becoming Appendix A-pilled.

There's lots of great advice out there for designing dungeons. So much so that I would be surprised if any one individual designed their dungeons using a method derived solely from any one source. There are many methods to generate fantastic, like life, sensible dungeons. By contrast, here is a dungeon level I recently generated using Appendix A (sort of - I simplified the room sizes and used B/X's stocking procedure):

You might look at this and say, "This is crazy! It looks dumb! Who would build this? It makes no sense!" And you're right - it doesn't make a lot of sense. It does look dumb. But Appendix A is also like, really good at reproducing a very particular kind of dungeon - the whacky Gygaxian early TSR era D&D dungeon. The dungeon sicko's labyrinth.

Look at B1's map of Quasqueton (particularly the upper level, at left):

You might say, "Okay, well that is also stupid." And you would be right!

I've written before about how the construction of Quasqueton tells us a lot about the nature of its builders, Rogahn and Zelligar. They were dungeon-ass-dungeon heads. They were powerful adventurers, which means they spent a lot of time in dungeons extracting treasure to gain XP to earn that power. Once they had it, what did they do? They used it to build a dungeon, just like the ones they explored in their youth. It is filled with features specifically designed to confound, frustrate, and murder other adventurers. It's not an ancient, inscrutable mythic underworld. It is a bizarro death trap built by some crazy ex-adventurers just a few decades ago.

I wrote about this too. In AD&D, it is assumed that player characters (and, by extension, character-type NPCs) will build dungeons beneath their strongholds. AD&D's wilderness is littered with deserted strongholds. Those all probably have dungeons beneath them. Presumably, the town and city are inhabited by powerful character-type NPCs who also rule strongholds. The especially high level NPCs are never randomly encountered walking around town. What are they doing? They're going sicko mode, working on their dungeons. They just added a third level, and now they're installing trap doors on the first level that drop you down to the third, where they keep their owlbears. And they're hungry!

There are, of course, other sorts of dungeons than these, and you should include those in your campaign as well, but this is maybe my favorite type. As I've been running Dungeon Module B1, I've come to really enjoy Quasqueton. It has lots of bizarre passages that wind throughout the complex and sort of loop back on themselves to rejoin the area from which they originated. It seems kind of superfluous at first, until you realize that playing in these environments is really fun. 

You might wander from the entranceway down the meandering halls, turning this way and that, and just when you think you're lost, you wind up back where you started. You might think the orcs are fleeing, until a few minutes later they appear from the side passage to flank you. Likewise, once you've familiarized yourself with the terrain, it will be you using those same passages to flank the orcs instead. Some of the most blissful moments of our B1 campaign have been those in which the players spend 20 minutes planning an ambush against their enemies, figuring out how to split their massive party into teams of three and which team is taking which passage.

When you think about dungeons as places built by experienced adventurers to confound the novice adventurers who will one day come to steal their stuff, the wackiness of the Appendix A dungeon makes a bit more sense. If you look at it and think to yourself that an insane person must have built it, that's a good thing. The person who built it was probably deeply unwell. I feel a bit unwell just mapping it out!

But enough preamble. I want to get into the weeds and really dissect Appendix A. Let's start at the beginning:

Gygax claims that this system "can be used directly in conjunction with actual play" (by which I assume he means you can use it to generate a dungeon on the fly at the table). I don't buy that for a second, and don't recommend it. I guess if your players understand that this what they're in for, fine, it might actually be fun, but I don't see myself doing that.

The second paragraph suggests, in the event there are ruins above your dungeon, there will always be some monster living in them - this conflicts with Appendix C's castle subtables, which have some castles being "totally deserted" and others being "deserted (monster therein)":

I wouldn't have every dungeon's upper works be inhabited by a monster, but I might roll to determine if a monster's made its lair there, the same as I do any other hex on my map.

The third paragraph tells us to always start the first level of the dungeon with a room in the middle of the sheet of graph paper. We're told to go to Table V and follow that procedure or use one of the "starter" areas (image at the top of this post). We should also keep a "record of all monsters, treasures, tricks/traps, and whatever - a normal dungeon matrix." Sounds reasonable.

This is an important one: "Discretion must prevail at all times." Reroll results if they don't make sense, or even if you simply don't like them. I had to hammer this into my thick skull when, to my frustration, I continuously generated side passages which doubled back at a 45 degree angle to rejoin the corridor from whence they had just come. As I described earlier, there is sometimes a certain charm to this when exploited for a tactical benefit, but too much of it can strain credulity just a bit.

As instructed above, let's start with Table V:

We use this table to determine the shape and size of chambers and rooms. Wait - what's the difference between a chamber and a room? Well, that is never really explained. Chambers on average are a bit bigger. Is this really necessary?

The main difference, besides size, seems to be whether the exits from the area are passages or doors (see item 4 in this post - which is generally a really useful post on this subject). Exits from chambers are usually passages (that is, doorless openings which lead to corridors), while exits from rooms are usually doors. There is a separate procedure for determining where a passage leads versus where a door leads.

This is an important distinction because doors are obstacles. There are different types of doors (old wood, good wood, iron-banded wood, stone, metal, etc.). They can be stuck, locked, or trapped. You can close a door on a monster and spike it shut or cast hold portal upon it. If you fail to shove open a stuck door and there are monsters on the other side, they can't be surprised. Areas of the dungeon without doors are easier to explore. Areas with lots of doors are potentially more problematic, but you also might eventually be able to use those doors to your advantage if, say, you are fleeing from a monster.

The choice to start the first level of the dungeon with a room (which has doors) is an interesting one. What if all the doors end up being stuck or locked? Is the adventure over before it begins? Personally, I would recommend starting with a chamber instead, since it provides more options immediately.

One last thing before moving on - I hate the 10' x 10' room. I'm mapping at a scale of 10' per square, so the 10' x 10' room is just a single square with a line drawn around it. It's barely big enough to fit a number inside of it for keying purposes. It's so annoying. I would get rid of it entirely and just make the smallest room 20' x 20'.

Let's look at our chambers and rooms of unusual shape and size:

This is interesting, although I find these rather annoying to draw, personally. I'm hesitant to throw them out entirely though, as I like the chance of generating a cave, but even more so the circular chamber or room, which has a chance of containing a pool, well, or shaft. Neat!

Much like the dungeon itself, Appendix A is a bit of a labyrinth. We're told to immediately got to Table V for some reason (why is it not Table I?), which then might send us further down to Table VIII. There is a lot of jumping around involved, and the organization of these tables and how you're meant to follow them is one of my biggest gripes with this section of the book.

Since we're here, let's jump to Table VIII A and C:

Huh, so if you roll a pool in a circular chamber or room (only a 25% chance), you then have a 40% chance of there actually being no pool? That doesn't seem very fun (this will become clearer in a moment - for now I would ignore results 1-8 or roll d12+8 instead). Pools can contain monsters or monsters and treasure, or they can be magical. Awesome! Let's see that magic pool table:

Sweet. Magic pools can be good or bad. They can turn gold into platinum or lead (presumably any quantity, but only once!), increase or decrease a random ability score by 1-3 (one time only, rolled separately for each character!), or teleport you to the surface, elsewhere on the level, down one level, or 100 miles away from the dungeon in the outdoors (sounds like a great time for a hexcrawl)! They can also talk. Talking pools have an alignment (30% LG, 15% LE, 15% CG, 25% CE, and 15% N) and will either damage you if you're not of the same alignment or grant you a wish (!) if you are. Time to break out the alignment language to make sure.

Here is the table of unusual sizes for chambers and rooms:

The largest size on the earlier table is 1,200 sq. ft. (for a room) or 2,400 sq. ft. (for a chamber), so this will often result in much larger areas. I'm not a huge fan of this. I have been deep into randomly generating a dungeon when suddenly one of these areas pops up, I roll multiple 15-20s, and the new area ends up occupying like, all the remaining space on the page. Again, use discretion.

Table V also tells us to roll for exits, contents, treasure, and how the treasure is contained, so let's go in that order, on to Table V C:

After rolling d20, you determine the number of exits from the chamber or room based on its total size. Generally speaking, a high roll plus a large room will result in more exits - which makes sense - unless you roll a 10 or higher, in which case the chamber or room either has a random number of exits (d4) or just one, regardless of size (note that the "chambers have passages, rooms have doors" rule of thumb is inverted here), or it has just one exit if it's large enough in area, or no (visible) exits if it's too small. In the latter case, we're told to check once per 10' for secret doors.

Before I move on to that, I do think it's interesting that this suggests four general size categories for rooms - up to 600 sq. ft., up to 1200 sq. ft., up to 1600 sq. ft., and over 1600 sq. ft. If mapping with 10' squares, this roughly corresponds to 20' x 20', 30' x 30', 40' x 40', and anything larger than that (let's say 50' x 50'). If you want to standardize your dungeon a bit and get rid of those pesky chambers and rooms of unusual size (but maybe keep the caverns and circular areas with their chance of cool stuff like magic pools), you could simplify it and say there are simply four different sizes of rooms (as I did in my dungeon above).

Table V D tells us how to determine where a door is located and how to check for secret doors, as well as what to do if our doors end up leading to previously mapped areas:

Personally, I just roll a d8 to determine where the exits are located (I have a d8 with cardinal directions instead of numbers). I like when an exit to a chamber or room is in the corner because it creates more diagonal passages, which again recreates that zany character of early TSR dungeons. 

So, about that footnote regarding secret doors. First, note that if a passage or door leads to a previously mapped space, that is indicative of a secret door or one way door leading back to that mapped area, which is a neat bit of looping tech.

Table V C tells us, on a roll of 10-12, if the chamber or room is 1200 sq. ft. or less, or on a roll of 13-15, if the chamber or room is 1600 sq. ft. or less, that there are no visible exits, and to check once per 10' for secret doors. I take this to mean that for every 10' section of wall, we are to roll a d20. On a 1-5, there's a secret door (I'm assuming a result of 6-20 is treated as a negative, although a secret door can certainly also be a one-way door, as in the entrance corridor of B1's Quasqueton).

Let's say we roll a 13-15 on Table V C and our chamber or room is exactly 1600 sq. ft. - 40' x 40'. That means there are a total of 16 10' sections of wall. On average, that chamber or room will contain four secret doors, and it could be much more depending on how you roll.

Many times have I ended up with far more secret doors than I would like in a single chamber or room, so here's what I do. If I roll up a chamber or room with no exits, I then roll again on table V C until I get another result that yields a positive number of exits, then I roll again according to the little secret door footnote under Table V D to determine if those are actual secret doors, one way doors, or regular doors. I treat the initial roll as simply an indication that there might be secret doors, but only in an amount that makes sense according to the size of the chamber or room, and it entirely eliminates the possibility of every single section of wall containing such a door. You might want a 40' x 40' chamber or room with 16 secret doors in it, but I don't. I'm letting discretion prevail!

Next, we have to roll to determine the chamber or room's contents on Table V F:

This table is sure to cause some consternation. 60% of rooms are empty? That isn't very fun! But real empty room-heads know that an "empty" room is not truly empty. I wrote about this a great deal in my post about B1's room design (which also contains links to a bunch of great posts about empty rooms).

If you don't like so many empty rooms, consider using B/X's stocking procedure instead:

Using this table, you end up with something like 28% empty, 17% monster, 17% monster with treasure, 17% special, 11% trap, 6% empty with treasure, and 6% trap with treasure. I go back and forth on which I prefer. AD&D's stocking table is sometimes too sparse, and B/X's is sometimes too crowded. Use whichever you prefer. I can assure you they both work!

I won't go into how you determine what monsters are in the dungeon, as that information is found in Appendix C. 

One thing I will note which is of interest on this table is that a result of 18 is either a special room or stairs up or down - you will have to decide which is which. If you are trying to keep your dungeon somewhat manageable (i.e., you are not creating an infinite dungeon to support an entire campaign's worth of play on its own), I recommend ignoring results which give you stairs leading down. However, I recommend keeping any results which yield stairs leading up, as they can lead to multiple entrances/exits to/from the dungeon, which every dungeon should have.

A method I've used in randomly generating dungeons to make them less infinite is to treat special chambers and rooms and those with treasure as dead ends - I don't generate any more exits from those areas. Since these areas contain treasure, I think they should lie at the end of a given path as a reward to the players for thoroughly exploring that "branch" of the dungeon. There might still be other ways into the chamber or room via secret or one-way doors, as described above, but overall this makes the dungeon a bit more manageable and less likely to sprawl uncontrollably.

Table V F leads us to Table V G and Table VII. Let's look at V G:

One thing I like about this table is that you roll twice for treasure hoards guarded by monsters and add 10% to each roll. These hoards will be larger and have a better chance of containing particularly valuable treasure like gold, platinum, gems, jewelry, and magic items.

I do not recommend using the coinage amounts as is. Instead, I recommend rolling to determine the total gold piece value of treasure in the room, then use something like Hack & Slash Publishing's excellent Compendium II, which contains lots of tables for generating interesting treasure. You can roll to determine how many "units" of treasure are in the room, then divide the total value by that amount to get a certain number of items worth a certain amount of gold pieces each, then dice to determine what each item is. This is much better than finding a pile of 1,000 silver pieces, and is consistent with Gygax's own thoughts about what a treasure hoard should look like.

Before we get to Table VII, Table V G directs us to Tables V H, I, and J. 

Table V H is a list of containers for treasure:

Nothing especially noteworthy here, except I guess that some containers are more convenient than others. The footnote tells us "if desired" to roll on either Table V I or Table V J. Here is Table V I:

This is a variety of ways that treasure can be trapped. This can range from reasonable (poisoned needles in the locking mechanism of a chest) to pretty absurd (a blade scything across the inside of a sack - I remind myself that discretion must prevail at all times). Of note is that none of these entries indicate how much damage these traps should do, or how deadly the associated poisons are, so you'll have to determine that yourself. Once again, Hack & Slash Publishing has a much better resource on this subject (which also addresses empty rooms).

I'm not a huge fan of trapping my treasure. I much prefer to trap the means of accessing the treasure (i.e., the door to a vault). Most treasure you find in the dungeon will be guarded by monsters anyway, so I don't see the need to guard it with scything blades as well. I'm much more a fan of hiding my treasure, which is covered by Table V J:

You could roll on this table, but I prefer to just look at the description of items and furnishings in my room and use that as inspiration when determining how the treasure is hidden. Perhaps a bronze statuette in a library is concealed beneath an overturned bookshelf and a pile of books. A jeweled ring in the kitchen might be stashed in the fork drawer. A coffer containing a stash of platinum pieces in a gallery is secured within a wall safe behind a framed painting on the wall. Stuff like that.

Here's Table VII:

This is golden. We've got pits, pits with spikes, and garbage compactor pits, we've got shifting walls, oil and cinders, arrow traps and spear traps, poisonous gases, illusionary walls, chutes, Looney Tunes doors and stone blocks that fall on you and crush you, and elevator rooms. My only real gripe with this table is that I have no idea how I'm supposed to interpret the 1-5 result. What, in the fiction, is this representing?

I also think it's worth noting that you may want to tailor your traps to your dungeon based on its history. If my dungeon was built by a magic-user, the traps should employ far more magic than this, for example. A dungeon built by dwarves should include more stonework tricks and traps. If you're stuck, though, this is not a bad place to start.

The 1-5 result directs us to Table II, but the 17 result directs us to Table VII A, so let's start there:

We've got gas that blinds you for up to an hour (!), gas that makes you run away, gas that puts you to sleep for up to 2 hours (!!), gas that makes you stronger (?), gas that forces you to return to the surface (??), and gas that immediately kills you (!!!). The most puzzling of these is the gas that makes you sick in a nonspecific way that somehow forces you to leave the dungeon. I don't know what that's about.

35% of gases are benign, and the next most likely result is actually to empower the party's fighters. The players might be lulled into charging headlong into any gases they see, only to have a 5% chance to instantly die unless a saving throw is made. Funny. I'm sure you could have lots of fun coming up with your own gases - a stinking cloud that causes choking and retching, a death fog that kills only the party's 0th level hirelings and dogs, a flammable gas that explodes if any open flames are brought into it, etc.

So we know how big our chamber or room is, how many exits there are and where they're located, and what's in the room. Where do we go from here? Table II:

Okay, ignore the "Location of Door" column, because we already know where our doors are. This part is confusing. For now, let's look at "Space Beyond Door Is". 

A door can lead to a parallel passage (I think what is meant by this is a "T" intersection, although I suppose it could mean the door opens onto two passages straight ahead which run parallel to each other, though the "30' in both directions" footnote makes me think it is the former) or to one of those pesky 10' x 10' rooms, a passage that goes straight, 45 degrees ahead or behind (the ones that go behind are a bit annoying as they tend to run into previously mapped areas often), or to a room or chamber. Note that doors lead to rooms more often than chambers.

We're also meant to check the width of passages on Table III A. Before we go down that route, let's look at Table I, because the first footnote refers to it, and it makes this table make a bit more sense.

This table is badly named. This should be called, like, "Passages". It is named "Periodic Check" because - I think - you are meant to roll on it periodically as you're mapping a passage. Based on results 6-10, 11-13, and 19, it seems the default length of a section of passage is 30'. Remember that rooms have doors and chambers have passages. Based on result 14-16, it seems that exits from a chamber always lead to 30' passages, at which time you start rolling on this table to determine where those passages lead. You would do the same thing if, when rolling on Table II to determine what's beyond a door, you get one of the passage results.

You can see that result 3-5 yields a door in a passage. This is when you roll on Table II "Location of Door", which makes the first footnote on that table make a lot more sense. If the door in the passage is straight ahead, then the passage simply leads to that door. If it is to the left or right, then you roll again on Table I (placing any other doors that are rolled) until you roll something other than a door (or until a door is determined to be straight ahead, I suppose), in which case you ignore that result, and the passage simply continues for 30'.

Not confusing at all, right?

Back to Table I. In addition to leading to doors, passages can continue straight, side passages can branch off of them, they can turn, or they can lead to chambers, stairs, or dead ends (some of which have secret doors - I assume it is a 25% chance each for left, right, and ahead, based on the Table V D footnote). Passages can also contain tricks, traps, and wandering monsters. I like this a lot because it means you'll have to actually key your passages. 

When I'm rolling up a dungeon ahead of time (which again, I recommend you do), I treat the "wandering monster" result instead as a "monster sentry". You can see in the example dungeon I shared near the top of this post that the bottom left corner of the map contains four (!) chambers or rooms with monsters and treasure, connected by several passages, two of which have monsters in the middle of them. 

Perhaps this section of the dungeon is controlled by a faction of goblins, and the monsters in the passages are goblin sentries, guarding the passages against incursions. This allows monsters to actually control their territory in the dungeon, not just sit in their chambers or rooms waiting to be killed. I like it a lot.

Table I points us towards Tables III, IV, and VI. Here is Table III:

I love this. The "T"s, the "Y"s, the four-way intersections, and the "X"s...this is true Gygaxian zany dungeon madness. Again, this is very much generating an infinite dungeon. A side passage is already yielding two passages, but there's also a 20% chance that you end up with three new passages to map, and a 5% chance you end up with four (if you roll a 20 and the existing passage is horizontal or vertical). It's very silly, but I like it.

Table III A determines passage width:

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I've been mapping my dungeons with passages represented by a single, clean line, which for my purposes is a 10' passage. I don't really want to draw out the dungeon in this level of detail. The 5' passage is also annoying to draw for the same reason that a 10' x 10' room is. That being said, I love the "Special Passage" table, Table III B:

A 50' wide passage with columns and an upper gallery, and streams, rivers, and 200' deep chasms that bisect passageways! Streams, rivers, and chasms might be bridged or serve as obstacles. You might be able to leap across the chasm. There might be a boat you can use to cross the river. Perhaps there is some sort of dungeon ferryman? A troll that charges a toll to ferry you across one at a time, only to ambush the lone member of the party on the other side? This is sweet. More galleries, rivers, and chasms in dungeons!

Here is Table IV, of which I don't have much to say:

Note that you have to check the width of the passage again whenever the passage turns, but you do not check the width of side passages, for some reason.

And finally, Table VI:

Stairs can go down one to three levels, and there is a percentage chance that a door will close behind the party, trapping them in the lower level of the dungeon for the day. That's really scary! Stairs can also go up (but only ever one level for some reason). They can lead to dead ends, which sometimes contain chutes which go down. Stairs can instead be chimneys which go up or down, or trap doors to lower levels (I assume that the difference between a chute and a trap door is simply whether the characters are aware of its presence). Stairs can go up one level and then down two. It's very silly, and again you might want to have stairs only go up if you're trying to keep your dungeon a reasonable size.

The footnote to this table mentions solo play, so let's jump to the end of Appendix A:

"For special areas you can have a friend or correspondent send you sealed information." Okay, I kind of want to try this!

Bonus round:

Caves and caverns are large, mammoth even! They can contain pools or lakes. Here the 40% chance of there being no pool on Table VIII A makes a lot more sense - remember when I said it would eventually? Lakes in mammoth caverns are awesome:

Like pools, lakes can contain monsters. Also like pools, they can be enchanted, but enchanted lakes lead to other dimensions or special temples and are very often guarded by monsters. Man, the lower level of Quasqueton would be so much cooler with an enchanted lake (the huge cavern with all the bats would be a good candidate, and I'm kicking myself now for not adding that in).

That's it for Appendix A. I've really come around on this one. It is horribly presented, and it's taken me years of puzzling to figure it out, but I do think it creates some interesting stuff if you're willing to embrace the wackiness of it. Like many parts of AD&D, such as its domain game, you can take or leave what you like. Use a different stocking table, come up with your own tricks and traps, standardize the size and shapes of rooms, whatever. Remember that discretion must prevail at all times.

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 24)

We played the twenty-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 4 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 3 (Maya)
• Rhonodel, NG elf cleric 1 (Jack)
• Zommernar, CN elf fighter 2 (Nael)
• Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
• Brazile, halfling hound master, his dog, Ripper, and the party's three war dogs, Huey, Dewey, and Phooey (NPC)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Gruda, ogre (NPC)
• Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)

Last we played, the party reentered Quasqueton to confront the ogre now guarding the entrance corridor. They were joined by Rhonodel, an elf cleric whose goddess, Minara, had sent him to Quasqueton on a divine quest.

They lured the ogre out of the kitchen and into the entrance corridor. She attempted to snatch Llombaerth at first, but paused when she saw the large party and their dogs. They attempted to negotiate with her. Her name was Yamda, and she was holding some of the party's goblin allies hostage to eat. Yamda attempted to trade the goblins for Brazile and one elf, then for one of the party's dogs. When they refused, she shut down negotiations and began to retreat. The party sent their dogs after her, and she was promptly killed.

The party proceeded to the kitchen, where they found Pigmug and Tobb, tied up and marinating in a basin. The kitchen now looked like a slaughterhouse. They freed the goblins and learned they had been taking shelter in Quasqueton's throne room when a pair of ogres had attacked them, killing some and snatching others. The remaining goblins were likely all dead. The party convinced the goblins that they had to go somewhere else. They clearly were not safe at the entrance to the dungeon.

Rhonodel attempted to secure the kitchen, only to spot another ogre rapidly approaching from around the corner. It burst into the kitchen to attack. The party loosed their dogs on the new ogre and fired projectiles at it from afar. Llombaerth attempted to use the kitchen's back door to flank the ogre, but ran into a second ogre waiting outside.

Llombaerth set the second ogre alight with flaming oil. When it charged, Bilodeau skewered it on his spetum, killing it. The remaining ogre surrendered, but not before friendly fire had killed one of the party's dogs, Louie.

The surviving ogre was Gruda. The party learned of three more ogres wandering the dungeon - Gugg, Gurgak, and Rugg. Gruda indicated in what direction each had gone. She told them that the ogres had come here in search of the people who had stolen their treasure (a bunch of items the party did not recognize). The ogres had a lair in the forest. Someone from town had come to their lair and told their leader, Okorg, that whoever had stolen their treasure would be found in the dungeon. Based on the description, the messenger sounded like an agent of Lambrecht. The ogres had kept the messenger as prisoner along with several others they had snatched from the lands surrounding Timbershore.

The party decided to keep Gruda prisoner and use her to defuse tension with the remaining ogres, should they be encountered. They considered the possibility of visiting Okorg's den to treat with him and question Lambrecht's messenger. To assure Gruda's loyalty, Llombaerth placed a guano bomb in her pocket.

We picked up there. Pigmug and Tobb scavenged some weapons from the kitchen, then went to seek shelter elsewhere in the dungeon. Gruda had indicated that one of the ogres, Rugg, had taken a left from the kitchen and proceeded down the central corridor. The party had not been that way yet, so they decided to explore in the direction.

From the kitchen, the passage went 90 feet and turned right. 80 feet past the turn was a door on the left. 30 feet past that, the passage turned left. The party inspected the door and opened it. Poking their heads inside, they found a barren room with just the shriveled husk of a small creature - a dwarf, gnome, halfling, or goblin, perhaps - curled up on the floor. Scanning the ceiling, they saw two insectoid creatures with leathery batlike wings clinging to the ceiling, irritated by the light of the party's lantern. The party closed the door.

The proceeded down the corridor. It turned left, went 10 feet, turned right, went 20 feet, and turned left again. 10 feet past the second left turn was a door. The party convinced Gruda to open the door, suspecting that Rugg would be behind it. As Gruda pulled on the door, there was a click, and the ground fell away beneath them. A trap door opened beneath Llombaerth, Rhonodel, Zommernar, and Gruda, sending them plummeting 40 feet into a pool of icy water.

Gruda took 1 damage, Llombaerth took 2, and Rhonodel and Zomminar each took 4 - half of Rhonodel's hit points! All except Gruda were weighed down by their gear, and risked drowning unless some of it was shed. Gruda easily climbed out of the pool as the party fought to survive. They shed their packs and anything else they didn't need to carry, letting these items sink to the bottom. They crawled out with nothing more than their armor and a weapon or two, soaking wet and shivering.

When they emerged, they found another ogre slumped against the wall of the cavern but beginning to stand, himself a bit damp, partially eaten gnoll corpses surrounding him. Gruda ran to him. "Quickly, Rugg! They killed Yamda and and Grulga! Smash them into goo!" Rugg did not need any encouragement. 

Gruda fled past Rugg to the cavern's exit, then turned back to shout encouragement at Rugg. Zommernar lifted her long sword, and she and Rugg charged one another. Llombaerth circled around Rugg. Rhonodel cast sanctuary on himself.

Protected by sanctuary, Rhonodel took a flask of flaming oil from Llombaerth and chased Gruda from the room. Llombaerth slashed at Rugg from behind (though not a backstab, as Rugg was aware of him) for maximum damage (8), giving Zommernar an opening to land a critical hit for a whopping 25 damage on a roll of 2d12 (+2 for specialization)! Zommernar lopped the ogre's head clean off.

The party pursued Gruda. Rhonodel flung his flask of oil at her, but it went wide, smashing against the wall of the next cavern. Llombaerth's own flask of oil flew over Gruda's head, smashing on the inside of the tunnel which Gruda had planned to use for her escape. (Because Gruda had a bomb in her pocket, the party was flinging oil at her from a considerable distance, and so had a penalty to hit.) Gruda turned and attempted to beg for her life once more, but Zommernar charged with her long sword and drove it into the ogre's belly (10 damage), slaying Gruda once and for all.

The party pilfered some gold coins from Gruda's body, then returned to the cavern with the pool of water and found that the trap door above them had closed. Egbert, their hirelings, and their dogs were above, shouting down to them through the door. The party instructed the hirelings to tie a rope around the door handle, step back around the corner, and pull. They did so, and the door swung open. The hirelings quickly drove spiked into the hinges so it would not close again. The mechanism reactivated, but seemed to fail due to the obstruction and went silent. Lendeborg kept a grip on the rope, allowing it to dangle down into the pit.

The party spent about 30 minutes fishing their gear out of the pool using a rope and grappling hook. They decided to try to find the room with the magic rock before heading back upstairs, as Rhonodel and Zommernar had not yet had the opportunity to partake of the rock's flesh. 

They decided to take a route they had not explored yet. They went out into the cavern where Gruda had been slain, then took a left into a cavern filled with bioluminescent fungus. They took a right from there, saw an empty cavern on their left, and explored a narrow, slippery, downward sloping tunnel straight ahead, which led to a dead end. They backtracked and took the tunnel opposite the empty cavern. It curved to the left, and they came upon a door on the right. Peeking inside, they found another empty cavern, shaped like an arena or fighting pit. They exited the cavern and continued down the tunnel, taking a right from the door.

The tunnel continued for a while and forked to the right and left. To the right was the pit trap into which they had lured Ghudgak's orcs when the orcs had tried to ambush them. To the left, the tunnel continued, but also turned sharply to the right. The party was not entirely sure where they were in relation to the magic stone, so they decided to backtrack to the room with the cold pool.

Rather than climb the rope, each member of the party would hold the rope while their hirelings hauled them up. While they were planning who should go up first, they heard the dogs barking up above, and heavy footsteps plodding towards their hirelings. A deep voice said "Sounds like dogs are on the menu tonight!"

The party ordered Brazile to loose the dogs on the ogre, and for Bioldeau and Graves to follow with their spetums. Llombaerth would have to climb the rope himself, but it would take two rounds to get up there. Rhonodel cast bless high enough in the air to catch everyone up above.

The ogre struck first, hitting Dewey, the alpha of the pack, for 9 damage. All three dogs tore into the ogre for a total of 17 damage while Bilodeau and Graves flailed with their spetums. The ogre's morale quickly broke, and it turned and fled, opening its back to the dogs. Phooey landed a hit for 7 damage, and Dewey scored a vengeful critical hit for 11 damage, killing the ogre. By the time Llombaerth climbed up out of the pit, the battle was over. 

The hirelings quickly hauled the remaining party members back up. Rhonodel cast cure light wounds on Dewey, who was looking rough, healing the dog for 7 HP. The party unspiked the trap door, and Zommernar used the rope to tug on the door again, hoping to reset the trap, but the mechanism seemed to be broken. There was about a foot of clearance around the pit. They navigated carefully around it to examine the door, but concluded that it was likely a false door, and left it.

With nowhere else to explore, the party returned to the entrance corridor. Backtracking down the hall, they made the left turn and moved 40 feet down the passage. At the edge of their lantern light, just beyond the door to the kitchen, they saw a skinny, 7' long mammal feasting on Yamda's corpse. 

Disturbed by the light, the creature looked up from its meal at them. They knew what a weasel looked like, and this was clearly a weasel of prodigious size! It hunched over its prize protectively, leering at them with its ferocious eyes, snarling, with blood and flesh dripping from its jaws.

We wrapped there! The party got enough XP from the ogres for Zommernar to level up - she is now a 3rd level fighter, and gained 3 HP. 

It was another good one. I liked that the party fell into the water pit that they had discovered early, and that they were separated from their hirelings, forcing them to fight Rugg alone. Zommernar really shined this session. 

The ogre at the top of the pit was a random encounter. If it weren't for the dogs, who are proving to be worth their weight in gold and then some, the party's hirelings might have been in a lot of trouble! 

The giant weasel is blocking the party's exit from the dungeon, and they don't have much time left to explore before they have to retreat to rest, so that should be interesting. We'll see how they handle it!

Play Report (AD&D 2e): In Search of the Unknown (Session 23)

We played the twenty-third 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 4 (Adam)
• Mirkle, N human fighter 3 (Maya)
• Rhonodel, NG elf cleric 1 (Jack)
• Zommernar, CN elf fighter 2 (Nael)
• Egbert, human necromancer 1 (NPC)
• Bilodeau, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Graves, man-at-arms (NPC)
• Brazile, halfling porter, and his dog, Ripper (NPC)
• Ejiofer, human porter (NPC)
• Lendeborg, human porter (NPC)
• Steinbach, human porter (NPC)
• Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
• Hadric, Wilda Brambletoe, Corvin, Aelwen Riversong, and 20 oarsmen - the crew of the Mossy Turtle (NPCs)
• The party's guard dog (Spot), hunting dog (Vincenzo), and four war dogs (Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Phooey)

Last we played, the party met with their wizardly ally, Albertyna, and exchanged what information they had learned since their last meeting. Albertyna filled them in on town politics. She told them about Blanchefleur, the sinister cleric who ruled the religious stronghold in the Chapel Ward, and about the Horned Mother, the deity or demon which they worshipped. Blanchefleur was, in her way, the real power in Timbershore, but Lambrecht seemed to tolerate her. Albertyna was not sure how the Horned Mother might relate to the horned demon carving the party had found in Quasqueton.

The party also informed Albertyna that they suspected that Lambrecht was scrying on them. Albertyna told them there was little they could do to prevent this from happening, but that Lambrecht's ability to spy on them was limited in terms of success, frequency, and length of viewing by how well he knew them. If he met them personally or came into possession of an item belonging to them or a part of their body, his powers would be greatly enhanced.

The  party asked Albertyna if she could call in any favors with the town guard so that they would be somewhat protected. Albertyna said she would talk to Manolito, the captain of Llombaerth's household guard. While Manolito served Lambrecht, Albertyna had a friendly relationship with him, and believed he would be able to help. 

The party had much to think about. They returned to the Mooring Post to get some rest and to wait for prospective henchmen to respond to their advertisements. That evening, Llombaerth found a pair of eyeballs in his fish stew, staring up at him, blinking. They decided to leave town as soon as possible, scrambling to gather their henchman and hirelings and animals. They would meet on the barge and depart town for Quasqueton at first light.

They did so, sailing downriver in a hailstorm. As they were moored along the river's edge at dusk, they spotted half a dozen humans - who appeared to be followers of Blanchefleur, hunting in the forest. The hunters did not notice the party, so they elected to stay hidden. They reached Quasqueton the next day, encountering a pair of giant birds that flew low overhead as they ascended the hill.

Llombaerth snuck inside the dungeon and found the entrance corridor lined with heads on spikes. First he saw the heads of Mangug and his orcs, then the heads of the party's remaining zombie followers, then the head of Indur, their friendly gnoll. Llombaerth could smell someone cooking in the kitchen. He triggered the twin magic mouths to lure whoever it was out of the room, then hid in an alcove to see who showed up.

A nine and a half foot tall monstrous female humanoid emerged from the kitchen, inspected the area, grumbled to herself, and returned to the kitchen. Llombaerth snuck back out to report this to the rest of the party.

We picked up there. We were joined by a new player, Jack, who is playing Rhonodel, an elf cleric. This is our first new player since Maya joined in session 6! Rhonodel wandered up to the group as Llombaerth was rejoining them, inserting himself into their conversation. Introductions were made. Rhonodel's deity, Minara, had sent him a vision of Quasqueton and told him he was needed here. Simple. He joined the party.

They discussed what to do about what they presumed was an ogre in the kitchen. Llombaerth would once again sneak inside, trigger the magic mouths, and hide in the alcoves halfway down the corridor, while the rest of the party hid in the first set of alcoves, closest to the dungeon entrance. Llombaerth would attempt to talk to the ogre. Failing that, the rest of the party would emerge from hiding to back him up.

They enacted their plan. The ogre came stomping out again, but this time Llombaerth called out to her, asking if the goblins were still alive. The ogre stomped towards Llombaerth and grunted, "Goblins marinating." Llombaerth tried to tell the ogre he meant her no harm, but she kept approaching at a threatening pace. Llombaerth squeezed out of the alcove and slipped away just as the ogre was closing into melee range. He ran back to the rest of the group.

At this point, the ogre noticed the rest of the party with their mercenaries and dogs huddled together in the further alcoves. She stopped in her tracks, scratching her chin. "You no mean Yamda harm? What do you want?"

The party attempted to negotiate the release of the goblins. Yamda said she would trade two goblins for one elf and the halfling - salivating as her gaze fell upon Brazile. The party declined. Yamda counteroffered with one goblin for one of the party's dogs, which they also declined. They ordered Yamda to release the goblins, or else they would loose their dogs on her. Yamda snarled, "You no want to treat in good faith with Yamda. Go away!" She began backtracking down the corridor towards the kitchen.

Brazile let the dogs loose. They raced down the corridor. Three of the four dogs landed hits on Yamda. Two were critical hits. The first dog seized Yamda by the leg and brought her low, while the second dog leapt for her throat, ripping and tearing. Here the players learned that each of their war dogs has 2+2 HD (average 11 HP) and does 2d4 damage per hit. The dogs are an insanely worthwhile investment.

It was over quickly. The dogs fell upon the ogre, tearing her apart until Brazile called them off. The party left the body and went to inspect the kitchen. 

The kitchen had been converted into an abattoir, with piles of gore splattered across every surface. A cast-iron pot hanging from the ceiling by a chain above a cookfire was roiling with a thick, fatty, rich broth. At the far side of the room, the party spotted the goblins Pigmug and Tobb, tied up and sitting in a wash basin full of liquid, smeared in a sickly sweet sauce and crusted with seasoning. Tobb had a rotten apple shoved in his mouth.

They freed the goblins and asked them what had happened. After the party had left, Tobb had reunited the goblins. They had retreated to Drak's throne room for safety. A few days later, the goblins had been attacked in the throne room by an ogre. The goblins had fled, but Pigmug and Tobb had been captured by a second ogre in their flight, whereupon they were brought here.

Where were the rest of the goblins? Tobb pointed at the gore piles around the room. It was hard to tell, but that one might be Narka, and maybe that was Viss...or Numbnuts? If the party was able to find their heads, it would be easier to identify them.

Not liking the sound of a second ogre wandering about, Rhonodel went to close the door to the kitchen. As he did so, he spotted the second ogre rounding the corner just outside. The second ogre spotted the body of the first, then saw Rhonodel, bellowed with rage, and made for the door. Rhonodel decided not to fight with the ogre over control of the door, and retreated back into the kitchen.

The party had their dogs form a line and prepared to engage the ogre with ranged weapons. The ogre charged into the room before they could ready their weapons, and entered into melee with the dogs. Huey managed to get a glancing bite for just 3 damage, but the rest of the dogs missed.

Llombaerth decided to use the kitchen's rear exit to try to flank the ogre. He went to the opposite end of the long kitchen, threw open the door...and found another ogre on the far side! He stumbled back, swinging his short sword, but missed. The party's mercenaries, Bilodeau and Graves, moved to reinforce Llombaerth with their spetums. The ogre tried to grab Llombaerth, but the long reach of the mercenaries' polearms held it at bay.

The rest of the party loosed projectiles at the first ogre. Mirkle and Egbert each got a critical hit, but in the chaos of melee, Mirkle shot Louie in the hindquarters for 5 damage, and Egbert stuck Huey for 3 damage. Huey bit down on the ogre again, this time for 6 damage. Both the ogre and Huey seemed badly wounded.

Llombaerth slipped back behind the mercenaries' wall of spetums, then tossed a flask of flaming oil at the second ogre, scoring a direct hit for 10 damage, setting the ogre alight. Maya joined the group with her own spetum. The second ogre, wishing to get to Llombaerth, attempted to barrel through the front rank. Bilodeau and Graves, who had not yet acted, set to receive the charge. Bilodeau skewered the ogre for a massive 22 damage (11 x 2), stabbing through its midsection and spilling its steaming guts on the floor. The front rank stepped back as the flaming ogre's corpse collapsed in front of them.

The rest of the party continued firing at the first ogre. Both Rhonodel and Zommernar scored hits with their short bows, but both hit Louie instead for a total of 9 damage. Louie whimpered and died at the second arrow struck him.

Finally, the ogre surrendered, begging the party to call off their dogs. They did.

The ogre, named Gruda, would trade information for her life. She told the party that she had found two chests of treasure in a room down the hall - gold coins, jeweled items, and gems. It was more than Gruda had seen in her life. The party informed Gruda that the treasure was illusory. "Of course...Gruda knew that..."

The party asked Gruda how many ogres were in her group. Gruda said there were six of them - now four, including her. Where were the rest? Gurgak had gone that way - she pointed towards the opposite door to the kitchen, where the second ogre had been slain. Gugg had gone that way - she pointed towards the door nearer to her and to the right. Rugg had gone the same way as Gruda - out the door nearer to her and to the left - but had gone straight while Gruda had gone right.

Why were the ogres here? Okorg had sent them here to find the people who had stolen their treasure. Who was Okorg? He was the ogre chieftain. He ruled the cave in the forest. What treasure was stolen from Okorg? Several small things - his silver dagger, his looking glass, his bone cup and dice, his silver horn, his drinking tankards, his collection of belt buckles, his soft cloak...The party mentioned that something had been stolen from them as well, and they suspected some sort of gnome trickster which lived in the forest.

Why did Okorg think that his treasure was here? The lady from town had come to Okorg's court and told him so. What lady from town? Gruda described someone the party did not recognize - a young lady in blue traveler's clothes with a silver emblem. The party recalled that the banners which hung from the walls of Lambrecht's castle were blue with a silver emblem.

The party informed Gruda that Okorg had been tricked. Gruda did not accept this at first - Okorg was the smartest ogre - but eventually she was convinced that Okorg could be deceived. In that case, Okorg must be informed. The lady from town was being kept with the other prisoners until Gruda and the others returned, so there was still time to eat her. 

What other prisoners? The ogres had captured several people while raiding Timbershore's farmlands, among them a dwarf which Okorg used as a truffle hound for smelling out treasure. Okorg had not trusted Gruda's ogres with the dwarf, since he knew they wanted to eat him.

When would the other ogres - Gurgak, Gugg, and Rugg - return? Was there a safe place to meet with them to discuss this? Gruda was not sure - ogres didn't really plan ahead like that. She could try to find them, but it would take a while. Maybe if the party lent her their delicious halfling and one of their scrumptious dogs, she could find the others more quickly...

No - the party decided that Gruda would be their hostage. She would come with them and help smooth things over with the other ogres if they ran into them. If the party found any of Okorg's treasures, the ogres could keep them. If Gruda's friends were amenable, the party might enlist their aid in moving a certain large statue out of the dungeon.

To ensure Gruda's compliance, Llombaerth tricked her into carrying an "oath-keeping device" in her pocket - one of two bombs which Llombaerth had fashioned in town using the party's ample supply of bat guano from the dungeon's lower level. Gruda would remain 20 feet in front of the party, and if Gruda did not behave, Llombaerth would activate the device.

Before they left, the party informed Pigmug and Tobb that the goblins' experiment in occupying Quasqueton was over. Clearly, it had been a disaster, and they should leave while they still lived. The goblins were still unconvinced and unwilling to leave their "home", but they would at least find some new area in which to hide, where monsters were less like to find them. 

We ended the session there. This was fun! I'm excited to have some new blood in the player pool. It's funny to see the players exploiting their new war dogs, which were a great pickup. This session also made the players aware of another element of the sandbox - the ogres whose treasure has been stolen, who have been raiding the lands around Timbershore and have some sort of relationship with Lambrecht. Can the party somehow use them to tip things in their favor? We shall see!

Developing the Sandbox: Rumor Tables

This post is part of my series on developing the sandbox. You can read other posts in the series here. The series will, when necessary, go into detail on the development of my sandbox for Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown, but will also discuss sandbox development more generally. You can read play reports from my B1 campaign here.

This post will focus on creating rumor tables for your towns and cities. 

What is the purpose of an in-world rumor in a TTRPG? According to the Designing Dungeons course (which is of course preoccupied with dungeons specifically), rumors provide clues to the dungeon, reinforce its themes, and point the players back towards elements of the dungeon they may have missed. More broadly speaking, in a sandbox setting, rumors drive investigation and exploration of the world and help make the world feel more lifelike.

In short, rumors are information. Information allows the players to make choices - as always, the better the information, the better the player's ability to anticipate their choice's impact. Thus, we need to make sure our rumors provide good information.

What about false rumors? That's a thing in Dungeons & Dragons, right? False rumors are, at times, delightful. I'm as big a fan of "Bree-yark" is goblin for "We surrender!" as the next guy but, more often, false rumors are just kind of detrimental to play. As Gus L. points out, they waste time and erode trust  between players and the DM. They serve a purpose opposite to what rumors are meant to accomplish, muddying themes, sending the players on wild goose chases, or paralyzing them entirely.

Since I am currently running my B1 sandbox, let's look at B1's rumor table as an example (as an aside, see this post about B1, Caverns of Thracia, and the hunt for the first rumor table.):

This is not a bad rumor table. It tells the players what sorts of monsters might be found in Quasqueton, that it has multiple levels, that there are secrets within, and what sorts of rooms the players might expect to find there. The information is somewhat pedestrian, but this is an introductory module. The rumors are not only telling the players what to expect from the dungeon, but what to expect from the game itself. 

The false rumors, however, are largely terrible.

Zelligar does have a workshop in the stronghold, but the rumor is "false" because he didn't work on magic stronger than any known to man (he just used it to torture barbarians, stocked it with containers full of mundane junk, and kept a ghost cat in a jar to troll adventurers). There is no 100,000 g.p. gem hidden in the stronghold. There is no curse upon the place or its treasure. The "treasure" hidden in a pool of water is a totally pointless illusion. The dungeon is not filled with guards, and Rogahn and Zelligar have not returned.

While there are kernels of truth to some of these rumors, more of them either set up the players for disappointment or actively discourage them from going to the dungeon - you know, the single adventure site upon which the entire module depends. What happens when the players comb the whole place and don't find any sign of magic "stronger than any known to man" or of a 100,000 g.p. gem? What happens if they decide the dungeon sounds too dangerous? It's full of guards, and Rogahn and Zelligar have come back, too. It's treasures are all cursed anyway, so what's the point?

"But wait," you might say, "you talk all the time on this blog about running AD&D the Gygaxian way, with constant taxes and annoying NPCs who hate the player characters and want them to go away and die. This adversarial bullshit should be right up your alley!"

And you are kind of right. I am trying to run my game in some approximation of that style, and I do find it quite fun. For some reason, I draw the line at false rumors. Why? I don't know. I think I just have a lot of information about this setting that I want to communicate to the players, and I don't want to waste space on my tables with four different (false) rumors about how the dungeon is dangerous. The players know the dungeon is dangerous. What actually makes it dangerous?

That's not to say I'll come right out and tell the players that the magic stone in Quasqueton has a 5% chance of granting a limited wish specifically. Unreliable rumors are good! "An enchanted stone within the stronghold will grant a wish to anyone who chips off a piece of it and places it within their mouth" is a false rumor because the stone does other things besides granting wishes, but the fact that it grants wishes is true. The rumor itself is a bit too on the nose for me, but that's besides the point.

Now, in a sandbox, I don't want all my rumors to be about the dungeon. I want my rumors to also point to other settlements, strongholds, and monster lairs. I want them to give hints about outdoor encounters. I want them to indicate what sort of monsters prowl the town's streets and to clue the players into the political landscape of the settlement or what events I have scheduled on my campaign calendar.

How do you create a rumor table? These posts each have a sort of "generic" rumor table you can roll on almost like a spark table to create more specific rumors. This is neat! I personally don't need this tech, but you might find it useful if you're having a hard time coming up with ideas.

What I've done recently is split my rumor table into three tables. How do I structure that? I will give you a hint - the three tables are derived from this page of the AD&D DMG:

I don't think it's particularly hard to figure out, so I will tell you. Much like modern D&D puts forward three "pillars of play" (combat, exploration, and social interaction), here I think Gygax is putting forward a different (parallel) set of three pillars - dungeon expeditions, outdoor exploration, and town adventures. Thus, my three rumor tables list dungeon rumors, wilderness rumors, and settlement rumors.

"Wilderness rumors" is a bit of a misnomer. Just as the "exploration" pillar is more like the "everything else" pillar in modern D&D, "wilderness/outdoors" is the "everything else" of the sandbox. This includes rumors about other settlements, strongholds, monster lairs, and outdoor encounters. The town and dungeon are both complex enough environments to warrant their own tables, but the other locations in the sandbox really just need one rumor to point the players in that direction (or, in the case of outdoor encounters, give them fair warning).

While dungeon rumors will be hyper-specific, providing information about specific rooms, monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and other secrets, all other rumors can be somewhat vague - again, just kind of nudging the players that way. Dungeon exploration is the default mode of play in the early game. In most cases the players will not need to be directed towards the dungeon, but they will need specific information about its contents. As the campaign evolves, however, you'll want them to slowly become aware of adventuring opportunities in the town/city and elsewhere.

For my dungeon table, I included those rumors from B1 which I liked, then supplemented them with my own. I basically combed through my version of B1 and thought of every bit of information I might give to the players about the place - again, rooms, monsters, tricks, traps, treasure, and other secrets. These are very broad, and complement each other when combined. Some rumors might simply say "There are goblins in Quasqueton" or "There are orcs in Quasqueton", while others might be more specific: "The goblins and the orcs of Quasqueton hate each other", "The orcs of Quasqueton worship a magic stone" or "The orcs of Quasqueton are at war with one another."

For my town rumor table, I generated one rumor for each element of the town which I wanted to put on the players' radar - that is, its locations, NPCs, and potential encounters. There's a rumor about the wizard who rules the town, a rumor about the lesser wizard who serves him, and a rumor about the cleric who rules her own stronghold. There's a rumor about beasts attacking people, a rumor about spirits haunting the streets, a rumor about a corrupt official blackmailing merchants, and a rumor about a derelict house from which strange lights are seen at night. All of these point to locations or warn the party of potential encounters. I also include a permanent entry on the table for whatever town event is coming up on my calendar.

Likewise, my wilderness rumor table has one rumor for each "wilderness" location, plus a few more for particularly noteworthy outdoor encounters which aren't otherwise covered by my other locations. Brigands terrorizing the countryside would be covered by the rumor about the brigands' stronghold, and owlbears in the forest would be covered by the rumor about their lair - I would not include an additional rumor for those outdoor encounters just because they also appear on my encounter tables. If there are unique or interesting monsters wandering the wilderness who otherwise don't have their own lairs (fey "river women" who don't live anywhere in particular but are sometimes encountered deep in the forest), those get their own entry on the table.

Since I replace outdoor encounters on my tables once they've been used, I update my rumor tables accordingly. You may not have to do this, but I do think a rumor table should be a living document, assuming that the status quo is changing even when the player characters are being somewhat inactive. 

This goes for rumors about the town and dungeon as well. If the first rumor discloses that the wizard and the cleric in town have an uneasy truce, then the next might disclose that the cleric has attempted to assassinate the wizard. If the players already have the rumor about the orcs in the dungeon being at war, the next rumor might tell them that one side has triumphed over the other.

You can go down a real rabbit hole with this stuff, creating subtables for each entry on the main table (you could have a d4 table of rumors about the wizard overlord or the plundering brigands specifically), but I think this is overkill. The rumor just makes the players aware of the thing. If they want more information, they can start asking specific questions, and I have most of the information to answer those questions, if appropriate, as needed. No need to make your rumor tables maddeningly comprehensive.

With three separate rumor tables covering distinct topics, when players go hunting for rumors, I can ask them: Do you want rumors about the dungeon, the town, or the wilderness? I view rumor-gathering as an active pursuit, not a passive one. The players don't just accumulate rumors by existing in town. The players have to say they want to do it, and they have to spend time and money doing it, just like with almost anything else they do in town. Since they are choosing to gather rumors, it also makes sense to me that they be able to choose which rumors they're looking for.

I like this rule of thumb for rumor-gathering from OD&D:

Delta's post on the subject clarifies that this was likely intended as a means for players to find out about expeditions by rival players operating in the same campaign simultaneously, but I see no reason why it can't apply more broadly. I feel there has to be some cost to gathering rumors, and, as Delta points out, this is seemingly the only guidance provided in any edition of D&D. It is a little bit cost prohibitive for player characters just starting out, but that's okay with me. They can either spend less on equipment and get some information instead, or they can go in blind for their first expedition.

It's also worth considering how you choose to present rumors to the players. Do you attribute each rumor to a specific NPC? Personally, I'm fine with abstracting it. I have enough NPCs to worry about as it is, and I can kind of wing it when it comes to where a rumor is coming from based on the nature of the rumor and where the players hear it.

Do you roleplay out the dispensation of rumors? I don't know, do you roleplay shopping? Again, I'm perfectly fine with abstracting this and simply telling the players what they hear. I don't need to tell it to them in a gruff sailor's voice. If they start asking follow up questions, maybe, but I'm only going to spend a significant amount of game time on this of the players decide that it's worth their time.

I also like this post about tying rumors to settlement events, however, again, I think it might not be for me. I have a separate procedure for determining when events happen, and events already provide information about what's going on in the world. It makes sense to me that players should be able to learn about something that's going to happen before it happens. That is, the players should be able to learn that loggers have spotted kobolds in the woods before the kobolds launch a raid on the town.

There's even more to explore. Player characters may have the choice to live at different economic levels and in different conditions. The character who is unwashed and flea-ridden and sleeps in stables does not have access to the upper classes, and the haughty character who dresses in fine silks and gold rings might be shunned by the downtrodden and class-conscious folk. Their affiliations may likewise affect their access to rumors. A paladin will not have access to criminal networks, and a thief may not be privy to the church's scuttlebutt.

What rumors are exchanged by loggers and hunters? How about dockworkers and fishermen? Merchants and officials? Mages at the Wizard's Day ball? Do monsters know rumors? Can you gather rumors in the dungeon?

You can clearly get deep in the weeds with this stuff. For now, I prefer to keep it simple. If you were out drinking at the tavern and heard tell of some cool new rumor tech, I have 10-60 gold pieces with your name on them!