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!

One Hundred Thousand Dragon Encounters

No, I'm not actually going to describe one hundred thousand encounters with a dragon. How would I even do that? If you want an exhaustively detailed post, see my previous post on d100 Woefully Encysted Creatures (I spent so much time on it and am not eager to do that amount of work again).

What I am going to do is describe how, when generating a random encounter with any given monster in the wilderness, a number of variables can result in a truly astounding number of meaningfully different encounters with that one monster type (and sometimes two or more monster types - more on that later). 

Here I'm using a dragon as my example, because the game is Dungeons & Dragons, and dragons are cool. These same variables used in combination with whatever menagerie of creatures you utilize in your preferred system can in turn produce millions of different encounters.

The purpose of this post is to detail the factors which the DM considers when formulating an encounter to present to the players - those determined by dicing, which the DM may determine ahead of time or discover in the moment, and over which the players have little if any control. This is the stuff which makes random encounters the stuff of tabletop magic.

The variables I'll be examining are: weather, terrain, time of day, % in lair, surprise, distance, reaction, and "combined encounters".

Weather

I'm starting with this because I typically roll for weather conditions at the start of an adventuring day, so it's the first factor to be determined. You might roll do see if the weather changes throughout the day, which is certainly realistic, but I can hardly remember to consistently check it once per day, let alone multiple times, so I prefer to keep it simple.

With regards to weather, the three factors I take into account are temperature, wind, and precipitation. There may be other ancillary factors like fog or cloud cover, but I feel that the aforementioned three are sufficient (they are also the three factors addressed in the 5e DMG - I will be jumping around from one edition to another in this post, and the actual mechanics don't matter much, but I feel 5e's weather stuff is very easy to comprehend, so that's what I'm using).

Temperature is not super important at the encounter level. The temperature is either normal or colder/warmer than usual for the season. This will affect overland travel, but it won't impose much on the encounter besides whether the player characters are exhausted when the encounter occurs (in 5e, characters must make a saving throw every hour they travel in such conditions or start accruing penalties). Maybe it's too hot to wear armor. Maybe the characters are slightly clumsier than usual because they're wearing thick winter clothing.

Wind is either a non-issue, light, or strong. Strong wind imposes disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls and Perception checks that rely on hearing, extinguishes open flames, disperses fog, and makes flying by nonmagical means impossible (flying creatures must land at the end of their turn or fall to the ground). In a desert environment it can whip up a sandstorm. Light wind doesn't do anything, which raises the question: Why is it even called out as its own thing?

I change this slightly in my own games. Light wind imposes disadvantage on ranged weapon attack rolls and disperses gasses, smoke, vapor, etc. after 1 minute. Strong wind does the same to ranged attacks but also causes long range attacks to automatically fail, and disperses gasses and such almost immediately, in addition to imposing disadvantage on attempts to hear and preventing nonmagical flight (unless the creature is strong enough to resist the wind, which is a house rule I use).

Precipitation can either be light or heavy, but once again light precipitation doesn't actually do anything in 5e. In my games, light precipitation imposes disadvantage on sight-based Perception checks. Heavy precipitation does the same, but also affects hearing-based checks and extinguishes open flames. I might also make the area all muddy depending on the terrain. Precipitation can be rain or snow depending on the temperature.

Here are all the ways weather can impact an encounter with a dragon: 

• Characters might be exhausted.
• Characters might not be wearing armor.
• Character might be slowed down by winter clothing.
• Characters might have a hard time seeing or hearing the dragon, meaning they are more likely to be caught unawares (or more likely to be able to hide from/avoid the dragon).
• Characters might not be able to use ranged weapons effectively.
• Characters' light sources may be extinguished (if it's night time - more on that later).
• Characters (and the dragon) might not be able to fly.
• Characters might not be able to use gas/vapor-based spells like fog cloud, stinking cloud, or cloudkill (and the dragon might not be able to use its breath weapon effectively depending on its type).
• Characters (and the dragon) might have to deal with sand or grit being blown about.
• Characters (and the dragon) might have to deal with mud or snow (difficult terrain).

There are three categories of temperature (normal, cold, and hot), three different types of wind (none, light, and strong), and three different types of precipitation (none, light, and heavy). If we account for weather alone, there are 27 different scenarios in which a dragon might be encountered.

Terrain

Next, I'll account for terrain. The characters will start the day in one type of terrain but may pass through other types as the day proceeds, so we won't know in what terrain the encounter occurs until an encounter is rolled. 

I'll be considering seven broad categories: plains, forest, hills, mountains, desert, wetlands, and water. There are other factors to consider: "plains" can be cultivated farmland, grassland, scrub, steppe, etc., forest can be light or heavy, jungle or taiga, hills and mountains can be forested or gentle or steep, desert can be rocky or sandy, wetlands can be forested or not, and water can be fresh or salt or shallow or deep. 

These factors can all matter at the encounter level, but I will keep it to those broad seven types, mostly because they are the seven identified in Welsh Piper's Hex-Based Campaign Design, which is something of a formative text for me.

Terrain will of course dictate the type of monster encountered in most games, but since I'm assuming the monster in this case is a dragon, we won't discuss that. In most versions of D&D, the type of dragon encountered is also determined by terrain type (black dragons in swamp, green dragons in forest, blue dragons in desert, etc.), but here I am imagining a dragon more generally - the type isn't important.

Terrain is mostly important for determining encounter distance (which I'll cover shortly), but it's worth considering its other implications. In wild tall grass, but probably not in cultivated farmland, the player characters or dragon may be able to hide. In a forest, there will be roots to stumble over and trees to climb or take cover behind. In hills and mountains, one side or the other may have a height advantage. In the desert, a dragon might burrow in the sand or kick up gusts of grit with its wings. A swamp may impose difficult terrain on the player characters and allow the dragon to swim or hide in the muck. An encounter on the water will have the players characters doing battle on a dinky rowboat or a massive warship. 

We add our seven types of terrain to the existing 27 possible combinations due to weather conditions and end up with 189 scenarios in which a dragon might be encountered.

Time of Day

You can measure time in the wilderness in many ways, but I usually break it down into six four-hour watches. These are described in the AD&D DMG:

Note that the first three watches are during daylight hours, and the second three are during nighttime hours.

Usually (in my experience), the first two watches are when the party is traveling overland, the second two are when the party is making camp but still awake and alert to danger, and the final two are when the party is sleeping (with someone on watch). The main limitation is that the party can only move overland for a limited time (usually eight hours) and must rest for some period of time (usually eight hours). They might travel during the first two watches and then explore a dungeon during the second two, for example, or break up the time in any number of other ways.

The important factors here are whether the party is traveling, camping, or resting, and whether it is light or dark. For simplicity - and because in my experience the players don't switch up their routine very often - let's call it three variables: traveling, camping, or resting.

During the traveling turn, it is probably light and the characters likely have most of their resources (spells and whatever else) available, so this would likely be the easiest encounter. 

During the camping turn, resources may be depleted from a day of travel, so it will be slightly harder. The party is also sedentary during this time, so they cannot flee from an encounter unless they are okay with losing their camp and any equipment or treasure there. It may be light or dark, in which case the dragon will likely get much closer before being spotted (if it is spotted at all). 

During the resting turn it is dark, and some characters will be sleeping while others are keeping watch. The dragon only needs to get the drop on those keeping watch in order to surprise everyone, who will then need to be awakened (and who won't be wearing armor). The party is sedentary, and resources are depleted and haven't yet been recovered. This is likely the most difficult encounter.

We will add these three possibilities to our existing combinations. We now have 567 possible scenarios.

% in Lair

Since the % in lair statistic was eliminated after AD&D 1e, you might not be using this in your game...but you should! The only thing cooler than stumbling into a dragon is stumbling into its lair. You're probably stocking your play area with monster lairs ahead of time, and in that light it might not make a lot of sense for the dragon's lair to not be on the map, but who cares? Now you and your players get the thrill of discovering this secret dragon lair together!

Now, technically I think this is only supposed to be used when the characters are actively traveling. It doesn't really make a ton of sense for the party to spend two watches camping in one spot and then suddenly a dragon shows up and it turns out that the party is somehow camping in its lair. The AD&D Monster Manual has this to say:

That last sentence suggests that it might not be uncommon for the party to be in a monster's lair without realizing it. However, I'm going to suggest a different interpretation, one which makes sense when you consider the hex as a unit of measure in the wilderness.

In my games, a hex of any size only ever contains one location. That's simply because Hexographer only allows you to place one icon per hex, and I always use Hexographer for my regional maps. It's also just easier to parse that way. Whether the party is traveling, camping, or resting, they're only ever inside of one hex. I might keep track roughly of where exactly they are inside of that hex, but they're always either in that hex or in another one.

If the party is camping or resting and I roll a random encounter with a dragon and determine that the dragon is "in" its lair, that doesn't necessarily mean the party is literally camping in its lair - rather, the lair is located somewhere within the hex. They could be in it without realizing, or they might be camped on top of it, or it might be just over the hill or a mile away. The lair is somewhere in the area.

In AD&D, dragons in their lair have a percentage chance of being asleep, which drastically changes the encounter, but that doesn't apply to the broader point I'm trying to make about monsters generally (remember, the dragon is just an example). The dragon (and monsters generally) may behave differently in or near its lair. A dragon in its lair may not be able to fly about freely. It may be less likely to retreat or to pursue the party if they flee (it may simply want to drive them out of its territory).

In most games, this isn't likely to affect the encounter that much, although in 5e the dragon would have lair actions which would have a direct and significant impact. It also has post-encounter implications in that the player characters may be able to then locate the lair (if they're not already in it) and loot its hoard.

I do think that this is a variable worth considering, so we'll say that this adds two possibilities (is the dragon encountered "in" its lair or not). We're up to 1,134 possible scenarios.

Surprise

There are four ways this can go: nobody is surprised, the party is surprised, the dragon is surprised, or both are surprised. This can be more complicated if you use something like AD&D:

Here it is not just a matter of who is surprised but how surprised they are. I don't want to get into all that. For simplicity, let's stick to just the four aforementioned categories.

This is pretty self-explanatory: either the party has an advantage, a disadvantage, or neither. In the latter case, it's still important to distinguish between whether neither or both sides are surprised, because this will affect encounter distance (I've alluded to it several times - rest assured it is coming right up).

It's also worth noting that this can differ slightly depending on how you interpret surprise. In "old school" D&D this is a roll that happens at the start of an encounter, suggesting that the encounter is happening no matter what, and surprise represents only a fleeting advantage. In modern editions surprise is gained when one side goes unnoticed by the other and launches an attack (usually this is a Perception check/Passive Perception vs a Stealth check). 

Thus you could take a step back and also interpret this more broadly as indicating which side (if any) notices the other. Does the party surprise the dragon and get a free round to act, with the dragon acting in turn once the round is over (assuming it survives), or does the party notice the dragon before it notices them, giving them a chance to slip away unseen and avoid the encounter altogether, or perhaps get themselves into a more advantageous position from which to launch an attack? One interpretation affords the players more agency than the other.

I prefer the latter interpretation, but your mileage may vary. In any case, we can say that there are four possible outcomes here. We add these to the existing combinations and end up with 4,536 possible scenarios.

Encounter Distance

Distance is determined by a variety of factors, including surprise, terrain, light levels, or even sound (since one side might hear the other before spotting them). Good thing we've addressed all of those factors already! 

I use a table of my own creation which is a combination of AD&D 2e's tables and the tables from 5e's Wilderness Kit. Here is my table:

Usually I will roll for both sight and sound and use the larger of the two to determine when the encounter "starts". As you can see, encounter distance can be as little as 3 feet or as many as 600 feet, depending on the circumstances, with many, many possibilities in between.

To once again keep things simple, I'll take a lesson from ShadowDark and say there are three range categories: close (melee range/short range for missiles and spells), near (melee range if you charge/medium range for missiles and spells), and far (move for two or more rounds to get into melee/long range for missiles and spells). In 5e terms this would be roughly 30 feet, 60 feet, or more than 60 feet, for example. 

The important thing is that at close range, both sides are more or less engaged/threatened immediately, at near range, either side can choose to engage or try to keep distance, and at far range most creatures will probably not be able to meaningfully engage without closing considerable ground, while those who wish to avoid the encounter can do so fairly easily.

The difference between a dragon flying over 30 feet above the characters' heads versus 400 feet away while they're in the mountains should be obvious. A close dragon is much more dangerous than a far dragon, and the latter affords the players considerably more agency when determining if the dragon is something they want to mess with or run and hide from.

Adding our three possible encounter distance categories to the existing combinations, we now have 13,608 possible scenarios.

Reaction

The encounter is happening. We know what the weather and terrain is like, the time of day, whether the dragon is in its lair, who is or isn't surprised, and how far the two sides are from one another. But perhaps more important than any of these factors is how the dragon will react to the party.

How exactly you use the reaction roll will vary wildly depending on which edition you favor. Generally speaking, the dragon will have either a neutral, negative, or positive reaction. There may be additional degrees of each type of reaction. Here is AD&D's reaction table as an example:

I use a reaction roll which generates five possible outcomes: hostile (the monster usually attacks), unfriendly (the monster threatens, extorts, or otherwise seeks to inconvenience or impede the party), indifferent (the monster either ignores the party, is unsure how to react to them, or interacts with them in a neutral way with no particular ulterior motive), friendly (the monster wants something from the party or is willing to negotiate/trade), and helpful (the monster assumes the best of the party and is amenable to aiding them).

The reaction roll is modified by the monster's alignment, so a Chaotic Evil dragon would never be helpful, and a Lawful Good dragon would never be hostile. Let's assume for this example that the dragon in question can react in any of the five ways (i.e., it is not Chaotic Evil or Lawful Good - this could be a brass, copper, green, or blue dragon, for example). 

How exactly you interpret the reaction roll will depend on the dragon type. Good dragons won't attack on sight simply because they love to kill, and Evil dragons won't aid strangers out of pure altruism.

This may be the most important element of the encounter because it tells us what threat or opportunity the encounter poses for the party. A hostile encounter is likely to be a fight which will cost the party resources and maybe their lives. An unfriendly encounter is a tense negotiation which can be navigated by social tact or else cost the party in treasure or inconvenience. An indifferent encounter might be as simple as set dressing (the party watches a dragon fly overhead in the distance - a reminder that a dragon can swoop down on them at any moment in the wilderness) or an opportunity to exchange information with an intelligent monster. A friendly encounter could lead to an unexpected quest or be an opportunity to convince the dragon to do a favor. A helpful encounter could be a massive boon to the party's current endeavor.

Adding our five reaction roll outcomes to our existing combinations, we now have 68,040 possible scenarios.

"Combined Encounters"

I'm not sure what to call this one, and it's the element of this procedure which is least likely to be standard practice for the majority of DMs, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Basically, when I roll a positive result on an encounter check, I immediately roll again to check for another encounter. If I keep getting positive results, I keep rolling. However many encounters I roll, I combine into a single encounter in which all of the monsters are interacting somehow. This is pretty rare in terrain like plains, where the encounter chance is only 10%, but is more common in terrain like wetlands, where the encounter chance is as high as 40% (here I use the AD&D 2e table):

Since we are already using a dragon as our example, let's go with an exceedingly unlikely scenario and say that the party encounters two dragons at once. These are not two separate dragons that happen to stumble upon the party at the same time, nor are they two dragons that are affiliated with one another. They are two distinct dragons who have already encountered one another, and the party is encountering them both at one moment. 

Let's say the party is in an area of forested wetlands and encounters a black dragon and a green dragon which are in turn encountering one another. I would probably make "opposed" reaction rolls to see how these two dragons feel about one another, then use that information to color the encounter. Are they engaged in combat? Posturing for territory? Exchanging information or treasure? Conspiring against some nearby settlement or mutual foe? Is one paying tribute to the other? Is there some bizarre mating ritual happening? 

Then, how does each react to the party? Does one try to recruit the party to help it slay the other? Does it threaten to kill them once the other is dead? Are the dragons offended by the party's intrusion? Do they all have tea together? I have been led to believe that adventurers sometimes have tea with dragons.

Although you could theoretically combine an infinite number of encounters into one, let's instead say there are two possibilities: either the encounter is with just the dragon, or the dragon is encountered interacting with some other creature.

Adding these two possibilities, we end up with 136,080 possible encounter scenarios.

Conclusion

If you are thinking that this is all a bit much to prepare at the table in the moment, that's because it is. But much can be prepared ahead of time. My strategy is to prepare however many encounters I will need for a given biome away from the table. Each encounter will include what monster is encountered, whether its encountered in its lair, what its reaction will be, and then details like its name, what it wants, any treasure it has, stats, etc. 

I have no way of knowing ahead of time what the weather will be, what time of day it will be, whether the monster and/or party will be surprised, how far away they'll be, or if other monsters will be present. However, if the monster's identity and motivations are known to me, it is much easier to determine how it will behave in an unusual situation. Strange results may pose problems (why is the dragon out and about in this terrible storm?), but these are "good" problems of which more memorable encounters can be made.

There are yet more factors that I haven't considered in this post. What about the number of dragons that appear? An encounter with one is much different than an encounter with four. The assumption at the heart of this post was that the theoretical encounter was with a single dragon, so I did not take that into account. It's somewhat besides the point and I didn't want to get into it at that level. While yes, an encounter with one dragon versus four is very different, how different is it when extended to monsters generally (i.e., How different is an encounter with 7 giant eagles versus 8 giant eagles? Is it worth distinguishing between them?)

What about whether or not the dragon is flying? In AD&D, flying creatures have a 75% chance of being airborne when encountered. That certainly makes the encounter different, but it also doesn't apply more broadly to monsters in general. You could say the same about the age category of the dragon.

What about party composition? Spells prepared? Magic items? Do they have an army of hirelings and henchmen? Are they mounted? Aboard a ship? Are they Good or Evil? What is the temperament of the players? All of these are additional factors which are not easily categorized and accounted for. 

Hopefully, I've demonstrated that a robust system for generating random encounters and their situational circumstances can result in a wide array of potential scenarios. An encounter with a dragon is never just an encounter with a dragon - it is an encounter with natural elements like weather, terrain, and daylight. It is an encounter with luck in the form of surprise and distance. It is an encounter with the motivations of a creature that has every bit of agency as the characters. It is an encounter with the world the characters inhabit and the dynamics between the creatures they share it with. 

And let's not forget - every encounter with the player characters is an encounter with the sum total of the adventures they've been on and the choices they've made.