It Did Not End with a Mere Slaying of Ogres: Treasure as a Source of Challenge in D&D

It's easy to think of treasure as purely reward - the player characters have overcome the challenges of the dungeon or wilderness and have slain some monster in its lair. The monster's treasure hoard (if any) is some collection of coins, gems, jewelry, and occasionally even magic items, all for the player characters' taking. 

However, just because the dungeon or wilderness and its inhabitants have been defeated, the challenge needn't end there. The recovery of treasure poses its own challenges. From PLACEMENT OF MONETARY TREASURE in the AD&D DMG, beginning on page 91:

The first challenge posed by treasure is one of transportation. However, of the treasure types listed in the appendix of the Monster Manual, all but the coins are readily transportable. But coins pose a problem only in large quantities - although it is worth mentioning that monsters' treasure hoards (in their wilderness lairs) only ever contain most denominations of coin in the thousands:

Even then, the movement of large amounts of coin is one of those low-level setbacks in D&D which is often eventually trivialized by the accumulation of equipment or magical ability - just as past a certain point players will likely have magical means of providing light, creating food and water, traveling overland, and even coming back from the dead, they will likely some day acquire a bag of holding, handy haversack, portable hole, or a personal demiplane in which to stuff vast sums of cumbersome coins. Thus it would be insufficient to say that transportation is the sole or ultimate means of challenge posed by treasure.

While not at all related to this subject, since I'm analyzing this section of the DMG I feel the need to call out this bit:

This suggests that it is not so simple as to say that, for example, all minotaur groups possess treasure type C, which means that, among other treasures, they have a 30% chance of possessing 1,000 to 6,000 silver coins. Rather, minotaurs have a 30% chance of possessing silver coins, and because they appear in groups of 1 to 8, a group of 8 will have the maximum 6,000, while a pair of 2 will have 25% of that, a group of 4 will have 50%, and so on. 

Or perhaps we're meant to roll to determine the amount of silver coins and then adjust that number according to the actual number of minotaurs relative to the theoretical maximum (for example, if I have just one minotaur and roll to determine that it has 3,000 silver pieces, I might then divide that number by 8 because the actual number of minotaurs is one eighth of the maximum, giving it 375 silver). I could be misinterpreting what Gygax is saying, but that's my takeaway. Kind of weird that this bit is buried in a single sentence in the DMG! But I digress.

Continuing on, Gygax next suggests that treasure comes in forms not listed in the Monster Manual appendix:

(At this point I feel I could write an essay on the use of the Gygaxian "of course".)

Rather than blindly rolling on the treasure table to assign a monster heaps of coins, gems, jewelry, magic items, and the like, the DM is meant to "Assign each monster treasure, or lack thereof, with reason". Brigands, giant rats, and centipedes will all have their own treasure types as listed in the Monster Manual, but ("of course") the treasure will manifest itself differently according to the qualities of the monster in question:

(I thought it worth highlighting that, "naturally" - the cousin of the Gygaxian "of course" - monsters without treasure will "hate and envy" those with treasure - an opportunity for the players to engage in some social manipulation between enemies, albeit with bedfellows they'll later have to reckon with if they want the treasure for themselves.)

Again Gygax describes types of treasure not found in the treasure tables:

Here Gygax is once more describing a method other than blindly rolling on tables to generate results. Rather than randomly determining by a roll of the dice that a monster with a huge treasure hoard like, for example, a dragon, is lairing right in the middle of a settled region, he suggests that these creatures and their treasure should reside in "more inaccessible regions". 

This same principle is described earlier under MONSTER POPULATIONS AND PLACEMENT on pages 90 and 91:

Likewise, orc warbands in a settled region should be small relative to those found in true wilderness (monster populations in inhabited areas and wilderness regions can differ on the basis of "individual prowess" or "due to numbers"). While those two groups of orcs, according to the treasure table, might have the same chance at possessing copper, silver, electrum, gems, jewelry, and magic items, this suggests that those in "more inaccessible regions" should somehow have a greater chance of possessing more valuable treasure (or that those in more accessible regions should have a lesser chance of possessing it).

There is something to be said of the fact that Gygax simultaneously provides a bunch of tables for randomly determining placement of settlements, strongholds, ruins, monster lairs, and treasures contained within while also telling the DM that they should do all of this according to reason, but I won't get into it more than I already have. At the very least, it's justification to reroll a result you don't like. Suffice it to say that I enjoy my "Disneyland" campaigns just fine, thank you very much.

Returning to PLACEMENT OF MONETARY TREASURE, the example provided is illuminating:

Rather than simply possessing 2,000 gold pieces, the ogres in the example have a variety of treasure (including mundane items like food and provisions, helmets, and a bardiche) which in sum total amount to the aforementioned 2,000 gold pieces. What I think this means is that if I use the treasure table to determine that the ogres possess 2,000 gold pieces, I'm supposed to then invent a variety of more specific items of treasure that add up to that amount, not just dump a pile of 2,000 gold pieces in their lair and call it a day.

This is complicated by the inclusion in the example of the 350 gold piece silver necklace, which I imagine would fall under jewelry. I assume that if I roll up a number of gems, jewelry, or magic items that these are left as is. It is only the coinage in the treasure hoard that needs breaking down into more flavorful units of treasure. We already have a procedure/tables for doing the same to gems and jewelry:

So the inclusion of the silver necklace in the example of the ogres is either an oversight or I'm again over-interpreting Gygax and he's instead suggesting an entirely different way of determining the specific contents of a treasure hoard which, for whatever reason, he doesn't care to elucidate.

The latter highlighted section in the ogre example again brings up the issue of transportation, but also the challenge of recognizing all of the items of value. Saying simply that the ogres possess 2,000 gold pieces is too easy. By instead providing a weird insurance guy's actuarial accounting of every item of value in the ogres' lair, the players are challenged with spending time actually sorting through all of this junk to find the good stuff - and if they want to reap the full benefits of their 2,000 gold piece reward, they will need to figure out how to take all of that (junk included) with them.

There is time pressure as well. The treasure won't wait for the player characters to return for the rest of it. Gygax ominously portends the challenge ahead with a deftly-employed Boomer ellipsis: "It did not end with a mere slaying of ogres..."

Yet the ogre example is a bit of weak one. I don't really see a party of player characters having much trouble hauling all of this out in one go. The challenge is better illustrated in the next example:

Here we even get a supercharged Boomer ellipsis with a space between each period ("What a problem . . ."). I'm delighted that even the "so useful" and "so devoted" henchmen get a special shoutout here. They may expect a fair share of the treasure, but even they're not stupid enough to stay behind and guard it. There are more monsters coming!

All of this challenge ("of course") is in the name of preventing too much treasure from falling into the player characters' hands (a possibility with which Gygax is particularly preoccupied, and which he goes to great lengths to prevent with his advice throughout the DMG). 

This isn't Gygax making things onerous for its own sake. Treasure is how characters advance in AD&D. The more treasure they accumulate, the more powerful they become, and the more powerful they become, the less challenging the game is. The accumulation and retention of treasure is a specific challenge necessary to maintain the overall challenge of the game. 

This lack of funds is what motivates the players to adventure, as Gygax describes multiple times throughout the DMG:

(STARTING LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE FOR PLAYER CHARACTERS, page 12)

(ACQUISITION OF MAGIC-USER SPELLS, page 39)

At the conclusion of PLACEMENT OF MONETARY TREASURE, Gygax suggests additional ways to counterbalance the accumulation of wealth, and again draws the connection between the challenge of treasure retention, the overall challenge of the campaign, and the call to adventure:

There are no free lunches in AD&D. Like everything else in the game, treasure is a challenge to be overcome, even after it's been "earned".

Gangs of Teenage Dragons Roam the Wilderness: The Implied Lifecycle of Dragons in AD&D

Let's pretend it's still 2024. It may now be the Year of the Snake, but in my heart it's still the Year of the Dragon!

Here's something from OD&D:

And here's a similar excerpt from AD&D:

In OD&D, groups of multiple dragons encountered in the wilderness are always a family group (a mated pair with or without very young dragon children). In AD&D, mated pairs with young are encountered only in their lairs (mated pairs without young can still be encountered outside their lairs). If three or more dragons are encountered outside their lair, all dragons in the group will be sub-adults.

What's mildly interesting about this is that a mated pair of dragons can only ever have two young at most (all dragons in AD&D appear in groups of 1 to 4 except the gold dragons, which appear in groups of 1 to 3). Thus, it's impossible for a group of 3 to 4 sub-adult dragons to all be of the same clutch. They will all be the same type of dragon, but at most only two of them can be siblings.

Furthermore, dragon children encountered with a mated pair are only ever very young dragons. For clarity, here is the breakdown of dragon age categories in AD&D:

So let's say you roll up a random encounter with a dragon/dragons. If you roll up one dragon, it can be of any age category (you roll d8 to determine which, as described above). If you roll up two dragons, they will be a mated pair, and each can be either an adult dragon, old dragon, very old dragon, or ancient dragon. If you roll up three or more dragons in their lair, they will be a mated pair with one or two eggs or very young dragons. If you roll up three or more dragons outside their lair, they will all be sub-adults.

This suggests something of a lifecycle for dragons, which I'll detail below.

Very young dragons can be encountered alone in the wilderness or in the lair with their parents. They typically live with their parents. If you encounter one on its own in the wilderness, it has either snuck out of the lair (and perhaps its parents are looking for it!), or it's an orphan - its parents were killed and it was driven from its home. Sad! 

Young dragons are only encountered alone. They are kicked out of the lair at 6 years of age to make it on their own. Sad! Dragons are not particularly great parents. Since you can't encounter more than one of them at this age, siblings do not stick together (this is presumably when rivalries between sibling dragons develop - maybe this is why they're kicked out, or maybe this is simply when dragons begin to experience angst and wish to go it on their own).

Sub-adult dragons are only encountered alone or, in the wilderness, with groups of two to three peers. At this age (late teens to early 20s), lonely dragons of different parentage come together to form roving wilderness gangs. Since solo sub-adults can be encountered in their lair, presumably those encountered alone either have a lair somewhere (and thus no need to be part of a gang), or are just on the cusp of sub-adulthood and have not yet found a gang to join. Because all such dragons will be of the same type, these dragons must be drawn together by a shared identity but not necessarily a maternal bond (since siblings part ways at the young stage).

Young adult dragons are only encountered alone. Perhaps this is when dragons tire of the company of their peers or begin to form rivalries with them, as they did with their siblings. Those who don't already have a lair will now seek to claim one.

Adult, old, very old, and ancient dragons can be encountered alone or together, without young in the wilderness and with or without young in their lairs. This is the age at which dragons look to "settle down", find a mate, and start laying eggs. They only do so with dragons of the same type, so ignore that part in my last post where I suggested that the black and green dragon encountering one another might be engaged in a mating ritual. Or don't! Perhaps two dragons of different types will get busy with one another but wouldn't stoop so low as to have children together (or are incapable of doing so for biological reasons). It can be whatever flavor of weird you want.

Anyway, this seems like it could be a cool way to flavor your encounters with dragons. Is the very young dragon sneaking out to explore? Are its parents looking for it? Are they dead? Is the young dragon angsty and bitter? Is the sub-adult a weird loner, a confident bachelor, or a stooge in some other dragon's gang? Does the young adult dragon have a friend-turned-rival? Is the adult, old, very old, or ancient dragon looking for love or happily in a relationship?

I just like the idea of a gang of teenaged dragons swooping down out of the sky. Maybe you do too!

Your High-Level NPCs Should Ride Dragons

This is not a Dragonlance post!

I imagine that the most common reaction when encountering a dragon in D&D is to kill it. After all, we're playing as heroes! (Evil) Dragons are greedy tyrants who lord over the weaker beings of their domain. They are a monstrous force of nature which is best expunged from the earth! We might also be motivated to lay claim to their substantial hoard of treasure, sure, but either way that dragon is definitely going to be dead. It's not like we're going to enslave it and sell it to the highest bidder, right?

...Right?

From the AD&D Monster Manual:

What's that? No, it's fine. I just wasn't expecting it to be assumed that larger towns and cities "usually" have a market for dragons, like people there are commonly anticipating adventurers rolling into town with a battered dragon on a leash for sale.

The rules for subduing a dragon are as follows:

(Interestingly, silver and gold dragons can't be subdued. Neither can Bahamut or Tiamat, obviously. That means the most valuable dragon you can subdue is an ancient red dragon, which will earn you 8,800 to 70,400 gold pieces! It's worth noting that OD&D also has rules for subduing dragons, but only in AD&D is the implication that this is common practice.)

At the end of each round, the DM rolls percentile dice against the percentage of its total hit points a dragon has taken in damage in the combat to that point. On a success, the dragon is subdued. Note that there are no penalties to attack or damage rolls for attempting to subdue the dragon versus attacking to kill it. Since killing the dragon necessitates reducing it to zero hit points, whereas subduing it has the potential to defeat it much sooner, it's actually easier to subdue the dragon than to kill it. And you get to keep it or sell it! Subduing dragons is the optimal strategy!

Well sort of. Read on:

Subdued dragons must be well treated and given ample treasure and freedom. What is "ample freedom" to a subdued dragon that is simultaneously "strongly held"? I'm not sure. Can you give a subdued dragon treasure from its own plundered hoard? Or is that insulting? Older and more powerful dragons are "less likely" to remain subdued, and intelligent, spellcasting dragons are "not likely" to remain subdued (each dragon type has a percentage chance of "speaking" - which I interpret as being "intelligent" - and using magic). Evil dragons dislike Good masters and Good dragons dislike non-Good masters.

Aside from Good dragons being 50% more likely to kill/escape from a non-Good captor, not much concrete guidance is given. What's the baseline chance for a subdued dragon to attempt to escape? Nonetheless, the implication is clear - if you want to capture and sell a dragon into slavery, its better to get a young dumb one. If you're Evil or want to sell a dragon to an Evil patron, make sure you bag an Evil dragon. If you're "Good" or want to sell the dragon to a "Good" patron, get a Good dragon. Good people batter and enslave intelligent beings, right?

Fools! A dragon that size would have made a perfect slave!

The point being, if you're going to fight a dragon anyway, subduing it is relatively easier than killing it. Actually keeping it subdued long enough to bring it to town (where there is apparently a ready and waiting market eager to bid on it) is likely an adventure of its own. Suddenly the ancient red dragon seems like more trouble than it's worth. You might wish you killed it.

Fortunately for you, dragons are apparently known for their cowardice:

I'll be honest, when I think "dragon", "cowardice" is not the first word that comes to mind! Are dragons the most cowardly of all monsters? If the ability to be subdued is the definition of cowardice, that may very well be the case! The only other monster in the Monster Manual which is explicitly capable of being "subdued" is the giant beaver kit (a baby giant beaver) - when subdued, they are, of course, also sold into slavery. Are dragons as cowardly as baby giant beavers? Perhaps! The word "cowardice" appears just once in the AD&D Monster Manual, in the entry on dragons.

This is a bit disingenuous, as other monsters can be captured and sold, such as blink dog pups and griffon and hippogriff fledglings - but those are all babies! Dragons are, as far as I can tell, the only monsters which, as adults, are explicitly capable of being subdued and sold in this manner.

The DMG does have a general rue for striking to subdue:

This suggests that other monsters can be subdued as well, but even this section says, "Go see Dragons. They're so well known for their cowardice that there are special rules for beating them up and selling them, and every big town and city basically expects you to show up with one at some point!"

All this is to say, give your high-level NPCs dragons! The text clearly indicates that not only is the subdual of dragons possible, but it's common enough that larger towns and cities usually have a market for them. The implication is that people in big towns and cities own dragons!

I know some games operate under the assumption that the player characters are the most important people in the world and there are no NPC character-types more powerful than them, meaning dragons are only subdued and brought to town when the PCs do so, but this is boring! And also not what's implied by AD&D's setting wherein high-level character-type NPCs can be found delving dungeons and ruling castles scattered throughout the wilderness!

Maybe once in a campaign, the players might encounter a dragon and think to subdue it. They might keep it for themselves or sell it. That's all well and good, but there are other character-type NPCs out there in the world doing the same thing. The player characters have not cornered the market on dragon slavery!

In a previous post, I did some rough calculations and estimated that there is probably one dragon per 600 hexes, which is one per every six cities (of which there is generally 1 per every 100 hexes). Therefore, you might reason that one high-level NPC per six cities is likely to have a pet dragon (the dragon is likely to match the NPC's alignment and is unlikely to be intelligent or cast spells). However, that only reflects the likely distribution of dragon lairs in the wilderness when play begins. And it seems a bit sparse for a game called Dungeons & Dragons, no?

Well, what if the wilderness population of dragons is low at the start of play because throughout the history of the region, the wild dragons of the world have been captured by adventurers and made to serve high-level masters? Suddenly, the possible number of dragons in your world can be much greater! How many should there be, then? I don't know. There are no roads here.

Next time you roll a random encounter with a dragon when the party is exploring the wilderness, maybe put a high-level NPC rider on its back. In fact, if you've already stocked your region with monster lairs and no dragon lair is present, I would venture to guess that every random encounter with a dragon is in actuality an encounter with a dragon and its high-level master and rider. Or maybe there's a 50% chance that it's a dragon which has just made its way into the region and is looking to establish a lair. That's cool too.

Maybe every once in a while a dragon rider takes flight over the city, causing the player characters, their hirelings and henchmen, and the common folk to go running for cover:

These dragon riders are for certain a menace to society! Won't somebody stop them?

Just remember that the older these dragons get, the better they need to be treated, or else they're likely to escape back into the wild and, presumably, take vengeance upon their captor. Maybe that's why the castle is totally deserted.

Maybe it is a Dragonlance post!