Downfall of the classic dungeon?

As a kid back in the day, the classic dungeon environment as presented in OD&D (specifically the LBB’s  plus Greyhawk and Blackmoor in my case) was just enticing and drool inducing in it’s morbidity and weirdness to a young boy. All that stuff designated modernly by Philotomy as part and parcel of “The Mythic Underworld” was attractive to somebody who grew up with at least a sprinkling of Tolkien and RE Howard in their lives. Playing characters going down into those bafflingly magical and active deathtrap monster lairs just seemed to hit a fanboy nerve, and especially early on these eerie locations gave a genuine thrill of the possibilities of mystery. Non-TSR takes on dungeons, like those by Judges Guild, added to that simplistic yet inspiring concept. Just the thought of these things existing in the game world seemed so cool.

The mystery unwove fairly quickly as the teen years moved on, and the new real life mysteries of older social interaction, with girls or sports involvement or whatever, became what was exciting. Sure, D&D stayed in my life as I headed into adulthood, but the unreality of classic underworld gameplay gave way to a more romanticized notion of high fantasy. I had no idea newer editions of the game were doing this as well; I attribute it in my case to mid teens when we started having girls in our games, and our female players seemed to only have so much acclimation to weird and brutal underworlds. They weren’t as down with “fantasy underground Vietnam” gameplay as the guys.

NPC interactions and more epic gameplay seemed to be the evolution in all the genres I ran, and I sure went along with that. Characters in my games became more involved with the NPC’s of the big cities, such as royalty and the military and their intrigues, and when they went into a dungeon it was usually the catacombs beneath the city. My love of locations (city or ruin) set in the midst of howling wildernesses, Judges Guild style, was fading. My love of comic books and movies sort of took over, and the interactions of characters and other thinking beings became more dynamic. Slaying slimes and oozes in the lonely and dark corners of the world would become more infrequent.

When I started the current group (almost exactly 4 years ago), my intention was to eventually get them to a classic dungeon I was working on (I had yet to hear the term “megadungeon”), but eventually I aimed the campaign at The Night Below module, which is not exactly classic. Yeah, I forced things in an epic direction.  But with the group, and a couple of times outside it, I did some classic dungeon runs with the LBB’s for some players, and they went really well. Though my regular group seemed to find it quaint and fun, I think they really wanted meatier game play, such as my 1^st edition games, provided.

At this point, though it seems to still have rabid admirers, I have more or less fallen out of love with that weird, gonzo classic dungeon concept. I perk up when I read about somebody liking the modern OSR influenced dungeons such as Anomolous Subsurface Environment or Barrowmaze, but when I actually see snippets of these megadungeons (not necessarily those two mentioned, but in general) I am usually less than impressed. Minimalistic descriptions (6 orcs; 200 GP) for rooms, and dungeon dressing that does not inspire seem to be the order of the day. But hey, that is what a classic dungeon is all about, right?

As anybody reading this probably knows, Grognardia James’ Dwimmermount dungeon, a recent surprise hit on Kickstarter (close to 50 grand in profit), has been getting some gameplay and a few early reviews (the entire dungeon has yet to be finished). A lot of reviews from fairly moderate sources have not been good. A lot of the dislike seems to be in the presentation of those classic old dungeon tropes that James has been so enamored of and blogging about for years. Empty, dusty rooms with no real function having to be explored and searched. Minimalist room occupant description such as the orcs n’ gold combo mentioned above. Dungeon dressing with no interaction or function. Not exactly inspiring.

See, none of that gives me those kiddy thrills anymore, and apparently others who actually paid for that dungeon agree. I read Grognardia for a couple of years faithfully, and the recounting of Dwimmermount game sessions was probably part of why I was no longer reading every day. No knock at James; I only started this blog, my first and only, when I heard him on some podcast I listened to through dumb luck, and checked out his blog and saw old modules I loved being talked about. But man, the later old school gameplay presented in session reports did not exactly draw me in like I guess it has some others. The Gygaxian mandates and strict adherence to them became a turn off. I actually had a chance to briefly explore the early Dwimmermount in the ill fated thread sessions James started on OD&D Discussion, but that didn’t get far. James dropped that like a hot potato around week two, with no explanation or apology. But hey, those forum play by post sessions tend to be kind of a clusterfuck anyway. Maybe that’s why James jumped out the bathroom window and never looked back.

So am I the only one who has tired (again) of this classic D&D dungeon play? Is the whole mythic maze-underworld something that has popped up as some sort of delayed nostalgia? On forums such as Dragonsfoot, the humanoids are still constantly bleeping and durping about this or that aspect of classic dungeons with childlike glee. Minimalist description dungeon locations the size of Disneyland still seems to be the wheelhouse of the so called “OSR.”

But I got bored of it twice in my life. I doubt there is going to be a third. When I get back on 1^st Ed AD&D (been focusing on other genres for years now), probably next year, it’ll be back to epic adventure and high fantasy, not counting up copper pieces found in rat nests and searching every square foot of the walls in empty rooms.

How to make your session report more interesting

Simple. Talk about how you really feel. Game session descriptions, even those about Dwimmermount, are far more interesting when the blogger includes their mental and emotional states than just the mechanics of what happened in a game. Sure, James M. or Zak at D&D with Porn Stars are going to get people reading their session logs whether they are truly spectacular or not (not a knock, but few of them are ever more extraordinary than anyone else’s), but if you know they are tired or have a splitting headache it gives the proceedings some flesh and blood substance, and therefore I relate to them more.

Your group power gamer is in true “gimmie gimmie gimmie” form tonight. Another player is telling jokes you think are kind of inappropriate. Somebody ate the last piece of pizza you should have gotten. You’re tired because you are hung over or your kid cried all night. You’re hosts wife/girlfriend has decided to clean the kitchen oven with powerful chemicals 10 feet away from you. You are badly constipated and are afraid it’s going hit Normandy during the frantic last moments of a big combat game. This is the type of stuff that makes it all the more real. OK, maybe I’m too brainwashed by the serio-comic semi-real life antics on reality television shows, but to me the emotion and passion (or lack thereof) are just as important as the rules and situation on the game table. And how you feel, good or bad, has an influence on all that.

OK, you don’t have to go overboard with your passions like I have in the past, but blogging about your life should include a large part of how you feel. You’re not a robot, Mr. DM. Tell us how you really feel. Every time.

Crappy Stats

When it comes to random rolls for stats, it doesn’t matter how generous you are as a DM, somebody may always end up with an 8 or lower in something. Two such stats and you got a real stinker on your hands.

Grognardia James is doing a play-by-post Dwimmermount campaign through the OD&D discussion boards, and of course he is using the oldest, most basic of D&D. That means, among other things, rolling 3d6 for each stat. No substitutions or eliminations. For any of us who were kids getting into D&D in the 70’s, we know that pain. You really had to make your rolls before envisioning what kind of class you would want. Who wants a fighter with a 7 Str or a wizard with a 9 Int? A lot of stumblebums and numbnuts are being created there. My own guy came up with an 8 Wis and 6 Con! Yeesh. Don’t wanna complain too hard, because one dude got a couple of 5’s. Ow. I was one of the lucky ones to get a decent number in one stat; a 15 in my Intelligence. So of course I came up with an MU (see below to get a gander at my stats, and the history I came up with to explain his shortcomings).

I’m not much of an old school “adventurers are just average/below average tomb robbers” kind of guy. Growing up on comics and heroic literature, I preferred haughty champions for myself and my players from an early age. I think we threw out the 3D6-can’t choose the stat type roll-up pretty quick. I went for the best 3 of 4, put on the stat you want methods. I usually allowed an elimination roll of anything under 9. For a long time I allowed a stat or two to be moved around to be able to allow a ranger or paladin or whatever for somebody, and that was cool. I mean, my games are important enough to me that I wanted my players to have the type of character they were envisioning before the rolls were made. This didn’t create supermen, and 18’s were still pretty rare. It just allowed a half-way heroic group of characters, the type who went adventuring, and had a chance to survive it.

Oh, and the other couple of generous things I do is allow max hit points at first level, and also to not let characters die (for the most part) in their first game. I don’t really know how much of an affect this has had on the mortality rate, but it’s probably telling that characters rarely die in my games unless they do something very stupid or very suicidal. I think more characters have died because of other characters and not because of my challenges.

Back to James’ game, it’s pretty funny that all these stat-deficient characters are getting into a life of adventure. Maybe it really is a mental thing in that world. All these buff, healthy farmer lads tilling the fields and enjoying a peaceful life, and these weak, sub-par types marching by on their way to Dwimmermount, a place more than likely to kill you pretty quick. I mean, what did you expect? You’ve only got two hit points! It’s like the Special Olympics – to the death!

FYI – this is the first player character I have created to play in almost 20 years. I mostly GM.

Thurston “Thirsty” BrewerHuman

MU1 H.P.2 AC10STR 11INT 15WIS 8CON 6DEX 12 CHA 12Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarf, GnomeSpells: Read Magic, Shield, Sleep (probably)

Thurston, or “Thirsty” to his friends is a 25 year old human and looks like Steve Buscemi. Thirsty grew up in Adamas, where his father and mother own a middle-class tavern called “The Drunken Dragon.” Thirsty grew up there and knows his way around tavern work (including stable). He also knows his way around booze. Like most of the men in his family he is a “working drunk,” but in Thurston’s case he had way too much access to hedonistic materials at too young an age. Although he will imbibe almost anything through mouth, lung, or ear, alcohol is his fave as it is the easiest to get, and quickly satisfies his raging oral fixation.

With a liver and his wits quickly getting shot at a young age, Thurston will be lucky to make it into his mid-30’s unless he changes his happily hedonistic lifestyle. As he is not the first in line to inherit the tavern (has older brother who actually works hard), Thurston decided he wanted to learn the magic arts and enrolled in Wizard School a couple of years ago. Needless to say, he was the party animal on campus. One night recently, sauced with friends at the tavern, Thirsty heard some adventurers talking about an exploration of the famous Dwimmermount area he had heard about for years, and inquired about lending his spells to the expedition.

Thirsty stands out due to the 4 wineskins he tends to have hanging off him under his light cloak. But he doesn’t get smashed “on the job.” In dungeon he just sips whiskey during the day to keep the shakes away. The wine is for sharing to celebrate milestones (clearing that room of giant spiders, finding a new level to explore, etc.). It is all good booze so he double-costed it. Back safely in town or village, all bets are off as far as being professional, and Thurston’s party cry can be heard echoing out of the inn or tavern “It’s slobberin’ time!”

Time Passages

Over at Grognardia this week, James M. blogged about keeping track of time in his classic D&D games for Dwimmermount. As James is trying to evoke the earliest form of play, he goes with all the big tropes, from 10 foot poles to hirelings and henchmen. The very much wargame inspired methods of time tracking in OD&D include specific periods of time that it takes to explore a hex in the wilderness, or explore a dungeon level.

I scratch my head when I think about why anyone would need anything but their own perceptions. OK, maybe I am in tune with my long-time gameworld more than many others, but I think anyone can figure out that “OK, it has been a couple of hours so it’s midnight now”. You know, if a thief picks a lock then it probably took just a minute. If he fails and needs a second roll, then have an hour go by. I think that everyone should be able to judge the time passages no sweat, and the only major consideration is how long the players want to set up camp for the night.

Dungeon exploring may be more difficult than land travel. I mean, everyone pretty much knows a man can walk 20-30 miles in a day, and a horse at a steady pace might take you 50-60. But those original editions, again, go the wargame inspired route of things taking specific periods of time. The book might tell you that it takes a half hour to search a 10’ section of wall for a secret door, or that searching a large chamber takes so many hours. But why the need for such precision? I know we ultimately have to know a day goes by so Joe Fighter can get a hit point back (give me a break, most PC’s have fairly cheap access to clerics and potions, so what fighter lays around for two weeks trying to heal those 14 points?). Yawn. Let’s face it, precision is not always fun (why I was not a big wargame fan).

Take it from me, 120 years of player continuity has gone by in my game world. Tracking time is no big deal. Have a calendar, have a few holidays, and you are set. Do it all in your head. Make a slightly imprecise decision. You’ll have more time for the stuff that is really fun!

Let me admit now that I do take time seriously in the game. Having a little bit of perception of it goes a long way in bringing color to your world. You don’t need a chart or a table, you can figure out the basics of “little time,” the day to day activities of the players in your head. If a player complains because it suddenly matters, then retcon things slightly to make up for it. No biggie.

Much to the chagrin of some of my players over the years, I love to have time go by. It seems more real, and it adds a lot of gravitas to your world. In between campaigns, I like characters to be doing something else for a few months here and there. Settle down a bit, open a business. No end game there though, when the call of adventure goes down, they get sucked back in.

I’m notorious for having years go by in my games when a group ends. Whether some of the same people or almost all new, I’ve had maybe 6 or 7 major gaming groups since around 1990. If it has been a year or so since I ran a campaign, I like to have anywhere from 1-3 years go by in the game world. Gives me a sense of cosmic motion. In this new campaign of mine, started several years since my last active gaming period, I went ahead and had five solid years go by. Yep, my game world is getting old (hence, 120 years of character continuity). It just feels like the world has more weight if I do it this way. Hopefully this new group will last a year or two though. I’m not in a hurry to have another fiver go by.

“15 minute adventuring day”

Grognardia James blogged this week about the “15 minute adventuring day.” In a nutshell, it’s a term that refers to a party of dungeon delvers who leave the confines of the labyrinth very regularly (every day it seems in Dwimmermount) to purchase supplies, heal, and regain used spells.

James is running an old school style game, with a megadungeon as the focus, and a town and city somewhat close by for said supply runs. Dungeon, supply shop, temple, and tavern. There you have it. You don’t need much more than that for the characters world in this type of O.G. game. Not a knock at Grognardia, of course (my occasional attempts at humorous pokes at James usually fall flat). James is an important blogger of the old school, and he should be involved in running something similar to the ideas he writes about.

Personally, I abandoned frequent dungeon crawls in my decades-old game world sometime in the 80’s. Growing up on comics probably had a lot to do with my coming up with lots of outdoor and city situations. A fight in a crowded city street, or back alley of temple row, or even a rooftop just seems so much more fun and cool than a claw-sword-shield slugfest in a corridor underground.

I started my current campaign planning for the party to travel with a merchant caravan for awhile, until they reached a certain dungeon. I do want that old school dungeon experience again. But the players have found so much to do on the trip, and I had so many ideas for outdoor encounters and events, it has been around 16 games and they are still a couple of sesson away from the dungeon. I originally planned to have them at the dungeon doors in 3 or 4 games.

Micromanaging supplies has not really come up. The party is travelling with a merchant caravan through mostly populated areas. I just tell the players to throw some coin at meals and drinks here and there. The closest we have come to equipment management was a player asking me at the last game if he should be keeping track of arrows or not. I just told him he had about half a dozen left, and to buy a new quiver at the next town. There’s yer supply management right there. It’s also good to remind players that it is no fun getting money if you don’t track it and spend it. Small potatoes should be in the players hand. I’ll do some of the financial analysis when they want to buy a ship or a house or something.

Now the issue of regaining spells has come up in the last few games. A player important to the main quest has been missing for three games, so I just did a bunch of little outdoor/abandoned mine combat and exploration encounters to eat up those games until she came back. By the end of the second game, the spellcaster had used up all her good spells. The player complained a lot about needing to rest and regain, but the party was in a mine under an unstable hill (with an earth elemental going berserk in a cavern there) and had to keep moving. It was nice to have a game where the spellcaster (also a fighter) could do something besides cast the same three spells as she does every fight.

Getting low on spells and resources should not be a bad thing. Parties running off every few hours of game time and travelling two or three days to get a bed to heal and pray in is just tedious and monotonous to me. I don’t want that for my precious game time.

If it is a “mega-dungeon,” why not have some resources in there? Empty rooms to rest in, a nearby water source (the most important of resources, but probably the least kept track of or worried about), and maybe a non-hostile mini-temple with a cleric for healing (for a modest fee, of course). Anything but this constant cycle of dungeon – town – dungeon – repeat. To me that just seems to either have a weird flow, or no flow at all.

In a campaign I ran years ago, I had the party shipwrecked on the Isle of Dread. Talk about supply management challenges! Sure, there were natives to trade with, but the guys with non-magical armor and weapons had to face the fact that arms maintenance was a no-go. A couple of fights with some unfriendly cat-people and the odd T. Rex, and the paladin had his plate mail hanging in parts. Chainmail and leather quickly got tore up, and in a matter of weeks characters were starting to look like they had “gone native.” I loved that so much I want to do it again.

I don’t want to say how somebody should run their game, but I just don’t think any game should rely too much on players constantly having to retreat to a safe zone. Some great games have players at the end of their resources, and at their wits end. That is one way dramatic, memorable adventures can be mademade.