AD&D Play Report Part II

The Worst Day of Primus's Life (So Far)

Dramatis Personae:

Frank, a human ranger
Mog, a dwarf cleric

Garen, a human paladin

Primus, a human magic user

From the quill of Primus, first Mage of the West Bend order:

Rest. Thank the gods for rest. We took a few days to rest after our last foray into the ruins near the keep, but quickly restocked and ventured forth again, brave and ready to learn the secrets of the ruins. Our first order of business was to take another look at the strange fountain which, unfortunately, turned out to be almost nothing special. I filled a flask with the water, however, and stowed it away for research later.

We explored slowly and cautiously, mapping as precisely as possible. Mog, our dwarven cleric friend, helped immensely with explanations of stonework and probably tunnel configurations as I drew the map in one of my notebooks. The day was, to be honest, not very exciting. We ran into a few more of the walking dead and were able to dispatch them from a distance. Later on we found some secret rooms and a few goblins camping out near them. One room held desiccated goblin corpses wrapped in spider webs. Another room was made of immaculate granite slabs with the names of those who died in the ruins etched into them.

We continued to explore, but soon decided to return to the keep and seek help for Garen—he sustained a nasty cut from one of the zombies, and the wound seemed infected. Before leaving, we managed to find a few coins on the goblins, a broken wand or rod, a wooden scroll case and a small bottle of red liquid. In town, Garen was able to find healing at the temple, and I found the bottle to contain perfume. Unfortunately, the scroll case contained absolutely nothing but air.

After resting and recuperating we returned to the ruins, determined to find anything of value—whether it be information, treasure, or ancient evil. Alas, the next few hours are but a blur in my memory. We all recognized that our pace before had been too slow, we had been overly cautious and lost valuable time and wasted valuable resources. This time we moved quicker, and soon found ourselves in a large chamber, facing a pack of giant rats, defending their nest. We set a line of defense before the ass, and began to fire missiles (bows, bullets, and rocks) at them. As the rats closed, the linkboy, Tim, and I moved behind the ass. My comrades made quick work of several of the rats, but before long, I found us beset by another pack of them from behind.

The details of this encounter slip from my mind, but I recall Tim falling as rats bit and scratched at him—alas, he was brave for a lad, but not stout enough to defend himself. Before long I myself was covered in rats, and Garen came to aid me as swiftly as he could, shoving rats off of me and standing in their path before me. I fell unconscious from the wounds the rats inflicted, but remember coming around enough to realize that my friends had healed my wounds, and were readying to carry me out to the keep.

Before leaving, Garen found a tattered old blue robe in the rats’ nest. I thought nothing of it until, a few days later; after I recovered from my wounds, he informed us that he had found a large emerald in the hem of the robe. Its value was some 1,000 gold pieces.

Though it is not much, we have at last found something of value in that cursed dark place. Perhaps now we can hire some more stout men to help us find our way deeper into the ruins to learn what the past has left hidden there. Perhaps now we have all learned how best to avoid danger, and to move quickly in the dungeon.

WIL: The Learning Curve

What I Learned... today, in our AD&D game, I learned that the learning curve is steeper some days than others. Today we all learned that it's possible to be over-cautious, that the risk is worth taking (we hope,) and that sometimes it's tough to get into gear.

The Situation:
- We made our second (and third) foray into the ruins near the keep
- Set a standard operation for checking doors, for crawling down the corridors, etc
- Chose a direction to go, and headed out

The Problems:
- We took way too much time at doors
- We took too much time discussing which direction to go
- We took too much time debating spiking doors open
- We took too much time debating strategy for fights (between rounds)
- We took too much time for other stuff

Since all of us are new to AD&D, after the game the DM shared some advice. He informed us that this level of the dungeon is only 3-4 sheets of paper mapped out--we have just barely mapped over one page of that in two sessions, a total of about 8 hours of play.
Our total treasure hall? A dozen silver spoons, less than 1gp in miscellaneous coins, and (finally) an emerald worth ~1,000gp.

Yeah, we are hardcore... hardcore broke.

So, what's the solution? We have to move quicker. Personally, I think we're moving too slowly (as is evidenced by "The Problems" above, hah!)

Perhaps we're all struck with fear of the "old school challenge level" and the constant risk of death. I don't know. Personally, I almost died at the end of the day. As a player, though, I don't care if my characters die. I've taken comfort in the fact that I'll be able to play another character, so the fun will continue no matter what. Yes, I am attached to the class I'm playing, but hey, death comes to us all.

Now, as I reflect, I truly believe that we will make much faster progress, as we are all starting to truly understand how things work.
We've decided to make much more of an effort to avoid melee combat, and to twist the environment to our advantage against our foes. It's been tough for us coming from modern game backgrounds to see that we have SO MANY OPTIONS. Time to shift gears.

In the end, we all had fun. A lot. The beauty of gaming is in the fact that, no matter what, if you're with good people, learning to play better, you're probably going to have fun.

All the World's a... Dungeon?

Disclaimer: This may be (and probably is) old news to many. Humour me and read it anyway?

I have been pondering the nature of dungeons recently. I love them. They can be an absolute blast to play in and to run, and the presence of their name in the name Dungeons & Dragons is no paltry attribution to alliteration.
Lately I have been thinking there are several elements that make a dungeon (especially the more old school type, less the modern "naturalistic" and "real" (hah) style of dungeons) so enjoyable, mysterious, and such great locations for adventure.
I think most people agree that "dungeon" in game terms can be a dungeon, a mine, ruins, a castle, etc. What I'd like to do is expand that working definition to include the entire world.

To quote Inigo Montoya, "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up..."
Dungeon Key Elements:

• Sense of dread/fear/wonder
• The dungeon is out to get you
• Traps, doors not opening automatically, wandering monsters
• Exploration and mapping
• Hidden rewards / treasure
• Big bad pulling the strings

I do not see how any of those elements are NOT present in the above-ground. Obviously, there's a tradition within D&D and other RPGs of hexcrawl-adventure and such, which is much the same, but who's to say an urban adventure is not a dungeon crawl? The timing may be a bit different--it has a different beat or rhythm--but streets are corridors, buildings are rooms, and there are still treasures to be found and big bads to topple. (In fact, a city might be considered the equivalent of a megadungeon, as buildings, castles, sewers, dungeons can all be part of the city.)

Again, this is probably old news to you, but it was a sort of eureka moment for me recently and has made laying out adventures for my upcoming game way easier.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled internet.