On #dungeon23 and losing myself in old school dungeon stocking tables

As I have been working on this megadungeon I have been increasingly interested in the old school ways of dungeon generation.  I'm building a location not an "adventuring day". A heavy amount of research has led me to trying to make this first (sub)level 18 rooms large:

Progress on level one of my megadungeon

There's differences between systems and authors but an easy generalisation, looking particularly at OD&D and B/X, seems to be that probabilities are something like this: (please do correct or enlighten me in the comments!)

• 2/6 chance of there being an encounter room (note that in those days, as in my mind, this could mean combat or social encounters) and 3/6 chance there is treasure
• 1/6 chance of tricks and traps in this room and 2/6 chance there is treasure
• 1/6 chance of this being a "special room"
• 2/6 chance of this being an empty room and 1/6 chance there is treasure

This is obviously easily applied to 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30 (and so on) room dungeons, and there were enough people proposing that 18 was a reasonable size for a dungeon level (or here, sub level) that I thought I could aim to fit 18 on the page and see how it went!

How it went was ... OK.  Not as well as I had hoped because I think I have been too focused on making things fit in the context of the map (i.e. "finishing") than getting ideas down on paper (which is more akin to the "beginning" I was aiming to focus on last time!)

However; back to the drawing board and armed with a week-to-page planner/diary I now have a modified plan going forward.  I'm going to stick to the original proposition of just writing rooms but at least I can feel confident that each week long spread of 7 rooms should/could (on average) contain:

• 2 rooms with encounters, that could be played out by combat or roleplay (best: either)
• 2 "special" rooms with puzzles or traps or some sort of set-piece
• 2 empty rooms - although hopefully these will still contain enough dressing to be interesting or relevant
• 1 wildcard (any of the above, it's just guidance after all)

Generally, 1/4 to 1/3 of these rooms should have treasure (so say two, on average) and this treasure is generally most likely to be "guarded" (by an encounter or a trap) than "unguarded" - but searching empty rooms should prove to be rewarding sometimes!

I'm happy with my progress and what I've learnt so far, how's everyone else getting on?

Your characters, your stories, your worlds

This is the round-up for the January 2021 RPG Blog Carnival.

First off, a big thank you to Rising Phoenix Games for such a nice handover from last month's carnival.

Campaign Mastery considers the impact of the current global pandemic on future stories and characters in our games:

"You can’t discuss a character of the 1930s or 40s without considering the impact of the Great Depression. You can’t talk about the 1940s (even if someone was a child at the time) without considering the impact of World War 2 on their lives..."

The Other Side shares the process of building a Basic D&D witch, inspired by Moldvay, as part of the #charactercreationchallenge:

"The witch class I am pairing with this is the one from Dragon Magazine #43 and using the guidelines set out by Tom Moldvay on what a witch should be..."

The Sea of Stars looks at the stories and characters in a novella through the lens of roleplaying game adventures.

"I think this is a good model for single character campaigns, the primary character has to be competent because there is just them at the core of it, I think this should be leaned into..."

Take On Rules takes us through an adventure design process somewhat similar to mine, although I am intrigued by the use of index cards and may well try it out sometime - if I can reduce things down from a page of A4!

"The end result of this preparation process wasn’t a fleshed out adventure. Instead, I filled my head and notes with ideas, images, and touchstones to draw upon during play..."

Shuttered Room presents a table of interesting reasons to be stumbling on newly rolled party members, ranging from "Solo Adventurer" etc. to the likes of "You were the doppelganger" and "Lovecraftian Resurrection":

"Either get yourself raised from the dead, or roll 2d6/d66 to see how a new character can be introduced mid-session, seamlessly or with a great thump of deus ex machina..."

Image (cc) toon13

Rising Phoenix promotes a narrative approach to character development, and the idea of levelling up more than just mechanically:

"Leveling up in D&D or Pathfinder type games could, with a few rules tweaks, be more meaningful. We won’t even throw out the core rules, I promise..."

Codex Anathema looks at the complex relationship between character building, world building, and the stories we build from the interaction between the two, in the context of current campaigns:

"When creating a new character, for me it’s essential to talk with my DM about his ideas regarding the campaign storyline ... I can suggest what I’d like to hapen to my character, and he can plan ahead and try his best to incorporate such ideas to his own..."

Roll4 outlines some simple rules for creating memorable NPCs by sketching them with defining features to be fleshed out over time:

"I’ve found if there is too much information, then the character’s don’t have room to grow. Too little, and they’re boring..."

Campaign Mastery returns with a deeper process for developing NPCs - or even characters - with interesting subtleties:

"Baggage. History. Everyone has it. Sometimes, you can use it, as in the above example, to make a dull process seem more real AND more interesting, to make a player feel like their character is really there, even if – as in this case – there is limited interaction required..."

Another second post, from Sea of Stars, continues this theme with questions for developing player characters and their connection to the world:

"Inspired by Judd the Librarian’s questions, I decided to write up a few questions to help people think about their characters..."

Roleplay Geek takes us through node design for a point-crawl adventure in Mega City 1:

"When designing the scenario from scratch you may go through this process multiple times as you focus in on what is important for each session. In fact having a node map at the macro level is useful..."

Full Moon Storytelling shares some tips for character names, and a second mystery post...

"Your naming conventions should embrace the fact that the peoples travel extensively..."

Of Dice And Dragons promotes the argument - that I very much agree with - that characters should be more than just stats, with some helpful links too:

"Building a character should be more than just selecting stats and the best weapon based on those stats. You should be considering the why..."

What a great start to 2021, let's keep the momentum going! February's carnival is hosted by Sea of Stars - where the theme is Gifts of the Gods.

Massive thanks, of course, to Scot Newbury for all the work maintaining the RPG Blog Carnival - and the RPG Blog Alliance network too.

Late to the party: Dissident Whispers

I recently found out about this collection of 58 double-page adventures and promptly ordered myself a copy from Melsonian Arts Council.

It arrived today and I've thumbed through already.  Most of the adventures within look viable, some are entertaining or humourously written, many are beautifully presented.