More on Traps

I'll be going back to add these videos to my Traps Collection post, but I do want to highlight what both discuss.

Overall, the fun in traps is not the math of reducing hit points, but how the PCs/players engage with the trap itself, be that disarming, repurposing, or something else entirely.

In addition, don't just use traps as hit point taxes.  Bandit's Keep discusses other non-hit point results of a damaging trap before launching into a discussion of riddles.  

In addition to Bandit's Keep, Questing Beast tells us flat out to stop hiding traps.  He breaks it down using 5e rules, but its applicable across rulesets. Then he, too, talks about traps that aren't just hit point taxes.

Both videos are worth watching, especially if you are planning a trap-filled dungeon area or participating in the #Dungeon23 event and looking for something more substantial than 'pit trap, 1d6 damage.'

My big takeaway is from Questing Beast, when he plugs Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland and their shared principle of 'the more dangerous something is, the more obvious it should be.'  Which reminds me that maybe 2023 is the year I buy the hardbacks of both those titles.

Of course, creating tells for traps can be difficult, so here are some from d4 Caltrops - A Hundred Clues and Tells for the Tersely Detailed Trap. 

Background for my #Dungeon23 Megadungeon

Historians and bards speak of the great empire of Uraiawakiraia, a true meritocracy, and the wonders its inevitable collapse left behind.  Wonders that are envied and coveted to this day.  

A curious fact about this meritocracy is how the ruling class - the most meritorious of them all - demonstrated and tested their merit through constructing clever gauntlets and proving grounds, filling them with the finest traps, treasures, and creatures that money could buy and magic conceive, then challenging one another (but mostly aspiring sorts) to survive them.

These gauntlets and proving grounds typically ran no more than two or three levels deep, and many still exist on ancient baronial lands, mostly repurposed now that their creators are long gone - a few have become (or were purpose-built) tombs for their creators.  

The greatest of these gauntlets is Askorun - the Challenge.   Constructed during the reign of His Eminence Jumbe, Seventeenth Emperor of Uraiawakiraia.  At his command Mount Gora was hollowed out and rebuilt; potent artifacts of great beauty, wealth, and magical power were crafted; terrible monsters were captured and bred and created to lair within; entire tribes of humanoids were enslaved and forced to populate the dark halls; and the greatest artificers, trapmakers, poisoners, wordsmiths, artisans, dreamweavers,  ghostcallers, demonbinders, spellshapers, beastwranglers, fleshcrafters, and more contributed to the stocking of Askorun, technically by Imperial decree, but also through pride of purpose, because only the best would be appropriate for the Imperial Gauntlet.

Taking over 50 years to construct, Askorun was and still is the pinnacle of the gauntlet-builders' craft.  The parade of the final stocking is said to have stretched over 10 miles, beginning at the docks of the capital city, then winding through the streets past the palace and into the foothills where the massive doors stood open and waiting.  

Songs and tales claim it took more than a year to actually place the final guardians and treasures.  One thing the tales agree on is that final entry to Askorun was His Eminence Jumbe, himself, carrying the Crown and the Ring, proclaiming that whosoever should recover both items would inherit the Simhisana Throne and the Empire of Uraiawakiraia.  The doors sealed themselves behind Jumbe and refused to open, despite the determined efforts of citizens of the Empire and freebooters alike.

But that was centuries ago.

Today, the port city of Skara Brae is built on the bones of the Imperial Capital, and the sewers and hidden passages beneath the city are the streets and buried buildings of the Capital and other cities that rose and fell in this location over the centuries.

Askorun still remains, unconquered, and the Imperial Throne unclaimed, and perhaps lost. The ancient magics of the Empire linger still, sealing the great doors for 49 out of every 50 years, then remaining open for precisely a year before closing for another generation.  

This year is a year of opening.  A temporary city made of tents, wagons, and a few more permanent structures has sprung up around the entrance.  A carnival-like atmosphere permeates this place, and almost everything a delver could want or need can be found here - for a price. What cannot be found here can be found in Skara Brae proper.

Will your adventurers find glory and treasure, or only blood and death?

Erol Otus, Dungeon Stairs

-----

Over the course of a year, inhabitants of the tent city change, and this post from Iron & Ink is a grand way to go about showing this. In addition to lantern-bearers, there are all sorts of would-be camp followers to be hired from among the riff-raff living among and within the tents.  Like these followers, from Coins and Scrolls, or mercenaries from Meatshields.

That said, you might also encounter less savory sorts, such as these from Elfmaids & Octopi.  In truth, lots of ideas can be mined from the Murderhobo posts at Elfmaids & Octopi, as well as his free pdf from here (Murder Hobo Manual, but they're all inspirational, with Shadel Port, Goblin Mine Zone, and Long Stairs Compilation are worth a quick skim for most #Dungeon23 participants, because you can find inspiration anywhere).

-----

With an intro like this, I am either setting myself up for success or failure.  Only time will tell.  As might be noticed, I am terrible with names, so had some fun with Google Translate.

What Makes for a Good Dungeon Entrance Chamber?

The only thing more important than the dungeon entrance (be it to the mythic underworld or some place more realistic) with regards to setting the right impression in a dungeon is its entrance chamber.   

After all, that first chamber sets the tone for the rest of the dungeon. But that begs the question, what makes up a good entrance chamber?

Among the many gems buried in the AD&D DMG is this image of suggested start areas for a random dungeon from Appendix A.  The one thing each of these start areas have in common is multiple directions for delvers to choose from.

So, the first thing that a good entrance chamber should have is immediate multiple exit options, be they open corridors, closed doors (locked, stuck, or just closed), or even something else, such as shafts or stairways heading deeper into the hole that eats people dungeon.  Honestly, having this much is a solid start, but there is always more to consider.

The second thing that a good entrance chamber should contain is something for the PCs/players to interact with, such as a pool, statue, shrine, crates under the stairs, or something else (to include a trap).  Yes, this amounts to more options for the players, but options that may eat time as its investigated, but may also provide useful treasure or tangible clues regarding what is to come.

Which leads to the third and final thing that a good entrance chamber should contain: evidence of past explorers and/or current inhabitants.  Veteran dungeon delvers know that information is crucial to dungeon mastery, and this opening chamber provides the DM a legitimate place to provide such information to attentive players.  

What said players do with the information is up to them, but at least the DM has done their job in providing it.

This evidence can be in the form of tracks, graffiti (my favorite), trash, discarded gear, (partial) corpses in various states of decay, odors, sounds, or anything else the DM can imagine - or the dice suggest.  Monsters and explorers leave sign or spoor, just like real animals do.  And just like real animals, such spoor can be used to track or evade such monsters.

For example, I had a dungeon where drag marks and footprints led to an otherwise solid wall, signaling a secret door without actually opening it.  Alternatively, consider the situation where the PCs enter into a chamber to find a shed snakeskin at least 20' long and probably 5'-6' in diameter blocking one of the corridors (the snake used the door jamb as a scrape).  Do they harvest the snakeskin, move it and head down that corridor, or go the other way entirely?

(As an aside, do other reptilian critters like dragons molt and shed skins as they grow?  I think those in my world do.)

All of this shows the players that their PCs are assuredly not alone in the dark tunnels.

-----

In short, use that opening chamber to impress the players and make them want to return next week to explore more of the megadungeon. Besides, this entrance chamber is likely to be many folks' debut to the #Dungeon23 community, so makes for a fine first impression there.

New Game For Me: Forbidden Lands

Christmas was kind to me, with a copy of Forbidden Lands under the tree (among other things).

For those unaware, Forbidden Lands is a role-playing game from Free League, or Fria Ligan, that is fantasy-themed like DnD, but a different ruleset entirely.  Free League also brings us Tales from the Loop and the Twilight 2000 reboot, so its quality stuff.

The trailer speaks for itself, so take a moment to watch it.

Then maybe spend a lot more time listening to these guys discuss the game and work through the rules.

Outside of actually playing the game, the only thing to do is create a PC or two for it, just to take the character creation rules for a spin.  For those wanting to try this at home, there are some legit free quickstart rules from Fria Ligan.  

So let's get started.

1. Choose your kin.  I'm going with Wolfkin to start with.

2. Pick your profession.  Wolfkin are typically Druids, Fighters, or Hunters.  This Wolfkin is a Hunter. 

3. Decide on your age. Adult, for 14 points to distribute among my attributes.

4. Spend points on attributes.  There are four choices: Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy.  Wolfkin allows Agility to go to 5 and Hunters allow Agility to go to 5, but together allow it to go to 6. My 14 points will be divvied up this way - Strength 3, Agility 5, Wits 4, Empathy 2

5. Spend points on skills.  Adults get 10 points, so I'll choose from the Hunter Skills: Stealth 2, Move 2, Marksmanship 1, Scouting 3, Survival 2

6. Choose your starting talents. I get a kin talent, profession talent, and two other talents due to Adult.  Hunting Instincts (kin), Path of the Forest (profession), Pathfinder, Quartermaster

7. Determine your Pride. I'll take one of the offered ones - I can survive alone in the wilds for weeks.

8. Choose a Dark Secret. Another offered one - I once left a wounded friend to die in the woods to save myself.

9. Define your relationships to other PCs. Uncertain without creating an entire party.  Leaning on the random backstory tables in the Legends & Adventurers booklet will carry me through.

10. Pick gear. Bow or Sling, two items from trade good list, d6 silver, Food d8, Water d8, Arrows d10

11. Decide your appearance.

12. Choose your name.  

No dice needed to 'roll up' a PC.  Neat.  

Now to read carefully through both books and see what I can glean for the #Dungeon23 challenge that formally begins next week.

My next step is to get a copy of Raven's Purge, to go along with my PDF of Spire of Quetzel (Questing Beast reviews Spire). Looking at both the official storefront and Drivethrurpg shows lots of options for tabletop and online games.  Color me intrigued.

At some point I will find a playgroup and time for at least a one-shot.

 

NPC Adventurers in the Megadungeon

Evidence of other, perhaps rival, adventurers in the megadungeon not only gives it a lived-in feel, but also allows for a ready source of rumors to feed the rumor table when the PCs are topside and (somewhat) safe. Encountering said adventurers in the dark corridors provides players the opportunity to do the roleplaying thing, in contrast to the tactical wargame thing.  

Whether or not the DM is actively moving one or more NPC parties around, clearing rooms, finding treasure, or dying in place to leave treasure behind, is game dependent.  Still, fallen adventurers are a great source of unguarded or poorly guarded loot.  Canny use of Speak with Dead can provide PCs with far more than just a coin purse and rusty dagger, while the various Animate Dead spells provide PCs with more sword-fodder.

Even a more mundane analysis of the corpse may provide some clues as to what type of monster may lurk in the area.

Rival adventurers.  With a map! WotC

One of the better forms of loot to find on a fallen adventurer is a map.  It doesn't matter if the map leads to hidden treasure or merely reveals the presence of a secret door or stairs to the next level, a map and the information it provides is worth its weight in gold.

Because in a proper megadungeon, knowledge is power.  Or its at least half the battle.

Granted, some adventuring parties fall prey to TPKs, and in those cases, perhaps one of their hirelings should survive.  This post at Hobgoblinry introduces 'the last lantern-bearer' mechanic, and it is one worth considering for your games. Frankly, all of Hobgoblinry's megadungeon musings are worth reading, so check them out while you're over there.  

PCs hiring these surviving lantern-bearers end up with more gameable information.  

tldr; make use of NPC adventurers, even if they remain off-screen - they are an incredibly useful tool.

-----

Speaking of rival adventurers and surviving henchmen, my friend Ben (not this Ben) asked me to share his Discord server with the world.  He is also participating in the #Dungeon23 challenge, while serving as a competent online DM-for-hire.  If you're looking for an online game (mostly 5e, but not always 5e), give him a looksee.

Joining his Discord is free, though, as is participating in its various channels.

Gaming 2022 Reflections

Reflecting on the past year is a regular habit of mine.  In addition to the notable life events, though, I added some hard numerical data to the mix this year, and this post is the result.  

-----

2022 was an eventful year for me and my family, but not so much for my gaming.  Over the course of 12 months (or 365 days), I ran two DnD sessions, and played maybe a dozen MtG sessions.  Compared to how much I have spent on DnD and MtG, I don't know that it was worth it, beyond sating my desire for new things.

First on my image search.

The one New Year's resolution I kept from last year was to maintain a 'hobby budget'.  The Games category is by far the largest chunk of my hobbies (other headings include Books, Stuff for Kids, Alcohol, and Eating Out).  Since I began intermittent fasting, Eating Out has declined (yay!), but I also started a YouTube channel (Ben Buys Beverages) in October, so the alcohol category has been on the uptick, but that is not the purpose of this post.  

The purpose of this post is to accept that RPGs (a mix of DnD and OSR and both-adjacent) ate lots of money, spent almost entirely on Kickstarters and Drivethrurpg purchases.  To be specific, $972 US dollars on these items - with several Kickstarters still awaiting delivery.  I have faith they'll arrive, but not this year.  

Which is different from the money spent on Magic card packs, sleeves, and singles for current or future decks; that rings up to $876 for the year.  About half of this went towards my Away Decks project (for the record, the R and BG decks have won each time played, and the UW deck came in second, so I consider the whole thing a success), and while I have a temptation to do another round of Away Decks (GW, UR, B), that project will definitely sit on the backburner.

Don't misunderstand, I know that I am fortunate to be able to have a hobby budget like this, but overall, nearly $2000 on games that I don't get to play all that much is not the best use of my money.  Looking at the numbers, if I keep away from Kickstarters and only buy Magic singles I have an immediate need for, the costs should be more than halved.

All that said, I did get in some writing in on the blog, both in published posts and partial posts awaiting completion.  Quite a bit of writing, actually, and next year promises much more, as I am planning to participate in the #Dungeon23 challenge.  

Perhaps next year will see more gaming - I certainly hope so!

And I hope your year sees more gaming, too.  

Happy Holidays!

Treasure in the Megadungeon

Ben at Mazirian's Garden is soliciting for more #Dungeon23 blogs so he can collect and share them.  I am thrilled that Thalian Musings was accepted and added.  There are few things like being in the public eye to make a person step up their game!

As such, here is this weekend's offering.

-----

Treasure is the main reason for adventuring and exploring a dungeon, at least in games where gp recovered = xp earned, like mine.  As such, at least some of the treasure found needs to be memorable, and often the easiest way to make treasure memorable is to make it vast, magical, or at least mysterious and perhaps historical, as Ben at Ars Ludi explains.  

The ideal treasure would be all of the above.

art by William McAusland

Based on the math I worked out back in March, my first level of 100 encounter areas should include (roughly) 8 unguarded treasures, 6 treasures 'guarded' by traps, and 17 treasures guarded by 'monsters.'  That is 31 treasure troves of varying sizes for bold adventurers to discover and recover.

At some point, I read a great explanation of how much treasure a dungeon level should contain for a gp = xp game, and it amounted to the dungeon level x 10,000 x 2, so 20,000 gp value across the first level (I might have read it here or here or here).  The idea being that each level should provide enough to see 4-6 PCs of the same level advance.   

This may seem like too much treasure, until one takes into account that some of it won't be found, and some of it will be 'wasted' when the PC that earned xp off of it dies or the player never returns to the game.  Also, the ruleset does matter here - it takes far more xp to move up in B/X than in 5e.

-----

20,000 divided by 31 is 645 and change, which will not be 31 piles of 645gp each. Technically, each monster has a Treasure Type to spur the contents of each hoard, and should I make use of this chart from the AD&D Monster & Treasure Assortment - and I will - even the unguarded treasures are unlikely to be easily found or even identified as treasure at all. 

From the Monster & Treasure Assortment, 1977, 78, 80; artist maybe David Sutherland? Can anyone confirm?

In a pinch, I can use the treasures from the same title or those from the homages put out by Pacesetter Games & Simulations (which I can no longer find on Drivethrurpg; I bought the first three and always intended to get the next three, but alas).

Writing this post, it occurs to me that the best way for me to approach #Dungeon23 might be the checklist approach - I need six trapped treasures, so that is six days' worth of write ups.  Approaching the project with this checklist in mind makes it seem less daunting. 

Of course, discovering a treasure hoard and actually recovering it are two entirely different animals.  Yes, bold adventurers could lug it all out themselves, but treasure (especially on the upper levels) is heavy, which makes it difficult to move quickly or run away when necessary - and retreating should be necessary on occasion.

But that is a post for another day.

----

As a bonus, a former student of mine is willing to discuss drawing some original art for me for a commission, which is neat, because I have never commissioned art before.  It makes me feel all Renaissance-y.

Gathering Resources for #Dungeon23

This list of #Dungeon23 resources is mostly for my use, but I am happy to share both influences and how-tos.  Several of these links come from crowd-sourced lists on Twitter and Facebook, but not all of them.  

The truth is I enjoy making lists of (somewhat related) links and sharing them.

The Haunted Keep from Moldvay Basic, 1981, by Erol Otus

The nifty part about all of these links is that they run to sites that are packed with usable information.  Furthermore, I am likely to add to this list as time and the project wears on.

EDIT 1: Andrew Duvall has done something similar to this post over on itch.io, but with better organization, better presentation, and more/different links, so go check it out!

EDIT 2 and 3: both Dragonsfoot and Knights and Knaves Alehouse have dedicated megadungeon forums.  Lots of knowledge therein.

Z.W. Garth's Dungeon Architect's Workbook

DiWata's Megadungeon Jam

Permanent Cranial Damage: Brief Brainworms: Megadungeon

Grognardia's Old School Dungeon Design Guidelines 

Missing Manuals at Necropraxis

Semper Initiativus Unum asked back in 2017: Why Build a MegaDungeon in 2017

Beyond Fomalhaut's Anatomy of a Dungeon Map

Roleplaying Tips has the Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons

Rise Up Comus has Dungeon Seeds, which is free if you subscribe to their newsletter

Traverse Fantasy features Bite Sized Dungeons

Map Crow addresses building a dungeon over several videos

As does the channel Bandit's Keep

All Dead Generations provides a dandy online worksheet and So You Want to Build a Dungeon

Prismatic Wasteland offers Megadungeon Malls & Collaborative Caverns

Goblin Punch's Dungeon Checklist, What is Tested, the last part of Popcorn Leveling, Comprehensive Guide to Secret Doors, and Dungeon Mastery.  Ghosts and Ghost Biology, too.

The Alexandrian has several: Jaquaysing the Dungeon, the Art of the Key, Goals in the Megadungeon, (Re-)running the Megadungeon.

d4 Caltrops also has several: What's at the Bottom of this Pit, A Hundred Clues and Tells for the Tersely-Detailed Trap, d100 This Secret Door Opens..., d100 Instigative Scenery and Interactive Decor, d100 Why is this Door Stuck?, - there are so many d100 lists at this site that I can pull ideas from, but these are the big ones.

-----

On top of these is my collection of partial dungeon keys, which I shall loot with impunity, and a handful of pdfs and actual books, notably the Dungeon Alphabet, the Monster Alphabet, Dungeoncraft (cheapish copies available used online), and both Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas and Bestial Ecosystems Created by Monstrous Inhabitation. 

When the Monster Overhaul ships in early 2023, its contents will be used, as well. 

For the mapping, I am looking at DungeonScrawl to make transferring to the blog relatively simpler.  Here is a sample of the likely main entrance - I'd love to add a secret door and passage running under the stairs and to the north, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet, at least not in a noncluttered image.

Megadungeon 2023

A fine link popped up in my FB feed, leading me to Mazirian's Garden and the Megadungeon 2023 challenge, and from there to Win Conditions - a substack by the challenge starter.  From the look of things, it is shaping up to be quite the collection of posts across the internet, to include my own.

Long-time readers may recall that I have already done some megadungeon writing in the past, addressing Overall Contents, Specials, Traps, Random Encounters and Wandering Monsters, and Monsters in general for an incomplete megadungeon. I even wrote some Rumors for it. This #Dungeon23 challenge may end up being the impetus I need to continue that ambitious project.

After all, 365 rooms (one each day of 2023) fills about 3.5 levels of my planned megadungeon, or more likely, 3 levels and one or two sublevels.  Finding folks to play through it with can wait until another day.

I demonstrated back in January that while I can participate in a month-long challenge, it quickly turned into a grind that I assuredly dreaded near the end.  I crossed that Character Creation Challenge finish line, but some of it was not my best work.  Dungeon rooms are substantially smaller, and there is no rule that I have to connect the rooms together, just that I need to write them.

If nothing else, I will be left with a deeper reservoir of ready rooms to dip into as needed.

Be warned, there are likely to be bad jokes, obscure references, homages, and statistically outright lifting (but not intentionally, I promise) scattered about my chambers, but that is half the fun. 

To get folks in the proper mindset, here are Philotomy's musings on the Dungeon as the Mythic Underworld, the Greyhawk Grognard addressing Megadungeon-based Game Mechanics and what that implies for a proper megadungeon, as well as some inspirational art.

Dave Trampier, from the AD&D Players Handbook

I look forward to seeing what folks dream up, as well as my own dreamings.  Join us!

New Feature: YouTube channel links

Good morning!

I've added another feature to Thalian Musings.  If you are in web view, there is a new collection of links to the right of screen: a collection of YouTube Channels.

They are a mix of DnD, MtG, and one beverage-related channel that might be my own.  Many of these you might be familiar with, but if not, you should be.

There is also one link that isn't a video link, and that is Blogs on Tape.  It is a collection of audio recordings of a wide variety of OSR blogposts, mostly narrated by Nick Whelan of Papers and Pencils (a fine blog).  It's kinda like mini-podcasts, honestly.  

So like videos, but for ears only.

As such, these links are worth checking out (well, except maybe the beverage one), and watching.  Granted, if you're immersed in the gaming world, you are likely aware of many of these, but if not, you're in for a treat.

If there are any channels you feel I should add, or at least check out myself, please tell me in the comments.

Happy watching!

Keep Watch, art by Fred Rahmqvist, WotC