Anyway, looking again at the Moldvay B52 dungeon-stocking table, I wonder if it might be simplified a little? OK not everyone loves percentage dice, but I'm pretty sure the dungeon-stocking table could be turned into a single roll.
Before I go on though, I should probably explain something that seems really obvious to me but other people don't seem to 'read' into the table. Where Moldvay has his original chart resembling this:
Roll for
Monster/Trap/Special:
1-2 Monster
3 Trap
4 Special
5-6 Empty
and then roll for
treasure on a matrix:
Roll Monster
Trap Empty
1 Yes Yes Yes
2 Yes Yes No
3 Yes No No
4-6 No No No
... it seems obvious to me that that chart is grouped '1-2 - Monster', '3-4 - Trap/Special (50% chance of each)', '5-6 - Empty'. This has one very important consequence: I've always assumed that in the second part where the 'Treasure' roll is made for 'Trap' rooms, it should be read as 'Trap/Special'. I have no actual evidence for that - just both logic and elegance. It fits better if there aren't categories you're generating in the first part that don't apply to the second part, and it's neater if the 'spare' 1/6 category is grouped with the other 1/6 category, rather than one of the others, which are both 2/6. But there is no actual precedent for regarding a 'Special' room as being analogous to a 'Trap' room as far as I know. If you don't want to do things that way, then the data will look slightly different. 'Special' rooms, with no other determinant, will be a 1/6 category on its own.
Anyway, that aside, at present the table produces 36 possible outcomes, which I think look like this:
Chart 1
First roll Second roll No.
occurrences Approx %
1. 1 – Monster; 1
– Treasure 1
2. 1 – Monster; 2
– Treasure 2
3. 1 – Monster; 3
– Treasure 3
4. 1 – Monster; 4
– No treasure 1
5. 1 – Monster; 5
– No treasure 2
6. 1 – Monster; 6
– No treasure 3
7. 2 – Monster; 1
– Treasure 4
8. 2 – Monster; 2
– Treasure 5
9. 2 – Monster; 3
– Treasure 6 17
10. 2 – Monster;
4 – No treasure 4
11. 2 – Monster; 5
– No treasure 5
12. 2 – Monster; 6
– No treasure 6 17
13. 3 –Trap; 1
– Treasure 1
14. 3 –Trap; 2
– Treasure 2 6
15. 3 –Trap; 3
– No treasure 1
16. 3 –Trap; 4
– No treasure 2
17. 3 –Trap; 5
– No treasure 3
18. 3 –Trap; 6
– No treasure 4 11
19. 4 – Special; 1
– Treasure 1
20. 4 – Special; 2
– Treasure 2 6
21. 4 – Special; 3
– No treasure 1
22. 4 – Special; 4
– No treasure 2
23. 4 – Special; 5
– No treasure 3
24. 4 – Special; 6
– No treasure 4 11
25. 5 – Empty; 1
– Treasure 1
26. 5 – Empty; 2
– No treasure 1
27. 5 – Empty; 3
– No treasure 2
28. 5 – Empty; 4
– No treasure 3
29. 5 – Empty; 5
– No treasure 4
30. 5 – Empty; 6
– No treasure 5
31. 6 – Empty; 1
– Treasure 2 6
32. 6 – Empty; 2
– No Treasure 6
33. 6 – Empty; 3
– No treasure 7
34. 6 – Empty; 4
– No treasure 8
35. 6 – Empty; 5
– No treasure 9
36. 6 – Empty; 6
– No treasure 10 28
A colourised version which might be easier to understand looks something like this:
Chart 1a
First roll Second roll No.
occurrences Approx %
1. 1 – Monster; 1 – Treasure 1
2. 1 – Monster; 2 – Treasure 2
3. 1 – Monster; 3 – Treasure 3
4. 1 – Monster; 4 – No treasure 1
5. 1 – Monster; 5 – No treasure 2
6. 1 – Monster; 6 – No treasure 3
7. 2 – Monster; 1 – Treasure 4
8. 2 – Monster; 2 – Treasure 5
9. 2 – Monster; 3 – Treasure 6 17
10.
2 – Monster; 4 –
No treasure 4
11. 2 – Monster; 5 – No treasure 5
12. 2 – Monster; 6 – No treasure 6 17
13. 3 –Trap; 1 – Treasure 1
14. 3 –Trap; 2 – Treasure 2 6
15. 3 –Trap; 3 – No treasure 1
16. 3 –Trap; 4 – No treasure 2
17. 3 –Trap; 5 – No treasure 3
18 .
3 –Trap; 6 – No treasure 4 11
19. 4 – Special; 1 – Treasure 1
20. 4 – Special; 2 – Treasure 2 6
21. 4 – Special; 3 – No treasure 1
22. 4 – Special; 4 – No treasure 2
23. 4 – Special; 5 – No treasure 3
24. 4 – Special; 6 – No treasure 4 11
25. 5 – Empty; 1 – Treasure 1
26. 5 – Empty; 2
– No treasure 1
27. 5 – Empty; 3
– No treasure 2
28. 5 – Empty; 4
– No treasure 3
29. 5 – Empty; 5
– No treasure 4
30. 5 – Empty; 6
– No treasure 5
31. 6 – Empty; 1 – Treasure 2 6
32. 6 – Empty; 2
– No treasure 6
33. 6 – Empty; 3
– No treasure 7
34. 6 – Empty; 4
– No treasure 8
35. 6 – Empty; 5
– No treasure 9
36. 6 – Empty; 6
– No treasure 10 28
We can see that there are in fact only 8 different possibilities, which have a chance of occurring somewhere between 6% and 28% (my rough figures actually add up to 102, but I'm prepared to call that 'within engineering tolerances'). Getting rid of the unnecessary data (the 28 entries that are repeated) makes the chart looks this:
Chart 2
First roll Second roll No. Approx % Σ %
occurrences
1-2 – Monster; 1-3 – Treasure 6 17 17
1-2 – Monster; 4-6 – No treasure 6 17 34
3 –Trap; 1-2 – Treasure 2 6 40
3 –Trap; 3-6 – No treasure 4 11 51
4 – Special; 1-2 – Treasure 2 6 57
4 – Special; 3-6 – No treasure 4 11 68
5-6 – Empty; 1 – Treasure 2 6 74
5-6 – Empty; 2-6 – No treasure 10 28 102
As I'm attempting to turn this into a percentage chart I have to dispose of the 2% margin of error. My instinct is to take it from the largest (and intrinsically least-interesting) category, 'Empty; No Treasure'. The change from 28% to 26% is less significant than most other possible changes (only 2 changes of 17% to 16% would be less significant) but also, rooms coming up 'empty, empty' aren't as interesting as any other category. I don't think dropping the probability from 28% to 26% while fractionally boosting the other percentages is doing violence to the table.
Turning the 8 possibilities into a chart using those percentages looks like this:
Chart 3a
01-17 Monster;
Treasure
18-34 Monster; No
treasure
35-40 Trap;
Treasure
41-51 Trap; No
treasure
52-57 Special;
Treasure
58-68 Special; No
treasure
69-74 Empty; Treasure
75-100 Empty; No treasure
And that is it - the essence of the Moldvay room-stocking charts in one handy block.
Unless I've done something stupid with the maths or reading the chart... and I guess given the caveat above about my reading of 'Trap/Special', you could just read "52-57 Special; Treasure ... 58-68 Special; No treasure" as "52-68 Special (DM's choice)". But I prefer my way.
Did I mention, I really hate how Blogger formats things...?
No comments:
Post a Comment