More Moldvay

It was where I started, though as I may have mentioned before, I was in the weird position of having the Moldvay Basic and Mentzer Expert sets, which was fine except in a few rather trivial cases. It made organisation a bit difficult at times but never mind.

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...?

Time well-spent and time wasted - the Moldvay Dungeon-stocking tables

I could have just gone and found my copy of Moldvay. That's what I'm after, particularly, page B52, the dungeon-stoking tables and advice. But, instead, I'm on the net with about 11 tabs open looking at the Nine and Thirty Kingdoms, the Society of the Torch, Pole and Rope, Ode to Black Dougal, Dungeon Fantastic, and the Lands of Ara. As well as google text and image pages and a page for downloading the non-art version of Labyrinth Lord. All of which is great of course, they're some fantastic blogs with loads of interesting insights into how and why we game and what makes it interesting/fun/easier/more unexpected, but...

I actually just looked for my copy of Moldvay. It took me less than a minute to find it, and now I'm going to do what I was going to do more than hour ago - start the bloody room-stocking!

This is the gist of what I was after - now formatted with numbers in case I want to randomly determine traps or whatever, and more generally put into the way I tend to note things... (pity Blogger doesn't like Word formatting but hey-ho).

Moldvay Basic (B52) 

This is a two-step process:

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

Room Traps:

1.     Poison Gas: save v poison or die

2.     Fog: looks like poison gas, but harmless

3.     Pit: 1d6 DAM /10’ fallen

4.     Ceiling block falls: Save v Turn to Stone or take d10pts DAM

5.     Pendulum blade from ceiling: d8pts DAM

6.     Chute: no DAM, slide to next level down

Treasure Traps:

1.     Poison needle: save v poison or die

2.     Spring-fired darts: d6 darts for d4 DAM each

3.     Flash of Light: save v spells or be blinded for d8 turns

4.     Poison snake: see SNAKE in monster descriptions

5.     Spray: sprayed with an unknown liquid that attracts Wandering Monsters; double chance for d6 hours

6.     Illusion: anything, often a monster (as Phantasmal Force)

           

Specials

1.     Moaning room or corridor

2.     Room turns or sinks while the door locks

3.     Illusionary stairs or corridor

4.     Shifting blocks to close off corridor

5.     Trap door to tunnels

6.     Alarm that summons special monster

7.     Taking statue

8.     Magic pool whose waters have strange effect

9.     Magic gate to another part of the dungeon

10.  Flying weapons which attack only if disturbed

Unguarded treasures

Dungeon Level              Silver pieces*    Gold Pieces      Gems   Jewellery          Magic Items

1                                  d6x100             50%                  5%       2%                   2%

                                                            d6x10               d6        d6                    Any 1

2-3                                d12x100           50%                 10%     5%                   8%

                                                            d6x100             d6        d6                    Any 1

*Note that SP will always be found in unguarded treasure, and other items are given in terms of the die rolled to determine the number present

... and that's it, Part 8, E (Stocking the Dungeon). Only took me marginally longer to type than to find, though I had copied the first part of the table from this post at Dungeon Fantastic so thanks for that.

EDIT: Oh, I am a silly sausage... here are the room determinations...

Determinations (Rooms 1-33, including 10a):

1.     3,4 – Trap, no treasure

2.     6,6 – Empty, no treasure

3.     4,2 – Special, treasure

4.     1,2 – Monster, treasure

5.     1,4 – Monster, no treasure

6.     4,1 – Special, treasure

7.     6,3 – Empty, no treasure

8.     1,6 – Monster, no treasure

9.     5,1 – Empty, treasure

10.  2,3 – Monster, treasure

11.  6,4 – Empty, no treasure

12.  3,5 – Monster, no treasure

13.  6,6 – Empty, no treasure

14.  6,6 – Empty, no treasure

15.  2,6 – Monster, no treasure

16.  4,6 – Special, no treasure

17.  4,6 – Special, no treasure

18.  4,3 – Special, no treasure

19.  3,3 – Trap, treasure

20.  2,2 – Monster, treasure

21.  2,1 – Monster, treasure

22.  2,2 – Monster, treasure

23.  5,3 – Empty, no treasure

24.  6,6 – Empty, no treasure

25.  6,4 – Empty, no treasure

26.  1,3 – Monster, treasure

27.  5,3 – Empty, no treasure

28.  3,6 – Trap, no treasure

29.  5,6 – Empty, no treasure

30.  5,2 – Empty, no treasure

31.  3,5 – Monster, no treasure

32.  6,2 – Empty, no treasure

33.  5,2 – Empty, no treasure

34.  6,6 – Empty, no treasure

Nope, no matter what I do I can't get it to format properly. Never mind, it still makes sense.

A minor mystery solved

A couple of months ago, posting about the material I'd found in a box in the loft, I mentioned a Dwarf called Tholinn and his magic hammer. I think I've tracked down the source (though the spelling in the probable source is 'Tholin').

I've been reading Raymond E Feist's Magician, which is (in essence) a story of how a young man grows up and develops his magic powers while becoming involved in the great events of his time, Which I'll grant you could describe a lot of fantasy stories.

In this novel, there is a character called Dolgan, who is a Dwarf chieftain. About a third of the way into the book, Dolgan finds a magic hammer, that belonged to a Dwarven hero called Tholin, in an underground location connected with dragons.

My 'hammer of Tholinn' is a magic hammer, previously belonging to a Dwarf-hero called Tholinn, that is to be found in an underground location connected with dragons (the entrance to the dungeon is dominated by a colossal dragon statue). I think the close connection in conception is pretty strong evidence that I had Magician in mind when writing the notes. The extra 'n' was possibly a typo, or maybe etymologically I wanted to get a bit further from 'Tholin/Thorin' (which I'd regard as being philologically equivalent). But I think the typo, or perhaps 'scribal error' (as these were hand-written notes) is probably more likely. I think, when I wrote the notes, I possibly didn't have the book in front of me and was going from memory of what I'd been reading. And having perpetrated the error, I'd likely just keep doing it (it occurs a couple of times in my notes), as I didn't necessarily ever compare manuscripts.

I have at least started reading Magician before. In mid-1993, I borrowed it from one of my house-mates, who was a friend from college and also a big fantasy and sci-fi fan. I gave it back unfinished some time later - so when a couple of months ago (about the same time as my original post two months ago) I saw a second-hand copy in a charity sale, I bought it, thinking 'ah, a second chance to finish that!'.

So that would suggest that the notes were written in or after the summer of 1993. Not long after, as 'Tholin(n)'s dragon-connected magic hammer' was it seems a fresh enough idea in my mind to require no explanation whatsoever. Possibly not immediately as I might have forgotten how to spell 'Tholin' (though that's not conclusive, I might have been just too lazy to check the spelling in the book). So my guess (using other evidence, like handwriting - I know this wasn't done when I was 15 for instance) of 'about 1992' is not so bad - 'mid-late 1993' is now my guess for this.

I like the symmetry of  coming back to the dungeon (at least partly-) inspired by Magician at the same time as starting to re-read the book. It made finding the reference to 'the hammer of Tholin' seem like a real discovery - a reference to my own forgotten (or at least legendary) past!

Abyssal Realms II

The outline maps are finished and I've knotted them together.

The map is pretty peculiar, but I'm happy with it. It's also vast. It occupies approximately one 24-mile hex, Travel in the white tunnels (on a black background), due to rockfalls and other hazards, is at 4 miles a day except where otherwise noted (eg area 5Q it's faster due to straight well-made tunnels); travel in the beige tunnels (on the lilac background), which are generally less well-travelled, is at 2 miles a day, It would take about 11 days to cross the map from above Area 2 to below Area 6 - if one was trying to avoid the 42 encounter areas I've set up and only travel through the corridors (which of course have a bunch of wandering monsters, some unique to the zones that the PCs will travel through and some generic to the entire cave system).

I've also started on some other maps and plans - for example, this is a typical Serpentman dwelling found in the environs of 1D (colloquially known as 'Snaketown'):

I've written some notes about the Serpentmen of Snaketown too:

...Serpentman culture is very unlike most human cultures. Serpentmen (and Serpentwomen) have very different ideas of privacy to humans for example, and will clean themselves, expel bodily waste and copulate in public with no qualms. They will usually eat in private however, and commonly wear voluminous hoods to cover themselves should it be necessary to eat in a public place. Serpentmen do not have banquets: eating in company is generally a very intimate affair reserved for mates and close confidants.

Serpentmen regularly shed their skins; this activity is also considered private. By extension, removing clothing in public is frowned upon. All beings in Snaketown are expected to remain in the same state until they are in private. It is perfectly acceptable to change one's clothes often, as long as no-one sees the process of changing. It is however considered bad form to remark on changes in appearance. To Serpentfolk, the fiction that appearance is immutable (and therefore that what someone looks like now is how they have always looked, even if they changed their appearance five minutes ago) is very important.

Also, the thought of sleeping in the open is both terrifying and shameful to them. Public sleeping (once a being has reached maturity) is a sign of degeneracy and members of the community are encouraged to kill any adult (whether Serpentman or not) who is found sleeping in public. Sleeping quarters in Serpentman homes are usually the parts most remote from the entrance and public reception areas. Only their treasure-rooms (sometimes concealed behind a secret door or trapdoor from the innermost and highest-status sleeping quarters) are better-hidden than their bedrooms...

Those cultural rules should get the PCs in trouble with the rulers of Snaketown pretty sharpish I should think.

I've also used my black-white-red-green-blue-yellow d6 as a Serpentman Faction Randomiser. Cyclopean Deeps has 5 'factions' of Serpentmen (these factions are something like a cross between a caste and a cult), which are the White-Red-Green-Blue-Yellow Factions. I added another, Black, and rolled to see which faction is dominant in 'Snaketown'. I shall be consulting the Serpentman Faction Randomiser further in due course but at least I have found a (somewhat limited) use for it.