Moldvay Musings XVII: DM Information - Scenarios

The first sections of Part 8 in Moldvay (Dungeon Master Information) fascinate me on several levels. While the "B" in "BX" is by its nature basic and tries to keep things simple to let people get their feet wet who might have been new to the game (or running it), this section actually holds a lot of cool stuff that's far from just typical murder-hoboing and ties in to some of my thoughts on a BX setting. Not to mention demonstrating the BX wasn't "the kiddie version" of D&D.

The chapter is broken down into several parts that can walk a tyro DM through creating an adventure and even lay the groundwork for a rich campaign. Let's start by taking a look at the first bit: Choosing a scenario. Moldvay defines a scenario nicely for us in the following passage:

B51:

"A scenario is a background theme or idea which ties the dungeon together. A scenario will help keep a dungeon from becoming a boring repetition of 'open the door, kill the monster, take the treasure.' A good scenario always gives the players a reason for adventuring. The DM should also design a dungeon for the levels of characters who will be playing in it. A good scenario will also give the DM a reason for choosing specific monsters and treasures to put in the dungeon."

The idea seems, well, basic, doesn't it? Remember this was 1981, though. Not everyone implicitly understood this. I love that he spells out that adventure design should have a theme and a rationale and should avoid simple grinds. He neatly sums up monster ecology too by stating one should choose critters appropriate to the scenario.

He then goes on to list several kinds of scenarios. While many of these can be translated into a dungeon crawl (or contain one), it's the different reasons for the adventure in the first place that are the real meat on the bones. The doesn't claim to be exhaustive, but I would be hard-pressed to think of any adventures that don't fall broadly under one or more of these categories.

1. Exploring the Unknown
2. Investigating a Chaotic Outpost
3. Recovering Ruins
4. Destroying an Ancient Evil
5. Visiting a Lost Shrine
6. Fulfilling a Quest
7. Escaping from Enemies
8. Rescuing Prisoners
9. Using a Magic Portal
10. Finding a Lost Race

Now obviously, several of these are pretty standard. The section even gives examples of published adventures that fit some of the categories (B2 is the quintessential investigation of a chaotic outpost), but some of these are ones that I've seen much less often. When was the last time your campaign found a lost race or reclaimed ruins for settlement? That's some good adventure fodder there. You could even combine scenarios. Perhaps the PCs must use a magic portal to find a lost shrine?

The next parts of this section are relatively mundane, but still useful. They cover such issues as the location of the dungeon proper (Is it a cave? A crypt? A castle?), the monsters within, the map itself, and how it's stocked. The random stocking tables aren't always the best way to fill the map, but they can be handy at times.

The final section offers good advice and help with prepping an NPC party ahead of time. You might not need one right away, but like treasure maps, you'll be happy you have one ready instead of having to work one up in the middle of a session. 

REF (Random Encounter Fun): Magic Men

Switching things up from the last REF, I thought we'd go back to the dungeon. A random determination took us to level 3 of the crawl (Moldvay). The result? Medium.

That's right. 1st level magic-user(s). 1d4 of them, actually. I rolled and got a 3.

Three unarmored fellows with daggers and one spell apiece aren't exactly terrifying. Granted, the spells could be a challenge, but if our PCs are 3rd level on average, I doubt they're quaking in their boots, here. I decided to roll randomly for the spells for Huey, Dewey, and Louie. I came up with Read Magic, Protection from Evil, and Light.

Scary? Not so much.

However, there is an interesting wrinkle to Mediums in the monster listings. There is a 50% chance that they are accompanied by a 3rd level MU, like a senior student or teacher. Rolling d100, I got 09, so guess who's coming along?

The conjurer gets two 1st level and one 2nd level spells. Again, rolling randomly, it turns out he has Protection from Evil, Magic Missile, and Web. No wonder he was sent along to watch these three newbies!

There's nothing inherently hostile about this quartet of spell-casters. Maybe they are searching the dungeon for some magic item or a spell scroll. Or maybe they're in the employ of the evil overlord and they are patrolling this sector of the lair. The point is that because of the fact that they are essentially NPCs (as opposed to "monsters"), they can have just as many motivations as the PCs for being in the dungeon.

In my campaign, magic-users and elves need to find spells to fill their grimoires, so this encounter would be a huge potential win for them. Likewise, the mediums (and their 3rd level buddy) might covet the PC spellcasters' books.

REF (Random Encounter Fun): Stone Giants

Rolling on the wilderness tables (I arbitrarily chose "Mountains"), I got "Humanoid" as result (ho-hum), but the roll on the sub-table yielded "Giant, Stone." NOW we're getting somewhere!

Cook says 1d2 might appear in a random encounter and, lucky PCs, I rolled a 2. The description says they may keep cave bears as guards, but in a moment of mercy I originally decided those would be at the lair, not wandering (even though I did roll and they have 4 of them at home!). I changed my mind, however as I developed the idea for the encounter. But I only added one (see below).

The encounter distance came up as 170 yards (4d6 x 10 yards). A pretty respectable distance but giants are tall and easily seen, plus they would have a good vantage for spotting the party as well.

Stone Giants are Neutral and there's nothing in their description to indicate a natural empathy or antipathy toward people. So a reaction roll is probably in order. Unfortunately, it came up a 4, so the giants are not feeling friendly. The giants can throw stones 300', but that becomes yards in the wilderness, so they would probably lead with that. But rather than get into a specific melee, let's take a look at the encounter and try making sense of it.

The party is travelling through the mountains, yes? It's a random encounter, so they haven't met these giants before. The two groups are nearly two hundred yards apart, so it's not like the PCs could have said something to tick the giants off. What would cause such a hostile reaction? Are the giants being territorial? Did they just wake up grouchy? Or did they just want some target practice?

Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity?

Perhaps the giants had a run in with a different group of puny humans, maybe an NPC party? Giants have good treasure, so maybe, in a "My Cousin Vinny" sort of a twist, some other adventurer types tried to raid the lair for the loot. Maybe they succeeded, maybe they were chased off, but during the fracas all but one of the giants' pet bears was killed! Now the giants (the surviving ones at any rate) are angry. After scouring the mountainside all morning looking for the interlopers -using the bear to try tracking them- what should come stumbling by? A group of murder hobos just strolling along the slopes!

Now this could (likely) end up being a straight out fight to the finish, with neither side knowing the whole story. But imagine for a moment that one of the giants speaks Common and yells something mid-fight like "Now you will pay for what you did!" And the PCs retort with something better than "Huh?"

If the slaughter pauses long enough for a non combat actions to take place, maybe the party passes the bear's sniff test and the giants realize their mistake. Perhaps the giants feel guilty, or maybe they offer the PCs a bounty to hunt down the "killer NPCs." Depending upon the PCs' levels, they might decide staying on the good side of some 9HD monsters isn't the worst idea imaginable.

That sounds like a fun little twist. Or at least a potential side quest. Not to mention that, if they are sloppy in their pursuit, they could make enemies out of the NPCs.  Plot fodder for months!

An exercise for the writer: Ready-made NPC party

Back in the day I posted regarding the BX rules for creating an NPC Party. As I've been looking at using things like peasants and NPCs in an adventure I'm working on, I thought I'd go ahead and generate a party for general consumption and as a walk-through of the process.

1) Determine the number of NPCs in the party: 5-8 (roll ld4 + 4).

Six!

2) Determine the class of each character (roll Id8): 
1 Fighter 
2 Magic-user 
3 Cleric 
4 Thief 
5 Dwarf  
6 Elf 
7 Halfling 
8 Fighter

(It's quirky/interesting that the higher chance for fighter is split up at the top and bottom of the die results instead of just 1-2 or 7-8.)

So I rolled 8,1,2,5,1, and 4. That's three fighters, a magic-user, a dwarf, and a thief. This is a pretty muscle-heavy party, but maybe the wizard is after some ancient magic. The thief and the dwarf are there to foil traps and find their way in the deep places of the world. The group gets the mundane loot and the mage gets the mystic relic.

3) Moving on. We check for each character's level. Using the Basic rules, it's 1-2 = 1st, 3-4 = 2nd, and 5-6 = 3rd.

I rolled a mix. We have a 1st level dwarf, a 2nd level thief, one of each level fighter (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), and a 3rd level magic-user. This actually jibes well with the imagined scenario above.

4) Next, alignment. Same spread as levels, but Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic.

OK. The rolls make it pretty weird. Everyone except the 1st level fighter and the thief are chaotic. They are both lawful. It fits okay with the idea that they are all mercenary types, maybe hired by the wizard by the promise of loot. The chaotic wizard makes sense too. Maybe he's seeking black magic of some kind. Things might be kind of tense for the junior swordsman and the trap sweeper. Plus, a chaotic dwarf? Wacky!

5) Randomly determine spells. This will be interesting!

The magic-user gets two 1st levels and a 2nd level. The results are Light, Floating Disc, and Wizard Lock. Those are...unusual spells for a mage, but random is random!

6) Roll for any treasure. The book says you can also choose special treasure to give the party, but in keeping with the spirit of chance, I rolled and got nothing for them. The NPCs given that most of the PCs are higher than 1st level, one might assume they've somehow lost any treasure they'd won in previous adventures, or maybe they spent their cash on gear for this expedition.

Now, you could stat these characters out more fully with scores, equipment, etc. but at this point it's really just PC creation repeated a few times. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the Expert rules increase the level ranges for more powerful NPCs.

RMA: Halfling

I know I've been gone a while, but here is something to mull over.

I've been working on a Moria-related project lately, and that got me thinking about hobbitses.

The PC races often are unusual encounters. As I have noted previously, "monster" listings and PC race descriptions are not always 100% identical. 

Halflings are probably even more unusual because, apart from the above:

A) There are probably very few DMs for which they are a go-to encounter.

B) They are rare random encounter, only appearing in two places on the BX charts ("city/inhabited" & dungeon level 1).

C) Halflings as monsters? Seriously??

The Stats (from Moldvay):

AC: 7

AL: L

HD: 1-1

Move: 90' (30')

Att: 1 weapon

DMG: 1d6 or by weapon

No. App: 3-18 (5-40)

Save: H1

Morale: 7

Since halflings tend toward Lawful, they aren't likely to be marauding through the countryside. However, there is something to keep in mind here. Namely, that at low level, they are the most lethal class in the book. 

No, seriously! Look at the stats.

• There is no penalty to their scores in BX, so that halfling can be sporting an 18 ST
• +1 to initiative* 
• +1 on missile fire*
• Attacks as a fighter (best to-hits)
• The best saves (along with dwarfs)
• Their hiding ability
• No weapon or armor restrictions, except for size

*NTM any DEX mods

Their only drawbacks are:

• Slower movement than humans (90' vs. 120'), but faster than dwarfs!
• No big/2H weapons
• PC halflings get d6 instead of a fighter's (or dwarf's) d8 HD. Honestly, I don't know that you can actually count that as a disadvantage except against one class in particular. Also, the NPC/monster version gets a d8-1 so that's even LESS of a disadvantage. 

So these little furfoots are actually pretty tough!

As an encounter, you can be running into a dozen or so of these little guys. Considering that they are very good at ambushing, you can be in for a hail of arrows out of nowhere if you aren't careful.

Granted, their morale isn't awesome, but that makes sense. They aren't rabid fanatics. Chances are if they are fighting you, you've somehow threatened them or their home.

In their villages, you have the added wrinkle of running up against their leader (up to 7th level!) and maybe a dozen 2HD militia. Not a fun time if you've got them feeling prickly. 

RMA (ish): NPC parties

Cook's Expert Rules typically tries not to step on the toes of its predecessor, Moldvay's Basic. One area where BX does sort of repeat itself is with NPC parties.

Each book provides rules for the DM to use in creating a group of NPCs. Because of the change in PC power levels, things get ramped up a notch in Expert. Moldvay allows for up to 3rd level NPCs, whereas Cook gives rules for up to 12th.

I find both books' sections on this very interesting reading. Not just for encounter design, but also for the steps given for creating the parties. There is a lot of randomness in the process. I find that refreshing, though. Sometimes random results are the most interesting. There's a chaotic fighter and lawful cleric in the group? How does that work? Especially if one is significantly more powerful than the other. This can make for some interesting moments at the gaming table.

Fun fact: NPC spells are supposed to be assigned randomly! I love it when characters (NPC or PC) have some of the more unusual spells.

Another interesting part is the assigning of magic items to the NPCs. In Basic, you roll on a treasure type for the NPCs. In Expert, a % chance is assigned (determined by level) for each NPC to possess a given type of item. The fact these non-PCs are walking around with magic loot (and using up that cool wand's charges) should get the PCs interested.

I think a rival group of adventurers is an awesome encounter, and provides a lot of possible campaign hooks for a group. Even if the PCs don't end up fighting them, having another group of murder-hobos out there after the treasure is a powerful incentive to get off their duffs and DO something!

I have half a mind to assemble an NPC party by these rules and use them as pre-gens for my next adventure. The result could be fun!