looks around**clears throat
So, uh, the
Sample Dungeon. It would probably be best to start off with the map of the first level, for ease of reference.
Some initial thoughts on the sample dungeon design. I like how compact it is, with multiple paths through 9 rooms, all in a 9 x 9 grid. Unlike the typical scale of 1 square representing 10 feet, here 1 square represents 5 feet, as Moldvay suggested for smaller dungeons in the previous section.
Most of this section is a step-by-step demonstration of the dungeon creation rules using the above map. The first two,
A. CHOOSE A SCENARIO and
B. DECIDE ON A SETTING are pretty straightforward. As noted in the previous section, this is the "Rescue the Prisoners" scenario, and Moldvay decides on a keep, which "is a kind of castle." The
C. CHOOSE SPECIAL MONSTERS has Moldvay deciding what are the typical monsters on each level. Notably, these are the monsters that he intends to place in the dungeon, rather than roll them randomly.
Following this is
D. DRAW THE MAP. Having drawn the map as shown above, he places the trapdoor to level 2 in Room 4, the trap in the entranceway, and then fills out the room. There is a very good, but very easy to overlook, piece of advice here as he says, "Then the other rooms are drawn in, being careful to make sure that the player characters will have to go through several other rooms to [r]each room #4 (no matter which way they go)." But, this is not really reflected in the finished map, which only has one path to Room 4, which passes through only one other room. I wonder if there was supposed to be a door from Room 3 to Room 4 that got lost in the shuffle. (Incidentally, there's a typo here in the first printing, with the r in "reach" dropped. Does anyone with a later printing know if this was fixed?)
After putting goblins in Rooms 5 and 9, and hobgoblins in Room 4, it's time to
E. STOCK THE DUNGEON. Here he follows the random tables provided earlier in the section. Room 1 ends up entirely empty, Room 2 has a monster (crab spider) and some silver pieces rolled off the , Room 3 gets a trap and a nice haul of treasure. As noted in the previous section, the best hauls, on the whole, come not from monsters, but from "Unguarded Treasure" in empty rooms. Room 4 has already had hobgoblins placed. Notably, this shows a practical example of how the treasure types are used: he rolls the treasure (3,000 SP and 1-8 pieces of jewelry) and then reduces it by the proportion of present hobgoblins from the maximum No. Appearing in the wilderness (4/24 so 1/6 = 500 sp and 1 gem). Rooms 5 and 6 are empty, Room 7 gets a green slime and no treasure, Room 8 is empty, and as noted above four goblins have been placed in Room 9, but dice rolls indicate no treasure.
Then comes
F. FILLING IN FINAL DETAILS. Here Moldvay indicates that the DM should make a Key to the dungeon (capitalization in the original!). He provides a standard form for presenting Monsters in the Key:
Monster name (Armor Class, Hit Dice or level, hit points, Movement Rate, Number of Attacks, Damage, Save As, Morale Alignment), abbreviated as Monster name (AC, HD, hp, MV, #AT, D, Save, ML, AL). He also provides a standard format for indicating the size of the room: feet (abbreviated with ') followed by N-S for North-South and E-W for East West.
As an example of how this works, room 9 is listed in the Key like this:
Room #9 (5' E-W, 10' N-S): This cubbyhole has a secret door and was sued to spy on those walking down the corridor. There are now 4 goblins (AC 6, HD 1, hp 5, 3, 4, 1, MV 60' (20'), #AT 1, D 1-6, Save F: 1, AL Chaotic) in the room spying on anyone approaching in the corridor. They have no treasure.
The entire sample dungeon is Keyed in this way.
There was also a map for levels 2 and 3 of the Haunted Keep:
I'll admit, when I first saw this at age 11, I didn't "get" it. It seemed like, okay, here's a cross-section of the dungeon, which has stairs and ladders to some levels, but then also what looks like a straight drop down to a flight of stairs. What I didn't pick up on is that it's presented in cross-section so that the DM can make the levels as big and wide as they wanted. I'm still somewhat perplexed by the seeming straight drop down to the stairs, but how to use this map is actually somewhat elucidated in the
Sample Dungeon Expedition. This will be looked at in more detail in the next installment.
While it is all very straightforward, I think this section, in conjunction with the previous one, are one of the hidden gems of Moldvay D&D. The basic process and many of the tables come from OD&D's Vol III (and are completely missing from Holmes' Basic Rules), but Moldvay lays them out more clearly and pairs them with an excellent example. After this section, the novice DM doesn't know how to build a fantasy world, or create a long-running campaign that incorporates players' backgrounds into the story. But they know how to design a dungeon for their players to explore, and how to run it.
