Whilst revisiting Keep on the Borderlands, I came across this interesting passage:
The DM is also the designer of the situations and must bear in mind the abilities of his or her players. It is the job of the DM to see that the situations and characters balance. If things are too difficult, the players will become discouraged; too easy and they will become bored. Is it possible for a good player to win, yet still be a challenge and a risk in doing so? Is the amount of treasure gained equal to the danger of trying to get it? As DM, much satisfaction comes from watching players overcome a difficult situation. But they should do it on their own! (Keep on the Borderlands by Gary Gygax, page 4)
I was particularly interested in the first part of the paragraph, where Gary very much set out a philosophy of balancing adventures against the characters - something that is at odds with the "status quo" design philosophy which I hear some espouse.
Of course, the original D&D, with its "megadungeons", performs a self-balancing act: the players discover the level of the dungoen where their characters are comfortable adventuring and adventure there. Of course, this requires the DM to have paid attention to the monster levels and not placed Type VI demons in a level 1 room!
At present, it seems very likely that when my 4E HPE campaign finishes at the end of this year, it will be replaced by a AD&D campaign in the lands of the Frost Barbarians. So, I've been poring over the old D&D modules I have, and finding some rather interesting advice, particularly in some very old supplements I've only recently acquired.
Consider this text from the Monster & Treasure Assortment:
It should be noted that just as a dungeon level should have monsters in only 20% or so of the available rooms and chambers, about 20% of the monsters should have no treasure whatsoever.
Where does this 20% figure come from? In oD&D and both early Basic D&D sets, it's a 2 in 6 chance that a monster is in each room, and a 3 in 6 chance that the monster has treasure. AD&D doesn't muck about with a lot of "basic" rules for stocking dungeons, but the random dungeon generator gives a 25% chance for a room having a monster in it... perhaps the 20% comes from there. It is a lot of "empty" space to wander through. (It should be noted that the random generator actually was first given in The Strategic Review in 1975, with the same probabilities).
Hmm - the "Treasure is Contained In" and "Guarded In" tables of the DMG random system aren't in the original TSR article... but they are in the Monster & Treasure Assortment. (My copy is a later printing, so were they included in the early copies and from thence made their way to the DMG? I suspect that is the case...)
Cheers!
The DM is also the designer of the situations and must bear in mind the abilities of his or her players. It is the job of the DM to see that the situations and characters balance. If things are too difficult, the players will become discouraged; too easy and they will become bored. Is it possible for a good player to win, yet still be a challenge and a risk in doing so? Is the amount of treasure gained equal to the danger of trying to get it? As DM, much satisfaction comes from watching players overcome a difficult situation. But they should do it on their own! (Keep on the Borderlands by Gary Gygax, page 4)
I was particularly interested in the first part of the paragraph, where Gary very much set out a philosophy of balancing adventures against the characters - something that is at odds with the "status quo" design philosophy which I hear some espouse.
Of course, the original D&D, with its "megadungeons", performs a self-balancing act: the players discover the level of the dungoen where their characters are comfortable adventuring and adventure there. Of course, this requires the DM to have paid attention to the monster levels and not placed Type VI demons in a level 1 room!
At present, it seems very likely that when my 4E HPE campaign finishes at the end of this year, it will be replaced by a AD&D campaign in the lands of the Frost Barbarians. So, I've been poring over the old D&D modules I have, and finding some rather interesting advice, particularly in some very old supplements I've only recently acquired.
Consider this text from the Monster & Treasure Assortment:
It should be noted that just as a dungeon level should have monsters in only 20% or so of the available rooms and chambers, about 20% of the monsters should have no treasure whatsoever.
Where does this 20% figure come from? In oD&D and both early Basic D&D sets, it's a 2 in 6 chance that a monster is in each room, and a 3 in 6 chance that the monster has treasure. AD&D doesn't muck about with a lot of "basic" rules for stocking dungeons, but the random dungeon generator gives a 25% chance for a room having a monster in it... perhaps the 20% comes from there. It is a lot of "empty" space to wander through. (It should be noted that the random generator actually was first given in The Strategic Review in 1975, with the same probabilities).
Hmm - the "Treasure is Contained In" and "Guarded In" tables of the DMG random system aren't in the original TSR article... but they are in the Monster & Treasure Assortment. (My copy is a later printing, so were they included in the early copies and from thence made their way to the DMG? I suspect that is the case...)
Cheers!
