Why don't you look at the Expert rulebook? Everyone knows Expert was all about wilderness and exploration
I'm familiar with the Cook/Marsh Expert rulebook (which is the sequel to Moldvay Basic - I'm not commenting on the Mentzer versions). But that doesn't change what was written by Moldvay in his rulebook, nor does it change what was written by Gygax in his DMG.
Both give very similar advice on how to start a campaign, and none of that advice is about building a sandbox world for the PCs to explore. It is about building a single dungeon, which the PCs must travel to if the players want to play the game, and that dungeon is expected to be suitable for exploration by low-level PCs.
You need look no further than the suggestion of using the map board from Outdoor Survival game in (O)D&D but, again, giving tips on how to get a setting started to new GMs in the 1E AD&D DMG isn't a question of tailoring the setting to the PCs but rather staying ahead of the players needs until such time as a homebrewed setting can be more fully ready to explore.
Recommendatins in the original D&D rulebooks don't, of themselves, affect the content of the DMG. The fact that the DMG takes a somewhat different approach suggests that Gygax may have been aware of developments in the play of the game.
Also - what is the meaning of the phrase "the players' needs"? What they need is stuff to do when playing the game. What does that stuff consist in? Exciting adventures (further quotes from the DMG below support this). What makes an adventure exciting? In part, that it is feasible for the players (via their PCs) to undertake, where feasibility includes considerations of mechanical capability.
In the megadungeon context, the dungeon is not just a sandbox to be explored. Players are expected to do their best to make sensible judgements about dungeon level and hence dungeon difficulty. This is part of what makes for skilled play. Players of low-level PCs are of course free to try their hand at lower dungeon levels and see how they go - but this is not primarily about exploration, it's about testing one's skill (and luck).
Is that the 1981 edition or later?
The passage that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] quoted appears on p X59 of my copy of the Expert rulebook, which is labelled "(C) 1974, 1977, 1978, 1981" and also "First printing - January, 1981". On the same page there is also the remark that "Part of the art of expert DMing is to keep th campaign challenging for the players."
There is also the related advice from Gygax on p 9 of his DMG (my copy says "Revised Edition - December, 1979" although it is a later imprint with the "Gates of Hell" cover):
Read how and why the system is as it is, follow the pararameters, and then cut portions as needed to maintain excitement. For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition. You have set up an area full of clever tricks and traps, populated it with well-thought-out creature complexes, given clues about it to pique players' interest, and the group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need to face and overcome the imagined perils. They are gathered together and eager to spend an enjoyable evening playing their favourite game, with the expectation of going to a new, strange area and doing their best to triumph. They are willing to accept the hazards of the dice, be it loss of items, wounding, insanity, disease, death, as long as the process is exciting. But lo!, everytime you throw the "monster die" a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party's strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don't allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game. Wandering monsters, however, are included for two reasons, as is explained in the section about them. If a party deserves to have the beasties inflicted upon them, that is another matter, but in the example above it is assumed that they are doing everthing possible to travel quickly and quietly to their planned destination. If you work as DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favour of play.
This is consistent with Gygax's later suggestion (p 110) that the GM might fudge a die roll "to give [the players] an edge in finding a particular clue, eg a secret door that leads to a complx of monsters and teasures that will be espcially entertaining."
None of this present sandbox exploration as the default mode of play. If anything, its tenor is the opposite - that the players will be heading to particular areas of the dungeon that they have reason to think will be rewarding in play, and that the GM will take steps - providing clues and information in game, fudging rolls to find secret doors, ignoring disruptive wandering monster rolls - to ensure that those areas of the dungeon actually come into play.
It is also possible to see the beginnings of illuionist play in these passages - because at the same time that Gygax is telling GMs that if a group of players plan well, random encounters shouldn't be allowed to disrupt their PCs arrival at the desired area of the dungeon, in his PHB (p 109) Gygax is telling players that they should:
Avoid unnecessary encounters. This advice usually means the diffrence between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. Your party has an objective [assuming that the players have followed the advice on p 107], and wandering monsters are something which stand between them and it. The easiest way to overcome such difficulties is to avoid the interposing or trailing creature if at all possible. Wandering monsters typically weaken the party through use of equipment and spells against them, and they also weaken the group by inflicting damage. Very few are going to be helpful; fewer still will have anything of value to the party. Run first and ask questions later. In the same vein, shun encounters with creatures found to be dwelling permanently in the dungeon (as far as you can tell, that is) unless such creatures are part of the set objective or the monster stands between the group and the goal it has set out to gain. Do not be sidetracked. A good referee will have many ways to distract an expedition, many things to draw attention, but ignore them if at all possible. The mappers must note all such things, and another expedition might be in order another day to investigate or destroy something or some monster, but always stay with what was planned if at all possible, and wait for another day to handle the other matters. This [is] not to say that something hanging like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked must be bypassed, but be relatively certain that what appears to be the cas actually is.
Both the DMG and the PHB passage have the same aim: that good play should be rewarded. But the PHB passage suggests that the reward consists in avoiding the adverse consequence which will otherwise flow from engaging the obstacles that the GM will place between players and desired dungeon objective; whereas the DMG passage suggests that, if the players have the right
attitude and approach towards avoiding those obstacles, then the GM should hold back on even placing those obstacles where the process of avoidance will overshadow the more exciting prospect of exploring the desired area of the dungeon. On this latter approach, the reward for good play is in not facing obstacles at all.
Reconciling the tension between these two approaches to rewarding good play has driven a lot of RPG design. "Say yes" approaches are among them. So is dropping Gygax's notions of "excitement" and "especially entertaining" in favour of treating world exploration, including wandering monsters as part of that, as the principal goal of play.
