D&D Adventure Tropes

[Ariosto]

D&D had been around, in one form or another, for almost 8 years -- about as long as WotC published 3e -- before the first of the TSR dungeon modules appeared. About half that period was prior to the publication of the first boxed set of rules-books. So, the first widely published appearances of some aspects of play were in various magazines.

TSR packed a lot into Volumes 1-3 and the Supplements (perhaps especially I-II, in terms of hallmark 'tropes'). Supplement II included The Temple of the Frog, which I think was the first published D&D scenario.

Then there were The Strategic Review (later The Dragon); Alarums & Excursions, The Dungeoneer, and less prominent 'zines; Wee Warriors, Metro Detroit Gamers, and other small publishers of scenarios; and the Judges Guild, with the City State and Tegel Manor and the Wilderlands.

One of TSR's early modules, B1 In Search of the Unknown (which replaced Dungeon Geomorphs and Monster & Treasure Assortments in later Holmes Basic boxed sets), included a lot of then-classic 'bits'.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Random wandering monsters
Random wandering monsters with more treasure than planned encounters
Random wandering monsters that result with a TPK
Spending time outside a dungeon waiting for random wandering monsters to defeat and gain enough XP to level up

 

[Ariosto]

The city sewers as a dungeon - Feels Warhammer-y

Before Middenheim, there were such products as Sewers of Oblivion (Flying Buffalo, 1980) and Wraith Overlord (Judges Guild, 1981).

Opposed factions - B4 and T1-4 are prob the best examples.

Paul Jaquays' OD&D The Caverns of Thracia (featuring a lost city) and AD&D Dark Tower (featuring a village where all is not as it seems, and a buried temple of evil) appeared between the releases of the PHB and DMG, 1978-79. "Dungeon society" figures in them.

Evil High Priests - ? May be older than D&D

Yes, but I don't think Conan ever called Thoth-Amon "E.H.P."! In D&D Vol.2, there is a Scarab of Protection from Evil High Priests that absorbs the dreaded "Finger of Death".

Animating statues - ?

Living Statues:Various stone and metal monsters which come to life if trespass into a certain area is made. One of these monsters was iron, impervious to all weapons save two special ones he guarded, had a fiery breath, poison sword, and a whip of Cockatrice feathers which turned the thing struck by it into stone.

That famous trifecta of tropes came, IIRC, from Rob Kuntz's Kalibruhn campaign, in which Gary Gygax got to play at last after so much DMing and writing.

Statues as evidence of a medusa - ?

"A medusa" itself is a definite D&D-ism! The mythical Medusa was one of three Gorgons (her sisters being Stheno and Euryale). "Pegasi" are another example of making an individual's name that of the species.

D&D plays freely with tradition. "Unlike the standard mythological concept of the Hydra being a snake with many heads, these beasts are large dinosaurs with multiple heads," Vol. 2 noted.

Underdark: deeper and stranger - D1 Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth

I'm not sure what you're about here, Doug. The term "underdark" came later, and the Underworld was "deeper and stranger" level by level from the start. Certainly mention of subterranean lakes and seas goes back at least to Part 3 of Joe Fischer's "Hints For D&D Judges", and figured -- along with an underground city -- in the "skull mountain" elevation view in Holmes Basic.

C.S. Lewis provided quite a bit of inspiration for future dungeon masters in The Silver Chair (1953). That includes, of course, the Sunless Sea and the city of the Queen of Underland (a.k.a. the Deep Realm).

The entrance is carved to look like a mouth - ?

Or like a whole skull, as in that cross-section in Holmes Basic?

 

[Tonguez]

"A medusa" itself is a definite D&D-ism! The mythical Medusa was one of three Gorgons (her sisters being Stheno and Euryale). "Pegasi" are another example of making an individual's name that of the species.

Hmm personally I've always linked this to their depiction in the original Clash of the Titans (I haven't seen the new one yet) - They are both major 'named' characters but the idea of flying horses and medusa as one of a species isn't discounted (but I agree medusa as a species most likely happened first in DnD)

 

[hamishspence]

Doesn't the "green, regenerating troll that needs fire to kill it" originally date from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions?

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm not sure what you're about here, Doug. The term "underdark" came later, and the Underworld was "deeper and stranger" level by level from the start.

I was thinking of the Underdark as an underground wilderness, much larger than even the biggest dungeon, and not handled room-by-room. I think that first appears in D1.

You're right about OD&D dungeons getting deeper and stranger too, but I think the Underdark is particularly deep and particularly strange, with drow, aboleths, mind flayers, etc.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Urban adventure – City State of the Invincible Overlord 1976
Murder mystery – L2 The Assassin's Knot 1983
Fantasy meets sci-fi – Temple of the Frog, I think
The Grand Alliance of Monsters – GDQ?
Underwater adventure ie most of the adventure is underwater, particularly the dungeon - ?
Tolkien-esque/2e-style – DL1 Dragons of Despair
First boxed text - ?
Solo adventure – Buffalo Castle 1976 (Tunnels & Trolls)

 

[Doug McCrae]

What was the first non-dungeon based adventure for D&D? The Assassin's Knot?

 

[Ariosto]

I was thinking of the Underdark as an underground wilderness, much larger than even the biggest dungeon, and not handled room-by-room. I think that first appears in D1.

"Much larger than even the biggest dungeon" is pure nonsense without whatever anachronistic, arbitrary limitation you are imposing on "dungeon". In the event, even D1 was but a dungeon module!

You're right about OD&D dungeons getting deeper and stranger too, but I think the Underdark is particularly deep and particularly strange, with drow, aboleths, mind flayers, etc.

Ah, mind flayers (The Strategic Review Vol. 2, Issue 2; also in Supp. III), aboleths (Monster Manual) and drow (MM mention) appeared long before the term "underdark" -- which, IIRC, I first encountered in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (1986). Your notion of it as something apart from the "underworld" or "dungeons" is maybe not even to be found therein. I certainly did not see it in the D modules.

Where there are no literal rooms, one can -- like adventure-game programmers -- work in terms of conceptual "rooms" (perhaps called spaces/ places/ encounters/ scenes or whatever).

D1 is an example of one implementation, but it is hardly the first appearance of the concept of a vast underground domain in D&D. I reckon it is in fact implicit in the very term Underworld, which also evokes the very ancient nature of this concept.

That in turn may suggest that it is not especially a "D&D trope". Was Lewis using a "D&D trope" two decades prior to D&D? No, he was using an archetypal element of myth and legend!

Here is that picture from the first Basic Set (1977). It's pretty clearly not to a scale.

 

[Doug McCrae]

"Much larger than even the biggest dungeon" is pure nonsense without whatever anachronistic, arbitrary limitation you are imposing on "dungeon". In the event, even D1 was but a dungeon module!

Here is that picture from the first Basic Set (1977). It's pretty clearly not to a scale.

That's a good piece of evidence, the domed city in the underground lake must be large. However no precise scale is given so if we are looking for clearcut evidence of an underground wilderness I would still go with D1 as the first example. Its hex map covers an area of about 30 by 50 miles and the module mentions "hundreds of miles of passages".

Likewise what is depicted in the sample maps in OD&D is much smaller. One might say that the old school mega-dungeon is infinite, nonetheless what is shown on the maps in the OD&D rules is a lot lesser in magnitude than what we see in D1.

According to this article at wired.com, "The concept of the planetwide dungeon was introduced by E. Gary Gygax in his famous “D” series modules". The article is also referenced by the wikipedia Underdark entry, which says the same.