D&D (2024) D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

[mamba]

Well, 1e has very extensive and elaborate treasure tables, and every monster is described as having specific types. Now, exactly what a specific given monster in a specific place has, yes that is up to the DM. Could a DM simply refuse to place adequate treasure? Sure!

went to the 1e DMG to look for those rules

and that kinda is where it ends. There is a table of random traps, but that is not by dungeon level and the advice about treasure is relatively generic.

First of all, not all monsters you encounter have their treasure according to their treasure table.

"All monsters would not and should not possess treasure! The TREASURE TYPES given in the MONSTER MANUAL are the optimums and are meant to consider the maximum number of creatures guarding them. Many of the
monsters shown as possessing some form of wealth are quite unlikely to have any at all."

They do get more treasure deeper down in the dungeon but specifics are pretty nonexistent (apart from the treasure type per monster part)

"In more inaccessible regions there will be stronger monsters — whether due to numbers or individual prowess is immaterial. These creatures will have more treasure, at least those with any at all. Copper will give way to silver, silver to electrum, electrum to gold."

and just to not make it too easy on the players

"Rather than stocking a treasure which the victorious player characters can easily gather and carry to the surface, you maximize the challenge by making it one which ogres would naturally accrue in the process of their raiding. There are many copper and silver coins in a large, locked iron chest. There are pewter vessels worth a fair number of silver pieces. An inlaid wooden coffer, worth 100 gold pieces alone, holds a finely wrought silver necklace worth an incredible 350 gold pieces! Food and other provisions scattered about amount to another hundred or so gold nobles value, and one of the ogres wears a badly tanned fur cape which will fetch 50 gold pieces nonetheless."

and the list goes on

Magic items are also handled rather imprecise

"As the campaign grows and deeper dungeons are developed, you exercise the same care in placement of selected and balanced magic items. Of course, at lower levels of the dungeon you have more powerful single items or groupings of disparate items, but they are commensurate with the challenge and ability of participants. Guardians tend to employ the items routinely, and others are hidden ingeniously to escape detection."

So yeah, a lot of DM fiat and some rough guidelines. Certainly nothing that really restrains the DM and puts the players in control, allowing them real risk vs reward decisions, apart from 'the deeper, the more of both risk and reward'

Honestly, the absolute size of treasure hordes is not even really the point. The point is that the players are the ones defining the level of risk they take, and reaping the reward appropriate to that. If a given GM makes treasures 1/10th as big as another, there's still the same proportionality there. It may change the character of the game in various ways, but it isn't a part of the question of who is in control of risk management, that's the players.

to a degree, yes, no different from how the game works outside the dungeon as well. In both cases the DM placed level appropriate monsters and rewards in level appropriate environments

 

[MichaelSomething]

We’ve been going round and round about whether the 1e rules are written in some way that gives some sort of explicit control over risk and reward to the players to allow them to control the game better than in subsequent editions…and you’ve now laid out a scenario where arbitrarily some character just gets their hand lobbed off just because. I got nothing. It’s like we’re talking two totally different languages. The game you describe has no appeal to me.

And isn't that the best part of D&D? DMs are so empowered they can transform the game into whatever they want! So it should be no surprise that two different DMs can create completely different situations!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

You can usually tell when someone is talking about players from the context.

Sure, but you have to admit - with your (valiant) crusade against DM disempowerment, you're pretty likely to infer it, even when it isn't necessarily there. For example, I'm convinced that he's talking about everyone at the table when he says (what was it) "make the story your own". (Not to mention, it's something of an empty slogan, with probably quite a bit less meaning than you're ascribing to it).

Yes! of course "Bob" is a problem player. This started here with about how milestone leveling helps remove barriers that would otherwise encourage the players to push back against that problem behavior. The fact that so many posts tried to discuss that comment starting with an assumption that Bob is something else that the GM could support cater to or just accept because the other players went along with his subversion demonstrates just how much milestone leveling rolls out the red carpet for players like post 450 Bob. So that of course led to a discussion about all of the other rules changes that go into clearing the way for post 450 Bob.

While I'm absolutely on board with giving out tools for DMs and other players to deal with problem players, I can't understand why you think that Milestone Leveling weakens that fight. But then, I also feel like you must have to be running into many, many more problem players than I am. Maybe it's some sort of privilege of mine that I haven't seen any real problem gamers (maybe a borderline one here or there) in many many years (over many dozens of players - perhaps as many as a hundred). The last time I saw one was during 3.5 (early oughts), with how it encouraged rules-lawyering and the bad sort of power gaming.

And that guy still plays at my store (though not with me, though not because we had any falling out) - after I taught him how to "play nice with others".

 

[pemerton]

I'll state that the idea of D&D being best played as excursions into a dungeon for the only purpose is to get treasure (which is XP, which gains you levels, which allows you go further into the dungeon) IS a simplistic form of D&D

Who said anything about what makes for the best RPG, or the best version of D&D?

Clearly today there are more D&D players who prefer GM decides over classic Gygaxian play. And I already posted that I prefer scene-frame-y 4e D&D.

 

[pemerton]

Only in arguing that gold for XP is a superior method of assigning XP over story awards, the latter used in other styles of play and the former born of dungeon crashing.

Who said that gold for XP is superior?

 

[pemerton]

The only way in which the players influence risk and reward is by deciding how deep in the dungeon they go (assuming they find the way down) and relying on risk and reward increasing by doing so. That is not that different from deciding how much to bet on Roulette, and I would not say that the player has a lot of control there

No. Players can map. They can listen at doors. They can use the myriad detection and scrying devices that are part of the game. They can collect clues in the dungeon in other ways too (eg speaking to monsters; drawing inferences from what they encounter about what might be next - eg Gnolls keep hyenas; Hobgoblins keep carnivorous apes; etc).

This is why it is skilled play, not roulette.

the comparison was between 1e as a dungeon crawl and 1e as fantasy with varied goals. Both are DM driven in much the same way to me

And my preceding paragraph shows why it is not GM-driven. The players can collect that information, make their plans, etc. Once the GM has written their map and key, following the game's advice, the players then have access to these techniques for obliging the GM to reveal elements of the map, and elements of the key, and thereby to make decisions about how they approach play. The GM does not control pacing, and does not even control scene-framing.

that is the condition, anything involved in how this can accomplished, e.g. what treasure there is, what monsters / traps / obstacles there are has been decided by the DM, that is what I meant by parameters.

<snip>

the DM decided what treasure there is, what traps and monsters there are, etc. I see little difference between this and DL1. That you now might want to persuade someone / something instead of either avoiding or killing it did not really make much of a difference from my perspective

<snip>

the only thing that changed is that the goal is no longer predetermined by the game rules

In a classic dungeon crawl, the outcome of action resolution is not decided by the GM. Either there is a rule - eg the rule for listening at doors - or there is extrapolation from a very austere fiction (eg this is how breaking down a door with an axe is resolved).

But AD&D has no rules for resolving most non-dungeon-delving actions. And as soon as the fiction becomes less austere than the (highly artificial) dungeon, extrapolation turns into just making stuff up.

 

[pemerton]

It changes the players' motivations particularly when it comes to exploring. It changes the utility of certain skills, items, rules like hirelings, and so forth. But what it doesn't do, as has been suggested, is fundamentally change the role of the DM, and the role of the PCs. The DM still creates the world and the dungeon, and the players act upon that accordingly.

The way the players "act upon" a dungeon is by exploring it, mapping it, declaring actions (like listening at doors, or using detection magic) that oblige the GM to tell them stuff about it, etc.

How do the players "act upon" a world that could be whatever the GM wants it to be, and behave however the GM wants it to? How do they know if they are winning or losing? Or if their declared actions will generate progress or setback?

There are approaches to action resolution in non-dungeon crawling RPGing that permit the players to exercise some control over play. But AD&D doesn't provide any of them!

 

[tetrasodium]

While I'm absolutely on board with giving out tools for DMs and other players to deal with problem players, I can't understand why you think that Milestone Leveling weakens that fight.

"milestone leveling helps remove barriers that would otherwise encourage the players to push back against that problem behavior."
I know that part of Canada is pretty adamant about speaking French but I didn't think you were in that part and you literally quoted it for a second time. In addition there was a long back and forth over how it does so. You also quoted this one originally

.

Milestone robs the gm of any reason for the other players to push back against Bob when he wants to tell a specific story by being difficult

You quoted that as well as quite a few posts talking about specifics of it and secondary mechanics that help or hinder post450 Bob in other ways.

 

[TiQuinn]

How do the players "act upon" a world that could be whatever the GM wants it to be, and behave however the GM wants it to? How do they know if they are winning or losing? Or if their declared actions will generate progress or setback?

The same way you described? By exploring it, interacting with NPCs, searching rooms, casting spells, and so on.

As for “How do they know if they’re winning or losing?”

Is this really a problem you’ve been encountered? I have an extremely hard time believing we’re not theorycrafting here.

I’m going to go back to this - story goals are self-evident. After the DM presents the problem, the end goal is pretty clear. I mentioned several examples earlier. And they’ll know if they’re progressing towards a goal based on how the story progresses:

• They find the holy symbol of Ravenkind that can help keep Strahd at bay.

• They find a clue that says the missing prince is in the lower reaches of the Temple.

Finally, they gain experience points. That’s the metric that everyone uses in terms of meta-gaming. Thr player knows they’re winning because they know they’re gaining XP.

Let me flip that around: Why does the player in your non story based game continue adventuring? The PCs clear out Dungeon Level 1 of all of its gold and find the stairs to Dungeon Level 2 where the monsters and traps are deadlier but the gold is higher. But instead, they say no…”we want you to generate another dungeon because surely there are more. We want to keep clearing out Dungeon Level 1s because we prefer safety. After all, it’s just the gold that matters. There’s nothing in the rules that say we need to accept greater risk.” Would you accept that rather absurd argument from the players?

 

[pemerton]

Finally, they gain experience points. That’s the metric that everyone uses in terms of meta-gaming. Thr player knows they’re winning because they know they’re gaining XP.

Post hoc.

Or maybe in advance, if the GM tells the players what they have to do to earn XP (eg rescue the princess, kill the vampire or whatever).

This is not the same as a win condition established by the game, which then permits the players to make their own choices about how they wish to do that - choices about risk and reward, scouting out possible treasures in the dungeon, etc.

The same way you described? By exploring it, interacting with NPCs, searching rooms, casting spells, and so on.

As for “How do they know if they’re winning or losing?”

Is this really a problem you’ve been encountered?

Yes, it is a thing that I've encountered. I've played plenty of railroading, GM-decides D&D. Thankfully not since the 2nd ed AD&D era. In my view it's bad RPGing.

And what does "exploring it", "interacting with NPCs", etc mean? These things don't exist. They are imaginary. Therefore, what we are really talking about is how the outcomes of declared actions are established. In the context of the dungeon, the fiction is artificially austere, generally quite simple, and - as @AbdulAlhazred has already posted - there are known conventions and tropes for adjudicating the relevant actions. The GM's key can also deal with most if not all of the salient things - distances, portals and furniture.

Once the fiction becomes about more realistic things, there are too many possible action declarations to be covered by known conventions, and the key can't even aspire to be complete. So the way those outcomes are established becomes simply by the GM deciding.

I mean, it's no coincidence that RPGs that aim to support more "realistic", non-dungeon-crawling scenarios, and that want to avoid GM-decides railroading, adopt pretty different action resolution frameworks from those found in AD&D. This has been evident since Greg Stafford designed Prince Valiant in the late 80s.