D&D 5E Desert of Desolation map scale confusion

[jayoungr]

One 3x play through saw an ongoing joke develop as multiple nights running the dice gave one particular player a herd of donkeys passing the camp on thier watch - on the other side of the dune. The player never made a single perception check to notice them. The dice indicated the donkeys travel direction wich never crossed into the camp.
It became a joke - "HOW do you not ever notice these donkeys that are trailing us???"

I love it when the dice do something like that.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

"While the PCs are in this area, roll 1d6 every turn. On a roll of 1, there will be a random encounter.”

My understanding is that in the edition this adventure was written, a “turn” corresponds to ten minutes.

Looking at the map, the players will need to traverse about 50 hexes. On page 8 it says it will take the players approximately 3.5 hours to cross each hex.

This means there will be 3.5 * 6 * 50 = 1050 random encounter dice rolls to cross this area. What am I missing?

Assuming we're talking about 1st Edition here. The rate of encounters of 1d6 per turn is a rate for use in dungeons, not travelling cross-country. However, even wilderness encounters can be as many as 6 checks per day. What it doesn't explain is the PURPOSE of having random encounters. They're really intended to keep the party moving toward a goal or a destination. They're not supposed to BE the adventure, they're really a punishment of sorts for lollygagging.

The original idea of getting through adventures was not really exploring every nook and cranny of a dungeon, nor seeing every tourist site on your trip from A to B. It was intended to be about getting there, getting the loot, and getting back safely, all done as swiftly and efficiently as possible and that meant drawing as FEW random encounters as possible. It wasn't a written rule (as in large part it was assumed that DM's understood it) but as long as the party is moving efficiently, keeping aware, drawing as little attention as possible, etc. as a DM you didn't NEED and actually didn't want random encounters any more than the players really did. Something else about random encounters back in the day is that they tended to be fights without any chance of REAL treasure as a reward. So even though you get experience for the kills, every random encounter is only really sapping your party's strength and resources.

To that end, the DM can actually set the chances of random encounters as high or low as they like. Just cuz it's written in an adventure doesn't mean it's the best or only way to handle it. The DM of old is supposed to be there to make judgments on such things rather than always take what's written unchallenged.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I can’t find an explicit statement of what constitutes a wilderness exploration turn in 1E, although counting time in days is implied in the DMG.

If we’re talking about Pharaoh, however, which was originally created in 1977, before the rules for 1E were complete, then I think reference to the “OD&D” rules are certainly in order. Volume 3, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures has an explicit statement that a wilderness exploration turn equals one day, which is what I’d use in this case, given that 1E doesn’t seem to contain any statement that overrides this.

This will yield about four encounters over the course of a roughly 22 day journey.

Good work. I found the same ambiguity in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, but I didn't think to check the original Dungeons and Dragons rules. In the Dungeon Master's Guide they do stress that 10-minute turns are for dungeon exploration.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

That would be once every hour! Are you trying to tell me that, compared to other deserts, it is a very bad idea to go into the desert in Desert of Desolation? It's an obstacle rather than a destination?

That just makes me want go there now.

 

[Hriston]

Good work. I found the same ambiguity in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide, but I didn't think to check the original Dungeons and Dragons rules. In the Dungeon Master's Guide they do stress that 10-minute turns are for dungeon exploration.

Well, from @lowkey13 ’s post, it seems the original published modules were in keeping with 1E practices for random wilderness encounters, i.e., d10 checks at four-hour intervals. Changes were made in the revision, but it’s unclear what the thinking was. According to Wikipedia, some of the changes were made to bring it in line with the Wilderness Survival Guide. Maybe there’s something in there about a wilderness exploration turn?

 

[Hriston]

Egads! I just confirmed that WSG does indeed use the 10-minute turn as a unit of time measurement throughout. So this would indicate that the revision went from a 1 in 10 chance every four hours (already dangerous by AD&D standards) to a 1 in 6 chance every hour on p. 22 (as cited by @lowkey13 ) and/or a 1 in 6 chance every 10 minutes on p. 19 (as cited by @fil512 )!!!

Maybe the person who did this hadn’t bothered looking at WSG and had the OD&D wilderness exploration turn in mind, or maybe they just didn’t know what they were doing. In any case, I think the obvious solution is to forget the revised version and use the encounter frequencies from the original modules.

 

[MerricB]

So I’m preparing to DM Desert of Desolation (adapted for 5e) but I’m confused by the exploration random encounters.

Chapter 5 p. 19 says:

“While the PCs are in this area, roll 1d6 every turn. On a roll of 1, there will be a random encounter.”

That section is an addition to the original work, created in 1987 by Wm John Wheeler. It isn't in the original adventures published in 1983. Indeed, the random encounter system in Chapter 6 is also a new addition. I also note a lack of scale on the map of Northknife pass. (They are NOT one mile apart - the entire map is at most three miles).

I've never liked the revision very much. The originals are some of my favourite adventures.

In AD&D, a turn is defined as 10 minutes. The DMG's wilderness exploration system has potentially six checks per day, depending on terrain - there isn't an "exploration turn" in the wilderness as such.

Cheers!

 

[Mirador7]

At the end of the day, I think as a GM/DM you need to find a method that suits your style of play. I generated random encounters for 12 days to start with. As too North Knife Pass, the Map 6-1 that comes with the Desert of Desolation indicates the pass to be 3 hexes or 15 miles, the Map 5-1 North Knife Pass does not have a scale on it but is 30 hexes north to south, therefore I assumed a size of half a mile per hex for the pass, this may not be correct but along with the encounters the party took four days to cross the pass.