OD&D Gygax and the DMG: What is a Dungeon Master For?

[CandyLaser]

WotC puts out player facing materials that chortle "Your Dungeon Master is going to hate this!" If that isn't player-centric, I don't know what is. .

They can write that, but in the end the DM still has control over the game and can also just not allow what ever he is supposed to hate. I dont know where that is from, but it also sounds a bit tongue in cheek

I don't think I've seen anything from WotC that says that, but I haven't followed their recent output.

 

[Marc17]

There definitely was something going on, whether this theory is the answer or another. The lack of zone-of-control rules or ways to protect your spellcasters outside the confines of 10' corridors* -- along with those wandering monster tables-- always told me that there was something missing from my understanding of how the devs thought the game was supposed to work.
*that you could jam up with two ranks of warriors/henchmen/hirelings

From my reading of the rules, the holes in such, wording of old modules, D&D histories including the Blackmore video that came out, and the stories of Mike Mornard over on RPG.net, my thoughts are that the entire war game aspect of D&D was not the game they were exploring and interested in interacting with. The war-game part of D&D was where they were coming from, not where they were going to. What they were really interested in was the Braunstein story game of telling the DM what everybody in the party is doing, and the DM adjudicating those actions. When that broke down, such as combat, they fell back to technical rules. They were still creating RPGs, so there was no vocabulary to explain all this, and quite frankly they all seemed to think it was self evident that this was how the game was supposed to be played.

Back to dungeon levels, according to Mike Mornard, there was a room on Gary's 1st level that was way above 1st level, a room full of trolls. Outside of it were the bodies and bones of dead adventurers. 1st level parties were supposed to take note and stay away. As said in Dungeon Crawler Carl "Look for the clues. There are always clues."

On to wilderness, yes, the wilderness was supposed to be high level zone. I worked this out organically in my last campaign. When you have megafauna wandering around, everybody else should stay clear if not prepared for such. Inhabited lands tended to centered around cleared and safe areas, and the outskirts were walled villages, with guards watches, keeps, and fortified houses, usually within signaling of other village. If something did make it in they couldn't handle, the inhabitants would retreat to the little fortress homes and hope for help to come.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are standardized mechanics for such evasion and for fleeing. See pages 18-19 of volume III, The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures.

I just looked up an online version of this, and interestingly enough I don't recall this table at all. I'm wondering if this was something that appeared after the first printing (which is the one I was used to)?

(Or it could be that I've simply forgotten over the half century since I've dealt with it, but I remembered the one for dungeons, so I'm a bit suspicious).

The smaller your party the higher your odds of evading, and the larger the given enemy group encountered is as a percentage of their maximum # appearing, the higher your odds are. Woods add 25%, and give you a 10% chance of evasion even if the monsters surprise you, which normally negates any chance of evasion. On the other hand if the PCs surprise the monsters, odds of evasion are doubled, often making it automatic. One side being at least twice as fast as the other adjusts the odds by 25%.

I will note that given the party sizes I saw at the time, this in practice means that the times you most might want to evade were the times you were least likely to pull it off--i.e. large groups of monsters or monsters with high mobility, and party sizes of 8 to 12 characters plus possibly a henchman or two. It was not hard to have a party that was moving half the speed of many monsters if they were primarily on foot (which I saw more often than not because of terrain issues and the fact that even given the relative brittleness of OD&D characters, by moderate levels the first serious opponent was liable to be able to kill your horses trivially anyway).

If you don't evade and must flee, it's in a random direction, there's a 50% chance of pursuit if they're hostile, and a 50% chance of them catching you on a given hex (25% if it's woods or swamp). If they don't catch you after the first hex of flight, check again to see if they continue pursuing, and again to see if they catch you. Of course, after fleeing you have to rest for a half day for each hex fled, and each half day spent resting prompts another random encounter check...

Note there's considerable ambiguity in the phrase "until melee occurs" too here. What conditions allows that to happen? If you can just flee repeatedly when caught, the answer would seem to be "never". (I'm also more than a little puzzled about basing pursuit by hexes, given as I recall, those were assumed to be five miles in scale.

In either case, whether I've simply forgotten this table or it existed in a version of the game I never encountered, its not overly encouraging for players to actually get away from problems they don't want to deal with.

 

[Xenolith234]

When I was a kid, I did not understand why it was so important that dwarves could detect slopes or grade in passage. It wasn't until I became more versed in the dirty tricks that I saw why that was a thing.

Mapping increased difficulty to dungeon level is a great design tool. Sneaky DM tricks aside, PCs choose to venture deeper and are themselves deciding to face more dangerous threats.

As a more modern OSR enjoyer, I didn’t connect the dots on this until this discussion

 

[Thomas Shey]

My own suspicion is that, as suggested above the wilderness encounter tables were really intended for "wild" areas--i.e. ones that had not been settled in any meaningful way. But of course the confusion is that it talks about hitting these as soon as you get away from town or the like.

My guess is that Gygax assumed all starting groups would be at least right up against the frontier, or even within it.

But it still is a problem because as noted, there are things on that encounter table that there's not much reason to think even a small military force could handle without magical support.

 

[Mannahnin]

Note there's considerable ambiguity in the phrase "until melee occurs" too here. What conditions allows that to happen? If you can just flee repeatedly when caught, the answer would seem to be "never". (I'm also more than a little puzzled about basing pursuit by hexes, given as I recall, those were assumed to be five miles in scale.

In either case, whether I've simply forgotten this table or it existed in a version of the game I never encountered, its not overly encouraging for players to actually get away from problems they don't want to deal with.

I read "until melee occurs" as just being that they catch you.

There are two checks - do they pursue, and do they catch you? If they pursue but fail to catch you, you keep checking until they either break off pursuit or catch you. Each of these is a 50/50 chance (unless you're in woods or swamp, in which case being caught is only a 25% chance).

This pursuit procedure doesn't even take place unless you fail to evade, however.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I read "until melee occurs" as just being that they catch you.

There are two checks - do they pursue, and do they catch you? If they pursue but fail to catch you, you keep checking until they either break off pursuit or catch you. Each of these is a 50/50 chance (unless you're in woods or swamp, in which case being caught is only a 25% chance).

This pursuit procedure doesn't even take place unless you fail to evade, however.

I'm more than a little puzzled that all those modifiers matter in evasion, but not pursuit. Some would seem at least as relevant there.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm more than a little puzzled that all those modifiers matter in evasion, but not pursuit. Some would seem at least as relevant there.

I think it does. To summarize the DMG:

Dungeon Avoidance


Automatic pursuit: If the encounter description, dungeon key, or monster description specifically says the creatures pursue, they do so.
Semi-intelligent or less intelligent creatures: If they are hungry, angry, aggressive, or trained to pursue, there is generally an 80% chance they will chase the party.
Low-intelligence creatures: The chance of pursuit depends on relative numbers:
Party outnumbers monsters: 20%
Roughly equal numbers: 40%
Monsters outnumber party: 80%
Monsters greatly outnumber the party and believe themselves superior: 100%

Once pursuit begins, the outcome depends on relative movement speed:
Party is faster: Pursuit ends if the party gets more than 100 feet away while visible, disappears from sight when already more than 50 feet ahead, or after 5 rounds without the pursuers gaining ground.
Both sides have equal speed: Pursuit ends if the party gets more than 150 feet away while visible, disappears from sight when already more than 80 feet ahead, or after 1 turn without the pursuers gaining ground.
Pursuers are faster: The pursuit continues unless the fleeing party disappears from sight while already more than 200 feet ahead, or the pursuers must stop because of physical exhaustion or other endurance limitations.

Modifiers to Pursuit
Several factors may impact a pursuit, depending on the creatures involved and area the pursuit has happened. These include:
Food
Treasure
Branching passageways

Note that light sources can be seen indefinitely in a straight line, or 60 feet on any corner. Characters in metal armor can be heard from 90 feet away while relatively quiet flight can be heard 30 feet away. Some creatures have an excellent sense of smell and can track the party nearly unerringly.
Mapping is impossible during flight or pursuit.

Overland Avoidance

Outdoor pursuit uses the same basic rules for determining whether creatures decide to pursue, but once pursuit begins, it continues until the fleeing party successfully evades their pursuers.

Base chance of evasion is 80%.

This percentage is modified by several factors:
Relative speed: Being faster improves the chance of escape by 10%, while being slower reduces it by 20%.
Terrain: Difficult terrain such as forests and mountains grant a +30% bonus, while open terrain such as plains, deserts, or open water imparts a -50% penalty. Adjudicate the impact in between this number for other terrains.
Party size: For 6 or fewer fleeing creatures, a +10% bonus is gained. If the fleeing party is between 12-50 creatures, a -20% penalty is enforced. For more than 50 creatures, the penalty is -50%.
Size of the pursuing group: If the pursuing party is more than 24 creatures, the fleeing party gains a +10% bonus.
Light conditions: Darkness improves the chance of escape by 50%, while full daylight imparts a -30% penalty. Starlight grants a +20% bonus.

Surprise and Evasion
If the fleeing party surprises the enemy, evasion is automatic.
If neither side is surprised, calculate the adjusted evasion percentage and roll percentile dice.
If the fleeing party is surprised, they cannot evade initially and must confront the enemy.
If the evasion roll succeeds, the party immediately escapes. If it fails, the pursuit continues.

Continuing Pursuit
An evasion check is made every game hour. If the adjusted chance of evasion ever falls to 0% or less, the fleeing party is caught immediately and must confront the pursuers. Likewise, if the pursuers are faster and can close the distance within an hour, confrontation occurs.

 

[Mannahnin]

I will note that given the party sizes I saw at the time, this in practice means that the times you most might want to evade were the times you were least likely to pull it off--i.e. large groups of monsters or monsters with high mobility, and party sizes of 8 to 12 characters plus possibly a henchman or two. It was not hard to have a party that was moving half the speed of many monsters if they were primarily on foot (which I saw more often than not because of terrain issues and the fact that even given the relative brittleness of OD&D characters, by moderate levels the first serious opponent was liable to be able to kill your horses trivially anyway).

With larger groups of monsters your odds do improve. One flaw (IMO) in the OD&D table as compared to AD&D is that it makes this dependent on the percentage of the max appearing for their monster, rather than the absolute number. In AD&D they base the modifier on the total number of pursuers, just as with the pursued.

Example situation: Party of 15 characters (including henchmen and hirelings) encounters warband of 200 goblins (No. appearing 40-400) in the wilderness. Base chance of evasion 30% (party size of 10-24 combined with enemy between 26%-60% of possible max size). If the party gets surprise, it's base chance 60% to evade. If goblins get surprise, it's 0%.

Add 25% if you're in woods (or increase from 0 to 10% if the goblins have surprise).
Add 25% if the party is mounted, as the slowest horse speed is 12", and goblin move rate is 6".

If the party fails to evade, they may flee in a random direction. They there's a base 50% chance of pursuit if enemy is hostile, and 50% chance to catch (subtract 25% from this one if you're in swamp or woods).

 

[Celebrim]

To answer the question, the Dungeon Master is there to know when to modify the guidelines of the game intelligently to adjust for circumstances that the rules however elaborate couldn't or didn't anticipate.