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

[Ralif Redhammer]

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

It makes sense that a dwarf could tell the slop of a passage underground, sure. But it took a while for the practical applications of that ability to become clear.

I can remember using a slide trap to dump a PC into a dragon's lair once. That was probably dirty pool.

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.

I think a lot about the DMG's tables in the context of the Howling Emptiness of the World of Greyhawk. As you said, the world being modelled by AD&D was a frontier, or a barely settled one outside of the major cities.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think a lot about the DMG's tables in the context of the Howling Emptiness of the World of Greyhawk. As you said, the world being modelled by AD&D was a frontier, or a barely settled one outside of the major cities.

As mentioned, the question is how trade could go on? There were any number of things that could come up on wilderness encounters that a merchant caravan and conventional guards would have no chance of dealing with.

 

[conankeep]

As mentioned, the question is how trade could go on? There were any number of things that could come up on wilderness encounters that a merchant caravan and conventional guards would have no chance of dealing with.

I have a question why significant long-distance trade through the frontier is expected?

 

[Mannahnin]

I am running a Greyhawk game in OSE, and have taken to creating my own Random Encounter tables, where there are 2d6 results , but the results clustered around the bell curve are things like 'herd animal', 'random location', 'merchant caravan', and the monsters are towards the downslide of the curve. The VTT also gives me the ability to nestle charts within charts, so that 'herd animal' then goes to another 2d6 chart with different animals, and larger, rarer, or more dangerous ones end up along the edges. I can then do that fairly easily for different terrain, or add modifiers to either chart to generate more dangerous encounters were I inclined. Doesn't mean a Dragon might not appear in certain terrain, but less likely than using the standard.

I agree the charts were weird, and I prefer the extra work of creating the couple charts for a country like Sterich, rather than trying to do the whole of Oerth. I also like to curate the monsters appearing in the world, so the 'kitchen sink' of the MM and the random charts doesn't really help.

There's a quick sentence buried on the first page of DMG appendix C, under "Procedure: when a random encounter is indicated by the periodic check, and you do not have an encounter table specially devised for the area, roll a d20." So yes, there's an implied assumption that a lot of the time you'll be designing your own local area encounter tables, but they don't really explain that. And then, of course, Appendix C goes on with page after page of elaborate tables which implicitly argue for their own use in their existence and great detail. Later books, like the campaign settings, and the back of MM2, in particular, talk much more about building your own encounter tables.

I have a question why significant long-distance trade through the frontier is expected?

Right, this is a larger context which most folks aren't clear on unless they read closely- are these wilderness encounter tables intended ONLY to be used in totally uncivilized areas? If so, how should the procedure differ in civilized areas?

OD&D seems to assume that the whole procedure is for use when exploring wild, uncivilized and unknown areas, though it muddies this by mentioning there being cities there.

Book III The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, p14-15:

THE WILDERNESS: The so-called Wilderness really consists of unexplored land, cities and castles, not to mention the area immediately surrounding the castle (ruined or otherwise)which housed the dungeons. The referee must do several things in order to conduct wilderness adventure games. First, he must have a ground level map of his dungeons, a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town or village closest to the dungeons (where adventurers will be most likely to base themselves). "Blackmoor" is a village of small size (a one-horse town), while "Grayhawk" is a large city. Both have maps with streets and buildings indicated, and players can have town adventures roaming around the bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples ,and so on. Venture into the Thieves' Quarter only at your own risk! The terrain beyond the immediate surroundings of the dungeon area should be unknown to all but the referee. Off-hand adventures in the wilderness are made on the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL playing board (explained below). Exploratory journeys, such as expeditions to find land suitable for a castle or in search of some legendary treasure are handled in an entirely different manner.

Book III The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, p 16:

REFEREE'S MAP is a wilderness map unknown to the players. It should be for the territory around the dungeon location. When players venture into this area they should have a blank hexagon map, and as they move over each hex the referee will inform them as to what kind of terrain is in that hex. This form of exploring will eventually enable players to know the lay of the land in their immediate area and thus be able to select a site upon which to build their castles. (Castle building and its attendant requirements will be covered hereafter.) Exploratory adventures are likely to be the most exciting, and their incorporation into the campaign is most desirable. Exploration by foot is at normal speed. Horsed parties will travel at the speed of a draft horse, and exploration by air will be at half normal flying speed.

AD&D expands it to cover civilized areas, with different encounter tables. For example the one split between pages 186 and 187, Temperate And Sub-Tropical Conditions, Inhabited And/or Patrolled Areas- for which a bunch of monsters are possible, but 28-80 on the d100 chart are various forms of men, including a 28% chance of merchants and a 10% chance of pilgrims.

I took a peek in both my World of Greyhawk campaign setting books and my 1E Forgotten Realms campaign setting book, and both have local area encounter charts, and modified odds of encounters in civilized lands. In civilized plains areas, for example, FRCS suggests a 1 in 20 chance of an encounter on entering a given hex (two procedures are offered, though; that or the DMG one). FRCS also gives instructions to create shorter local area encounter charts.

 

[Marc17]

As mentioned, the question is how trade could go on? There were any number of things that could come up on wilderness encounters that a merchant caravan and conventional guards would have no chance of dealing with.

Who says they deal with those encounters? IIRC, the real world chance of a ship not making it to its destination was pretty high. A significant amount of the fantasy world ships probably didn't either. The fewer ships that make it through, the greater reward for those that do. That's why they hire adventures to guard the ship.

Another thing to keep in mind about early D&D, whenever Mike Mornard was asked about game theory or design, he usually resorted to just saying "We made stuff up that we thought would be fun." (Which I think was the slogan for his kickstarter even.) Inference goes that if something wasn't fun, you'd make something new up, and if that wasn't fun, you'd discard it for something else just as quickly.

 

[Willie the Duck]

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.

Yes, over the years I've spoken* to Mike, Dave, Gary, and Jeff Berry** about this split. Obviously they were all into wargames, and they did set up full-scale battles in underground caverns and so on; and they all loved the Braunsteins that were run. However, the part that caught on-- when they were 'playing D&D***'-- was the dungeons. I think this is important to discussions about the early development of the game. 'D&D is a modified wargame' is certainly not false, but it misses that -- if what they wanted was a wargame-- D&D would never have existed, as they already had one of those (Chainmail).
*mostly participated in forum conversations with, to be clear.
**M.A.R. Barker/Empire of the Petal Throne archivist, but also early-era TSR witness.
***initially 'playing Greyhawk'/'playing Blackmoor'/'playing El Raja Key'/etc.

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."

That jives with other stuff I've heard about the initial intentions for saving throws. They were supposed to be a last line of defense--with the primary method being not being in the situation of needing to make one in the first place (because you saw the amazingly realistic statues and avoided/prepared for the Medusa, etc.).

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.

It certainly is the explanation that makes sense. Although I feel like perhaps if this was the intent, that it might have been forged when some different assumptions about the world might have existed than what we ended up getting. At least if there were supposed to be farmers and the like in this frontier. There's just too many things that will kill every farmer before the alarm goes up or they can flee for the village walls. I suspect most monsters were still 'human-shaped thing between 2' and 12' that stabs you with weapons' that travelled in army units, stop to loot the farmhouse, and aren't really good at finding individuals hiding in the woods or the like (or 0-level NPCs simply use a much more favorable hide/evade rules than those the PCs use).

Another thing to keep in mind about early D&D, whenever Mike Mornard was asked about game theory or design, he usually resorted to just saying "We made stuff up that we thought would be fun." (Which I think was the slogan for his kickstarter even.) Inference goes that if something wasn't fun, you'd make something new up, and if that wasn't fun, you'd discard it for something else just as quickly.

That's an important point. We treat the proto-D&D/proto-AD&D eras -- or at least the game intents -- as somewhat monolithic. However, a lot of it was actually in constant flux.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As mentioned, the question is how trade could go on? There were any number of things that could come up on wilderness encounters that a merchant caravan and conventional guards would have no chance of dealing with.

Monster treasure has to come from somewhere...

Less flippantly, they hire adventurers to protect them. And travelling in large enough numbers will likely dissuade many of the monsters and bandits from attacking.

 

[Lanefan]

I have a question why significant long-distance trade through the frontier is expected?

'Cause one place has or produces something vital that another doesn't and vice-versa, and between those places is a whole lot of frontier land (or dangerous waters, same thing).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have a question why significant long-distance trade through the frontier is expected?

Given there was no obvious place but the town, a dungeon and the wilderness in OD&D, any trade was likely going to be going through the frontier.

 

[Mannahnin]

'Cause one place has or produces something vital that another doesn't and vice-versa, and between those places is a whole lot of frontier land (or dangerous waters, same thing).

One would expect merchants to minimize the required travel through wild territory on their route.

It may be unavoidable to pass through SOME wild territory if a given source of a valuable trade good is located in a wild place, but having to hire huge guard contingents cuts into profit margins and risks the lives of your valuable employees or yourself. Above a certain level of danger it's just not worth it.