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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9505221" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Some folks got to play in his Castle Greyhawk at conventions in the 2000s, and there are a fairly well known photo or two of <a href="https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2020/01/subterrane-surveys-gygaxs-castle.html" target="_blank">level one and the (minimal) key for it</a>. It is more of a room labyrinth. And as ToM alludes, the published dungeon geomorphs set 1 (Basic Dungeons, 1976) did give us a sample of Gygax's denser, more mazelike mapping style. Which when paired with the Monster & Treasure assortments does seem to add up to a similar design as we see on those photos of level 1 of Castle Greyhawk. But it's hard to draw many firm conclusions based on that relatively minimal data. Which is why so many folks in the OSR have been impatient to see more of CG.The recent release of Greg Svenson's <a href="https://www.tfott.com/the-lost-dungeons-of-tonisborg-book" target="_blank">Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg</a> gives us a 10 level megadungeon designed by one of Dave Arneson's original players in 1973, prior to the actual published release of D&D. Here we can see a lot of concepts which are very true to OD&D and the original random dungeon generator tables from issue 1 (Spring '75) of The Strategic Review (reproduced and expanded in the 1979 DMG).  Tons of diagonal passages for example, and many vertical level connections, which are somewhat in contrast to L1 of Castle Greyhawk's room maze and the low level dungeon geomorphs.  Navigation is definitely a primary challenge here, as Svenny and Mike Mornard (another of Dave's players) often described when they were participating in OD&D and Blackmoor discussions in recent years. That being said, while there are a few later exceptions like Gus noted in his article (S3 Expedition to the Barrier peaks, S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, though the latter is an expansion of a 1976 tournament module), already in the 1970s and early 80s we saw a fairly rapid shift from "emptier" dungeon design like we saw recommended in the 1974 original set ("As a general rule there will be far more uninhabited space on a level than there will be space occupied by monsters, human or otherwise.", The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, p6), with its instructions to place a few important treasures and monsters on each level, then to randomly fill the remainder, 1/3 of the remaining areas having monsters, half of those with treasure, and 1/6 of non-monster rooms having hidden treasure.  As many of us have discussed in OSR circles, this emptier style does create more opportunities for PCs to evade and circumnavigate tough monsters and try other areas.  Or use empty rooms to try to set ambushes.  The random dungeon generator article from TSR #1 has 60-65% of rooms plain empty, as opposed to the "far more"Mike Carr's B1 In Search of the Unknown famously is a somewhat sprawling labyrinth of a map with mapping challenges included, like a teleporter.  But Gary's replacement for it, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands makes much tighter monster lairs with very simple layout.  It seems to me that even by the time B2 came out in 1979 there was already some shift in emphasis away from more mazelike, emptier, exploration-focused megadungeons and toward more compact, action-focused lairs.  And that's not just a change from Gary to modern designs, that's a change from Dave's designs and what Gary originally advocated.  Gary himself changing focus. In 1981 B/X we see Tom Moldvay's stocking guidelines shift correspondingly to a somewhat higher density design.  First place specials, then random content 1/3 monsters, 1/6 traps, 1/6 tricks, and only 1/3 empty.  Not actually that far from the instructions in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, but definitely denser.</blockquote>

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