Monster & Treasure distribution in older editions

[Jhaelen]

I'd like to throw two things into this discussion:

1) AD&D included rules to create dungeons randomly. The tables include empty rooms, rooms with monsters, rooms with treasure, and rooms with both.
Back in the days almost everyone I knew created their own adventures rather than using 'official' modules. I believe a lot of those adventures have been created using those guidelines as a starting point and thus definitely included treasure lying around unhidden and unguarded, though of course treasure more often actually was guarded and/or hidden.

2) To be honest I totally do not care if treasure was lying around or not. What irked me a lot more were (and are) adventure modules that include (magic) items that are especially easy to get because the module designer felt they were required to 'beat' the module.

E.g. an adventure that included a room with a basilisk would typically include a scroll of protection from petrification somewhere close to the start of the dungeon (or at least well before the basilisk room).
Similarly, adventures would (and will) include ways to breathe water, ignore poison gas, become ethereal, fly, etc. because an encounter requires it.

I know that some people feel that this is good design because every adventuring party might be different and may or may not have the equipment to deal with the adventure, but that's something I disagree about.

I vastly prefer the approach to plant hints about the challenges and providing the party with an opportunity to do prepare for them if they a) got the hints and b) care to prepare.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Yes, yes you can actually. XP needs pretty much double per level, but that levels off at higher levels. Cutting the treasure in half resulted in less than one level lost overall. Selling magic items was worth far and away more than keeping them, and you got xp for selling magic items. How many +1 swords do you really need to keep?

How many +1 swords do you think you will be able to dump into an economy at full value? The smartest choice sometimes was to give such items to henchmen to increase loyalty.

Oh come on. You're actually going to tell me that a foot long silver stick, hanging on the wall is HIDDEN?

Wow. Those goalposts must come with rollerskates.

Player 1: Hey, look, there's a tarnished silver baton hanging in plain sight on the wall.
Player 2: Forget about it, it's hidden. It'll take us at least ten minutes of searching to find it.
Player 1: But... but... it's RIGHT there.
Player 2: Naw, I said forget about it. If we hang around, wandering monsters will come.
Player 1: But, hang on, there's only a 1 in 6 for them to come right? So, we could search for ten minutes to find the baton hanging on the wall right in front of us, and there isn't really that high of a chance of wandering monsters. Besides, if wandering monsters come, it's just more xp for us right?
Player 2: Dammit Bob, you're playing wrong.

A blackened rod could be hidden in plain sight. Your scenario assumes the players immediately know what they are looking at. What if it takes that turn of careful searching to rub the soot off the rod and discover its nature?

My whole beef with this is this apparent claim that there was only one right way to play AD&D. You could NEVER find all the treasure in an adventure. All treasure MUST be hidden. Players MUST jump through fifteen different hoops before they become eligable for finding their rewards.

No one MUST do anything. The effort to reward ratio was for the DM to decide and it varied considerably.

That might have been how some people played. Sure. I don't doubt that. But, I do doubt that it was the One True Way of playing. I do doubt that my group was the only one that figure out that if we killed everything in the dungeon, then spent a week or two going back over things, we'd get 99% of the treasure.

Really? My group was the ONLY one who figured this out?

What you "figured out" is perhaps only applicable to your campaign. Your DM might not have worried about keeping track of supplies, leaving the place unguarded, or exactly how you got all the treasure back to town. The rules didn't assume these things were glossed over but some groups might have done so. While that doesn't mean such groups were "doing it wrong" it does change which obstacles were bypassed or easily dealt with.

 

[Bullgrit]

To think, all this argument started because I mentioned:

What about treasure found literally just lying around? There are many examples in published AD&D1 modules where treasure is found unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden in a dungeon. Is this bad design? Or is it verisimilitude for the game world?

Someone took umbrage at the suggestion that classic adventure modules sometimes have unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden loot. "Oh that's scandalous! What a horrid thing to say! That can't be true! We must attack this idea!"

I did not say it was the norm, or average, or expected way to place or find treasure in the classic modules. It was an uncommon situation, but it was not "never done."

I think it's kind of funny, the reaction, here. What would people say if I mentioned, "There are many examples in published AD&D1 modules where treasure was hidden inside the monster"? It's just as true as my other statement. Would someone rush in to quash that statement? Or would it be embraced as an example of how hardcore things were back in the day?

I can think of as many instances of treasure inside monsters as I can think of instances of treasure just lying in the middle of a room. Both situations can be found in various classic D&D modules. Neither were common, and neither make classic D&D good or bad. They were just facts.

the ring mentioned earlier is a Ring of Contrariness (not a Ring of Protection!), and there are several treasures that might be found hidden in the maze, which contains wandering monster encounters that attack the PCs while moving about the maze.

First, there is only a 1 in 6 chance of a wandering monster encounter every three turns (thirty minutes in-game time). Hardly a Sword of Damocles situation, that.

Second look at the attached image for the ring of protection +3 literally lying in the middle of a hallway.

I don't know what's more sad: that someone finds the idea sacrilegious that classic D&D adventures had some unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden treasures, or that I'm bothering to put this much effort into "proving" something that shouldn't be in any way questionable to begin with.

Next I might end up spending way too much time "proving" that it was not unheard of for published classic D&D materials to show 1st-level characters with magic items. Nooooooo!

Bullgrit

 

[ExploderWizard]

Second look at the attached image for the ring of protection +3 literally lying in the middle of a hallway.

Bullgrit

This is interesting. Which adventure is this? The reference to mist shrouded doorways point to this not being your typical hallway. More context please?

 

[the Jester]

This is interesting. Which adventure is this? The reference to mist shrouded doorways point to this not being your typical hallway. More context please?

Looks to me like more of the treasure just lying around in Pharaoh.

 

[Jasperak]

Can someone list the location this silver torch can be found in please? I am still trying to find the text to read for myself. Thanks in advance.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Can someone list the location this silver torch can be found in please? I am still trying to find the text to read for myself. Thanks in advance.

T1 Village of Homlett-its got its own thread now!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Someone took umbrage at the suggestion that classic adventure modules sometimes have unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden loot. "Oh that's scandalous! What a horrid thing to say! That can't be true! We must attack this idea!"

Strawman.

"What about treasure found literally just lying around? There are many examples in published AD&D1 modules where treasure is found unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden in a dungeon." implies a norm.

If you do not believe that it "was the norm, or average, or expected" then you could have simply agreed when I said the same upthread.

I think it's kind of funny, the reaction, here. What would people say if I mentioned, "There are many examples in published AD&D1 modules where treasure was hidden inside the monster"? It's just as true as my other statement. Would someone rush in to quash that statement? Or would it be embraced as an example of how hardcore things were back in the day?

That statement would be easy to example, and is undoubtably true.

I can think of as many instances of treasure inside monsters as I can think of instances of treasure just lying in the middle of a room.

That would example unhidden treasure. That does not example unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden treasure. And thus far, the only examples from the Master Maze in Pharoah are unhidden only.

Now, I certainly accept that you are correct about the Ring of Protection +3. I asked for the module text, upthread, if you will recall, to avoid making precisely the error I made (mistaking which of many keyed areas you were referring to).

It was very good of you to cut & paste that.

First, there is only a 1 in 6 chance of a wandering monster encounter every three turns (thirty minutes in-game time). Hardly a Sword of Damocles situation, that.

Now perhaps you will cut & paste what the module has to say about "wondering [sic] monsters" taking their toll in the master maze? In the interests of honest discourse, of course.

I don't know what's more sad: that someone finds the idea sacrilegious that classic D&D adventures had some unguarded, untrapped, and unhidden treasures, or that I'm bothering to put this much effort into "proving" something that shouldn't be in any way questionable to begin with.

Your attitude, I think.

Let me know when you're ready to post the Master Maze description, which makes Celebrim's commentary clear. If not, I suppose I can scan it & post.


RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

Now perhaps you will cut & paste what the module has to say about "wondering [sic] monsters" taking their toll in the master maze?

Having re-read about the area last night I discovered that wandering monsters are only part of the challenge of the area. The entire maze is mist filled, subdues light, disallows knowledge of direction or even the ability to count! The PC's minds are in a magical fog while in the place. This makes any encounter with wandering monsters that much more deadly. If attacked the DM doesn't even need to tell them how many foes are there and some cannot be easily targeted due to the mist.

In addition, there are many items of "treasure" just lying around inside the maze and some of it is cursed.

Considering all of the above this doesn't qualify as "just lying in a hall" IMHO. Thus, when put in proper context the ring isn't completely unguarded, untrapped/tricked.

This doesn't mean that no such example exists, this just isn't one of them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I never argued that no examples exist. I merely said Bullgrit's "many examples" is a (presumably innocent) confabulation.


RC