OD&D example of play

[Doug McCrae]

From Vol 3 The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures pg 12-14.

Thoughts?

REF: Steps down to the east.
CAL: We're going down.
REF: 10', 20', 30' — a 10' square landing — steps down to the north and curving down southeast.
CAL: Take those to the southeast.
REF: 10', and the steps curve more to the south; 20'. Steps end, and you are
on a 10' wide passage which runs east, southeast, and west. There is a
door to your left across the passage on a northwest wall.
CAL: Listen at the door — three of us.
REF: (After rolling three dice) You hear nothing. (At this time a check for
wandering monsters is also made.)
CAL: Ignore the door and proceed along the corridor southeastwards.
REF: 10', 20', 30', 40', 50'. "Four way": Northwest, northeast, south and
southwest — the south passage is 20' wide.
CAL: Go south.
REF: 10'-70': passage continues, doors east and west.

CAL: Listen at the east door.
REF: (After appropriate check) You hear shuffling.
CAL: Two of us (specifying which two) will throw our weight against the door
to open it. All will be ready for combat.
REF: (After rolling two dice: ) The door opens! You can't be surprised, but
the monsters — you see half-a-dozen gnolls — can be (Here a check for
surprise is made, melee conducted, and so on.)
CAL: Okay, what does the room look like — we're examining the walls, ceiling,
floor, and contents of the room itself.
REF: (After checking to see if dwarves and/or elves are in the party: ) The
room is a truncated pyramid. The east wall is the truncated part, directly
opposite the door you entered. It is 10' long with another door in it.
The walls connecting it to the west wall, the place you entered, are each
about 35' long. The west wall, which is where you entered is 30' long
with a door in the middle of the wall. The elf has noted that there seems
to be a hollow spot near the east end of the southeast wall. The floor
and ceiling seem to have nothing unusual. The room contains the bodies
of the gnolls, a pile of refuse in the north corner of the west wall, and
two trunks along the wall opposite the one which sounds hollow.

CAL: The elf will check out the hollow sound, one of us will sort through the
refuse, each trunk will be opened by one of us, and the remaining two
(naming exactly who this is) will each guard a door, listening to get an
advance warning if anything approaches.
REF: Another check on the hollow sound reveals a secret door which opens
onto a flight of stairs down to the south. The refuse is nothing but
sticks, bones, offal and old clothes. One chest is empty; the other had a
poison needle on the lock. (Here a check to see if the character opening
it makes his saving throw for poison.) The chest with the poison needle
is full of copper pieces — appears to be about 2,000 of them.
CAL: Empty out all of the copper pieces and check the trunk for secret drawers
or a false bottom, and do the same with the empty one. Also, do
there seem to be any old boots or cloaks among the old clothes in the
rubbish pile?

REF: (Cursing the thoroughness of the Caller!) The seemingly empty trunk has
a false bottom ... in it you have found an onyx case with a jeweled
necklace therein. The case appears to be worth about 1,000, and the
necklace 5,000 Gold Pieces. Amidst the litter the searcher has located a
pair of old boots, but there is nothing like a cloak there
CAL: The boots will be tried on now to see if they allow silent movement —
we can use a set of Elven Boots! I will secure the case and necklace in
my back pack, while the others will, by turn, fill their packs with coppers.
REF: This will require; four turns. (He checks for monsters wandering in, and
on the forth try one is indicated. However, as there was a listener at the
door it is approaching, he also checks to see if it is detected, allowing a
good probability that it will be heard.) As you complete your loading
the dwarf at the west door detects heavy footsteps approaching. The
boots, by the way, are Elven-type . . .
CAL: EXCELLENT! Our Magic-User will cast a HOLD PORTAL on the west
door while the elf opens the secret one. We will then all beat a hasty retreat
down the stairs to the south. Onward, friends, to more and bigger
loot!

 

[Mark]

CAL: We're going down.

Out of the mouths of babes . . .

 

[Chainsaw]

This quotation seems to be in response to the For Love of Dungeons thread comments about the value/significance/point of exploring allegedly "empty" rooms (as evidenced by lack of noises coming from within). What is the selection supposed to prove? It's just a two room example designed to showcase some of the rules in play.. I'm not sure the takeaway is that groups should ignore rooms with no audible noises coming from them. You think in a 30 room example, the guys would have avoided every room where they didn't hear noises? That seems silly.

 

[Odhanan]

You think in a 30 room example, the guys would have avoided every room where they didn't hear noises?.

That would be a completely unrealistic way of looking at it, indeed. Even when rooms are "empty", there's always stuff to look at, an ambiance to witness, some details to find out, a camp to set, some prisoner to drag down there to question, who knows? My point is, it's not because a room is devoid of monster and treasure that it is "empty" as far as the exploration and adventure are concerned.

 

[Doug McCrae]

My thoughts are:

There are a lot of classic (or cliched) D&D 'bits' there: listening at doors, a secret door, chests with treasure in, a false bottom, a poison needle trap.

Mapping is very important. This is something I haven't done since the early 80s, even in dungeons. The characters could conceivably be making a map but the players aren't. I find it boring.

They really, really want to avoid wandering monsters. I think that is why they don't enter the silent room - there is only a 1-in-6 chance in OD&D that an unoccupied room contains treasure. The time spent searching isn't worth the risk of a wanderer. And they use a spell to avoid an encounter.

They seem to know the rules very well. They know that only boots and cloaks can be magical, and the caller even mentions 'Elven Boots' by name. The referee seems to call magic items by name too.

The caller. What is up with that? We never used one.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

The caller. What is up with that? We never used one.

Yeah, that's strange. I've never come across that term before. The text reads like one player controls all the characters, though I'm pretty sure this isn't the case. Did they leave out the intra-party chatter for brevity?

 

[samursus]

The Caller: I remember that term from BECMI... I think we actually used it for awhile. I can'r remember which version, but in the beginning of the (players?) book it suggests having a Mapper and a Caller. The caller was essentially the mouthpiece of the party in regards to the DM. It was suggested that it was confusing when all the players were trying to tell the DM what they were doing etc etc. So the DM only had to listen to the Caller; if the Caller didn't tell the DM that your character did it, it didn't happen.

 

[Doug McCrae]

OD&D recommends a referee to player ratio of 1:20. That's for the campaign as a whole. I'm uncertain what the expectation is for a single play session. If it's anything approaching that number, one can see how confusion could arise. But what if that number minus one are all talking to the caller at once? Wouldn't that be almost as confusing? Surely it isn't intended that the caller simply controls the entire party? I dunno the answer to that one. They were strange times, the 70s.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Caller is mentioned once in the 1e PHB:

The leader and caller of a party might order one course of action while various players state that their characters do otherwise. Your DM will treat such situations as confused and muddled, being certain to penalize the group accordingly.

And it's defined in Moldvay BD&D as:

The player who normally tells the DM what his or her party will do, based on what the other players tell him or her.

So, by the BD&D definition, the players talk to the caller and the caller talks to the DM. Seems like an unnecessary middle man to me. Why don't all the players just describe what they do to the DM? Why have an interpreter?

 

[Ariosto]

Do you take a vote on each little move, Doug?

Anyone is free to pipe up if there's something that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, it's just a lot quicker and easier to appoint one person to give the moves, rather than having half a dozen people trying to say the same thing all at once in different words.

Time management is part of the game, and organization is a tool to that end. A group that spends more time discussing trivia won't get as much done as one that acts more decisively. If something doesn't demand a lot of time, then don't waste time on it. Move along briskly until you get to the major risks -- and potential rewards -- that do call for more investment of time and energy.

In the 1st edition Players Handbook, the #1 piece of advice for successful adventures is to have a plan.