Treasure and leveling comparisons: AD&D1, B/ED&D, and D&D3 - updated 11-17-08 (Q1)

[Storm Raven]

The assumption isn't that they don't have any of these items or methods, but that they may not, and that whatever they have they probably don't have enough to shlep out all of it without spending a lot of time and energy that they might not want to spend.
I do find it an odd assumption that a reasonably prepared 1e party will have the ways to find and move all treasure of value out of the dungeon.

No one is saying they will move all of the treasure out of the dungeon, just that the amount that won't be found and moved will usually be a fairly small percentage of the total. Any party that doesn't go into a dungeon without some plan for extracting a huge volume of treasure simply hadn't been paying attention. By the time a party was 10th level (and thus playing the G series), they would have almost certainly planned ahead for removing stuff from the dungeon, and had probably gotten very good at rummaging through anything and everything to find whatever discarded piece of wood happened to be the axe handle of a +3 battleaxe or the trigger for a door into the secret treasure room.

 

[Storm Raven]

It's not really "an adventure" that can be published (although an account of an expedition could be that).

That's a reasonable position, except that when push came to shove, it turned out it was very possible to publish such an adventure: Undermountain, Castle Whiterock, Rappan Athuk, and World's Largest Dungeon (heck, throw in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil too)are all examples. And all post-date 1e, most by many years.

And, contemplating that, Arneson and Gygax, Kuntz and others among the early Dungeon Masters would wonder ... "Why have us do any more of your imagining for you?"

So they just published the other kinds of adventures because they were goofing around? I don't buy it. Your explanation requires all kinds of convoluted logic that TSR was marketing stuff that was not intended to be used the way the game was "supposed" to be played. It is a simpler, and much more convincing explanation that the market simply wasn't receptive to a megadungeon because that's not how most people were playing the game.

 

[Hussar]

While straying away from AD&D for a moment, the "mega-dungeon" certainly wasn't the assumed norm in Basic/Expert D&D. You did dungeons for levels 1-3 and then you went out into the wilderness with Expert rules. Then on to ruling kingdoms with Companion rules (but, I never played those).

I think it's very telling that a large number of older gamers started with Basic/Expert rules before going on to AD&D. That might account for the apparent discrepency in approach. For a B/E player, mega-dungeons weren't the norm at all. Dungeons were where you adventured at very low levels before you moved on to outdoor style adventures punctuated by the occassional dungeon.

While I loves me mega-dungeons now, I never played one until 3e.

 

[Ariosto]

Storm Raven, the deal with dungeons is just what Gygax, et al., related -- and what I and other DMs know from experience. Another bit is that TSR in those days went in for publishing (sometimes expanded or reworked) tournament scenarios as a way to get more return on investment. Maybe Frank Mentzer or Tim Kask would give more answers to your questions -- or, concerning later decisions, people who were involved in making them.

You seem to come at the artifacts (modules and books) from a perspective isolated from the context (introduction via play, reading The Dragon, going to club meets, attending conventions, etc.) that informed practically every D&Der I met 25-30 years ago. Things that from inside that context amount simply and concretely to the way things were when we were there seem doubtful and merely theoretical to you.

That's a pretty frustrating phenomenon with which to deal; fortunately, the heyday of D&D is not among the more serious affairs of 20th-century history!

 

[Hussar]

attending conventions

Something I want to point out here. The convention going population of gamers is dwarfed by the non-con going population by a whole bunch. There were supposedly a couple of million gamers in the early 80's. How many people would attend a big convention like Gen-Con? Couple of thousand? Ten thousand? Hell, twenty? Of the total con going population of gamers, where would you peg the percentage? 1%? 5%?

If the total con going population of gamers ever reached 10% after 1980, I'd be utterly stunned.

Same goes for gaming club meets. How many people belonged to an actual gaming club, as opposed to a small group of friends who met once every so often to play?

You are painting your experience onto the general just as much as Storm Raven is. Sure, everyone you met 30 years ago was a con goer- that's because that's what you were doing. Until the 1990's, after I'd been playing for about ten years, I had never met anyone who had been to a con.

Whose experience is more common? I have no idea. But, I do know from my experience, that the giant dungeon a la Greyhawk was certainly not the norm for anyone I'd ever talked to.

Sounds like a forked poll to me.

 

[Hussar]

And here's the forked thread

I suggest we stop polluting this one with our little discussion.

 

[Storm Raven]

Storm Raven, the deal with dungeons is just what Gygax, et al., related -- and what I and other DMs know from experience. Another bit is that TSR in those days went in for publishing (sometimes expanded or reworked) tournament scenarios as a way to get more return on investment. Maybe Frank Mentzer or Tim Kask would give more answers to your questions -- or, concerning later decisions, people who were involved in making them.

I am certain that Gygax played using a megadungeon - many of the anecdotes he relates center on one. But to make the leap from that to the idea that TSR expected that this would be the play style runs directly counter to the materials TSR actually marketed.

You seem to come at the artifacts (modules and books) from a perspective isolated from the context (introduction via play, reading The Dragon, going to club meets, attending conventions, etc.) that informed practically every D&Der I met 25-30 years ago. Things that from inside that context amount simply and concretely to the way things were when we were there seem doubtful and merely theoretical to you.

You seem to forget that I was there too. Given that I've been playing D&D since the 70s, there's a chance I've been playing longer than you. I read The Dragon, I was introduced to the game via play, and so on. And yet no one assumed that megadungeons were the order of the day. In fact, those that considered them at all regarded them as a silly archaic artifact best left in the dustbin. You don't have some sort of superior insight here. You have a limited anecdotal experience that demonstrates virtually nothing (as Hussar points out, how many people attended conventions and went to gaming clubs compared with how many people purchased products).

 

[Ariosto]

Whose experience is more common? I have no idea.

Neither have I!

It certainly could make a difference in figuring out whence the idea that low-level 3E characters level faster came.

As to conventions, though, I have never been to a Gen Con -- only local affairs, including SF cons with a gaming contingent.

I still must wonder how someone could be completely oblivious to the dungeon and campaign concepts, unless perhaps he leaped right into AD&D via the books without any prior grounding in the traditions of D&D. I can hardly imagine what one might in such a case have made of the advice in the PHB! I am not sure whether the 2E books did a better job of explaining those matters to the novice; I seem to recall that they devoted a lot of text to other modes of play.

 

[Hussar]

Neither have I!

It certainly could make a difference in figuring out whence the idea that low-level 3E characters level faster came.

As to conventions, though, I have never been to a Gen Con -- only local affairs, including SF cons with a gaming contingent.

I still must wonder how someone could be completely oblivious to the dungeon and campaign concepts, unless perhaps he leaped right into AD&D via the books without any prior grounding in the traditions of D&D. I can hardly imagine what one might in such a case have made of the advice in the PHB! I am not sure whether the 2E books did a better job of explaining those matters to the novice; I seem to recall that they devoted a lot of text to other modes of play.

Thus my earlier point Ariosto. I think a very large percentage of AD&D players came into AD&D from Basic/Expert. The much vaunted Boxed Sets of the late 70's and early 80's. I know that's how I got into it. Considering those still remain the best selling RPG products of all time, I think it's safe to say that I wasn't alone.

And, if you came to AD&D from Basic/Expert, then the mega-dungeon concept ran pretty counter to your expectations. While Basic D&D centered on the dungeon, Expert made it pretty clear that a good campaign featured both dungeons and wilderness.

Again, look at The Isle of Dread, which is probably one of the most loved and well known modules. Small dungeon crawls sprinkled over a large wilderness map. I think this colored people's approach to the game easily as much as EGG's DMG.

 

[Ariosto]

a silly archaic artifact best left in the dustbin

Did you start with C&S?