I stumbled across this book once while searching for "Gygax" in my library's keyword search catalog.
It's a kids book about game and toy innovators. And who is there, along side Milton Bradley (no intro needed), Joshua Lionel Cowen (Lionel Trains), and Ole Kirk Christiansen (inventor of LEGO)? Gary Gygax.
Gary Gygax's chapter is titled "Dungeons & Dragons: Games Without Winners." It discusses the origins of D&D from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor through the explosive growth (and epic collapse) of TSR and beyond. It's a neat little history, but stuff everyone who has played D&D long enough probably knows. The measure of Gary Gygax as a company founder is mixed.
But the legacy they attribute to him is the idea of games without winners.
"The game had no ending, unless all the players were killed off or agreed among themselves to stop the journey. Gygax explained, "The ultimate aim of the game is to gain sufficient esteem as a good player to retire your character," who then "becomes kind of mythical, historical figure, someone for others to look up to and admire." But the real fun of the game was simply in spending some time with friends on an exciting adventure in a make-believe world."
That one quote encapulates a lot about D&D in particular and RPGs in general. It's a summary of the elusive end-game of D&D - get so good you retire and become part of the mythology of the gameworld. It's a summary of what makes RPGs unique - you "win" by playing well, not by playing better than others. You win by having fun playing.
The book traces this influence right up to computer RPGs and shared-world games like Neverwinter Nights.
In any case, it's very cool that Gary Gygax's baby got him credited with a real fundamental change in gaming. I don't play much that I did when I was 9, but I still play RPGs, because I win whenever it's a good session.
It's worth reading the rest of the chapter (and the book). I wouldn't buy it, just find it in your library. It's well worth the read.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
DF Game, Session 13 - Felltower
Finally we had time, a playing space, and enough people to play. Summer is hard for parents and for me as well. Last session was July 15th.
Sunday, September 9th, 2012
Characters: (approximate net point total)
Vryce, human knight (299 points)
Nakar, human wizard (about 285 points)
Inquisitor Marco, human cleric (about 280 points)
Fuma, human thief (254 points)
Borriz, dwarven knight (280 points)
Reserve (players couldn't make it)
Honus Honusson, human barbarian (283 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (250 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC) (Red Raggi is around town right now on a 15 or less on 3d. I rolled a 16, so he wasn't available.)
We opened up with the PCs in town. Fuma did some gambling and learned Poisons (and picked up some poisons for his crossbow and Vryce's sword.) Vryce did some carousing and picked up some rumors. Nakar tried to learn about gargoyles (they are elementals, and some wag told him you need special dwarven magic gargoyle hammers to kill them). Borriz caroused as well (not as successfully). Father Marco's player showed up late, late, late so he didn't get anything done in town, he just caught up later.
The group headed out up the mountain to Felltower, passing the usual landmarks - across the Stone Bridge to the northside slums and Sterick's Landing, up past the statue of Sterick the Red himself, up the windy path, to the top of the mountain, and to the crumbling castle that marks Felltower.
They entered the dungeon with the usual caution (invisible scouts, watching the arrow slits, etc.) and put down their bridge. They were amused to find the hobgoblins (presumably) had put up wooden shutters backed with leather, wool, or felt (to ensure no light penetrated) across the inside of the arrow slits. Tired of duking it out with the PCs (and paying for it) presumably.
Since Inq. Marco wasn't there yet, they decided against a run at the wights, and turned right. They passed the echo-y chamber they'd encountered before, and went what they call "map north" (the dungeon doesn't actually line up neatly N-S). They saw a mosaic-floored 20' corridor with two side exits. Fuma scouted invisibly, and saw the edging of flicking light as if escaping from a closed door to the left. He also heard voices - sounded like orcish - and booted feet heading away. Also, some snuffling and grunting noises.
(Editing later: Forgot the mention that Inq. Marco's player showed up, so we ruled that he'd caught up with them after a slow start.)
Fuma went back and explained, then the group followed. The wide corridor continued ahead to the extent of their magical lighting. The headed left.
The passed a dead-end alcove and a side passage they didn't explore, and reached the door quietly. They heard voices speaking Common, something about a trapdoor, stuck, injuries, and "what do we do now?" So they lined up and bashed the door down and moved in. Inside the room were five men - two down (one still slightly smoldering), three standing - one with an axe and shield, one with a sword, one with a bow - around a campfire made of broken bits of scrap wood. It was a long room ending in a stone spiral staircase and with a portcullis closing off a 10' wide passage to the "north." There were scorch marks on the floor in front of the portcullis.
Vryce decided to speak, and they were willing to talk.
Long story short, they said they were the Choke brothers - Grimleck Choke (axe guy), Bowbender Choke (bow), and "Big" John Choke (greatsword). This will be funny later. They and their two (wounded) hirelings had entered the dungeon and found this room. They and the PCs conferred with each other, and then together. They decided to team up. The PCs revealed they weren't three, but five (Fuma and Nakar being invisible). The Chokes told them the portcullis was locked but they bent a hole in it, but a trap on it burned one of their hirelings and some painted faced zapped the other a bit. They tried the trapdoor at the top of the stairs, but it wouldn't budge. And they heard orcs coming (and mentioned seeing trolls, but no one seemed to notice) so they hid in here.
Sure enough, down the blocked corridor was a black, smooth door (metal, for sure) and two pairs of open-mouthed faces painted on the wall.
Fuma went through the bars to investigate, and tried to crawl between the faces. They blasted him with fire, and set his cloak on fire. He cut it off and crawled to "safety" between the faces. While he waited, the group planned. Borriz and Vryce tried the trapdoor and managed to force it up a bit, but rocks and dust fell on them and a bigger rock blocked it partly open. No dice - it's buried by crumbled stonework.
So they decided they'd shape the stone from above (and later from a section of floor by the door) and ooze it down, between the bars, and create tilted walls of stone to block the mouths of the faces. They did one, then two (and the trapdoor crashed shut as un-shaped rock above shifted), and then a third by tearing up a 6' x 3' x 3' foxhole out of the floor with Shape Earth. Fuma hung out on the "wrong" side of the portcullis, just because.
(This is short to explain, but it took a couple hours of play, which I'll gripe about below*)
While they rested, I kept having Nakar (who was taking all the time to shape and rest, shape and rest) make some rolls. Oops, too low. Wandering monsters. The orc patrol in the area showed up . . . with a bang. The group hear thundering steps and roaring noises. Suddenly, BANG, the (Magelocked) door exploded into pieces. A big boar (!) came charging in, flattening Grimleck Choke, ignoring a hatchet to the brain from Borriz, and taking a few cuts from Vryce and John Choke plus an arrow and a sunbolt before dropping. Instantly after it fell, two gladiator apes charged in. They did little besides get beat up by Borriz, but they kept everyone busy until the orcs arrived. They did, firing arrows and then four big brute orcs charged in.
As this happened, the PCs suddenly realized too late that John Choke had moved behind Vryce, Grimleck behind Borriz, Bowbender had lined up a shot on Inquisitor Marco, and the two "scared hirelings" moved right next to Fuma (albeit on the wrong side of the portcullis) and Nakar. And they suddenly attacked. Borriz dropped from an axe to the back (although he was only down, not out), Vryce was neck-and-arm grabbed by John, Bowbender missed Inq. Marco, one hireling grabbed at Nakar (and missed) and the other snaked out a hand and grabbed at Fuma.
Betrayal!
What followed was a three-way fight. The orcs kept attacking everyone, while the Choke brothers engaged with weapons . . . and their bare hands.
Fuma's fight was short. He dodged the grapple, dropped his crossbow, and engaged with his shortsword. He lightly wounded his opponent, who (along with most of the others) shifted into the form of a green ogre! The green ogre grabbed his neck, and as Fuma tried to fend he off, proceeded to begin to crush his neck. It took only two seconds of squeezing (and two really brutal ST rolls by the ogre) to choke the life out of Fuma. He dropped to the ground, dead.
Vryce was borne down to his knees and his sword knocked out of his hands, before he could finally break free - even as his opponent and he were attacked equally by orcs and a gladiator ape that got back up from his stunned and prone position. Nakar blasted Bowman choke with a powerful stone missile (8d+8, for 37 damage) but it didn't drop him. Inq. Marco fire off spells and then tried to fight with his mace but was knocked into that hole they'd made harvesting stone for their face-blocking walls. Two of the Chokes tried to get Nakar, but he kept fending them off with spells and magically-enhanced defenses. They kept trying to grappling him and wring his neck, but he was too wiley (and lucky!) for them.
The fight really turned when John Choke got clipped by a gladiator ape and knocked out cold with a terrible HT roll, and Borriz got back up. Vryce got back up, too, with his sword at the ready (yanked back up from its lanyard). At that point, Orcs started to die as fast as Borriz wanted them to. Inq. Marco fought from his hole, fending off an ape (and crippling it's leg), using Command to get an orc to drop his weapon, and hurting one of the Chokes, too. A big half-orc half-ogre ran in and swung his hammer but Vryce parried and then Borriz killed the guy outright with his signature double head blows. Vryce attacked the apes, and the Chokes. Borriz pursued the orcs a bit, killing a couple archers who'd followed the originals into the room, but when their morale broke he couldn't keep up with them as they fled. Vryce, meanwhile, killed off the Chokes.
A shaman and two archers escaped, but six orcs and a half-orc half-ogre died along with two apes and all five Chokes (John by coup-de-grace to both eyes).
The loot was disappointing, and so was the loss of Fuma. The orcs had only a mix of so-so weapons and some coins, and the Chokes were broke. They decided to head back the way they came, after hearing more noise from that direction and not wanting to be cornered.
They got the intersection of the mosaic hallways and the way back when they heard something approaching. They decided to go for it, despite dwindling resources (and re-world time). They left Fuma's body in the open and tossed lightstones nearby to make anyone coming look past them, and set up a quick ambush. What came around the corner were the first two of (eventually) five poison slorn, big lizards that breathe toxic streams of gas. They attacked and hacked up the slorn, but not before Borriz took a big blast of venom. Just then, the slorn's master came up - a troll! Hloo, hloo, hloo, it went, and attacked. Borriz got clawed up (and knocked out), and Vryce, Inq. Marco, and Nakar attacked with spells and swords. They managed to finish the lizards, and then after a nasty scrap dropped the troll. Before they could light him up, though, another troll and another slorn came at them from the hallway . . . and nastier-looking troll and two more slorn came up from the door they'd been planning to use to escape!
Inq. Marco probably saved the day here with a timely Great Heal (to cure Borriz entirely) and then a made-it-exactly-despite-penalties Awaken to get him up. Nakar also set a big section of the battlefield on fire, cornering himself but forcing the slorn to close instead of sit back breathing toxins. He eventually tripped trying retreat across a wounded troll, got his face clawed open, and needed rescue - but the fire helped, and Borriz and Vryce managed to dice up the remaining slorn and bash the trolls down. They group then quickly heaped the trolls into the magical fire and Nakar kept it up for 2 minutes to ensure they burned to ash (100+ seconds in magic fire is a lot of damage, even to trolls!)
We decided to end it there. While they could have scampered out of the dungeon, they're convinced they just exposed the troll's treasure and want to make a grab for it. So next time, we'll pick up there and let them look around a bit. Hopefully they'll take a (short?) break once they find the troll's/slorn's lair or lairs, and go back to the surface. Fuma's player needs a new PC introduced.
That's where we ended.
* If there is one thing I could change/would change "next time", I'd add another change to the DF spell changes list - Shape Earth cannot shape worked stone. No shaping holes in walls, no shaping carven floors, etc. I understand the value of this, and that GURPS mages are more utility than combat, and that taking it away means taking away a valuable ability. But man, the session grinds to a halt at every obstacle and people say "Can we shape a hole in it? What's the magic resistance of the floor? Of the wall? Of that rock? Can we cover it with shaped stone? Can we shape the wall away from the lock? Can we shape barricades in front of the trap?" And since the spell is extremely costly (6x cost for worked stone) but not so costly they can't cast it, this means shape, rest, roll wandering monsters, have a fight, more shaping, more resting, etc. and we spend a few hours of the game session in one room trying to bludgeon a way into an area I meant to be hard to get into. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't . . . but it means less exploration and more "solve it by shape it." I'd recommend for a traditional D&D-style or video game-style game, where walls are true obstacles except where specifically destructable, stone that's been worked by tools cannot be shaped at all.
Would that I could change this now, but it's too late (and characters and plans are based on it.) It's just not that exciting, which is my main complaint.
***
Fun session.
A few things this time:
You can find Andersonian trolls, poison slorn, gladiator apes, and those green ogres in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1. It was mostly luck that the PCs hit all of them in one session.
d30 Rumors. I put 30 rumors on a list and let my players roll the d30 for each rumor they picked up (1 automatic, plus 1 for every 2 points they made a Carousing roll by). This was a lot of fun, actually. I bolded out the rumors they have, and I'll pull them off the list and fill in new ones.
Combat can be slow. Especially if everyone is kibbitzing about each other's best options and worried about maximizing this turn's actions while not opening up their rear hexes to any attacks on subsequent turns. So while it's fine we have a high proportion of the session being combat, it sucks that it's one combat or two combats. So we're going to try a few ways to speed it up next time.
They need more bodies in the fray. But some players are reluctant to hire folks who'll get killed in the process.
We also discussed some meta-issues like always leaving the dungeon at the end of a session, how to get down to lower levels if you have to re-fight your way down each time, etc. We also talked "one group" versus "loose confederation of looters" and having extra PCs. We did all agree that killing monsters while drinking beer with your friends is awesome, but we're hoping to find a way to further maximize the awesomeness . . .
Sunday, September 9th, 2012
Characters: (approximate net point total)
Vryce, human knight (299 points)
Nakar, human wizard (about 285 points)
Inquisitor Marco, human cleric (about 280 points)
Fuma, human thief (254 points)
Borriz, dwarven knight (280 points)
Reserve (players couldn't make it)
Honus Honusson, human barbarian (283 points)
Galen Longtread, human scout (250 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC) (Red Raggi is around town right now on a 15 or less on 3d. I rolled a 16, so he wasn't available.)
We opened up with the PCs in town. Fuma did some gambling and learned Poisons (and picked up some poisons for his crossbow and Vryce's sword.) Vryce did some carousing and picked up some rumors. Nakar tried to learn about gargoyles (they are elementals, and some wag told him you need special dwarven magic gargoyle hammers to kill them). Borriz caroused as well (not as successfully). Father Marco's player showed up late, late, late so he didn't get anything done in town, he just caught up later.
The group headed out up the mountain to Felltower, passing the usual landmarks - across the Stone Bridge to the northside slums and Sterick's Landing, up past the statue of Sterick the Red himself, up the windy path, to the top of the mountain, and to the crumbling castle that marks Felltower.
They entered the dungeon with the usual caution (invisible scouts, watching the arrow slits, etc.) and put down their bridge. They were amused to find the hobgoblins (presumably) had put up wooden shutters backed with leather, wool, or felt (to ensure no light penetrated) across the inside of the arrow slits. Tired of duking it out with the PCs (and paying for it) presumably.
Since Inq. Marco wasn't there yet, they decided against a run at the wights, and turned right. They passed the echo-y chamber they'd encountered before, and went what they call "map north" (the dungeon doesn't actually line up neatly N-S). They saw a mosaic-floored 20' corridor with two side exits. Fuma scouted invisibly, and saw the edging of flicking light as if escaping from a closed door to the left. He also heard voices - sounded like orcish - and booted feet heading away. Also, some snuffling and grunting noises.
(Editing later: Forgot the mention that Inq. Marco's player showed up, so we ruled that he'd caught up with them after a slow start.)
Fuma went back and explained, then the group followed. The wide corridor continued ahead to the extent of their magical lighting. The headed left.
The passed a dead-end alcove and a side passage they didn't explore, and reached the door quietly. They heard voices speaking Common, something about a trapdoor, stuck, injuries, and "what do we do now?" So they lined up and bashed the door down and moved in. Inside the room were five men - two down (one still slightly smoldering), three standing - one with an axe and shield, one with a sword, one with a bow - around a campfire made of broken bits of scrap wood. It was a long room ending in a stone spiral staircase and with a portcullis closing off a 10' wide passage to the "north." There were scorch marks on the floor in front of the portcullis.
Vryce decided to speak, and they were willing to talk.
Long story short, they said they were the Choke brothers - Grimleck Choke (axe guy), Bowbender Choke (bow), and "Big" John Choke (greatsword). This will be funny later. They and their two (wounded) hirelings had entered the dungeon and found this room. They and the PCs conferred with each other, and then together. They decided to team up. The PCs revealed they weren't three, but five (Fuma and Nakar being invisible). The Chokes told them the portcullis was locked but they bent a hole in it, but a trap on it burned one of their hirelings and some painted faced zapped the other a bit. They tried the trapdoor at the top of the stairs, but it wouldn't budge. And they heard orcs coming (and mentioned seeing trolls, but no one seemed to notice) so they hid in here.
Sure enough, down the blocked corridor was a black, smooth door (metal, for sure) and two pairs of open-mouthed faces painted on the wall.
Fuma went through the bars to investigate, and tried to crawl between the faces. They blasted him with fire, and set his cloak on fire. He cut it off and crawled to "safety" between the faces. While he waited, the group planned. Borriz and Vryce tried the trapdoor and managed to force it up a bit, but rocks and dust fell on them and a bigger rock blocked it partly open. No dice - it's buried by crumbled stonework.
So they decided they'd shape the stone from above (and later from a section of floor by the door) and ooze it down, between the bars, and create tilted walls of stone to block the mouths of the faces. They did one, then two (and the trapdoor crashed shut as un-shaped rock above shifted), and then a third by tearing up a 6' x 3' x 3' foxhole out of the floor with Shape Earth. Fuma hung out on the "wrong" side of the portcullis, just because.
(This is short to explain, but it took a couple hours of play, which I'll gripe about below*)
While they rested, I kept having Nakar (who was taking all the time to shape and rest, shape and rest) make some rolls. Oops, too low. Wandering monsters. The orc patrol in the area showed up . . . with a bang. The group hear thundering steps and roaring noises. Suddenly, BANG, the (Magelocked) door exploded into pieces. A big boar (!) came charging in, flattening Grimleck Choke, ignoring a hatchet to the brain from Borriz, and taking a few cuts from Vryce and John Choke plus an arrow and a sunbolt before dropping. Instantly after it fell, two gladiator apes charged in. They did little besides get beat up by Borriz, but they kept everyone busy until the orcs arrived. They did, firing arrows and then four big brute orcs charged in.
As this happened, the PCs suddenly realized too late that John Choke had moved behind Vryce, Grimleck behind Borriz, Bowbender had lined up a shot on Inquisitor Marco, and the two "scared hirelings" moved right next to Fuma (albeit on the wrong side of the portcullis) and Nakar. And they suddenly attacked. Borriz dropped from an axe to the back (although he was only down, not out), Vryce was neck-and-arm grabbed by John, Bowbender missed Inq. Marco, one hireling grabbed at Nakar (and missed) and the other snaked out a hand and grabbed at Fuma.
Betrayal!
What followed was a three-way fight. The orcs kept attacking everyone, while the Choke brothers engaged with weapons . . . and their bare hands.
Fuma's fight was short. He dodged the grapple, dropped his crossbow, and engaged with his shortsword. He lightly wounded his opponent, who (along with most of the others) shifted into the form of a green ogre! The green ogre grabbed his neck, and as Fuma tried to fend he off, proceeded to begin to crush his neck. It took only two seconds of squeezing (and two really brutal ST rolls by the ogre) to choke the life out of Fuma. He dropped to the ground, dead.
Vryce was borne down to his knees and his sword knocked out of his hands, before he could finally break free - even as his opponent and he were attacked equally by orcs and a gladiator ape that got back up from his stunned and prone position. Nakar blasted Bowman choke with a powerful stone missile (8d+8, for 37 damage) but it didn't drop him. Inq. Marco fire off spells and then tried to fight with his mace but was knocked into that hole they'd made harvesting stone for their face-blocking walls. Two of the Chokes tried to get Nakar, but he kept fending them off with spells and magically-enhanced defenses. They kept trying to grappling him and wring his neck, but he was too wiley (and lucky!) for them.
The fight really turned when John Choke got clipped by a gladiator ape and knocked out cold with a terrible HT roll, and Borriz got back up. Vryce got back up, too, with his sword at the ready (yanked back up from its lanyard). At that point, Orcs started to die as fast as Borriz wanted them to. Inq. Marco fought from his hole, fending off an ape (and crippling it's leg), using Command to get an orc to drop his weapon, and hurting one of the Chokes, too. A big half-orc half-ogre ran in and swung his hammer but Vryce parried and then Borriz killed the guy outright with his signature double head blows. Vryce attacked the apes, and the Chokes. Borriz pursued the orcs a bit, killing a couple archers who'd followed the originals into the room, but when their morale broke he couldn't keep up with them as they fled. Vryce, meanwhile, killed off the Chokes.
A shaman and two archers escaped, but six orcs and a half-orc half-ogre died along with two apes and all five Chokes (John by coup-de-grace to both eyes).
The loot was disappointing, and so was the loss of Fuma. The orcs had only a mix of so-so weapons and some coins, and the Chokes were broke. They decided to head back the way they came, after hearing more noise from that direction and not wanting to be cornered.
They got the intersection of the mosaic hallways and the way back when they heard something approaching. They decided to go for it, despite dwindling resources (and re-world time). They left Fuma's body in the open and tossed lightstones nearby to make anyone coming look past them, and set up a quick ambush. What came around the corner were the first two of (eventually) five poison slorn, big lizards that breathe toxic streams of gas. They attacked and hacked up the slorn, but not before Borriz took a big blast of venom. Just then, the slorn's master came up - a troll! Hloo, hloo, hloo, it went, and attacked. Borriz got clawed up (and knocked out), and Vryce, Inq. Marco, and Nakar attacked with spells and swords. They managed to finish the lizards, and then after a nasty scrap dropped the troll. Before they could light him up, though, another troll and another slorn came at them from the hallway . . . and nastier-looking troll and two more slorn came up from the door they'd been planning to use to escape!
Inq. Marco probably saved the day here with a timely Great Heal (to cure Borriz entirely) and then a made-it-exactly-despite-penalties Awaken to get him up. Nakar also set a big section of the battlefield on fire, cornering himself but forcing the slorn to close instead of sit back breathing toxins. He eventually tripped trying retreat across a wounded troll, got his face clawed open, and needed rescue - but the fire helped, and Borriz and Vryce managed to dice up the remaining slorn and bash the trolls down. They group then quickly heaped the trolls into the magical fire and Nakar kept it up for 2 minutes to ensure they burned to ash (100+ seconds in magic fire is a lot of damage, even to trolls!)
We decided to end it there. While they could have scampered out of the dungeon, they're convinced they just exposed the troll's treasure and want to make a grab for it. So next time, we'll pick up there and let them look around a bit. Hopefully they'll take a (short?) break once they find the troll's/slorn's lair or lairs, and go back to the surface. Fuma's player needs a new PC introduced.
That's where we ended.
* If there is one thing I could change/would change "next time", I'd add another change to the DF spell changes list - Shape Earth cannot shape worked stone. No shaping holes in walls, no shaping carven floors, etc. I understand the value of this, and that GURPS mages are more utility than combat, and that taking it away means taking away a valuable ability. But man, the session grinds to a halt at every obstacle and people say "Can we shape a hole in it? What's the magic resistance of the floor? Of the wall? Of that rock? Can we cover it with shaped stone? Can we shape the wall away from the lock? Can we shape barricades in front of the trap?" And since the spell is extremely costly (6x cost for worked stone) but not so costly they can't cast it, this means shape, rest, roll wandering monsters, have a fight, more shaping, more resting, etc. and we spend a few hours of the game session in one room trying to bludgeon a way into an area I meant to be hard to get into. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't . . . but it means less exploration and more "solve it by shape it." I'd recommend for a traditional D&D-style or video game-style game, where walls are true obstacles except where specifically destructable, stone that's been worked by tools cannot be shaped at all.
Would that I could change this now, but it's too late (and characters and plans are based on it.) It's just not that exciting, which is my main complaint.
***
Fun session.
A few things this time:
You can find Andersonian trolls, poison slorn, gladiator apes, and those green ogres in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1. It was mostly luck that the PCs hit all of them in one session.
d30 Rumors. I put 30 rumors on a list and let my players roll the d30 for each rumor they picked up (1 automatic, plus 1 for every 2 points they made a Carousing roll by). This was a lot of fun, actually. I bolded out the rumors they have, and I'll pull them off the list and fill in new ones.
Combat can be slow. Especially if everyone is kibbitzing about each other's best options and worried about maximizing this turn's actions while not opening up their rear hexes to any attacks on subsequent turns. So while it's fine we have a high proportion of the session being combat, it sucks that it's one combat or two combats. So we're going to try a few ways to speed it up next time.
They need more bodies in the fray. But some players are reluctant to hire folks who'll get killed in the process.
We also discussed some meta-issues like always leaving the dungeon at the end of a session, how to get down to lower levels if you have to re-fight your way down each time, etc. We also talked "one group" versus "loose confederation of looters" and having extra PCs. We did all agree that killing monsters while drinking beer with your friends is awesome, but we're hoping to find a way to further maximize the awesomeness . . .
Saturday, September 8, 2012
My megadungeon "best" practices - Part VI
Here are some more ramblings about dungeon design, specifically megadungeon design. This is just what I've discovered as I have gone along.
The rest of the series is linked from here.
Quick Felltower/Grak Yorl Status Update
My own megadungeon has, as of now, 4 main levels and 1 sub-level mapped out, and everything the players could possibly reach in any two sessions is stocked and ready. I've got notes and outsides on several more levels and sub levels, and I'll spend time on them when I've got a killer idea or the players seem like they'll get there within a session or two.
On to the lessons:
Know which way the doors open. When I started my megadungeon mapping, I went right back to Gygaxian mapping, with doors shown as boxes overlaying the wall.
I realize now I missed a good chance to make my life easier. I should have put architectural blueprint style notations of which way a door swings open.
If your players are anything like mine, the first thing they door when they see a closed door is ask, which side are the hinges on? No locked, barred, or magically sealed door or poison needle doorhandle trap is worth beans if my players are on the side with the hinges. Hinges come off. That's if they don't follow the tactics of Spec Ops troops and make their own entrance and ignore that silly choke point.
Which way the door swings - from left to right, or right to left, into the room or out - will affect every decision you make about the door. Do you bust it down? Would there be a bar on the inside, or could someone have piled trash up to keep it from being shouldered open? That would make sense if it swings into the room, but not as much if it opens out. If it has recessed hinges or is a pocket door or swings both ways, it changes the nature of the door (and the wall next to it).
While I can make this up on the fly from knowing what my dungeon doors were put up for, and why, it would have been easier from the start to have it noted on the map. That way I don't have to remember.
Make it easy to change levels. It shouldn't be a nightmare to get down to level 2 from level 1. It doesn't need to be trivial, but the smoother the transit, the more chances that players will actually go there. You want to avoid making it so that every attempt to get down to the next level involves a resource-draining slog or takes up a big chunk of your game session. It's just logistics - if going deeper is in and of itself costly and time-consuming, it won't happen as often.
Two corollaries to this:
Make it possible to bypass sections, but give them a reason not to. If it's easy to, say, skip from level 3 down to level 7 using the elevator, or the big access shaft, or the teleporter, great. But then you need a reason to go to levels 4, 5, and 6 instead of doing a quick raid on level 7. Besides the inherent danger of going too deep, that is. Put things - valuable, unique, and interesting things - on levels 4, 5, and 6 that make it worth exploring them. Put dangerous creatures there that must be dealt with to avoid leaving monsters in your six. Put cool stuff there.
I played the hell out of Wizardy: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (available here) when I was a kid. There was an elevator from level 1 to level 4, and then from 4 or 5 (I forget which) down to 9. So I never spent time on levels 6, 7, or 8. They were filled with teleporters, turnabout traps, mazes, and nastiness. But I could just ride down to 9, fight one all-or-nothing encounter (and let rip with my best spells and magic items), take my loot, and run back to town. So I did that over and over - it was risky, but the level 9 critters were worth a lot of XP and we found the best magic items there. All 6-8 had was less treasure and more frustration. So avoid that!
Include subtle level changes
I'm not a big fan of teleporters, especially the kind that do it without you ever noticing (I find that hard to believe in, and it wrecks my suspension of disbelief). But I do like stairs down to sub levels, or sloping passages, or raised up or lowered areas on a level. Combined, they make it hard to tell what's a passage to the next level and what's just part of this level but raised up or lowered down. If you go down to level 7 and up a tall set of stairs to the temple's alter and priests chambers, is it still level 7 in danger and reward? Does that sloping passage in the caves on level 5 drop you down to more dangerous stuff, or does it merely mean a physically lower area of level 5?
Man-made dungeon levels might take advantage of a dead cave found during the excavation, and it might be above or below the rest of the level.
Putting that kind of conundrum in from of the players tests their willingness to explore. It adds tension and choices with small cost. It also adds realism - caves aren't flat, and having to climb up and down obstacles makes a lot of sense.
The rest of the series is linked from here.
Quick Felltower/Grak Yorl Status Update
My own megadungeon has, as of now, 4 main levels and 1 sub-level mapped out, and everything the players could possibly reach in any two sessions is stocked and ready. I've got notes and outsides on several more levels and sub levels, and I'll spend time on them when I've got a killer idea or the players seem like they'll get there within a session or two.
On to the lessons:
Know which way the doors open. When I started my megadungeon mapping, I went right back to Gygaxian mapping, with doors shown as boxes overlaying the wall.
I realize now I missed a good chance to make my life easier. I should have put architectural blueprint style notations of which way a door swings open.
If your players are anything like mine, the first thing they door when they see a closed door is ask, which side are the hinges on? No locked, barred, or magically sealed door or poison needle doorhandle trap is worth beans if my players are on the side with the hinges. Hinges come off. That's if they don't follow the tactics of Spec Ops troops and make their own entrance and ignore that silly choke point.
Which way the door swings - from left to right, or right to left, into the room or out - will affect every decision you make about the door. Do you bust it down? Would there be a bar on the inside, or could someone have piled trash up to keep it from being shouldered open? That would make sense if it swings into the room, but not as much if it opens out. If it has recessed hinges or is a pocket door or swings both ways, it changes the nature of the door (and the wall next to it).
While I can make this up on the fly from knowing what my dungeon doors were put up for, and why, it would have been easier from the start to have it noted on the map. That way I don't have to remember.
Make it easy to change levels. It shouldn't be a nightmare to get down to level 2 from level 1. It doesn't need to be trivial, but the smoother the transit, the more chances that players will actually go there. You want to avoid making it so that every attempt to get down to the next level involves a resource-draining slog or takes up a big chunk of your game session. It's just logistics - if going deeper is in and of itself costly and time-consuming, it won't happen as often.
Two corollaries to this:
Make it possible to bypass sections, but give them a reason not to. If it's easy to, say, skip from level 3 down to level 7 using the elevator, or the big access shaft, or the teleporter, great. But then you need a reason to go to levels 4, 5, and 6 instead of doing a quick raid on level 7. Besides the inherent danger of going too deep, that is. Put things - valuable, unique, and interesting things - on levels 4, 5, and 6 that make it worth exploring them. Put dangerous creatures there that must be dealt with to avoid leaving monsters in your six. Put cool stuff there.
I played the hell out of Wizardy: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (available here) when I was a kid. There was an elevator from level 1 to level 4, and then from 4 or 5 (I forget which) down to 9. So I never spent time on levels 6, 7, or 8. They were filled with teleporters, turnabout traps, mazes, and nastiness. But I could just ride down to 9, fight one all-or-nothing encounter (and let rip with my best spells and magic items), take my loot, and run back to town. So I did that over and over - it was risky, but the level 9 critters were worth a lot of XP and we found the best magic items there. All 6-8 had was less treasure and more frustration. So avoid that!
Include subtle level changes
I'm not a big fan of teleporters, especially the kind that do it without you ever noticing (I find that hard to believe in, and it wrecks my suspension of disbelief). But I do like stairs down to sub levels, or sloping passages, or raised up or lowered areas on a level. Combined, they make it hard to tell what's a passage to the next level and what's just part of this level but raised up or lowered down. If you go down to level 7 and up a tall set of stairs to the temple's alter and priests chambers, is it still level 7 in danger and reward? Does that sloping passage in the caves on level 5 drop you down to more dangerous stuff, or does it merely mean a physically lower area of level 5?
Man-made dungeon levels might take advantage of a dead cave found during the excavation, and it might be above or below the rest of the level.
Putting that kind of conundrum in from of the players tests their willingness to explore. It adds tension and choices with small cost. It also adds realism - caves aren't flat, and having to climb up and down obstacles makes a lot of sense.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Star Frontiers Vaporware
I've been re-reading former White Dwarf editor and Fighting Fantasy gamebook author Ian Livingstone's Dicing with Dragons: An Introduction to Role-Playing Games.
I'll post a full review at some point, but I found something amusing in the extensive list of available game supplements in the book. It ties right into yesterday's post on Volturnus.
"STAR FRONTIERS
Kdikit: The Cartel (S/TSR/O)
Characters are assigned a journey to a strange planet to capture alien criminals. Designed as a series of small adventures for learning game techniques.
In Search of the Star Spawn (S/TSR/O)
Characters must endeavor to recover the Royal Egg of Aurax from hostile plants, animals and natives on an alien planet.
As far as I can tell, no one else anywhere mentions these supplements. Total vaporware.
Which is too bad, because that first one would have been exactly in line with what I feel was the game's premise - rooting out alien enemies on civilized planets (Kdikit being a major population center in Star Frontiers). It's too bad that didn't come out.
The second one sounds like a comic mishmash of a T&T adventure with SF, though. The Royal Egg of Aurax? Okay, Silly MacGuffin, all set to go! Sorry boys, Rocky & Bullwinkle beat you out with recovering the Ruby Yacht of Omar Kayyam. That said, I'd send D&D PCs on the same adventure without blinking.
I'll post a full review at some point, but I found something amusing in the extensive list of available game supplements in the book. It ties right into yesterday's post on Volturnus.
"STAR FRONTIERS
Kdikit: The Cartel (S/TSR/O)
Characters are assigned a journey to a strange planet to capture alien criminals. Designed as a series of small adventures for learning game techniques.
In Search of the Star Spawn (S/TSR/O)
Characters must endeavor to recover the Royal Egg of Aurax from hostile plants, animals and natives on an alien planet.
As far as I can tell, no one else anywhere mentions these supplements. Total vaporware.
Which is too bad, because that first one would have been exactly in line with what I feel was the game's premise - rooting out alien enemies on civilized planets (Kdikit being a major population center in Star Frontiers). It's too bad that didn't come out.
The second one sounds like a comic mishmash of a T&T adventure with SF, though. The Royal Egg of Aurax? Okay, Silly MacGuffin, all set to go! Sorry boys, Rocky & Bullwinkle beat you out with recovering the Ruby Yacht of Omar Kayyam. That said, I'd send D&D PCs on the same adventure without blinking.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Star Frontiers, the Volturnus trilogy, and a missed opportunity
I played a lot of Star Frontiers when I was a kid. Literally a kid - we played a lot of Star Frontiers at lunchtime in Elementary School, when I was in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. I really liked the game, but we never really got very far.
Why?
We always crapped out on Volturnus.
James Maliszewski wrote a really good post about the introductory adventure and its two followups here: Retrospective: Volturnus Trilogy.
I agree with James that they make a great pulp arc. They are a "Planet of Adventure"-style sprawl of a planetary epic.
The problem is, it's a sprawl of a planetary epic.
The game sets itself up as a blasters-and-spaceships space opera full of sky cars, monorail transports, strange alien allies, mysterious alien foes, and saboteurs and spies to be rooted out. You get all sorts of cool toys - gyrojet pistols, lasers, grenades, energy screens, and hoverbikes. You get money to spend and toolkits to buy and use. If you learned the game from the Basic rules, you spent your time driving around a big city, hunting down criminals and spies for the evil aliens, the Sathar.
And the first thing the pre-packaged adventure does is blow up your spaceship, take away your cool toys, and strand you on a planet devoid of technological stuff for session after session after session.
Now, I think this would have made a fantastic change of pace adventure. You've been rooting out Sather spies and traveling around Grand Prenglar's mapped out city, and take a much-needed vacation. Now, your ship wrecks and you're down to emergency capsule supplies and having to organize the races of a low-tech planet to fight off an alien invasion.
Star Frontiers was a great game, and we loved it as kids. But again, we were kids, and we ran the pre-packaged stuff. All of which basically did the whole "you're stuck on this low-tech planet until the Sathar are gone" bit. SF0-2, SF3 Sundown on Starmist, etc. - all of them pretty much the same plot. We all knew you were supposed to play the adventure that came with the game first. Until you completed it, you didn't get to do other stuff (which might explain why we all know the Caves of Choas and The Isle of Dread so well).
They had some downsides as adventures, too. The sub-arcs are pretty repetitive in actual play. You can see it in James's summary - land, meet a race and pass their test/help them, go to the next race. Meet, pass their test/help them, go to the next one, etc. The final fight is cool, but only one group I ever ran got there and it was because we skipped the middle part of the trilogy. But really, my argument is that these represent a failed execution of the premise of the game as it is sold in the books.
Not until Knight Hawks did you get a space ship you could use or an adventure that didn't strand you on a low-tech planet. I think that approach is fine - it's a valid game. But it's not the game the intro to the rules sells you. Top Secret gave you spies and guns and adventures that revolved around being spies with guns right out of the box. Gangbusters gave you criminals and investigators and cops and modules that revolved around cops and robbers and investigations. Star Frontiers taught you to play with monorails and vehicles and gunfights with criminals and saboteurs and then dropped you on a planet you couldn't leave, so you didn't get to play with monorails and vehicles until after you did Planet of Adventure. Sure, adults could easily say "Gee, this epic three-part adventure is a campaign, not an intro, I better play some basic planetside civilized scenarios and then pull this one out." But we were the 10 in "Ages 10 & Up" and played by the box. Which might explain my love/hate relationship with SF0-2. It could be fun, but it wasn't the game the intro material made me want to play.
It wasn't until years later I realized this was what probably derailed so many of our games.
SF0 came with the game, and by golly, you ran the adventure that came with the game or you were doing it wrong. Yeah, I know. Again, think 4th graders. We were the kids on South Park, basically. And everyone who ran the game - Me, a kid named Pete, and if I remember correctly Matt P. too a shot at running it too. All of us put you on Volturnus and you sucked it up.
I still have fantasies about running the game (with GURPS, not the packaged rules). But I'd never stick the players on Volturnus again. Too many memories of campaigns gone no where else but that planet . . .
Why?
We always crapped out on Volturnus.
James Maliszewski wrote a really good post about the introductory adventure and its two followups here: Retrospective: Volturnus Trilogy.
I agree with James that they make a great pulp arc. They are a "Planet of Adventure"-style sprawl of a planetary epic.
The problem is, it's a sprawl of a planetary epic.
The game sets itself up as a blasters-and-spaceships space opera full of sky cars, monorail transports, strange alien allies, mysterious alien foes, and saboteurs and spies to be rooted out. You get all sorts of cool toys - gyrojet pistols, lasers, grenades, energy screens, and hoverbikes. You get money to spend and toolkits to buy and use. If you learned the game from the Basic rules, you spent your time driving around a big city, hunting down criminals and spies for the evil aliens, the Sathar.
And the first thing the pre-packaged adventure does is blow up your spaceship, take away your cool toys, and strand you on a planet devoid of technological stuff for session after session after session.
Now, I think this would have made a fantastic change of pace adventure. You've been rooting out Sather spies and traveling around Grand Prenglar's mapped out city, and take a much-needed vacation. Now, your ship wrecks and you're down to emergency capsule supplies and having to organize the races of a low-tech planet to fight off an alien invasion.
Star Frontiers was a great game, and we loved it as kids. But again, we were kids, and we ran the pre-packaged stuff. All of which basically did the whole "you're stuck on this low-tech planet until the Sathar are gone" bit. SF0-2, SF3 Sundown on Starmist, etc. - all of them pretty much the same plot. We all knew you were supposed to play the adventure that came with the game first. Until you completed it, you didn't get to do other stuff (which might explain why we all know the Caves of Choas and The Isle of Dread so well).
They had some downsides as adventures, too. The sub-arcs are pretty repetitive in actual play. You can see it in James's summary - land, meet a race and pass their test/help them, go to the next race. Meet, pass their test/help them, go to the next one, etc. The final fight is cool, but only one group I ever ran got there and it was because we skipped the middle part of the trilogy. But really, my argument is that these represent a failed execution of the premise of the game as it is sold in the books.
Not until Knight Hawks did you get a space ship you could use or an adventure that didn't strand you on a low-tech planet. I think that approach is fine - it's a valid game. But it's not the game the intro to the rules sells you. Top Secret gave you spies and guns and adventures that revolved around being spies with guns right out of the box. Gangbusters gave you criminals and investigators and cops and modules that revolved around cops and robbers and investigations. Star Frontiers taught you to play with monorails and vehicles and gunfights with criminals and saboteurs and then dropped you on a planet you couldn't leave, so you didn't get to play with monorails and vehicles until after you did Planet of Adventure. Sure, adults could easily say "Gee, this epic three-part adventure is a campaign, not an intro, I better play some basic planetside civilized scenarios and then pull this one out." But we were the 10 in "Ages 10 & Up" and played by the box. Which might explain my love/hate relationship with SF0-2. It could be fun, but it wasn't the game the intro material made me want to play.
It wasn't until years later I realized this was what probably derailed so many of our games.
SF0 came with the game, and by golly, you ran the adventure that came with the game or you were doing it wrong. Yeah, I know. Again, think 4th graders. We were the kids on South Park, basically. And everyone who ran the game - Me, a kid named Pete, and if I remember correctly Matt P. too a shot at running it too. All of us put you on Volturnus and you sucked it up.
I still have fantasies about running the game (with GURPS, not the packaged rules). But I'd never stick the players on Volturnus again. Too many memories of campaigns gone no where else but that planet . . .
Monday, September 3, 2012
Snarfquest: The Book
Amongst the fairly odd stuff I have in my gaming collection is this book:
Snarfquest: The Book by Larry Elmore
Price: $9.95 back in the day (1987)
Snarfquest is a comic strip drawn by Larry Elmore.
I always liked the Snarf comic strip in Dragon, especially the first arc - collected here. It starts with the elder of a village of zeetvah (a snouted, bat-wing-eared humanoid race) pronouncing that their leader is dead, and whichever warrior of the village does the most heroic deeds in the next year will be proclaimed king. So Snarf heads out from his village to seek his fortune. It ends a 100+ pages later with his return after that year.
Not to spoil it (much), he encounters everything from Hot Warrior Women to evil wizards to dragons to a robot during his trip. The world is pretty recognizably D&Dish, although you don't get a lot of the "standard" races or monsters. Snarf isn't particularly murderous and likes to get where he can by wits more than brawn or skill. That helps keep the story moving along well without turning into a series of comic book brawls.
Larry Elmore gets a lot of crap for "static" or "posed" looking pictures. That may be true for his heroic landscape type art, but it's not true for his comic strip style Snarf art. The art is detailed (it's Elmore!) but dynamic and fun. It just goes to show his posed stuff is on purpose, not the only way the man can illustrate.
The book also has stats for the important characters in AD&D and BX D&D. The stats are complete, although sometimes they're odd - results from the comics wouldn't happen in game using the stats for stuff like the "magic wand" that Snarf has.
Is it worth getting? Probably not. You can read the classic Dragon magazine Snarfquest strips starting right here. The extra strip is interesting, but it might be around somewhere (I haven't found it, but I haven't dug all the way through Larry Elmore's site either). It's not likely you'll really need to known Snarf's Con or Suthaz's level, either, so the stats are just interesting rather than useful. Still, it's pretty fun, so if you love Elmore or love the Snarf strips, it might be worth looking into.
Snarfquest: The Book by Larry Elmore
Price: $9.95 back in the day (1987)
Snarfquest is a comic strip drawn by Larry Elmore.
I always liked the Snarf comic strip in Dragon, especially the first arc - collected here. It starts with the elder of a village of zeetvah (a snouted, bat-wing-eared humanoid race) pronouncing that their leader is dead, and whichever warrior of the village does the most heroic deeds in the next year will be proclaimed king. So Snarf heads out from his village to seek his fortune. It ends a 100+ pages later with his return after that year.
Not to spoil it (much), he encounters everything from Hot Warrior Women to evil wizards to dragons to a robot during his trip. The world is pretty recognizably D&Dish, although you don't get a lot of the "standard" races or monsters. Snarf isn't particularly murderous and likes to get where he can by wits more than brawn or skill. That helps keep the story moving along well without turning into a series of comic book brawls.
Larry Elmore gets a lot of crap for "static" or "posed" looking pictures. That may be true for his heroic landscape type art, but it's not true for his comic strip style Snarf art. The art is detailed (it's Elmore!) but dynamic and fun. It just goes to show his posed stuff is on purpose, not the only way the man can illustrate.
The book also has stats for the important characters in AD&D and BX D&D. The stats are complete, although sometimes they're odd - results from the comics wouldn't happen in game using the stats for stuff like the "magic wand" that Snarf has.
Is it worth getting? Probably not. You can read the classic Dragon magazine Snarfquest strips starting right here. The extra strip is interesting, but it might be around somewhere (I haven't found it, but I haven't dug all the way through Larry Elmore's site either). It's not likely you'll really need to known Snarf's Con or Suthaz's level, either, so the stats are just interesting rather than useful. Still, it's pretty fun, so if you love Elmore or love the Snarf strips, it might be worth looking into.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
1st ed. DMG, S4, and level-appropriateness
One thing that interested me about D&D 3.0/3.5 was the idea that characters of a certain level were assumed to have X magic items or Y value of mundane items. More or less than that, and you'd know they were better or worse equipped than other characters of the same level. Further, the overall effective level of the character was known, even for multi-classed PCs, and encounters in published adventures pretty much scaled to them.
But that idea didn't start wholesale in D&D 3.0/3.5. It existed in some form in 1st edition AD&D.
I was re-reading S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (brown cover, 1982 edition) and it contains a passage about the relative level equivalencies of the party (pg. 3, under "Adventuring Characters.") Summing up, the adventurers should be 6-10th level, and if there are more than 4 9-10th level guys the monsters should be beefed up. Double-classed PCs are considered to be the average of both classes, plus two (or plus three over the highest level if one class is much higher level than the other). Triple-classed are highest level plus four. So the adventure is meant to be scaled, if you're too high level for it - something I've heard was not done in Gary Gygax's own Greyhawk campaign a decade earlier. This is admitted a published, converted tournament adventure and not a long-running game, but it's interesting to note that scaling/appropriate challenge came along at least 30 years ago.
That's level and encounters. How about magic items?
Further down, under "For the Dungeon Master" is the following passage.
"(If the party is relatively weak in levels, numbers, or magic, use Appendix C of the Dungeon Masters Guide (Party Magic Items, pp 175-76) to equip the part with magical items appropriate to their levels, to bring them up to strength."
I can't help but think you're supposed to determine their "relative weakness" by looking at the section above, the pre-gens, and very likely pp 175-76 as well.
This isn't the only 1st edition, Gygax-era AD&D module to offer up fairly specific advice about what the party should have or consist of to survive the adventure. D1-2 and D3 stick out in my mind, and I'm sure there must be others. But it stuck out to me as an example of connecting to a level-appropriate amount and quality of magic items. Further, it ties it to one of three existing subsystems for determining what a 1st-or-higher-level character "should" have. One is the aforementioned system for NPC parties. The other is at the end of Appendix C, page 194, and the other is all of Appendix P, starting on pg. 225 (which, as an aside, prescribes 4d-drop-lowest for stats).
Each of those systems varies a bit:
- page 175-176 hands out some items automatically, randomly rolled from tables, and others on a percent chance of a table roll. Tables are more-or-less by power level.
- page 194 splits it out by item with a percent chance per level of having a magic item, but no details on how powerful or where to roll except for a single table on protective devices (rings, cloaks, bracers, etc.).
- Appendix P assigns percentages to type and quality of magic armor, scrolls, weapons, and potions. The player gets some input here, picking where to make their percentage rolls (opting for higher chances for a certain items, such as magic chain armor instead of plate, or a sword instead of a bow). Miscellaneous items are handed out to the group as a whole.
Each of these systems give pretty divergent results, and have different aims. Appendix P especially stands out (and IIRC it first showed up in an early issue of The Dragon) as it's meant for generating higher level PCs for a pickup game, especially for conventions.
I thought it was really interesting to see one of these systems picked out as a way to beef up characters who didn't quite have "magical items appropriate to their levels." That's not something I've heard much about with regards to early edition D&D, but systems for it already existed by the time I entered the hobby in 1981.
In some ways, 3.0/3.5 seems like a unification, clarification, and refinement of a mess of sub-systems already in the game. It's sometimes referred to as if it was a big break with AD&D, but it seems like AD&D was were it began in the first place.
(I skipped 2e in here, as I've barely done more than crack the covers of the 2e books. I stopped playing AD&D right when 2e was starting to get rolling, and didn't look at D&D again until I co-authored a dual GURPS/D&D 3.0 statted article with Bob "Coyote6" Huss for Pyramid magazine).
But that idea didn't start wholesale in D&D 3.0/3.5. It existed in some form in 1st edition AD&D.
I was re-reading S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (brown cover, 1982 edition) and it contains a passage about the relative level equivalencies of the party (pg. 3, under "Adventuring Characters.") Summing up, the adventurers should be 6-10th level, and if there are more than 4 9-10th level guys the monsters should be beefed up. Double-classed PCs are considered to be the average of both classes, plus two (or plus three over the highest level if one class is much higher level than the other). Triple-classed are highest level plus four. So the adventure is meant to be scaled, if you're too high level for it - something I've heard was not done in Gary Gygax's own Greyhawk campaign a decade earlier. This is admitted a published, converted tournament adventure and not a long-running game, but it's interesting to note that scaling/appropriate challenge came along at least 30 years ago.
That's level and encounters. How about magic items?
Further down, under "For the Dungeon Master" is the following passage.
"(If the party is relatively weak in levels, numbers, or magic, use Appendix C of the Dungeon Masters Guide (Party Magic Items, pp 175-76) to equip the part with magical items appropriate to their levels, to bring them up to strength."
I can't help but think you're supposed to determine their "relative weakness" by looking at the section above, the pre-gens, and very likely pp 175-76 as well.
This isn't the only 1st edition, Gygax-era AD&D module to offer up fairly specific advice about what the party should have or consist of to survive the adventure. D1-2 and D3 stick out in my mind, and I'm sure there must be others. But it stuck out to me as an example of connecting to a level-appropriate amount and quality of magic items. Further, it ties it to one of three existing subsystems for determining what a 1st-or-higher-level character "should" have. One is the aforementioned system for NPC parties. The other is at the end of Appendix C, page 194, and the other is all of Appendix P, starting on pg. 225 (which, as an aside, prescribes 4d-drop-lowest for stats).
Each of those systems varies a bit:
- page 175-176 hands out some items automatically, randomly rolled from tables, and others on a percent chance of a table roll. Tables are more-or-less by power level.
- page 194 splits it out by item with a percent chance per level of having a magic item, but no details on how powerful or where to roll except for a single table on protective devices (rings, cloaks, bracers, etc.).
- Appendix P assigns percentages to type and quality of magic armor, scrolls, weapons, and potions. The player gets some input here, picking where to make their percentage rolls (opting for higher chances for a certain items, such as magic chain armor instead of plate, or a sword instead of a bow). Miscellaneous items are handed out to the group as a whole.
Each of these systems give pretty divergent results, and have different aims. Appendix P especially stands out (and IIRC it first showed up in an early issue of The Dragon) as it's meant for generating higher level PCs for a pickup game, especially for conventions.
I thought it was really interesting to see one of these systems picked out as a way to beef up characters who didn't quite have "magical items appropriate to their levels." That's not something I've heard much about with regards to early edition D&D, but systems for it already existed by the time I entered the hobby in 1981.
In some ways, 3.0/3.5 seems like a unification, clarification, and refinement of a mess of sub-systems already in the game. It's sometimes referred to as if it was a big break with AD&D, but it seems like AD&D was were it began in the first place.
(I skipped 2e in here, as I've barely done more than crack the covers of the 2e books. I stopped playing AD&D right when 2e was starting to get rolling, and didn't look at D&D again until I co-authored a dual GURPS/D&D 3.0 statted article with Bob "Coyote6" Huss for Pyramid magazine).
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