Hidden in Shadows

Maps

Ubiquitous to original style roleplaying is the map.  For the upper world, just as in the dungeon, the players will have a mostly blank sheet of paper.  The referees map will be fuller - full enough to cover at least the evenings’ gaming.   Since the players themselves draw their own map as they go along, if they draw something wrong, or make a wrong guess about some location, the referee should only correct them unless it's an obvious mistake the characters wouldn't make.

The referee’s map will have a few fixed locations, more or less fleshed out – key villages or ruins or whatever it may be, as in the Loch Gloomen example, but at least some of the referee’s map should remain undetermined in terms of the inhabitants and their lairs.  This is because the encounter roll is a key feature of wilderness adventure.

Checks

Ultimately, how often and when an encounter check should be made is a decision the referee must make.  For overland travel Underworld and Wilderness Adventures dictates but one check and that at the end of the day.  This method would seem to miss opportunities as characters travel en route.  The First Fantasy Campaign does not specify how often to check, but the underlying assumption seems clearly to be that a new check will be made for every 10 mile Hex entered.  Adventures in Fantasy is more explicit however, “The area is a 10 x 10 mile section” (Book of Adventure p 28) and “For each area traveled there will be one die cast… to determine if anything is encountered by the party during that day.  …each party traveling (horse or foot) one Area per day.  (Optionally, a completely mounted force could travel two Areas per day.  All water movement is three Areas per day (three chances for an encounter)…” (ibid p. 36)  Travel rates in the FFC are also  one 10 * 10 mile hex per day for open areas but are half as much for woods and deserts, and cut by 2/3 for mountains and swamps.

Personally I prefer to check once per 5 mile hex entered, regardless.

% Lair

When the players enter a Hex. I do an encounter roll, and then if positive a % Lair roll to see if the party has found a lair or just some of the lair inhabitants. If the characters have found a monster but not its’ lair, the lair will still be somewhere in that hex from that moment forward.

The Monster

So far the approach followed is about the same as in OD&D, but the next step in OD&D would be to  roll a d6 encounter chance die followed by a d8 on the "Encounter types" table (animals, flyers, lycans, etc.) followed by a d12 on the monster lists under each type.  Back in 1971, Arneson simply rolled a d20 on a single table that had some specific monsters (Ogres, Trolls etc.) and some blank spaces indicating no encounter; see Encounter Matrix I, (FFC 1977, p 34).  My approach is a compromise.  I use the category titles created for Champions of ZED, (because they are a little more flexible than the “flyers” or “giants” of D&D), but I’ve put them into Dave’s Blackmoor encounter matrix to create Blackmoor style wilderness and encounter chances, while allowing for a greater variety of monsters.  So for example, where in Dave’s table he had “ghouls” I put “undead” in mine; where he had “goblin” I put “Humanoid” (called Giant in OD&D) and so forth.   Non-Hmnd (non-humanoid) encompasses the OD&D categories of Flyers, Swimmers, and Animals, but also includes any kind of monster that does not fall into one of the other categories, such as Medusae or Basilisks.   Trolls were the only really tricky one to deal with on Arnesons table.  I categorized trolls/ogres as humanoid, and True Trolls as Non-humanoid, mostly because it seemed to work better that way.  Here is the table:

So from this table, go to the specific list and either pick or roll for the exact monster.  A d20 result landing on an empty space indicates no encounter.  Note: I cheated with the dragon in the swamp.  Earth elemental was listed twice here in Arnesons list, and it really seemed that a dragon should be there somewhere.

As others have remarked (see this excellent write-up by Wayne Rossi for example http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html ) the wilderness given by the rules in OD&D is a wild, fantastic place crawling with nightmarish creatures and punctuated by tiny struggling beacons of civilization.  Generating the monstrous population of this “upper world” wilderland is done through a series of tables.  What distinguishes these tables most from later versions of D&D is that each table is given a creature type category and each type is generated on a separate table first.  For example, one one might roll “flyers” on the first table and then roll giant eagles on the Flyers table.

But why go through this extra, seemingly superfluous step?  No doubt the reason is to allow a referee to create custom lists of creatures for their wilderness while maintaining the same encounter type frequencies called for in the rules.

The creature types given in the rules are:

Men

Flyers

Undead

Giant (kind)

Lycanthrope

Animal

Swimmer

Dragon (kind)

All the monsters and characters of D&D fall into one or other of these categories, (possibly more than one) and all these categories have a pretty wide variety of creatures – except for Lycanthropes.  Lycanthropes are the most specific of the categories, having the least members – only 4 in the 3lbbs.  Why aren’t lycanthropes simply folded into the “men” category or some other?  Perhaps the answer is simply a result of Gygax and Arneson’s conceptualization of the category types.  In the entry on vampires, Lycanthropes are stressed as a separate type not to be confused with undead.  I suppose the logic was that if they are neither undead nor normal men they must be a separate type, more or less by default.  The upshot is that using the OD&D wilderness tables as is will give a much higher occurrence of the four kinds of lycans than any other monster. 

Perhaps though, there’s a little more to the story than simply a fluke of classification.  The wilderness encounter tables of OD&D appear to be derived and expanded from Dave Arneson’s “Encounter Matrix I”, a copy of which can be found at the start of the “Into The Great Outdoors” section of First Fantasy Campaign.  Encounter Matrix I is a d20 table Dave Arneson came up with in the very early days of Blackmoor to generate random monster encounters when the Blackmoor players first began to leave the dungeons and explore the countryside.  The derivation of the D&D wilderness encounter table from Encounter Matrix I is fairly obvious in that both have exactly the same location categories except that D&D adds one new terrain category “cities”.   An important distinction however is that the FFC list has only individual monsters taken from the CHAINMAIL miniatures rules – Ogres, trolls goblins, air elementals etc., instead of the creature type categories of D&D.  Both lists however share the category “Lycanthropes” in common.  Perhaps even more interesting, Lycanthropes occur most frequently in woods on both lists, at very nearly the same frequency 21.4% (FFC) to 25% (D&D).  So the curios  abundance of lycans in the D&D wilderness appears to be as much a carryover from the early Blackmoor wilderness as anything else.

Now I don’t want to get carried away with this.  Undead for example appear more often in Arnesons’ lists than in the OD&D list.  There are ghouls and “wrights” in the Mountains in the Blackmoor wilderness where as no undead are listed in D&Ds mountains, but the general character of the Blackmoor wilderness does seem to have set the stage from which the D&D wilderness was crafted and the predominance of Lycanthropes appears to be an artifact of this relationship going to the earliest milieus of the game.

After “messing up” the defence of Blackmoor during the great Coot invasion in the spring of 1972,  the Blackmoor players were banished to the area of Loch Gloomen (Lake Gloomy).

We are fortunate this happened, because it led Dave Arneson to create new stocking tables for the buildings and ruins found in the area.  Unlike whatever stocking tables Dave made for Blackmoor dungeon, these tables survive, mostly intact, though in a jumbled format on pages 86 and 87, 1977 print of the First Fantasy Campaign.

In fact we not only have the tables, but we have the results Dave got when he used the tables, which is really useful when sorting out certain lacunae and typos in the tables themselves.  So I’ve sorted it all out, in a much more user friendly fashion.

Note: the tables below only cover the stocking portion, and not the generation and distribution of the adventure areas themselves.

Once the areas to be stocked were known, Dave assigned “Magic” points.  These are in fact what he calls Protection points in Blackmoor dungeon – the points to buy the monsters, not the points to buy the magic items (see yesterday’s discussion). Dave used “magic” and “protection” points separately in Blackmoor dungeon, but here the term is conflated.  For further confusion, Arneson’s notes specify the point range for any given adventure area as 30 – 180 (3d6 * 10) but the lists themselves have nearly double that range (90, 110, 110, 120, 140, 170, 190, 310, 330, 330, 370).  Strangely, there’s nothing in the 200’s. <sigh>

A way to emulate the actual range found in Loch Gloomen would be (3d6 +1) * 10 and I suppose you could add 200 points ¼ of the time.  It’s worth noting here that several different methods seem to have been used on different levels in Blackmoor dungeon and perhaps I’ll ruminate more on that in another posting.   

Once points have been assigned it is time to pick monsters.  Arneson gives us this list for  Lock Gloomen:

No doubt monsters were usually chosen to match the amount of protection points in an area, but clearly they could be diced for also.  The cost of a given monster is as given in CHAINMAIL, however, should one wish to, any monster can be used with this protection point method by using its average hit points as its cost.

In Loch Gloomen, where there were monsters, there were treasures, and every place had a monster.  Here is how Arneson generated the treasure: follow the results on the table below to the subtables indicated.

  

*33% chance (1 or 2 on a d6) it is an amulet instead of a potion.  Note what I labeled "Tech and Intel" Arneson had labeled as "Information".

Wealth  = 1d20 +4 times 1000 (4000 – 24000) Gold Pieces.

Potions & Amulets

Note: in the text it reads “Magic 7 Amulets (+1 …2)” – I think this means amulets instead of magic potions on a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6. The number seven looks like a typo, possibly for an ampersand (same key).

Weaponry

Note: The fire ball wand is not listed, but there is no listing specified for pip number 5 or for 11 either.  Since fireball wands show up twice in the Lake Gloomen rooms, it must have been in one of these slots.  Also at the spot in the FFC list where one would expect number 11 to be is “super animals 4-8” and notes indicating that horses are at pip slot 6 and Rocs are at pips 3 and 2)  So horses level 8 (lower probability) are presumably at the 11 pip slot where the note was positioned, and level 4 horses at pip slot 6.  So, by default the empty pip slot 5 is where the missing fireball wand must be and that fits with its relatively frequent appearance in Lake Gloomen rooms.

Tech and Intel

Note: Special Devices - I suppose this could be anything, however the only unaccounted treasure found in Lake Gloomen rooms is scrolls of level 3 spells.  Scrolls do not appear anywhere on these tables so I assume the spell scrolls were chosen via Special Devices.  I'd recommend substituting scrolls in the special devices slot  to anyone wanting to use these tables for stocking, 

 “When we tried to use the old matrix rules (for CHAINMAIL™) only one die decided combat.  So either the player would die or the monster would.  Well, the players didn’t like that, so that’s where I came up with hit points….”  Dave Arneson, Gamespy interview by Andrew S. Bub August 2002.

Dave Arneson was a man who never let careful denotation get in the way of a quick sentence.  Figuring out what lay behind the terms he threw around is one of the challenges of reading the FFC.  Within the pages of Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign one encounters the terms points, hits, hit points, hit point values and values and it’s easy enough to get tripped up on what exactly he had in mind each time.

Amoung the oldest material in the FFC in which points are mentioned is the army stocking list for the great Coot invasion, the dungeon stocking lists of level 7-10 and tunnels of Blackmoor dungeon, Glendower dungeon, and the lake Gloomy notes.

In seeming contradiction to the opening statement, none of the above mention “hit points”.

The army lists uses the “point buy” system as found in CHAINMAIL™.  Various types of troops cost certain points and each player has a bank roll of points to spend on building an army. 

The dungeons and dungeon stocking lists also have a point buy system for monsters.  Arneson used a “protection point” and “magic point” method for stocking dungeons, in which he assigning a randomly determined amount of points to an occupied room.  The points then would be used to “purchase” the monster(s) or magic item(s) placed therein.  The exact method to determine the number of points varied – it was 3d6 * 10 for Lake Gloomy, for example.  The monsters were hand picked, and in the case of the Blackmoor dungeon at least, picked from different groupings based on the strength/cost of the monster.

Comparing the protection point values in the stocking lists shows a few slight inconsistencies, but it’s clear the protection point value used for a monster are the “point cost” for those monsters given in CHAINMAIL™.  True trolls, for example cost 75 “points” and “standard trolls” (77:86) cost 15 points each in Dave's dungeons, just as they do in CHAINMAIL.    

The inconsistencies I mentioned are a few instances of left over or insufficient points for the monsters listed – easily accounted for by Arneson’s statement “When there were not enough protection points within a room to buy a creature I simply rerolled or placed a weaker version of the creature within the room (extremely old or extremely young).” (FFC 1977:45)

So, fine, Dave tells us what it costs to buy a monster and those costs are pretty much as listed in CHAINMAIL, but, how many hits or whatever does it take to kill a creature?  We are repeatedly assured by all involved that they very early abandoned the one hit = one kill method of CHAINMAIL Fantasy table combat, but how then does one handle the monsters?  The dungeons seem silent.  Aside from the available protection points assigned to a room, only the name and numbers of the creature present is ever listed.  Not only is there no mention of hit points in this material, there is no mention of Hit Dice either.   Hit dice, as we know from other discussions, originally meant “damage dice” as perhaps most plainly shown in by "HD = Number of hit dice rolled for victim of breath attack by that type/level dragon." (77:83)  So Captain Krey, for example could roll 4d6+1 when inflicting damage on his enemies. (77:17)

The obvious answer is that the point cost of a creature also serves as its' hit points.  The idea that a weaker creature costs less points, is a strong clue (point value = strength), but it also points to the notion that Arneson was cultivating the idea of variable HP for monsters.  That is indeed just what we see in his monster lists, which predate D&D but build noticeably on CHAINMAIL and thus appear to be midway in the process.  In the mini “monster manual” on pages 89-92,  Arneson tells us trolls and ogres “are worth 18 points (or hits) with variations.” (FFC, 1977:91)   Notice in particular that Arneson is telling us that the “worth” in points is also the worth in “hits”, in other words that "points" and "hits" are synonyms in Arneson speak.  That's about as close as we are going to get to Dave telling us that the protection point costs of a monster are also its' hit points. 

Another thing to notice is the change to a d6 friendly value.  Trolls and ogres are “worth” 15 points in CHAINMAIL and as mentioned, cost just that in the stocking tables of Blackmoor dungeon, but the value is slightly increased from 15 to 18.  The hits given for ghouls & wights (1-6), giants (12-72), orc (1-3) and so forth in the monster lists on pages 89-92  also seem to be based on their CHAINMAIL cost,  made d6 friendly, “with variation”.  True Trolls cost 75 points in CHAINMAIL, for example, and Arneson assigns them a 36-72 “hits” range. Similarly, in CHAINMAIL™ Ghouls and wights are 10 points, Giants are 50 points and orcs are 2.  Yet, some of the monsters in this list are assigned no hits value.  For the Balrog, for example we are simply told that they are “all full value” (77:91)

Plainly, Arneson is evolving from using straight up CHAINMAIL point costs for hit points, to using dice to achieve a variable range, with a slightly lower value in most cases.    

It  is a short step for Gygax and Arnesons to have looked at the point variation range and simply specified the number of six sided dice used to generate it.  In other words, to have listed the number of hit dice to get the hit points.

We are not quite at the end of the story and this brings us back to yesterday’s discussion of Greg Svenson’s notes in the back of his 2^nd edition CHAINMAIL.  Here is another section of those notes:

“Life and death:

Mortal 7 pt. damage to kill

Hero 14 pt. " " "

Super Hero 28 pt. " " "

Wizard 21 pt. " " "

recover 1 pt./day

Become hero if possess magic equipment or survived several expeditions or become super hero if you kill 1000 points of anything.”

 Again we see "points" for both men and monsters as synonymous with what D&D calls hit points, demonstrating fairly conclusively that Blackmoor monsters had hit points too, but, just as interestingly, we also see them as synonymous with experience points.  It’s beautiful economy really.  There’s no calculating of experience points verses player level and all that jazz.  You simply keep a running tally of the number of hit points a player has “killed” and when they reach 1000 – bam new level.   

So to sum up, any given monster in Blackmoor has a point value which simultaneously represents how much it costs to purchase, how much damage it can take, and how much experience it is worth when killed.