Hidden in Shadows

So, we’ve talked a few times about the “protection point” system used in pre D&D Blackmoor.  Aside from historical curiosity, though, the question may be, “what is the utility of exploring this set of procedures further?”.  In other words, is there any advantage to using a point buy method to stock a dungeon verses the monsters by dungeon level matrix tables of OD&D, AD&D and various clones?

Well, all those monsters by dungeon level tables do work as intended; that is, they produce dungeons that get progressively tougher as they go down.  The problem is that the variety of monsters is severely limited.  By the tables, you can’t put a mining colony of 2HD dwarves on level 10 or a troll on level 1, for example, without leaving the table.  Some folks are fine with that and stock their dungeons as they please, only using the tables to “fill in” spots not otherwise predetermined.  However common it may be, this kind of seat-of-the-pants dungeon design defeats the whole purpose of the tables in the first place, which is to produce an underground environment consistent with the growth in player character levels and possessions.

There’s also the issue of monster numbers.  For the monster by dungeon level matrix tables to really work properly, the number of monsters in most encounters should be left undetermined until the party arrives, at which time the DM is supposed to match the number of monsters in the encounter to the strength of the party.  Some DM’s may not want this extra work.

  A point buy system, on the other hand, has neither of these issues.  Dungeons get progressively tougher as they should, because rooms in deeper levels get more points and so you can “buy” bigger and badder monsters, but the numbers in each encounter are determined by the number of points.  In a given location, you may have enough points to buy 1 dragon or 500 dwarves, and that could be true on any level.

The point buy method has the advantage of freedom of choice.

Arneson’s Protection Point method is the prototype point buy approach, of course, but one can’t simply copy “Arneson’s way” because a close look at the FFC shows just how much experimentation he was doing and how many different ways he actually employed.

But lets start with what he tells us in the “Magic” Protectin Points section of the FFC:

“The number of Protection Points to be found in any given room..” (page 30, 1980 print) 

Once a room/area has been determined to be occupied, the number of Protection Points for the room are determined by rolling a 1d10 and multiplying the result times the number in the appropriate column, for the level. So for example, to get the Protection Points for a level 2 room, it would be 1d10 x 15, giving a range of anywhere from 15 to 150.

He also tells us there is a 1/6 chance that the room will have a stronger or weaker creature – which must mean a 1/6 chance a room will have either more or less points to buy with, because he then says he sometimes rerolled points or placed a weakened version of a creature in a room if that is the creature he really wanted and points were insufficient.

Okay, so that is the theoretical method Arneson explains to us.  However, lets go through all the stocking lists found in the FFC and see what he actually did back in the day:  

“Dice to Generate” is my best guess at the dice used, considering all the available information.  Notice that level 7 is the only level that conforms to Arneson’s suggested table.  There are a number of indications that the stocking lists given for the various levels of Blackmoor dungeon were done at various times, and indicate changes in rules and methods.  Perhaps counter-intuitively, the tunnels appear to be the oldest, while level 7 appears the youngest. 

So throughout the FFC we see Arneson using at least 3 or 4 methods:

1). The graduated table with more points as levels get deeper

2). 1d10x15 for all levels, +/- 1d6 (multiplied or divided) 16.7% of rooms.

3). 3d6x10 for all levels

4). 1d20x10 for all levels

Note also there is at least one level which appears rather clearly to show the 1/6^th greater or weaker principle he mentioned.  Level 10 has a room stocked with 60 ogres.  That’s 900 Protection points and requires two high rolls; first a 10 on a 1d10x15 yielding 150 points, second a 6 on a 1d6, yielding 900 points when multiplied together.  Other instances seem to be divisions, (such as the 20 points on level 8) leaving me to believe that when a “1/6^th” chance arose, half of the time he divided the rooms points by 1d6, and half the time he multiplied them.

One could easily write a multipage essay on all this but it’s not my purpose here.  Rather I just want to point out that there are various methods in play and argue that none of them are entirely satisfactory for D&D.

Foremost lets concentrate our interests on the first method – Arneson’s table.  It is apparently his final word on the matter and it is the only one that’s clearly graduated with dungeon depth.  Notice how many points one gets on level 7.  150-500 points per room, plus wildcards of up to 900 points - that is a hell of a lot of powerful monsters.  Some have commented that Arneson’s Temple of the Frog is too tough with it’s barracks of several hundred 0 level soldiers, apparently with out ever having looked closely at the older levels of Blackmoor dungeon.  TotF is a cakewalk by comparison. 

It’s not time to throw the baby out with the bathwater though. 

Arneson’s table is fine to use for shallow, tough dungeons, faced by high level characters.  Maybe that’s what he was going for in 1977, given the kinds of characters people were coming up with.  But for anyone thinking of making the classic campaign megadungeon suitable for characters of all levels, use of Arneson’s table will give you a lot of TPK’s.

Another way to approach the point buy system for D&D is to go back to the old saw that the average monster on any given level should have the same HD as the number of the level.  The average hit points per hit die in OD&D are 3.5.  Average hit points, you may recall from previous posts, are the point cost of any given monster.  So, it then becomes a simple formula: Level x 3.5 = average points.  We can then set the range of points by assuming monsters of HD number equal to the dungeon level will range in numbers appearing relative to equally powerful adventuring groups, in other words a party of level 4 adventurers will typically encounter a party of 4HD monsters and both will range in size from about 1 to ten persons (average 5).  So level x 3.5 x 1d10 = point range of a room.

 

Okay folks, so there is your new and improved Protection Point table.  Using this table will create a dungeon that averages 1 HD greater per level just as it is “supposed” to.  Optionally, one could include Dave Arneosn’s 1/6^th variation.  After points are determined for a room, roll a d6.  If a 6 results, roll a 50/50 chance (or flip a coin) for a stronger or weaker encounter.  Roll a 1d6 again.  Multiply the result if the encounter is stronger, or divide the result if the encounter is weaker, to the protection points originally rolled for the room.  The result will be the actual points.  Example, a level 3 room has 100 points, but a d6 roll indicates a 6 and a coin flip indicates divide.  Another d6 roll comes up as 4.  So 100/4=25 points in the room.   

For fun, I looked again at Dave Megarry’s Dungeon of Pasha Cada.  Megarry spent a great deal of time trying to make each level of his dungeon a greater challenge than the one before without being too deadly.  Megarry developed his dungeon game no later than 1972 – so it is obviously one of the earliest attempts at a “balanced” adventure.  The dungeon expects only a party of 1 adventurer, so to get a comparable point range to the previous tables all one has to do is multiply by 1d10.  The point range on the table below is the cost of the weakest and strongest monsters on each of Megarry’s dungeon levels.

Dave Megarry’s Dungeon! (1975)

So this table starts off very similarly to the table I presented above but gets a little tougher as it goes so that by 6^th level it sits roughly halfway in monster strength between the table I offered and Arneson’s overpowered table from the FFC.  It would be a good model to follow for a 6 level or less dungeon, where the idea is that it gets quite tough in the second half.

Enjoy. 

The FFC maps are themselves very interesting because they contain little notes and markings that give clues to the dungeon not mentioned in the key. For example, room 29 on level 8 is marked “red eye orcs” but the key just has two were lions there. Curiously the ZGG version map still has “red eye orcs” on its map but puts goblins in the room in the key.

Doors are an especially curious thing on the maps too. For reasons I’ve never understood, instead of drawing doors as a solid line on an angle as is done on normal blueprints, TSR dungeon maps always show doors as little squares. Perhaps it was deliberate, or perhaps Gygax and company just didn’t know any better, but it always seemed very odd that TSR doors were so unconventional.  If you look at the FFC maps however, Arneson has drawn lots of doors that look like the normal blueprint kind – solid lines on a little angle with a small circle indicating the hinge. But there is also lots of places where rooms have one or two small lines or what looks like a thin rectangle at the entrance way. Since these resemble the TSR style doors, I think most people, including the artists who did the ZGG redraw, just assumed these were regular TSR style doors. But there is no reason for Arneson to have drawn dungeon doors different ways unless they really were different kinds of doors. Most of these lines, thin line and or rectangles are unmarked but on some there is a small note S.P. or Secret Passage. In the text, Arneson notes that secret passages are drawn as “thin walls”. So all the straight single or double lines going across corridors indicate secret doors and seemingly dead end corridors.  There's also little connecting lines between rooms and corridors that are of a similar nature and indicate secret doors and passages.

But,what about all those little rectangular TSR style doors?  For various reasons, it's safe to say these are not secret doors.  I think that each of these little rectangular “doors” indicates a locked door and the open swinging style door indicates an unlocked or open door.

The adventurers round a corner and see 3 ghouls feeding on a fresh kill.  Cleric Cleo steps forward holding high the symbol of her faith and the stricken ghouls cower and run from her presence…

That’s the sort of scenario I’ve always played when a cleric rolled a successful Turn Undead.  But, perusing the topic on the web, it becoms immediately obvious that a lot of gentle folk have expressed dissatisfaction with the Turn Undead mechanic, including, apparently Gary Gygax.

The feeling seems to be that undead fleeing in terror or simply falling to pieces before a Cleric makes the encounter just too easy and overpowers the Cleric.  All sorts of houserules have been proposed.  Even Gygax crafted turning resistance amulets or banned the power of turning altogether from his Dangerous Journeys game.

It’s all very curious.  The general belief is that the Turn Undead ability arose in the Blackmoor campaign, where we known the cleric was created, so priests could function as vampire hunters.

If it is true the turn undead ability was a Twin Cities thing, it would explain why the normally verbose Mr. Gygax said virtually nothing about turn undead in the 3lbb’s.  In fact, and very curiously, no mention of the power is made in the clerics’ description at all in either the print version or the 1973 Dalluhn/BtPbD draft.  There are separate prices for silver or wooden crosses, which might mean something as might a possible reference in the vampire entry where “…the smell of garlic, the face of a mirror, or the sight of a cross.  They will fall back from these if strongly presented.”   It is very unclear if this is a separate thing altogether from Turning, or what.  

What we do get in Men and Magic is a little 2d6 table, of exactly the sort one might expect from Arneson, along with some brief notes explaining T=turned and D=destroyed, from 2-12 in number.  It is easy to imagine some version of this little table or perhaps a simple note along the same lines scribbled or typed on a piece of paper among the various pages of material sent to Gary by Dave; material that Gary complained was often vague.

I don’t know if that’s truly the case, but since there seemed to be confusion and disillusion amoung gamers about it,  I thought I’d see if there was anything different to be found in the Twin Cities side of things, under the ASSUMPTION that the turn undead table was indeed Dave’s and some of those guys knew how it was intended to work.  In particular, I wondered how often the power could be used; how long it lasted; and what exactly happened.

Dave Arneson doesn’t seem to have addressed the topic much himself, but there’s a couple clues.  On the ODD74 message boards Arneson was asked about classes in early Blackmoor.  In one of his responses, Dave seemed to confirm the origin of at least the idea of Turning Undead when he wrote “…clerics were added to heal up players more quickly. The plague of undead, like sir Fang, gave clerics additional powers to help eliminate that threat.” (Was Arneson's Blackmoor Classless?, Jun 10, 2008) 

In the FFC (77:43) Arneson describes the uber Vampire Sir Fang – who may have been the whole reason for the turn undead ability to begin with.  Sir Fang is special, of course, and said to be “x5 in value”, but he also “can use a saving throw versus Crosses (as against a Spell of Magic)”.

Hmmm.  A powerful undead is given a saving throw against “crosses”.

 Chronologically next, the main rulebook of Arneson & Sniders’ Adventures in Fantasy says nothing about turning undead and there is no cleric class at all.  However, the Vampire entry has this: “Silver. Garlic, and Crucifixes may be used to some effect against the Vampire.  When the use is attempted, the Vampire is allowed a saving throw versus 1 point magic (for silver and garlic) or 3 point magic for the crucifix.  If the throw is failed, the Vampire is turned away from the person who used it, i.e. he may not attack that person on that turn.  In any encounter where the Vampire fails THREE saving throws he will attempt to flee unless the encounter takes place within 50 feet of his grave.” (AiF, Book of Creatures and Treasure, p24)

 Bingo.  Being turned in Twin Cities lingo means “turned away from the symbol “ not “turn and run”.  It means only that “he may not attack that person”.. “who used (the crucifix etc.)”   Only when the vampire is “turned” three rounds/turns in a row will it attempt to flee.

For fun, I followed Richard Snider to his next work, Powers & Perils.  Snider was of course one of the original Blackmoor players and worked closely with Arneson on AiF and other projects.  Again there is no “turn Undead per se., but in his book of Chaos creatures he writes “Vampires and Lamia can be repelled by the stench of garlic or religious symbols. Unless the item used is specially enhanced or magic this is not automatic. Roll BL2 on the Magic Table. Success repels.” (p3&4)

The term repel is used a couple more times in the paragraph but not defined.  My trusty Funk & Wagnels dictionalry has “Repel: 1. to force or drive back, repulse…. 5. To push or keep away, esp. with invisible force.” 

So Snider has a roll, which, if successful will keep away the vampire from the person with the religious symbol or garlic, much the same as the turning effect in AiF.       

All of these helped me make sense of the next bit, which, took me several readings to grok.  It comes from the short section on turning undead in a handbook Fred Funk (the original Blackmoor player famed for construction of the Orcian Way in Blackmoor dungeon) prepared for Cleric players in his long running Fred’s World campaign, sometime during the 2e era.  “Additionally, beginning at 7^th level, the creatures that are affected, either by a successful roll, or natural talent, give ground at the rate of 5 ft./level of cleric, a radius on the cleric.  As an example, when Macduff reaches 7^th level, the Skeletons and Zombies that he turns will stay at least 35 ft away from him at all times, and so would a Specter, on a roll of 16 or better.  This enables him to extend protection to members of his party.”

Okay, note that last bit about extending protection to his party.   That means, that not only do turned undead not run away, they can potentially reach and attack any member of the party other than the cleric, until the cleric reaches 7^th level and is able to keep them at a safe distance more than 30’ away.

That distance is significant.  Thirty feet is the range in which a figure can close in for combat in CHAINMAIL™.

So here we have similar rules from Blackmoor players, separated by time and distance, yet with the same basic understanding of “turning”, i.e. turned undead are held away from the person turning them whom they may not attack, but are free to move about and attack anyone else they can get to.  Obviously Turn Undead is not like a Morale check as it often come to be seen.  The undead have not failed Morale.

Since being within 1” (10 feet) is considered to be in combat, turned undead must remain at least 10’ away from the person turning them, but that could well mean much of the party remains vulnerable.  

Lets see if we can summarize a minimal twin cities approach:

 I wrote vampire because that’s the only creature mentioned by Arneson & Snider, but presumably turning is turning, so while only vampires can be affected by garlic, mirrors and crosses held by any character the above would apply to all undead in D&D when turned by clerics.

Now, if we wanted to roll all the above together and expand on the Freds World rule, Turn undead could be explained as follows:

In any given round of combat, a Cleric may attempt to use a religious symbol to turn away an attack from up to 12 undead creatures (2d6).  Certain bane objects specific to the undead creature (such as garlic to vampires) may also be used.

The Cleric must present the object or holy symbol firmly and the creatures must be able to see the Cleric.  A roll will then be made on the Turn Undead table and if success is indicated and more than 2 undead are present, 2d6 will be rolled, to determine the number of undead repelled from the Cleric.  Those so affected must remain beyond striking distance (10”) and may in no way attack the Cleric that round.  The undead may still move or attack other characters, however, as normal.

Additionally, beginning at 7^th level, Clerics are able to extend protection to others.  Creatures that are affected, either by a successful roll on the Turn Undead table, or natural talent, give ground at the rate of 5 ft./level of cleric, in a radius centered on the cleric.  As an example, when Macduff reaches 7^th level, the Wraiths and Mummies that he turns will stay at least 35 ft away from him that round, and so would a Specter, on a roll of 7 or better. 

Undead creatures which have been repelled three rounds in a row will attempt to flee from the area as fast as they can.  Those unable to flee will be dissolved or dispelled as if a result of D on the Turn Undead table had been obtained.

For undead of stronger than usual level, or use of non-silver holy symbols, or for any result of D on the table, referees may allow the undead a Saving Throw vs Spells.

Note: vampires are a special case in that any character may attempt to turn them from an attack with a mirror, a cross, or garlic.  The attempt succeeds only if the vampire fails a Saving Throw vs Spells.  The vampire will fall back, out of striking distance (10”) from the character wielding the offending object, but may otherwise move or attack other characters as normal.  Clerics of 6^th level and greater turn vampires using the table.

In the 3.5e “Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor” book Sar-Aigu is the name of the creatures said to have created the deepest levels (19,20) of Blackmoor dungeon.  We are also told that Sar-Aigu is just an alternate name for Sahaugin.  No reason whatever is given why this creature, and no others should have an alternate species name in Blackmoor.  Nevertheless, in the encounter key for a ghost Sar-aigu, it is described as a standard Sahaugin and even named as such.  So I never thought much about it, but recently I read some of the background flavor text and began to wonder.

Sahaugin themselves are an interesting critter.  Although they first show up in TSR’s Supplement II Blackmoor, by Dave Arneson, there is no doubt that that creature was created and named by Steve Marsh, along with most of the other undersea baddies found in that work.  The thing is, the Sahaugin entry is considerably longer than any other of Steve Marsh’s creatures (compare to sea elves or Ixitxachiltl, for example) and contains a few “Arnesonian” like references to “double value” and “triple value”etc.  I’ve often wondered if the Sahaugin entry contains some info from some other creature submitted by Arneson, a lizard man or “black lagoon” type creature, which perhaps editor Tim Kask merged into the Sahaugin entry.  I don’t know and nobody seems to remember at this point, but the possibility remains intriguing.    

And that takes us back to the DoCB flavor text.  Here are some fact comparisons

Dungeons of Caslte Blackmoor clearly cast the Sar-Aigu as Sahaugin, yet in detail they seem interestingly different.  Are these details enough to call the Sar-Aigu as a different creature?  I think yes, as at least a sub species if not an altogether new monster.

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.