How leaving the dungeon left a big void in role-playing games

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Nowadays, designers of role-playing focus their game’s design around an answer to a central question: “What will characters in the game do?” Modern RPGs focus on some core activity and optimizing the system so players have as much fun as possible engaging in that activity. For example, fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons focused on characters that show off flashy stunts and powers in dynamic combat encounters. The system reworks the non-combat pillars of the game into an activity that, as much as possible, plays like combat. For more, see my post, “The skill challenge: good intentions, half baked.”

While the first role-playing games did not optimize their rules to support a style of play—at least not intentionally, see “The brilliance of unrealistic hit points,” the first role-playing games all recreated the dungeon-crawl experience of D&D. Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) devoted rules to the underworld, and explained dungeons as buildings and civilizations lost to the “Time of Darkness.” Tunnels & Trolls (1975) recreated the D&D experience with simpler rules. Metamorphosis Alpha (1976) moved the dungeon into space in the form of the drifting starship Warden.

Levels of the Starship Warden from Metamorphosis Alpha

Levels of the Starship Warden from Metamorphosis Alpha

By 1977, designers began to see the potential of role-playing games. By then, if you asked an RPG designer what characters in his game will do, he would probably answer, “Anything.” Part of what made RPGs so exciting was that characters could do anything. Rather than focusing on a core activity, designers of the newer games strove to model game worlds as thoroughly as possible. This led to a game like Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), “the most complete rule booklet ever published,” with rules for everything from mass combat, to courtly love, to the One Ring. C&S offered a game so open ended that a table of players with randomly generated characters might fail to find any common activities that their characters could do together. In “Chivalry & Sorcery: What if Gary and Dave had not found the fun,” I had some fun at the expense of C&S, while showing how the game downplayed the dungeon crawl, but struggled to find a fun, group activity to serve as a replacement.

Traveller also arrived in 1977, and grew to become the hobby’s most successful science fiction RPG. (If you’re interested in Traveller, see this outstanding look at the game’s roots in written science fiction.) Perhaps the game owes some success to the way it pioneered role-playing’s most common adventure hook:

“One specific, recurring goal for adventurers is to find a patron who will assist them in the pursuit of fortune and power. Such patrons will, if they hire a band of adventurers, specify a task or deed to be performed, and then finance reasonable expenses for the pursuit of that task. Some tasks may be ordinary in nature, such as hired guards or escorts; other tasks may be for the location and procurement of items of great value.” (Book 3 Worlds and Adventures, p.20)

This notion of characters seeking patrons for jobs hardly matches the high concept of the dungeon crawl, but it became the dominant adventure hook in just about every RPG, including D&D.

But once hooked, what will the characters do? Traveller offered a single paragraph of guidance: “Once the patron and the adventurers have met, the responsibility falls on the referee to determine the nature of the task the patron desires, the details of the situation (perhaps a map or some amount of information), and to establish the limits of the patron’s resources in the pursuit of the task.”

Traveller’s patrons provided an enduring and now pervasive hook for adventures. The actual adventures opened the door for anything, anywhere in the universe, but nothing in particular.

In 1977, I ordered that original Traveller box from Game Designer’s Workshop, and then devoured the rules. As a young, unsophisticated gamer in a new hobby, the game proved so open-ended that I struggled to create adventures for my players. Of course, I was just a kid. Surely sophisticated professionals could do better.

Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society No.1 Annic Nova

Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society No.1 Annic Nova

In 1979, when the first issue of the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society brought the Annic Nova adventure, I hoped to see a model for adventures. Annic Nova was an abandoned ship drifting through space, ready for the players to explore. At last, I thought, it’s like a dungeon in space. But it wasn’t at all. Unlike, say Metamorphosis Alpha’s starship Warden, Annic Nova held no monstrous mutants or aliens, no automated defense systems, just an abandoned ship drifting. Annic Nova provided only an adventuring location and gave little help to me.

With an entire universe to play with, the professional designers went on to create more starship deck plans, which they then used as dungeons…in space. GDW and Judges Guild followed up Annic Nova with the following adventuress:

  • Adventure 1: The Kinunir (1979) presents a 1200 ton battle cruiser as a location for adventure.
  • Dra'k'ne Station

    Dra’k’ne Station

    Dra’k’ne Station (1979) is “a vast alien research station hollowed out of an asteroid…still protected by its automated defense systems and one surviving alien.”

  • Darthanon Queen (1980) consists of deck plans for a 600 ton merchant ship along with a crew and a passenger roster. The adventure suggests a few scenarios to stage on the ship, including one cribbed from Alien.
  • Adventure 2: Research Station Gamma (1980) describes an arctic laboratory that players must infiltrate.
  • Adventure 3: Twilight’s Peak (1980) takes characters to a location with “many of the elements of a haunted house,” and then to an alien base complex.

When Traveller debuted, the hobby was just three years old. The general public still struggled to understand games that you could not win. The only experienced game masters were the guys named on the box cover. Leaving the long shadow of the dungeon took time. Traveller enthusiasts rank the last adventure on my list, Twilight’s Peak, as a classic. While largely location based, this module provides a fully-realized adventure that stands with modern designs.

Eventually, we all learned. Now, an experienced game master would mix the Annic Nova with an untrustworthy patron, a second team of lawless rivals, and some other wild cards to brew up an adventure.

Chivalry & Sorcery: What if Gary and Dave had not found the fun?

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Back in “What does D&D have to do with ironclad ships,” I wrote about how, in the wake of Dungeons & Dragons release, a mania for realism consumed role-playing game design. In Dragon issue 16 from 1978, Gary Gygax wrote “‘Realism’ has become a bugaboo in the hobby, and all too many of the publishers—TSR included—make offerings to this god too frequently.” At his cranky best, Gary rails against the champions of realism for another  3,800 words.

In 1977, Chivalry & Sorcery tried to top other system’s more realistic combat systems, and the more authentic magic systems, with a REALISTIC FEUDAL SOCIETY.

A page from first edition Chivalry & Sorcery

A page from first edition Chivalry & Sorcery

You can tell that C&S is as serious as a legal contract because it’s written in the same, punishing 6-point courier as a contract’s fine print. I imagine the published text was typewritten and then reduced to half size. C&S needed the micro-text to reach the goal of offering “the most complete rule booklet ever published.”

C&S feels like half role-playing game, and half broadside against the decadent practices of some other game, which I won’t name but which has the initials D and D. I presume most of the passages in the original C&S draft began, “Actually, in a real feudal society…,” but that the editors cut for space. To be fair, the game features a cherry-picked version of feudal realism that dwells on historical customs drawn from the Society for Creative Anachronism. You have fair ladies, honorable knights, church-bound clerics, and boot-licking peasants. Plus, you have a fanciful notion of chivalry—something more than the church’s public service campaign aimed at getting a ruling class of murderous, mounted thugs and warlords to behave.

To a young D&D fan, circa 1978, C&S seemed like a systematic attempt to drain everything fun from D&D and replace it with an educational exercise.

This might seem fun But actually…
Dungeons “Because of the constant escalation in the numbers and the power of ‘magical’ spells, the dungeon expedition has become a form of walking nightmare to player and dungeon master alike.” (p.64)
“The mere fact that a ‘dungeon complex’ exists within a larger world means that there is a natural limit to what it can and will contain. A large concentration of ‘evil’ will attract the Church and might bring down a ‘Crusade’ against it. A large concentration of loot will attract the King, a personage always in need of money. Nor is it possible to keep such a dungeon complex secret for long. Myths and legends about such a place and what is to be found in it soon become common knowledge.” (p.105)
So dungeons won’t exist, because the church or king will get them. And that’s a good thing, because they become a kind of walking nightmare, and not the fun kind.
Dragons “The first rule when dealing with Dragons is to do everything possible to avoid them.” (p.115)
Wizardry “Far too many players who have Magick Users assume a blithe complacency about the subject. To most, it is a type of ‘weapons technology,’ a quick and really easy method of burning, blasting, and otherwise crushing opponents which they cannot destroy by mere wit and superior tactics. When in doubt, use ‘over-kill!’ What these ego-trippers and uninformed players do not understand is that it is not in the nature of magicians to risk their skins unless some great treasure is to be had.”
“What real ‘experience’ is to be had in a dark, damp dungeon? The Arcane Arts are essentially contemplative in nature, the actual practices being done only after long preparation and research. The magical effects are too difficult and are often too dangerous to achieve to permit any Magick User, however highly placed, the luxury of blazing away with spell after spell, or of taking time off from important work to go down into a dungeon!”
These quotes only sample the screed on page 64, explaining that if your Magick User does anything but study, you’re doing it wrong!
Magic items “Chivalry & Sorcery has deliberately avoided the tendency in some games to publish extensive lists of miraculous and highly predictable magical devices. It is our feeling that each device is unique and must be designed as one of a kind by the Player-Referee. Thus Magick will be somewhat scanty because no player in his right mind will consent to spending weeks of time merely writing of the characteristics of hundreds of magical items.” (p.106)
The game includes no lists of magic items, leaving the dungeon master the tedium of creating them. But that’s for your own good.
Freedom and adventure “When the society demands that a man occupy a definite place in the rank order of things and conduct himself accordingly, anyone who proves to be a ‘maverick’ counts for little.” (p.1)
“Most characters who do not have a ‘living’ from a holding will have to take service with some Master or great lord. Usually, such service provides food, shelter, and a limited amount of money in the form of wages. Characters will probably have to settle for such positions simply to stay alive…” (p.13)
Sword wielding “One of the features of social class that dominates Chivalry & Sorcery is the rather great distinction made in the matter bearing arms. Knights have the prerogative of bearing weapons that are forbidden to the lesser classes of society.” (p.1)
“Some weapons are reserved for the use of noble or near-noble ranks. Historically, permission was occasionally granted to those normally prohibited to bear such arms, but that right was considered a high honor.” (p.13)
Playing a character you like Random rolls determine every aspect of your character. If you wish to play a non-human, you still have an 80% chance of being required to play a human. The random determination of social class stands as the game’s most oppressive feature. Sure, you could roll a king, but you stand a much higher chance of rolling a peasant. Given the game world’s rigid social structure, your character’s social standing locks you in. Imagine a modern-day game where your random chance of being a spy or vampire hunter stood realistically infinitesimal, dwarfed by your change of working in a cubicle.
The introduction hints that a group might just agree to play knights and noblemen, but I keep getting the feeling that the authors will pop up and scold me for such pleasure seeking. (Maybe that’s just me. I also expect my father to appear and scold me whenever I touch my house’s thermostat.)
Joining an adventuring party What you do in the game varies widely depending on your job and status. If you’re lucky enough to roll a Knight, then you can fight, woo the ladies, and enter tournaments. As an administrator, you can run the royal bureaucracy and build influence. (Hint for bureaucrats: See page 11 for the section “Temporarily Increasing One’s BIF,” that’s Basic Influence Factor to those new to the game. Page 12 lists the sixty-some stations in the royal bureaucracy.) If you’re a Magician, you research and study. If you’re a peasant, you scratch out a meager living until the pox takes you.
The game offers few opportunities for players to join together in play.
alry & Sorcery first edition

Chivalry & Sorcery first edition

I do not mean to declare that C&S cannot be fun. Obviously, some folks found it fun, but then I just saw a TV commercial where a woman claims to find doing taxes fun. I see the target audience of C&S as the sort of Society for Creative Anachronism enthusiast, who lambastes poser members for the hidden zippers in their costumes.

For the rest of us, not every aspect of C&S is less fun than D&D. Personally, I’m always uncomfortable role-playing the act of flirting with a beautiful maiden as played by a chubby bearded guy. I know that I need to free my mind from those hang-ups. Luckily, C&C brings a wargamer’s eye to romance by providing formulas for a Knight’s Courtly Romance Factor (KCRF) and a Lady’s Courtly Romance Factor (LCRF). “Check out the LCRF on that saucy maiden!” Page 22 and 23 include typically dense rules for turning courtly love into a percentage chance of gaining her ‘favour,’ Wink wink nudge nudge.

I have a copy of first edition C&S from 1977, old enough that you can play a Hobbit.® Take that, Tolkien estate! In Dragon issue 95, Gary Gygax wrote about the minimal influence of Tolkien on D&D. “The seeming parallels and inspirations [from Tolkien] are actually the results of a studied effort to capitalize on the then-current craze for Tolkien’s literature.” Gary drew from authors like Poul Anderson and Fritz Leiber, and then added some Tolkien as a sop to his fans. Beyond feudal history, C&S draws almost entirely on Tolkien, and then adds bits from D&D to appease its fans. In a much fairer review of C&S than the one you’re reading, Robert Dushay writes, “While many of the D&D creatures could be inserted into a feudal Europe as dangers unknown to the common folk, the Tolkien elements are harder to explain and C&S didn’t even try. There was no discussion of the social status of non-humans, whether the proud elves and dwarves respected human feudal customs, or the particularly thorny question of non-human relations with the militant Catholic Church of the day.”
The extent of C&S’s Tolkien lore nearly matches its feudal lore. Page 84 describes this necromantic spell: “The Ring of Great Command: A spell which the Necromancer places in an enchanted Ring of Power. The Ring binds the possessors of lesser Rings also fashioned by the Necromancer: 9 for mortal men; 7 for Dwarf Lords; and 3 for the Elven Kings. Upon completion of the Ring, which takes 1 year to fashion, the Necromancer places much of his Power in it. The Ring gives him the power to assume the form of a Nazgul for a period up to his Time Factor once per day.” The rules for Sauron go on from there.

Beyond the passion for social realism, C&S features a 1970s wargamer’s passion for pervasive abbreviations. Just about everything in the game has a factor! Just like math! With a quick flip though the text, I spy Military Ability Factor (MAF), Personal Combat Factor (PCF), Personal Magick Factor (PMF), and Magick’s Level (MKL, but presumably corrected to MKLF in the second printing). MILF must be in there somewhere. How hardcore wargamers like Dave and Gary avoided this mania, I’ll never know, but I thank them for it. If you think the white box was inaccessible, imagine it filled with more factors than a math text book.

Chivalry & Sorcery leads me to a thought experiment that increases my appreciation of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax’s original creation. We tend to think of role-playing as D&D’s biggest invention. For the first time, a game let you play a character, who has traits and abilities modeled by the game, in an open-ended world. In my thought experiment, I wonder if D&D would have ever succeeded if it had played more like C&S. What if instead of winning treasure and powerful magic, players gained influence and loyalty? What if wizards only indulged in research and study? What if instead of braving mysterious dungeons to face terrifying monsters, players took more mundane roles in realistic, feudal kingdoms? In short, what if Dave and Gary had lacked such a gift for finding the fun?

Would we have seen D&D’s explosive growth in the eighties? Would we have Ultima, Zork, or World of Warcraft? Would Gary Gygax have appeared on 60 Minutes or Futurama? How many of us would even be playing this game? I suspect that a “realistic” version of D&D would have remained a tiny hobby appreciated by a few enthusiasts, unknown to the wider world. We would never have seen an game scene grow enough to the accommodate folks who do enjoy playing Chivalry & Sorcery for its nuanced, sober attention to medieval lore, and the folks who enjoy killing monsters and taking their stuff.

Little-known D&D classics: Escape from Astigar’s Lair

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In 1980, Judges Guild published Escape from Astigar’s Lair, a slim module that sold for just $2. The adventure so charmed me that after I ran it, I created a similar challenge of my own to unleash on players.

Escape From Astigar's LairAstigar’s Lair originally served as a tournament module at Michicon ’80.  Instead of accommodating a table full of players for several hours, two players tackle the lair in just sixty minutes. In this era of 2-hour combat encounters, imagine finishing a fun, fast-paced, 22-room dungeon in under an hour!

As with many competition modules from the era, the module includes a scoring system. Players gain points for surmounting challenges while losing points for blunders. Unlike other similar modules, Astigar’s Lair sometimes awards points for decisions based on the characters’ personality quirks.

The action starts when the wizard Egad dons a cursed helm and becomes possessed by the evil spirit of the mighty Astigar. Players take the roles of the druid Danier and the ranger Therain, who begin shackled to a wall in Astigar’s dungeon complex. The escape encourages shrewd problem solving. How can you cross a chamber swarming with flying lizards as voracious as piranha? How can you force Egad to remove the cursed helm? The obstacles in the lair inspired challenges that I would add to my own game.

By necessity, the module’s authors anticipate certain solutions for the dungeon’s obstacles. For instance, the characters have only one way to escape from the shackles in that first scene. However, the judge’s introduction writes, “Points are awarded for creativity (one player in play testing threw paint at the rhinoceros beetle, blinding the beetle and allowing it to be more easily defeated).” Sure enough, the scoring now awards 10 points for throwing paint in the beetle’s eyes. I like this approach, because as a Dungeon Master, the real joy of confounding players comes not from when players repeat the solution I anticipate, but from when they surprise me with something new. (See “Player skill without player frustration,” for more.)

As a young player, I remember reading the druid’s class description in Eldritch Wizardry, and wondering why anyone would choose a character who changed into weak, mundane animals, and who cast spells like Warp Wood that seemed nearly useless. In Astigar’s Lair, the druid Danier only knows quirky spells like Heat Metal and Shillelagh, but the adventure invites clever solutions using all those spells.

I loved how Escape from Astigar’s Lair showed that combining oddball powers with some imagination could prove more fun than blasting away.

Complete guide to using Dungeon Tiles

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I like Dungeon Tiles. They look good at the game table, while costing far less than fancier alternatives such as Dwarven Forge terrain.

Basilisk encounter on Dungeon Tiles

As nice as the tiles look in play, they present a bunch of problems. Thanks to my own ideas and some suggestions from other gamers, I’m ready to offer solutions.

Problem Solution
Tiles slide on the table during play. Spread shelf liners
non-slip drawer liner
Arranging the tiles on the table takes time, even if you gather the correct tiles ahead of time. Temporarily affix tiles to presentation boards
Scotch removable mounting putty
Finding the tile you need from among more than twenty sets is difficult. Refer to my complete list and gallery of tile sets
Loose tiles defy organization because they lack set markings. Color code tiles by marking edges
Striped Dungeon Tiles
Loose tiles require storage. Choose boxes for tile storage
Dungeon Tiles in hanging project cases
Arranging maps from assorted, loose tiles is cumbersome because of the volume of tiles and the need to keep flipping them to see both sides. Use Pymapper to design layouts
Pymapper

Spread shelf liners to keep tiles in place on the table

Spread sheets of non-slip drawer liner, available anyplace that sells housewares. The liners grip the table and keep loose tiles in place. The lightweight material easily rolls up for transport. If you create a map that you want to recreate later, snap a picture for later reference, and then drop the tiles in a bag or a project case.

Temporarily affix tiles to presentation boards

For all but the simplest layouts, loose tiles take too long to arrange on the table, so I like to assemble maps in advance. Use removable mounting putty to stick the tiles on foam-core art boards. Office supply stores sell both the boards and the putty. Get the white putty, and not clear removable mounting dots, because the clear stuff sets after a while and will damage the tiles.

Dungeon tiles on a foam core board

Once you attach the tiles to boards, you can transport the maps by slipping them into an artist portfolio case. Portfolio cases can be purchased for as little as 10 dollars.

Color code tiles by marking edges

Did your mom force you to keep each color of Play-Doh separate to keep it bright and pristine? Like colors of Play-Doh, Magic cards, and miniatures, Dungeon Tiles work best when you mix them up. Magic cards and plastic miniatures come printed with set markings, so you can mix them up, then put them back where the belong. Because Wizards of the Coast lacked the foresight to print set markings on each tile in invisible, UV ink, we must find our own solutions for the tiles.

A quick web search for “invisible uv ink pen” will turn up pages of vendors selling selling pens that write with invisible ink that appears under an ultraviolet light. Many of the pens come with battery powered UV lights. I have yet to try these pens, but they suggest a simple way to mark tiles.

Update: I tried an invisible UV ink pen. The ink doesn’t stick to the tiles well enough to provide an invisible marking. However, as inexpensive favors for a kids’ party, these pens will thrill the youngsters.

In Dungeon Tile Storage and Really Useful Boxes, DigitalMage gave me the idea of marking tiles by using a marker to add stripes to the edge. This provides a brilliant solution because the codes are clear to see, but do not mark the printed surface of the tiles. You can add the stripes easily, and even mark a stack of tiles with a few, quick strokes of the pen.

Striped Dungeon Tiles

Rainbow markersThe DigitalMage suggests making from 1 to 3 stripes to represent a set series and from 1 to 7 stripes indicate set number—up to 10 stripes per tile. I lack the patience for that, so I recommend using color codes. I purchased a couple of eight packs of permanent markers, and then tested the markers on the edge of a punched tile sheet. This revealed ten markers with colors distinct enough to work as color codes.

For color-coding tiles, select 7 or 10 marker colors that appear distinct on the edge of a dungeon tile. When you punch tiles from a sheet, mark the edges.

Three colors for Dungeon Tiles master setsRefer to my complete gallery of Dungeon Tile sets for recommended codes. My system repeats the same 7 hues for the seven sets in each of the DT, DN, and DU series of tiles. I use peach, pink, and sky blue for the Master Sets.

Sorry kids, I have no solution for the Play-Doh problem.

Choose boxes for tile storage

Schemes for organizing tiles fall into two broad categories:

Organize by content

Organizing by content works best if you like to spread out the tiles and build maps on the fly. Start by arranging tiles by into terrain types such as dungeons, caverns, sewers, cities, outdoor, and so on. From there, you can sort by size.

Really useful boxes and Dungeon Tiles

The DigitalMage presents an terrific example of this approach in Dungeon Tile Storage and Really Useful Boxes. Really Useful Boxes recently launched their product line in the United States, opening this option to gamers in the U.S.

Organize by set

Organizing by set works best if you want to recreate layouts from sources like Living Forgotten Realms adventures, or if you want to build a map arranged on computer. For this system, just drop all the tiles for a particular set in a bag or a flat box. This slim  project case offers enough space to store unpunched tile sheets, but I prefer this hanging project case.

Dungeon Tiles in hanging project cases

The case lacks enough space for unpunched tile sheets, but punched tiles of every size fit. The hanging cases store easily in file cabinets or in boxes designed for file folders. Use file folder labels to mark the cases. In this EN World thread, Buzz shows how to pack tiles into hanging project cases, and then into an easily-transported tote.

Use Pymapper to design layouts

I’m certain some Dungeon Masters enjoy upending a box of tiles on a table and arranging a dungeon, but not me. For one, no table offers enough space. And you cannot see both sides of a tile at once, so arranging scattered tiles inevitably involves a lot of flipping.

Designing dungeons with the PyMapper program

Designing dungeons with the PyMapper program

For designing tile layouts, I highly recommend the Pymapper program. (‘Py’ because the program is written in the Python programing language.) Pymapper lets you draw maps by dragging Dungeon Tiles from a palette onto a map grid. The palette shows both sides of each tile at once. The program allows easy rotating, flipping, and layering of tiles. Pymapper’s developer works actively to provide updates and improvements to the software.

The one hassle with Pymapper is that, for copyright reasons, the program does not include images of the dungeon tiles. However, you can some tiles on the Pymapper site.

Do you have any suggestions for using Dungeon Tiles?

For similar advice on miniatures, see my post on organizing miniatures.

A complete list and gallery of Dungeon Tiles sets

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This table describes all the Dungeon Tiles sets released by Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons. The gallery links show the front and back sides of the tiles.

 

Set Name Date View Edge code* Features
DT1 Dungeon Tiles 2006 A B 1_black_1 Core dungeon, tavern, and a house
DT2 Arcane
Corridors		 2006 A B 2_purple_1 Hazardous terrain, a 2-story stone tower
DT3 Hidden Crypts 2007 A B 3_blue_1 Underground crypts and a barn
DT4 Ruins of
the Wild		 2007 A B 4_green_1 Fields, tents, standing stones, a lodge, and a ruined tower
DT5 Lost Caverns of the Underdark 2007 A B 5_yellow_1 Caverns
DT6 Dire Tombs 2007 A B 6_orange_1 Crypts with a desert palette
DT7 Fane of the Forgotten Gods 2008 A B 7_magenta_1 Traps and hazards, a surface temple, and a jail
DU1 Halls of the Giant Kings 2008 A B 1_black_2 Earthen pit, an underground prison, and giant furnishings, doors,
and stairs
DU2 Streets of
Shadow		 2008 A B 2_purple_2 Streets, rooftops, sewers, and a cellar
DU3 Caves of
Carnage		 2009 A B 3_blue_2 Corpse strewn caverns, an underground river, and rotting bridges
DU4 Arcane Towers 2009 A B 4_green_2 Curved tower walls and stairs, magical laboratories, crenelated
walls
DU5 Sinister Woods 2009 A B 5_yellow_2 Overgrown ruins
DU6 Harrowing
Halls		 2009 A B 6_orange_2 Living quarters with wooden floors, a banquet hall, a grand
entrance, and a 3D stair
DU7 Desert of
Athas		 2010 A B 7_magenta_2 Desert and oasis tiles, plus 3D stairs, platforms, and wagons
Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The City 2010 0_peach_1 Essential urban tiles
Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The Dungeon 2010 0_ice_1 Essential dungeon tiles
Dungeon Tiles Master Set: The Wilderness 2010 0_pink_1 Essential forest tiles
DN1 Caverns of Icewind Dale 2011 A B 1_black_3 Ice, snow, and caves
DN2 Witchlight Fens 2011 A B 2_purple_3 Swamp and shacks
DN3 Shadowghast Manor 2011 A B 3_blue_3  Thin walls above and below ground
DN4 Cathedral of Chaos 2012 A B 4_green_3 Diagonal halls, a ziggurat, plus trap and hazard tokens
DN5 Urban
Underdark		 2012 A B 5_yellow_3 Caverns meet worked stone
DN6 Castle
Grimstead		 2012 A B 6_orange_3 Thin, above-ground castle walls, and a moat
DN7 Ruins of War 2012 A B 7_magenta_3 An army encampment
Dungeon Tiles Reincarnated Dungeon 2017 Dungeons and caverns
Dungeon Tiles Reincarnated Wilderness 2017 Forest, swamp, and desert
Dungeon Tiles Reincarnated City 2017 Civilization inside and out

* Mark tiles with these edge codes to indicate the set they come from. For more information on this system, see my complete guide to using Dungeon Tiles.

Gallery

Which two D&D roles are too effective?

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When designers of fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons devised the roles of controller, defender, striker and leader, they focused attention on granting characters of each role equal time to shine. At this, I think they succeeded.

Despite this success, the game would play better if the game made two roles worse at their job (and made everyone but strikers better at dealing damage).

Too hot: Strikers need to share the damage

When compared to characters in other roles, strikers deal too much damage. Striker-heavy parties perform better in combat, because dead is the best condition to impose on enemies. Sure the fighter can mark, and the wizard can daze, but dead is better, and who needs a healer when dead monsters inflict no damage? In difficult combat challenges such as the Lair Assaults, parties dominated by strikers almost always do best. Former D&D designer Rich Baker acknowledges, “4th Edition is, for better or worse, a striker’s game.”

Temple of the Sky God

The 4E designers struggled to enable every class to make a damage-dealing attack on every turn, so no one feels bad about “wasting” a turn buffing, dispelling or—heaven forbid—healing. How ironic that unless you play a striker, your puny damage is hardly worth the arithmetic. I routinely see a single striker deal as much damage in a round as the rest of the party combined.

In ordinary, level-appropriate fights, a party without strikers can still grind out a victory eventually, but who has the time?

Several times a year, I act as a dungeon master at conventions. Typically, conventions strictly limit scheduled game sessions to 4½ hour time slots. As a convention dungeon master, managing time and the game’s pace becomes critical. I strive to bring every adventure to a satisfying conclusion within the time allowed. When I seat a table with a few strikers, I know that I can spare some extra time for that role playing encounter. When the table lacks any strikers, I face the delicate task of rushing the session without making the players feel rushed.

As the 4E designers worked out the game’s math, they should have pushed some of the striker’s damage potential to the other roles. Even with the adjustment, we would never see a party where no one wants to step up and play the striker.

Too cold: Defenders are too sticky

Defenders are too sticky; they make fights static and boring. I could go on, but Liam Gallagher makes this argument very well in “Make D&D Better, Remove Fighters From the Game.”

The fourth edition design tries to make combat fun by making it fast moving and dynamic, but the game undermines this asset by included defender abilities such as Combat Superiority that can stop a move. Defenders play best when they damage creatures that attack vulnerable characters, not when they lock monsters in place.

Just right: Exactly one leader works best

Fourth edition D&D seeks to make parties viable even when they lack a character to fill a role. Traditionally D&D parties required a healer/leader. The 4E design succeeded in making a leader optional, but more than one party leader limits the fun. With more than one leader, the monsters lose the ability to threaten the party, while the party reverts to a five-minute work day. And as I’ve discussed, if the extra leader replaces a striker, combat grinds to a crawl.

In fourth edition D&D, healing surges represent a character’s reserve of vitality. Logically, you might suppose that a character could expend a surge’s vitality to perform feats unrelated to healing. Players would readily trade surges for something like an extra encounter power. After all, how often do you run out of surges? By design, the game rarely, if ever, uses surges as a resource for anything but healing. If characters could spend healing surges willy-nilly, they could easily burn through a day’s allotment in a single fight. Afterwards, they need an extended rest and the five-minute work day returns with a vengeance.

In effect, characters in parties with multiple leaders can spend surges willy-nilly—more healing surges than intended by the 4E design. Monsters cannot deal enough damage to endanger characters with access to such deep reserves, but a single, tough fight ends the party’s five-minute work day.

The game would play better if characters could only spend a limited number of surges in a single encounter.

Controllers shine at objectives

Controllers are the only role that varies widely in effectiveness depending on nature of a battle. In the base 4E encounter consisting of one, roughly-equal strength enemy per PC, controllers stink. The usefulness of the role improves in a few scenarios:

  • Against lots of enemies, a controller’s area attacks can shine. But in 4E, characters only face lots of enemies when most are minions. But in practice, minions rarely last more than a round or two, even against non-controllers with access to powers like cleaves and whirlwind attacks. Even the surviving minions typically lack enough damage potential to matter.
  • Against solos and elites, a controller’s action denial can become decisive, but action denial makes encounters into boring grinds or one-sided romps. As fourth edition matured, the design of new solo and elite monsters has evolved to nullify attacks that deny them actions. Overall, this change benefits the game, but it weakens controllers.
  • When a party battles against overwhelming opposition, but has objectives to accomplish, the controller really shines. In fourth edition, I think the most enjoyable encounters pit the players against creatures they cannot hope to defeat, but which give the characters an objective that ends the encounter. In these battles, the striker’s damage hardly matters and the controller’s ability to hinder and obstruct becomes truly valuable. A party stacked with controllers works well in a goal-oriented challenge like the Temple of the Sky God Lair Assault, and I love playing a controller against overwhelming odds in the D&D championship. Alas, most D&D encounters remain battles to the death—or at least until one side gives up the fight.

Fourth edition’s mature design now locks each role in place with all its advantages and drawbacks. As a dungeon master or adventure designer, you can make the most of game by adding encounters that include more objectives than slaying the opposition. And as a player, if you want time to explore and interact, bring an extra striker.

As a player, I enjoy action points, so why do I dislike them as a dungeon master?

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In my post Immersive vs. gamey in D&D Next, I mocked action points as a metagame resource that forces players out of character. “Perhaps action points are like that surge of energy that brings Rocky off the mat at the end of the final movie bout. Why does Rocky only get that surge in the final fight? He always saves his action point until the end. (You can see the scene where Paulie coaches Rocky to save his action point in the director’s cut.)”

Based on the post, you might suppose that I categorically hate action points. Not so. Although I dislike gamey resources in a game focused on role playing, I don’t draw such a hard line that I find something as innocuous as action points terribly upsetting. Sure, you cannot manage your character’s action points while immersed in character, but you need not step out of character for long. When I play, I certainly enjoy spotting a moment when I can spend an action point to make a big impact. Enough players enjoy action points, that I can accept that they could merit a place in the game.

In a system like Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 or D&D Next, the fourth-edition action point mechanic, where players spend a point to gain an action, would just give players a fun boost. But ironically, this 4E mechanic works badly in 4E because of the big, potent daily and encounter powers endemic to the system.

First round versus Mephistopheles, Lord of Cania

First round versus Mephistopheles, Lord of Cania

Once upon a time, only magic users and clerics possessed anything like daily powers. Because few cleric spells did much in combat, typically only magic users could unleash battlefield-clearing attacks or force the boss to save or die. Every other character class stuck with at-will attacks.

The 4E designers sought to grant every class the fun making the grand attacks once limited to magic users. Players of every class suddenly enjoyed the presumed fun of managing a portfolio of encounter and daily attacks.

Juiblex, demon lord of slimes and oozesIn 4E, as much as possible, players save an action point and their big daily powers for an expected climactic encounter. When that showdown with the boss comes, the characters unleash everything they have. Every pre-Essentials character can horde daily powers for the showdown, making the first round of attacks devastating. Action points allow characters to double the barrage of daily and encounter powers, making the onslaught twice as potent. By the time a guy like Juiblex, demon lord of slimes and oozes, gets a chance to act, he’s prone, immobilized, dazed, suffering -4 to all attacks, and has his pants around his ankles. (In fourth edition, even oozes are subject to the pants-round-ankles condition.)

Running and playing Lair Assult: Into the Pit of Madness

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On March 17, 2013, I ran Into the Pit of Madness, the final entry in the Lair Assault program. This challenge’s outcome remained in doubt until the final die rolls—a perfect balance. The party came within a round of defeating the Essence of Evil, and the players all seemed to enjoy the session.  As with Kill the Wizard, the challenge divides the party, randomly placing individuals in smaller challenges. I liked this design in Kill the Wizard, and welcomed the encore.

More than any other Lair Assault, Into the Pit of Madness seems to demand multiple plays for the players to learn enough to succeed. At my table, one player had read the challenge in his role of backup dungeon master, so with my consent, he nudged the players toward a winning course. The knowledge helped, but the players hardly brought an optimized party. As usual for fourth edition, an optimal party would consist of four strikers and a healer. (I’m kidding, of course. The optimal healer should multiclass into a striker class.)

Essence of Evil

For Kill the Wizard, a homemade Drowslayer figure inspired me to make a Drowslayer of my own.  Into the Pit of Madness features a showdown with another unique enemy called the Essence of Evil, a creature without any available miniature.  I failed to step up and make an Essence of my own, but Wendy and Curtis, the creators of that first Drowslayer, topped themselves. Check out this picture from of the Essence of Evil and an adjacent Babau.

The Essence of Evil from Lair Assault: Into the Pit of Madness

The Essence of Evil from Lair Assault: Into the Pit of Madness

They sculpted the Essence of Evil from Sculpey  oven bake clay and painted it in arterial red, malevolent black, and bruise purple.

Artifacts in the character builder

One of my tables in the last Lair Assault, Temple of the Sky God, succeeded in some measure thanks to a stockpile of multiple Sun’s Slivers,  “a powerful artifact of pure sunlight” that serves as a MacGuffin in the epic-level Winter of the Witch adventure in Dungeon.  Even when you select the Lair Assault option, the character builder offers Sun’s Silvers, and possibly other artifacts, as legal, zero-cost items. They’re free; take two!  Are the players ingenious for stocking up on Sun’s Slivers prior to the Lair Assault? Is a DM abusing authority by forbidding players from equipping their characters with artifacts? I’ve run for players who would probably answer yes to both questions.

Sun's Sliver in the character builder

In practice, I do not examine the character sheets, so I have no idea what equipment the players use.  When I ran Temple of the Sky God for a team equipped with Sun’s Slivers, the party still came close to failing, and everyone had fun, so I call it a success. I leave it for the players to decide whether the cleverly equipped characters diminish the challenge.  Still, I fault the character builder’s programmers for overlooking these shenanigans.

For DMs: Ruling the portal

When I ran Into the Pit of Madness and the characters reached the antechamber, a wizard easily made the 28-or-higher arcana check on the portal. The party included three characters well capable of hitting a 28 arcana DC. I reread the portal’s description on page 12 once again. “If a character with a check result of 28 or higher can see another creature moving through the portal, that character can choose the creature’s destination.” Does this mean that if someone in the party makes an Arcana check of 28 or higher, then everyone except the arcanist can short circuit the nodes and jump directly to the Black Cist? This interpretation seemed to invalidate so much of the challenge that I could not believe that it matched author’s intent. Did I miss something?

Incredulous and reluctant to skip the meat of the challenge, I exercised what may have been an abuse of my DM’s authority. I ran the portals as follows:

With a minor action, a character trained in arcana who sees a portal may establish control over the portal. When that character sees another character pass through the portal, then the controller may, as a free action, attempt to route the passing character to a specific destination. For this attempt, make an arcana check.

  • On a result of 28 or higher, the passing character travels to a node selected by the controller. Otherwise, roll randomly to determine the destination.
  • On a result of 23 or higher, the controller can discern the destination of the passing character.

Each time a character enters a portal, the controller must make a separate check. No more than one character may exercise control over a portal at once.

I allowed similar checks for the portals in the nodes; I’m not a monster.  With the characters at my table, this proved to be a fun and challenging approach to the portals.

Everything I know about tracking initiative

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Many years ago, my little brother received a copy of Electronic Battleship for his birthday.  The gift probably excited me as much as him. Finally, we could play Battleship with all the action sounds (flatulent static!) and explosive effects (blinking LEDs!) shown in the commercial. As it turned out, the painstaking process of entering the location of each ship into the game’s calculator-class brain proved so burdensome that I don’t think we ever reached play. As much as I love gadgetry, sometimes it just hampers you. The original game with its plastic ships and peg boards—or just two sheets of graph paper—makes for a better game of Battleship that the electronic version.

Whenever I find myself enchanted by an initiative-tracking app for a tablet, I think about Electronic Battleship. Initiative tracking just goes better with a few scraps of paper than with technology. I feel a bit ashamed to admit it.

If the notion of using technology to track initiative still appeals to you, I refer you to the Radiating Gnome’s Gamehackery column for a round-up of the available options. However, you should know that even though the Radiating Gnome writes a gaming technology blog, he tracks initiative using folded bits of paper.

Gamemastery Combat PadI like material gaming accessories as much as electronic ones, so the Pathfinder Combat Pad always seemed appealing. “It is a wet- and dry-erasable board with a steel core, so the included magnets stick right to it!” You use wet- or dry-erase markers to write all the combatants’ names on the magnets, and then stick them to the board in initiative order.

Unless you stock up on extra monster magnets, the Combat Pad prevents you, as the dungeon master, from preparing initiative ahead of time, so it works best if you delegate initiative tracking to the players. When combat begins, just reveal which monsters to add to the order. “Give me a bandersnatch at +6 and a vermicious knid at +3.” While players handle the details, you can move on.  Not only does this free you, but it increases the players’ involvement in the game. Players start reminding distracted players of their upcoming turns. Play moves faster on both sides of the table.

If you allow players to manage initiative, then the Combat Pad only suffers one limitation: The pad is only visible from one side, making it hard to position so everyone can see.

DMs point of view

I track initiative using folded, card-stock tents with names written on both sides. I drape the tents across the top of my DM’s screen in initiative order. If you work without a DM screen, or prefer to delegate initiative to the players, you can stand the tents on the table, lined up in order. Either way, to adjust initiative order, just rearrange the tents. If someone wishes to delay, hand over their tent and ask for it back when they wish to act. You can mark the active combatant with something like a Post-it flag, or just separate their tent from the others.

Use index cards to make simple tents. Cutting a card lengthwise yields two tents suitable for draping across a DM’s screen.  Or cut top to bottom for three, smaller tents suitable for standing on the table. I like using colored index cards and giving each player a unique color, so they can identify the color across the table. All my monsters get white stock.

For a minimal initiative tent, just write a name on each side, and an initiative bonus and score on one side.

You can hand blank initiative tents to the players and let them manage everything. But if you choose, you can prepare the monsters’ tents in advance. This lets you write the monster names and even pre-roll their initiative.

As a DM, managing initiative yourself gains one advantage:  You can add reference information to the tents.  Especially when I have big variety monsters to run, I like seeing their defenses. For the player characters, I like seeing perception and insight scores.

If you reference the characters’ non-combat information, I recommend having them pre-roll initiative to avoid having to pass the tents back and forth.  At the beginning of a session, have each player roll 3 or 4 initiative numbers and list the results on their tent.  If pre-rolling seems uncomfortably predictable, begin combat by randomly choosing which set of scores to use.

Hit on Crit makes a nice set of pre-formatted DM-screen initiative cards available for download. These cards inspired me, but they packed more information than I would ever use. If I ask my players to fill out something that looks like a tiny tax form, I feel honor bound to need all the information.

I created my own pre-printed tents. Download my fourth-edition initiative tents or my fifth-edition initiative tents.

My set includes tents for players and for monsters, but also includes variants suited for home play and for public play at conventions.

initiative tent without AC for playersThe basic player character tent limits the information to the essentials. The tent includes blanks for 8 pre-rolled initiative scores—enough for a marathon gaming session or a Battle Interactive. I’ve seen enough illegible names on these tents that I considered adding little boxes for each letter, but I elected to leave that sort of thing to the DMV.

initiative tent with AC for playersThis alternate player’s tent adds a place for the character’s defenses. This reduces the blanks for initiative to 4, but still allows for most gaming sessions.

initiative tent for monstersThe base monster tent includes blanks for defenses and a single initiative roll. On the player side, the tent includes places to enter the creature’s highest and lowest defenses. Sometimes in a time-sensitive environment, I speed play by entering these values so players only need to ask whether a few to-hit rolls succeed. Most times, I leave these blank and keep the players guessing.

Living Forgotten Realms initiative tent for monstersThis alternate monster tent works best for Living Forgotten Realms games at conventions. When I judge at a big convention, I often run the same adventures 3 to 5 times. Rolling the monsters’ initiative in advance cuts delays at the table, but I cannot know any party’s level in advance, so I do not know the monsters’ initiative bonuses. Most LFR adventures include versions of the same monster scaled for five different levels.

To enter pre-rolled initiative scores using this tent, perform the following steps:

  1. Subtract half the monster’s level from the creature’s initiative bonus and enter this number as Init at lvl 0.
  2. Roll a d20 and enter the result as the Base roll.
  3. In the Initiative at level blanks, sum half the party’s level, plus the monster’s initiative at level 0, plus the base roll.

You can easily do step 3 at the table, as needed.

Obviously, the defenses will change for each level. At the table, add the values you need, as needed, in pencil. Or just leave the defenses blank.

Download my initiative tents in PDF.

Also, check out the inserts for my mini DM screen.

Changing the balance of power

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(This post continues a discussion I started in “What does D&D have to do with ironclad ships?”)

Axe_of_Dwarvish_LordsSkip Williams‘s second edition adventure Axe of Dwarvish Lords staged a type of battle no Dungeons & Dragons adventure has tried before or since. This adventure pitted 13-15 level characters against a warren full of goblins. As you might expect, the warren’s individual goblins typically only hit on a 20, and only because everything hits on a 20. If one earned a lucky shot, he would inflict minimal damage.  With any edition’s standing rules, 13th-level character faced with goblins would simply grind out countless attacks against inconsequential resistance. With any edition’s standing rules, this scenario fails. So Skip cheated, I mean, he designed new rules. The adventure adds two pages of rules for group tactics that allow the goblins to do things like volley arrows in area attacks, and to combine melee attacks to earning bonuses to hit. In this fourth-edition era, we’re used to monsters making exceptions to the rules, but not in 1999. Back then, monsters broke the rules because a bad DM thought he could win D&D. Personally, I liked the way the new rules enabled an otherwise unplayable confrontation, but when the goblins start breaking the rules as previously understood, I can imagine some players calling a cheat.

For the first time in D&D’s history, the next iteration attempts to enable playable confrontations between powerful characters and hordes of weak monsters, without resorting to special rules. The key, as I discussed in “Hitting the to-hit sweet spot,” is arranging everyone’s to-hit bonuses and armor classes into the small range that grants everyone a reasonable chance to hit.

D&D Next hits the sweet spot by limiting the to-hit bonuses characters gain in exchange for greater bonuses to the damage they inflict.

This exchange intentionally shifts one aspect of the game’s balance of power.

Low-power combatants benefit against high-power opposition

Mobs of weak monsters can threaten higher level characters, still be able to hit, and let their numbers overcome the characters’ higher hit points. On the flip side, the dungeon master can pit parties against fewer, more powerful monsters, without having to select monsters specifically designed as a solos or elites. This re-enables the sort of sandbox play where players can choose a difficulty level by plunging as deep into the dungeon as they dare.

High-power combatants lose against low-power opposition

When your legendary hero faces goblins, the damage each blow deals hardly matters, because dead is dead. But your hero’s chance of hitting a lowly goblin rarely improves. Your hero feels like a zero.

Meanwhile, in the DM’s chair, if you want to pit a single giant against a party of lower-level characters, the fight can go badly. The giant’s one attack often misses, but when it hits, it kills. As a DM, I still prefer a solo with lots of attacks, each inflicting lower damage. If monster designers look to give brutes alternate attacks that threaten many targets at once, then we enjoy the best of both worlds.

Fighters suffer the most

The accuracy-for-damage trade matters most to fighters. Fireball and Blade Barrier work as well as ever. The rogue remains content to sneak up on the goblin king. But fighter-types should hew through the rabble like grass until, bloodied and battle worn, they stand triumphant. Instead, they wind up muffing to-hit rolls against one mook.

The game could stick with logarithmic power curves and narrow tiers of level-appropriate monsters, but I think better fixes exist.

For example, cleave-like maneuvers help by spreading damage across a string of attacks, but if your fighter’s first attack misses, your turn finishes and all the goblins laugh at you. Next’s whirlwind attack maneuver lets a fighter attack several adjacent enemies with a single attack roll, but fanning a bunch of goblins somehow seems even less heroic than missing just one.

Is the medicine worse than the disease?

Earlier editions of the game offer a solution, a solution so odious that I hesitate to mention it. If fighters gain multiple attacks per round, the misses matter less because there’s more where that came from!

Multiple attacks stink because resolution takes too long, especially if the fighter must roll damage and resolve each attack before moving on to the next swing. Also, D&D’s designers have struggled to parcel out extra attacks as fighters gain levels. Jumping from one attack directly to two results in a rather sudden leap in power.  Instead, AD&D gave fighters extra half attacks, and a need to remember half attacks.  Third edition traded half attacks and the memory issue for weaker attacks and fiddly attack penalties. Yuck.

Multiple attacks also solve a problem Mike Mearls mentioned in a tweet.  “Ability mod to damage unbalances at low levels, is irrelevant at high levels.” Without multiple attacks per round, a high-level fighter’s strength bonus to damage becomes inconsequential. With multiple attacks, each attack benefits from the bonus.

If D&D Next’s designers can find a good way to allow fighters and brutish monsters to gain multiple attacks against weaker opponents, then a key piece of the Next design puzzle falls into place.

Next:  Tracking initiative (I’m done with theory for a while.)