I was recently introduced to the Munchkin card game, by Steve Jackson Games — specifically, the Cthulhu edition. I love it.I played with one player whom I think is very familiar with the Cthulhu mythos, and one whom I think knows little about it. I’m familiar with it from geek-culture osmosis, (starting with the original Advanced D&D Deities and Demigods book), but I don’t think I’ve ever read an Lovecraft story all the way through.The mechanics of the game are easy: just compared numbers — no random rolling of dice. The cards themselves (text and illustrations) are clear, concise, and damn hilarious.The early game (start at level 1) is pretty fast and straight-forward, but as a/any player nears the end game (level 10), back-stabbing and paranoia become strong.If the other versions of Munchkin are as funny and easy — and from what I’ve read up on them, they are — I think I’ll seek out and buy the main/original edition to play with my family at home.Bullgrit

Continued from here.

The next PC lineup:

Player 1 = fighter, fighter (new)

Player 2 = thief (new), magic-user (detect magic)

Player 3 = magic-user (magic missile), magic-user (sleep)

Note: the below is an overview of how the adventure went. I’m leaving out a lot of little details.

The PCs re-entered the dungeon, walked up the entry corridor, and again opened the west secret door (the spike holding it open was gone, now). They followed their previous path part way, and then went through a door they had only opened and looked beyond before.

They ended up in room 21 — the meeting room with lots of benches — but it was empty of monsters and treasure. They spent a lot of time searching around in there, but there was nothing to find.

They left that room and walked back the other direction, going round and round the spiral, until they came to the center, where a single ghoul was waiting to pounce on them.

I was looking forward to this ghoul encounter. Three attacks and paralysis — I knew it was going to make things interesting. But:

Round one: party wins initiative. Fighter kills ghoul with one shot. Combat over.

<sigh> Using the stats in the book, the ghoul only had 6 hit points even though it had 2 hit dice. But at least I placed some treasure in the ghoul’s “nest.” Among the module’s treasure list is a silver mirror and a crystal goblet.

By the book, the mirror is “of exceptional quality” and valued at 90gp, and the goblet is 15gp. Because I wanted more treasure in this adventure, I upped the values to 400gp and 250gp respectively.

The module text doesn’t give the mirror a size, so I, just off the cuff, described it as two feet by three feet (thinking of a mirror hanging in our home). The Players discussed the treasure and figured it was unlikely these fragile treasures would survive dungeon exploration and combat, so they decided to take them out of the dungeon. I don’t blame them — this was their first real valuable treasure. They didn’t want to take the chance of loosing the gold and xp.

So the party backtracked their way out of the dungeon. It was almost 11:00 at night, so I called the game session at that point. We all gathered our gaming stuff and got up from the table to move to the living room for our regular after-game gab session.

The subject came up that we might try D&D 4th edition next week. There was a couple of mentions that this Basic D&D game session had been fun, but I could tell no one was really excited by the game. It seemed to be an interesting game to try, but not interesting enough to continue.

I don’t really blame the Players for feeling that way. I mean, it was bad luck that they ended up spending all their time basically just wandering the bare halls of the dungeon. In an email a few days later, one of the Players asked if the dungeon had any set monsters and treasure, or if it was just a big dungeon with wandering monsters.

I replied:

It’s a big dungeon with pre-set monsters and treasures in specific rooms/corridors. There are almost 40 rooms on that first level of the dungeon — you found 3 of them. Through no fault or bad decision on your part, the direction you went through that secret door (which is a one-way door, so it was good for you that you spiked it open) took you to the “maze area” of the dungeon where it’s mostly just long corridors and random wandering monsters. Bad luck.

Had you discovered and gone through the secret door on the other side of that entry corridor (or gone straight ahead), you would have found lots of rooms with set monsters and treasures. Bad luck.

I had spent a couple of hours reading over that module, deciding on and placing monsters and treasures, and through just pure bad luck, they encountered one placed monster and treasure.

Well, at least I didn’t have to describe a lot of rooms to them — finding and reading room descriptions from the wall of text can be difficult. This is a problem I have with many old classic modules — back before boxed text came into use. Check out this typical page from B1:

So I’m disappointed. Not in the game or in the module, but just that my first (and now probably only) chance to run a Basic D&D game for my group turned out so relatively boring, just because of the direction through the dungeon the PCs ended up taking (through no fault or mistake on the Players’ part). I would have loved to play through the whole dungeon — I see, now, that’s really the only way to get a true feel for classic D&D. A one-game session shot just isn’t enough.

Although, had the PCs gone a different way, and discovered some of the rooms and monsters and treasures, I’m sure the Players would have been excited enough to continue another game session.

Bullgrit

The Basic D&D party:

Player 1 = fighter (Str 15, AC 1, HP 7), cleric (AC 6, HP 5)

Player 2 = thief (AC 6, HP 3, bow), magic-user (detect magic)

Player 3 = magic-user (sleep), magic-user (magic missile)

Note: the below is an overview of how the adventure went. I’m leaving out a lot of little details.

With freshly equipped PCs on paper in front of the Players, and the dungeon module in front of me, we started the adventure off standing before the front door of the dungeon. They tapped the door with their 10’ pole, the thief checked it for traps, and they listened at it before opening it.

• A 1st-level BD&D thief has a 10% chance to find and remove a trap. No adjustments for ability scores. Just ten percent.

They entered the dungeon, and began walking down the corridor, tapping ahead of them with the 10’ pole as they went. In our years together before this game session, we have all gabbed about classic D&D dungeons. Like me, one of the Players is a veteran of such dungeons, way back. So they brought their paranoia, caution, and patience with them into this delve.

• Interestingly, by the core rules, pit traps only have a 2 in 6 chance of opening up when walked across. So probing with a 10’ pole has only a 2 in 6 chance of revealing a pit trap before the front rank of adventurers walk on it.

The party reached the first pair of alcoves along the entry corridor. They 10’ poled all around the area, then moved on. When they came to the second pair of alcoves in the entry corridor, they decided to search for secret doors – but only one character searched each alcove. I guess they weren’t real serious about it. But my rolls came up with them finding the secret door to the west.

• Finding secret doors is a 1 in 6 chance (2 in 6 for elves) per character searching.

Before they could do anything with their discovery, two wandering berserkers found them and attacked. I forgot that I’m supposed to roll for the monster’s reaction instead of just attacking, but what the hell? We play D&D for the excitement of battling monsters, not talking to them. (This is my after-the-fact excuse for forgetting to roll reactions throughout the adventure.)

I would say this was my first BD&D combat since circa 1982, but I pretty much ran my AD&D1 combat by the BD&D rules. This is probably the main reason I think back on my AD&D1 campaigns as easy and smooth to run, compared to if I had used the complicated AD&D1 combat rules as written. I ran my BD&D/AD&D1 hybrid up through the mid-90s.

Although, I don’t think we ever really ran our old-days BD&D combats in the Movement-Missile-Magic-Melee order. We just let the PCs do all their stuff without ordering in the MMMM pattern. But for this game session, I was trying to run everything honestly by the rules as written. So we did movement, then missile fire, then casting spells, then hand-to-hand rolls, in order, on the winning side of initiative, then the same for the losing side.

In this battle, the fighter engaged the berserkers in melee, the thief shot his bow from 20′ away, and the cleric and magic-users hung back out of harm’s way. The fighter killed one enemy, and the thief killed the other. No PC was injured. But:

A flaw in old school modules, in my opinion, is the incomplete way they write up monster stats. For instance:

Berserkers (1-2) – AC 7, HD 1+1*, hp 5, 4, #AT 1, D 1-8 or by weapon, MV 90’ (30’), Save F1, ML 12

For some monsters, that’s information enough – orcs, goblins, and other basic monsters. But, for example, berserkers get a +2 on their attack rolls against humans and “human-like” creatures. I didn’t notice that little nugget until I looked berserkers up in the rule book, after that fight was completed. One berserker missed hitting the PC fighter by one point –- that +2 would have made the attack a hit.

The module stats for troglodytes and giant centipedes also leave out important combat information: stench and poison, respectively. After the berserker mistake, I opened the rule book before each combat to check for such missing info.

Now, I think monster stats in contemporary published adventures is information overload – far more info than is necessary for a combat. Although some people like/praise the bare-bones stats given in classic modules, for me, stats that omit important combat info aren’t a good thing anymore than stats that fill half a page with a wall of text.

In this battle, that little piece of omitted text made a difference in the result.

Then the party set about opening the secret door. After opening it, they spiked it to keep it open. They didn’t know it, but that was a good idea, as the door is a one-way valve, and they wouldn’t have been able to come back through it later if it closed.

Shortly after moving down the new hallway, I told them their torch was running out. It was also time for me to roll for another wandering monster check.

The Player whose PC was holding the torch joked and fiddled around, pantomiming holding the torch as it burned low. After several seconds with no one saying they were lighting a new torch, I said it went out. Darkness. “You might be eaten by a grue,” I said. That got chuckles all around.

My wandering monster roll came up with four giant rats. I described the party’s new torch lighting up, revealing the rats right on them. “Check for surprise,” I instructed. They were surprised. Uh oh.

The rats bit at the fighter and thief, and hit the thief for 3 points of damage. The thief only had 3 hit points, so he dropped dead. After the fighter killed two of the rats, the other two failed morale and fled. The cleric and magic-users again just stayed out of the fight.

First PC death in the second battle, just 8 turns into the adventure. The thief’s partner PC, one of the magic-users, picked up her brother’s body and carried it while the party moved on through the dungeon. (That M-U had 15 strength –- should have been made an elf.)

A couple turns later, the party came upon a giant centipede on the other side of a door. The party won initiative, and the fighter killed it in one blow. This encounter isn’t really worth mentioning.

The party continued their walking through the corridors, still probing the floor with their 10’ pole all along the way. They were wandering around in the maze area of the dungeon (the south west corner). They eventually made their way all the way around and up to the back door of the kitchen (area #2) (no other wandering encounters). They were keeping a map of their trek so they wouldn’t get lost.

They entered the kitchen and looked around (I had not placed a monster or treasure in this room). They gave the dead thief a burial by fire in one of the cooking pits. After that, they opened the front door of the kitchen and found the remains of a battle in the dungeon intersection (not really area #1 marked on the map, but described there).

They carefully examined and searched the bodies, finding and taking the small change on a couple of the dead adventurers. After this, they decided to back track some to check an area of their map that didn’t fit right (simple mapping error in the triangular hallway around area #10).

During this double-checking of the hallways, a pair of orcs wandering up and attacked. Again, the PC fighter tanked while everyone else hung back from the danger. But then the fighter took a 5 point hit, taking him down to 2 hit points. Uh oh.

One of the magic-users cast magic missile at one of the orcs, for 2 points of damage (orc had 4 hit points). The cleric stepped up to fight, but got immediately cut down by an orc. Second PC dead. With the cleric down, and the fighter hurt bad, and both orcs still fighting, another magic-user pulled out his big gun: sleep.

Checking the sleep spell description, I got a big surprise. There is no area of effect listed for the spell. No instruction at all about this. Really? So I ruled that it just affected everything around the caster (but not including the caster). The Player rolled and got 10 hit dice of effect. Everything, including the PCs fell to sleep (no saves for this). The victorious magic-user then killed both orcs with his dagger, and woke his comrades.

The Str 15 magic-user (who hadn’t cast anything yet – detect magic not being a combat spell) carried the fallen cleric as the party made their backtracking way through the maze area to get back out of the dungeon.

Along the way, a wandering troglodyte attacked them. It scored 3 points of damage on one of the magic-users (who had 4 hit points), and then the fighter killed it in one swing. I was lenient here and used a D&D3 concept — the troglodyte only took one attack when it moved up (trogs usually get claw/claw/bite).

They continued their hurried escape and got out of the dungeon.

41 total turns in the dungeon

5 wandering monster encounters

only 1 room discovered (but no monsters therein)

only 7 gp looted

and 2 PCs dead (from one hit each)

The 4 surviving PCs got something around 30-40 xp each. Not a very exciting reward for someone’s first time experiencing Basic D&D.

If you are familiar with the layout of this dungeon, you will recognize that the PCs (through no fault or mistake of the Players) managed to take the most boring route through this dungeon. I don’t think I could have intentionally plotted a better path to completely miss rooms, set monsters, and placed treasures.

Upon returning to town (I handwaved everything after exiting the dungeon), they healed up, rolled up two new PCs, restocked torches, and headed back into the dungeon for another go.

Continued here.

Bullgrit

Our game session with Basic D&D started with the Players creating their characters at the game table. I let the three Players create two PCs each, because I knew some were going to die. (Death can be swift and arbitrary for 1st-level BD&D PCs.)

I have two BD&D rule books, and the Players are already experienced D&D gamers, but there was a moderate amount of stuff to learn and unlearn. Creating the six PCs took 30-40 minutes:

Roll ability scores, 3d6, in order, no arranging or changing. (There’s an option for lowering certain stats by 2 points to raise a certain other stat 1 point, but I skipped this for our first time.) The overall ability score range fell between 16 and 7. No one rolled up a “helpless character.”

• Ability score order in BD&D is different than in the contemporary editions: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma

Check the ability score tables for modifiers.

• Ability score modifier grouping in BD&D is different than in the contemporary editions: 3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12 (average), 13-15, 16-17, 18
• Strength modifies attack, damage, and open doors rolls
• Intelligence gives bonus languages (1 to 3)
• Wisdom modifies saving throws versus magic
• Dexterity modifies range attacks and AC
• Constitution modifies hit points
• Charisma modifies encounter reaction rolls, and sets max number and morale of hirelings

Read/teach/learn the basics of the classes. Choose a class

• Classes are: cleric, dwarf, elf, fighter, halfling, magic-user, thief — dwarf and halfling are basically fighters with racial extras, and the elf is a fighter/magic-user with racial extras

Roll hit points. There is a DM’s option to allow Players to reroll 1st-level hit point rolls of 1 or 2. I used this option when two PCs came up with 1 hit point (both PCs belonged to the same Player).

• Hit dice are: fighter, dwarf = d8, cleric, elf, halfling = d6, magic-user, thief = d4

Roll up starting gold, 3d6 x10, and purchase equipment. The BD&D equipment list is very limited compared to other editions. There are only 3 types of armor suits, about 15 weapons, about 20 other odds and ends.

• Armor choices are: leather, chainmail, platemail, plus shield
• AC starts at 9 and the lower the number (even into the negatives), the better the protection

Spellcasters choose a (1, one) spell from a relatively short list.

• There are 12 first-level spells, including sleep, charm person, detect magic, and light (which is an effective attack spell in BD&D)

Look up and write down to-hit numbers and saving throws. All 1st-level PC classes have the same to-hit numbers (called THAC0 and BAB in other editions).

• There are five saving throws: “Death Ray or Poison”, “Magic Wands”, “Paralysis or Turn to Stone”, “Dragon Breath”, “Rods, Staves, or Spells”

Jabber and joke about games, movies, and women (not necessarily in this order). This hasn’t changed much since I originally played BD&D in the early 80s. (Well, we’ve more experience with women, now. Though we don’t understand them any better than we did then.)

Creating a BD&D character is relatively easy and quick because there are very few decisions to make. Equipment is the only decision point for most characters, and choosing just one spell for a magic-user or elf is pretty easy. (BD&D clerics don’t get a spell at all at first level.)

The PCs:

• Player 1 – Fighter (Str 15, AC 1, HP 7), Cleric (AC 6, HP 5)
• Player 2 – Thief (AC 6, HP 3*), Magic-User (AC 10, HP 3*, Spell: detect magic) [Yes, AC 10 – low Dex]
• Player 3 – Magic-User (Spell: magic missile), Magic-User (Spell: sleep)

* Player 2 is the one who originally rolled 1s for hit points. His rerolls netted 3 each.

No one expressed dislike of the rules for character generation, and most of the differences were taken in stride. The only thing that got any real comment was: magic-users get just 1 spell known, castable just once per day. They can’t wear any armor, and can use only a dagger (not even a staff or crossbow).

There’s an oddity about the equipment list: there’s no description or explanation of any items other than the ACs for the armors. Although we, as experienced D&D gamers already, knew what the items in the list were, novices to the game, (for which BD&D was designed and marketed), probably wouldn’t know.

From a newbie’s perspective:

• What use is a holy symbol? There’s no mention about what it is or what it’s used for or why it would be needed in the BD&D book. The rules for a cleric turning don’t even mention a holy symbol. Reading the rules as written, it’s a waste of 25gp. (Better to spend that amount on better armor.)
• What’s the difference between iron rations and normal rations? One is preserved, the other is not. But what does this mean in adventuring terms? How long do normal rations last? How much longer do preserved rations last? You buy both in 1-week units.
• What’s the purpose of a silver dagger? I remember way back when I first started playing BD&D, we didn’t yet know about some creatures needing silver to hit them. Our DM ruled that a silver dagger automatically hit. It was some months later that we discovered the real purpose of a silver dagger. And then we immediately asked why there aren’t silver swords.
• What’s a ten-foot pole for? What are iron spikes for?

As experienced D&D gamers, we knew what the above were (although I still don’t know the BD&D game rule difference between normal rations and iron rations). The Players made sure the party had 10′ poles, spikes, torches, and plenty of sacks — they were ready for old school dungeon delving.

I didn’t enforce the encumbrance rules for this game session (other than setting their movement by their armor worn). No one went crazy with their starting equipment, so I could wait until they started picking up stuff in the dungeon crawl to bring up encumbrance. For such an otherwise very free-wheeling rules set, calculating encumbrance is a pretty precise operation.

To be continued.

Bullgrit