Old School D&D Dungeons make no sense

[MadBear]

One thing I've always had a hard time figuring out in old school D&D is how the dungeon crawl experience makes any sense. Rooms are treated as isolated and encounters in one room might alert but never effect encounters in the next area (or at least, that's how its always seemed to me).

So if a party of 4 adventurers delves into a dungeon that contains an evil cult, shouldn't the cult all work together the minute they know the adventurers are there? I always see it play out as the adventurers move freely room to room wiping out the sections of cultists as they arise.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the leaders to gather their men, surround the small party and lay waste to them with all their might?

Or am I missing some crucial element of how dungeons work?

[Caelic]

If you take a look at the older dungeons, most of them have some sort of advice to the DM at the beginning NOT to treat the adventure as a series of rooms in isolation. The individual rooms usually don't spell out how monsters will react to an incursion; that's left up to the DM to determine.

Then again, the older modules were pretty bare-bones; it was expected that the DM would provide a LOT of fleshing out.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One thing I've always had a hard time figuring out in old school D&D is how the dungeon crawl experience makes any sense. Rooms are treated as isolated and encounters in one room might alert but never effect encounters in the next area (or at least, that's how its always seemed to me).

So if a party of 4 adventurers delves into a dungeon that contains an evil cult, shouldn't the cult all work together the minute they know the adventurers are there? I always see it play out as the adventurers move freely room to room wiping out the sections of cultists as they arise.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the leaders to gather their men, surround the small party and lay waste to them with all their might?

Or am I missing some crucial element of how dungeons work?

There's a certain suspension of disbelief required for this whole thing to work. The fact is, there's no chance a properly prepared dungeon should be doable by a small party, no more than a properly prepared army camp can be destroyed by a small squad. Damaged? Sure. Cleared? Nope.

Basically, to allow the party to have a chance, the monsters must always be played as slightly stupid. Otherwise, there's no hope for success. This is true across all editions.

[OneSpartan]

You are really complaining about your DM. My party got wiped out in ADD Slave Pits a couple times due to the crash of armor followed by overwhelming intruder alerts. It's what got me to first roll an Assassin.

[Waterdeep Merch]

There's a certain suspension of disbelief required for this whole thing to work. The fact is, there's no chance a properly prepared dungeon should be doable by a small party, no more than a properly prepared army camp can be destroyed by a small squad. Damaged? Sure. Cleared? Nope.

Basically, to allow the party to have a chance, the monsters must always be played as slightly stupid. Otherwise, there's no hope for success. This is true across all editions.
Heroic fantasy in general is full of it, and a lot of films have the same tendencies. It's the big fight where all the ninjas attack the protagonist one at a time instead of dogpiling for an easy victory.

It's to give that appropriately epic feeling where a single hero (or team of heroes) actually stands a chance against what should be overwhelming odds. In 5e especially, a goblin cave that got their crap together, posted reasonably working security, and responded as a team could wipe the floor with even relatively high level parties. Which is a fun gritty version of the game I love employing a lot, but it intentionally hampers the power fantasy that a lot of people play D&D for and the game was sort of built around*.

*this is not a very defensible opinion, just something I believe to be true given the nature of the game from its inception. Old school dungeon designs included. I am absolutely not calling it a power fantasy in a negative way, as playing a game to feel good about yourself certainly isn't a bad thing.

[Unoriginal]

One thing I've always had a hard time figuring out in old school D&D is how the dungeon crawl experience makes any sense. Rooms are treated as isolated and encounters in one room might alert but never effect encounters in the next area (or at least, that's how its always seemed to me).

So if a party of 4 adventurers delves into a dungeon that contains an evil cult, shouldn't the cult all work together the minute they know the adventurers are there? I always see it play out as the adventurers move freely room to room wiping out the sections of cultists as they arise.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the leaders to gather their men, surround the small party and lay waste to them with all their might?

Or am I missing some crucial element of how dungeons work?

You're missing the crucial elements that the encounters should not be treated in isolation unless they are actually isolated.

Many DM get it wrong, though, or just ignore it because it demand a bit of effort to have NPCs move around their fortress.

Everything that was said in this thread might help you (if you don't mind some "Princes of the Apocalypse" spoilers) http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?543921-Trying-to-get-my-head-around-a-Dungeon-Crawl

[Easy_Lee]

You are really complaining about your DM. My party got wiped out in ADD Slave Pits a couple times due to the crash of armor followed by overwhelming intruder alerts. It's what got me to first roll an Assassin.

To this point, you have to be careful when playing around with creature tactics. Stealthy play becomes more appealing the stronger and better organized monsters become.

Consider a giant fortress. The goal: retrieve an item within. The barbarian wants to charge the doors and start killing everything. One wipe to a hoard of forty giants later, someone rolls a shadow monk, walks in at night, then walks out with the item. For extra insurance, the party wizard makes him invisible first. There's very little in the game that can passively detect an invisible target with a stealth roll in the high twenties.

How about organized bandits in a campaign with lots of traveling? A party of ranger archers, who can go off the beaten path without getting lost and move stealthily at a normal pace, is starting to look real nice.

The right answer is for the DM to decide what's best for his players in his campaign.

[Nifft]

One thing I've always had a hard time figuring out in old school D&D is how the dungeon crawl experience makes any sense. Rooms are treated as isolated and encounters in one room might alert but never effect encounters in the next area (or at least, that's how its always seemed to me).

So if a party of 4 adventurers delves into a dungeon that contains an evil cult, shouldn't the cult all work together the minute they know the adventurers are there? I always see it play out as the adventurers move freely room to room wiping out the sections of cultists as they arise.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the leaders to gather their men, surround the small party and lay waste to them with all their might?

Or am I missing some crucial element of how dungeons work? As mentioned, the advice from the books & modules tends to be: don't treat each room as an isolated encounter.

Monsters call for help. Monsters in area B12 will yell and then the monsters from B5 will arm themselves and join the fight 2 turns later, if you kill this goblin lieutenant, then the replacement will behave like this and that means patrols are going to change, etc.


The only time I've seen the playstyle you describe was a DM using a random table to generate the dungeon on the fly -- there was no interconnection because the rest of the dungeon didn't exist yet. That was back in 1e D&D days, so it was technically old-school, but it wasn't conventional old-school DM'ing.

[Tanarii]

The rooms are often quite far apart in old school dungeons, with doors in between.

I reuse old school dungeons all the time with 5e, using the original maps. In conjunction with a 60ft rule for the enemy hearing battle, I find enemies in other chambers rarely hear a "nearby" fight.

More common is enemies successfully fleeing to get help. But unless there are a lot of them, and some sacrifice themselves (usually dodging while trying to block passageways) while others Dash for help, immediately when the fight begins, they're unlikely to make it as far as the next room. IMX the enemy is half dead and tries to run away they're fully dead.

[Corsair14]

You never played Undermountain then where there was actually a chart as to how often monsters came running to a fight and then more would investigate, and then more. It was really a high chance for pile-ons from many different kinds of monsters coming for a free snack. All of the dungeons I designed even then had "if-then" statements of back up arriving from other rooms or stuff in those rooms getting ready for the PCs to arrive. Or if the PCs did things quietly there were other activities the monsters were doing.

[opaopajr]

Dungeons don't have to have to assumptions you have. Also many were/are large places, so you could have issues of coordination, competing mobs, split groups going about maintenance chores, etc. So that left PCs to tackle that challenge (essentially a fort raid) as open and as quickly as they want. You get to choose your risk level knowing that the longer you linger the more reinforcements you'll have to endure. However this competes with the unknown thrill of lost loot opportunities. Eventually you have to make a cost v. benefit choice, and that's an interesting Damocles Sword to dangle above such raiders' heads.

[Mith]

I will say when I DM that I will likely not have sounds of battle bring in more reinforcements unless it is fairly planned out beforehand. But that's because I am not far of of legally deaf, so I have no judgement on how well sound actually carries, so I do not want to overcompensate too much.

[BoringInfoGuy]

If you take a look at the older dungeons, most of them have some sort of advice to the DM at the beginning NOT to treat the adventure as a series of rooms in isolation. The individual rooms usually don't spell out how monsters will react to an incursion; that's left up to the DM to determine.

Then again, the older modules were pretty bare-bones; it was expected that the DM would provide a LOT of fleshing out.
As I recall, it wasn’t just the modules that were bare bones.

The first D&D book I actually owned was the AD&D 2nd edition PHB. In it there were sections of rules that basically boiled down to “Here is an idea on how to further develop the game. We did one has an example, the rest is up to you.” For example, on the wizard class, it notes that instead of being a generalist wizard, they could instead special in one of the schools of magic. An Illusionist wizard was given as an example. For the remaining schools of magic, it was left to the DM / Players to create.

Likewise, Druids were an example of a specialty cleric with a nature theme.

[Note that I am Away From Book, and going off rather dusty memories]

[Tanarii]

I will say when I DM that I will likely not have sounds of battle bring in more reinforcements unless it is fairly planned out beforehand. But that's because I am not far of of legally deaf, so I have no judgement on how well sound actually carries, so I do not want to overcompensate too much.
If you assume battle is as loud as a washing machine running full blast, then it would sound like normal conversation at 60ft.

[The_Jette]

If you assume battle is as loud as a washing machine running full blast, then it would sound like normal conversation at 60ft.

To be fair, I've been standing outside my apartment and not realized the washing machine was going, and that's through some pretty thin walls and a small door. Stone walls with thick, solid wooden doors, or even slightly rotten ones, would probably dim down the sound quite a bit. 60' seems pretty generous.

[PhoenixPhyre]

To be fair, I've been standing outside my apartment and not realized the washing machine was going, and that's through some pretty thin walls and a small door. Stone walls with thick, solid wooden doors, or even slightly rotten ones, would probably dim down the sound quite a bit. 60' seems pretty generous.

Yeah. I agree. Especially with other ambient noise. At least for humans, it's sudden changes in noise level that are really noticeable. Most of perception is mental, not physiological--the brain does lots of filtering. Same with vision.

[opaopajr]

But caves are normally very quiet. We don't always pay attention to the background noise we are saturated with in our daily lives. But we are quite keen on hearing the differences to routine when we hear them, such as house settling noises, or other "sounds that shouldn't be there."

The mind edits the familiar, but notices the strange. And caves are very still places indeed. The two effects should make for some interesting explanation for wandering monsters. They are investigating "spooky house sounds" and are probably just as frightened that there may be a "stranger in the house." Or perhaps excited and hungry! :smallbiggrin:

[Unoriginal]

But caves are normally very quiet. We don't always pay attention to the background noise we are saturated with in our daily lives. But we are quite keen on hearing the differences to routine when we hear them, such as house settling noises, or other "sounds that shouldn't be there."

The mind edits the familiar, but notices the strange. And caves are very still places indeed. The two effects should make for some interesting explanation for wandering monsters. They are investigating "spooky house sounds" and are probably just as frightened that there may be a "stranger in the house."

Even if we're assuming natural caves, a dungeon has people living in it, so some level of noise will be present.

[tieren]

Some of it depends on the type of dungeon too.

If it was a military fortress of humans, you would expect someone to sound an alarm and bring in organized reinforcements.

But if it was an ancient crypt full of undead, the undead in the next chamber may not magically animate unless certain conditions were met, and noise outside might not be one of them. Same with golems, etc...

[Beelzebubba]

Then, there's this:

Fun > Realism

You need realism, even a good bit of it, but you'd be surprised how far a little willing suspension of disbelief goes, if the result is really fun in the moment.

[The_Jette]

But caves are normally very quiet. We don't always pay attention to the background noise we are saturated with in our daily lives. But we are quite keen on hearing the differences to routine when we hear them, such as house settling noises, or other "sounds that shouldn't be there."

The mind edits the familiar, but notices the strange. And caves are very still places indeed. The two effects should make for some interesting explanation for wandering monsters. They are investigating "spooky house sounds" and are probably just as frightened that there may be a "stranger in the house." Or perhaps excited and hungry! :smallbiggrin:

If you're talking about wide open caves, yes. But, when rooms, hallways, doors, etc, are involved, that becomes different. Not to mention the almighty "why bother?" If the goblins further up the cave than I am get killed by a roaming x-monster, why do I care? That just leaves the goblins' resources for me to plunder later. Caves aren't exactly gushing with life, typically. And, again, the traditional setting is dungeonesque, with thick wooden doors, long hallways that T-Junction off, and walls to absorb the vibrations of noise. So, it's not completely unbelievable that the goblin warband that I just killed didn't get back up from the Beholder in the next room... you know, unless the goblin I just killed was the Beholder's wife, or something.

[Aett_Thorn]

If you want, you can always just give the monsters in the next room an Investigation Check (DC:10) to determine that the noises are wrong and that they should come running. The ones in the room after that have a DC:15, and then a DC: 20 in the next closest room. If they pass, then they come a-runnin'.

[Aett_Thorn]

But caves are normally very quiet.

Found this:

“Being inside the caves is an interesting experience,” Michael told weather.com. “The moving water echoes through the cave system, which creates quite a loud ambient noise level.” Here: https://weather.com/travel/news/spectacular-caves-world-photos-20130626

Caves echo quite a lot. Meaning that any noise tends to bounce around for a while and create a decent ambient noise level. Meaning that even if creatures were just talking normally in the next cave opening over, their noise bouncing around their cave might totally block noise from an adjacent cavern.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Found this:

“Being inside the caves is an interesting experience,” Michael told weather.com. “The moving water echoes through the cave system, which creates quite a loud ambient noise level.” Here: https://weather.com/travel/news/spectacular-caves-world-photos-20130626

Caves echo quite a lot. Meaning that any noise tends to bounce around for a while and create a decent ambient noise level. Meaning that even if creatures were just talking normally in the next cave opening over, their noise bouncing around their cave might totally block noise from an adjacent cavern.

And the noise is often unpredictable--something from the next room might be impossible to hear, while you can hear clearly something from several caves over. Acoustics are stupidly hard to predict without more math than I'm willing to do.

[Aett_Thorn]

And the noise is often unpredictable--something from the next room might be impossible to hear, while you can hear clearly something from several caves over. Acoustics are stupidly hard to predict without more math than I'm willing to do.

This is why I use computer models to do my noise calculations. I'd rather just have the computer run for a few minutes than me spend days doing all of the calculations.

[smcmike]

As some have pointed out, acoustics are really hard to predict. Earlier this afternoon, I heard a loud boom, which shook the door of my basement. I had absolutely no idea how far away this noise came from. Turns out a house blew up 2 miles away. Sometimes sound carries! In a quiet courtroom, a sniffle can be loud from 40 feet away. In a crowded restaurant, you might not be able to hear your dining companion.

None of the above really has all that much to do with the realism of dungeons. They are not realistic. They are, in fact, absurdly unrealistic.

You just have to suspend disbelief.

[Unoriginal]

None of the above really has all that much to do with the realism of dungeons. They are not realistic. They are, in fact, absurdly unrealistic.

You just have to suspend disbelief.

As people said before the idea that monsters will just stay in their room and wait for the PCs to show up once they're done fighting in the room next door is a false assumption.

If the monsters can perceive the PCs, they should react to it in a fashion fitting who they are and the circumstances, something that could be called a "realistic" reaction.

[arclance]

^ This is why Thunderwave is a TPK in a can if everything is being run realistically.
BOOM Every enemy in the dungeon knows your here now, good thing the ones in this room are dead though.

[Unoriginal]

^ This is why Thunderwave is a TPK in a can if everything is being run realistically.
BOOM Every enemy in the dungeon knows your here now, good thing the ones in this room are dead though.

It's also why a Wizard who think they don't need no thieving type will change their tune when they try to Knock the doors away.

[arclance]

It's also why a Wizard who think they don't need no thieving type will change their tune when they try to Knock the doors away.
Knock is for unlocking the the chest you brought with you out of the dungeon during downtime because of this.
Using it in the dungeon just makes you question how smart the Wizard really is.

Don't waste a spell slot on being loud, just have the fighter cast greatsword instead.

[Unoriginal]

Knock is for unlocking the the chest you brought with you out of the dungeon during downtime because of this.
Using it in the dungeon just makes you question how smart the Wizard really is.

Don't waste a spell slot on being loud, just have the fighter cast greatsword instead.

tbf it's also loud to bash a chest with a sword

[Kane0]

How old is Tucker's Kobolds at this point?

[arclance]

tbf it's also loud to bash a chest with a sword
Probably not as loud as Knock, 300 ft. is pretty far for a sound to carry clearly.

[Mith]

How old is Tucker's Kobolds at this point?

From quick google fu, just over 30 years and 1 month. This website with the story (https://www.tuckerskobolds.com) sources the article from Dragon Issue # 127, which was released November 2, 1987.

[smcmike]

As people said before the idea that monsters will just stay in their room and wait for the PCs to show up once they're done fighting in the room next door is a false assumption.

If the monsters can perceive the PCs, they should react to it in a fashion fitting who they are and the circumstances, something that could be called a "realistic" reaction.

My point was that the unrealism of dungeons is not limited to reactions to sound. Yes, you can build a dungeon with in-world explanations for the party’s ability to tackle a large force in bite-sized encounters. Maybe the goblin clan is spread out over vast distances in a giagantic cave system for some reason. Maybe the dungeon is inhabited by 4 enemy factions. Maybe the fortress had an unguarded back entrance and extremely thick doors. A world in which this sort of dungeon is typical does not score very high on my realism-o-meter. That’s ok, though!

[krugaan]

Honest dungeons would make traps a far more useful commodity than they are now.

Every dungeon crawl would be:

1) clear room
2) SET TRAPS!
3) ambush the first responders
4) SET TRAPS!
5) ambush the second responders
6) repeat until no more responders
7) swap roles

[Tanarii]

To be fair, I've been standing outside my apartment and not realized the washing machine was going, and that's through some pretty thin walls and a small door. Stone walls with thick, solid wooden doors, or even slightly rotten ones, would probably dim down the sound quite a bit. 60' seems pretty generous.
For sure. The 60ft rule is down open passages. My rule of the house is that a passive perception of 10 will hear it at that distance, 15 if it's not really paying attention.

It's probably a bit short, but it fits in with my intentional ambush (start combat at 30ft regardless of suprise success or failure) and separate party (second non-stealth group starts at 60ft) rules.

Edit: sorry, I base my house rule for it on this 60ft distance.

[Darth Ultron]

An Old School dungeon was often big, so things were not right next to each other. It could be quite a distance from location 5 to location 6.

A lot of Old School dungeons were not just one continuous dungeon, but often a couple connected but separate dungeons. The classic is something like a collapsed area, as after all the dungeon is often quite old and this would be common.

Traps, as well as monsters, can also block and cut off dungeon areas. A large predator type monster's lair can nicely block a part of a dungeon, as can say a ton of green slime.

A dungeon, unlike say a castle, is not a ''all the bad guys there go on the defensive once there is an attack''.

[Malifice]

One thing I've always had a hard time figuring out in old school D&D is how the dungeon crawl experience makes any sense. Rooms are treated as isolated and encounters in one room might alert but never effect encounters in the next area (or at least, that's how its always seemed to me).

So if a party of 4 adventurers delves into a dungeon that contains an evil cult, shouldn't the cult all work together the minute they know the adventurers are there? I always see it play out as the adventurers move freely room to room wiping out the sections of cultists as they arise.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the leaders to gather their men, surround the small party and lay waste to them with all their might?

Or am I missing some crucial element of how dungeons work?

Theyre generally run as a little column A and a little column B.

Discrete combat encounters that can spiral into larger battles if a nearby monster hears the PCs (or if a straggler runs off to get reinforcements).

Youve gotta remember that these dungeons arent static. Theyre populated by numerous monsters of varying loyalty and hostility to one another. I dare say the sounds of combat coming from down the hallway are reasonably commonplace and generally wouldnt provoke much of a response.

[Bohandas]

One thing I've always had a hard time figuring out in old school D&D is how the dungeon crawl experience makes any sense. Rooms are treated as isolated and encounters in one room might alert but never effect encounters in the next area (or at least, that's how its always seemed to me).

So if a party of 4 adventurers delves into a dungeon that contains an evil cult, shouldn't the cult all work together the minute they know the adventurers are there? I always see it play out as the adventurers move freely room to room wiping out the sections of cultists as they arise.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the leaders to gather their men, surround the small party and lay waste to them with all their might?

Or am I missing some crucial element of how dungeons work?

They seem generally nonsensical to me as well, with some specific exceptions. Temple of Elemental Evil for instance has sectarian strife between different factions of the cult such that they only care about members of their own faction being attacked

[Mith]

They seem generally nonsensical to me as well, with some specific exceptions. Temple of Elemental Evil for instance has sectarian strife between different factions of the cult such that they only care about members of their own faction being attacked

The running joke when we took a prisoner in White Plume (the name we had was Sir Bluto, don't know if that was made up) was that we kept asking about how he and his men survived with the lack of food in White Plume. He responded with "It's best not to talk about it." as there is no details on how Bluto's company survived.

[Malifice]

The running joke when we took a prisoner in White Plume (the name we had was Sir Bluto, don't know if that was made up) was that we kept asking about how he and his men survived with the lack of food in White Plume. He responded with "It's best not to talk about it." as there is no details on how Bluto's company survived.

There's a river (suspended in mid air) that runs through his room. The illustration that comes with it shows fish in the river. At a minimum, water isnt an issue.

Plus; the whole joint is run by an Archmage Keraptis. He can easily provide food for them.

[Willie the Duck]

The Keep on the Borderlands is another iconic early D&D module which directly contradicts the OP. There are multiple factions of humanoids who absolutely know about what is goin on outside of their little silos. In fact, the best (only realistic?) way to succeed in the module with a reasonable sized party is to ally with one faction against another.

[Mith]

There's a river (suspended in mid air) that runs through his room. The illustration that comes with it shows fish in the river. At a minimum, water isnt an issue.

Plus; the whole joint is run by an Archmage Keraptis. He can easily provide food for them.

Perhaps there is more information available then what we the players had, and the DM sort of added to the character, but there wasn't any fish in the river from the description we had, and the men were recent arrivals with Keraptis being gone for around 1,000 years when they arrived. So I can give the water, but with what we knew, he wasn't getting any steady source of food from the info we had.

I will agree that perhaps there was details missed that made things make more sense (like the fish), but the DM put an amusing spin for the answer to the question that he was drawing a blank on.

[Tanarii]

The Keep on the Borderlands is another iconic early D&D module which directly contradicts the OP. There are multiple factions of humanoids who absolutely know about what is goin on outside of their little silos. In fact, the best (only realistic?) way to succeed in the module with a reasonable sized party is to ally with one faction against another.
Conversely, given the distances between encounter spaces, it's entirely possible to invade any given non-prepared lair without drawing the entire lair down on your heads.

Much harder on the second pass of course, but the lairs aren't unlimited resources of humanoids. The humanoids in a given lair can quickly reach the point they need to evacuate instead of sticking it out to the bitter end, if the Pcs keep hit and running. Especially if they ambush small groups outside the lairs when they come out to hunt, or attack the lair when a large group leaves to raid.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a brutal learning experience for new players.

[Malifice]

Perhaps there is more information available then what we the players had, and the DM sort of added to the character, but there wasn't any fish in the river from the description we had, and the men were recent arrivals with Keraptis being gone for around 1,000 years when they arrived. So I can give the water, but with what we knew, he wasn't getting any steady source of food from the info we had.

I will agree that perhaps there was details missed that made things make more sense (like the fish), but the DM put an amusing spin for the answer to the question that he was drawing a blank on.

Here is the illustration of the room next door:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/98849718dcd7308ba29f9369d4a4ef67/tumblr_no8um3e2YG1ro2bqto1_500.jpg

That lake runs straight through Blutos room. Plenty of fish and water to live on.

[Mith]

Here is the illustration of the room next door:

https://68.media.tumblr.com/98849718dcd7308ba29f9369d4a4ef67/tumblr_no8um3e2YG1ro2bqto1_500.jpg

That lake runs straight through Blutos room. Plenty of fish and water to live on.

When the room was described to us, it was just water no fish. We (as a table) obviously missed the detail/ forgot it. So that part of the dungeon wasn't goofy then. Good to know.

[krugaan]

Played a campaign in 2nd Ed called. Shadows of the underdark where you had to infiltrate not one, but two cities.

I was dual wielding half drow in that campaign, so all I did was chop chop, but in the early levels I was the only real damage dealer.

Anyway, both cities were very, very united, so hit and run tactics were essential.

[Beelzebubba]

They seem generally nonsensical to me as well, with some specific exceptions. Temple of Elemental Evil for instance has sectarian strife between different factions of the cult such that they only care about members of their own faction being attacked

Well, in those days, super-strong narrative was presumed to be the domain and responsibility of the DM. Modules were intentionally 'incomplete' at first because it was just a toolbox.(If you want to see the ultimate expression of that, look at D3, Vault of the Drow. That's practically a cookbook.)

They didn't really communicate it well, but to be frank, this was the era of toys being mostly stuff like Lego, Erector Sets, and Revell models, so a 'do it yourself' mindset was much more prevalent and they didn't need to. (The store I spent 90% of my money at was Radio Shack, and my brother and I built things like stereo speaker cabinets and skateboard decks from scratch, because it was far cheaper than buying new.)

The idea of having literal boxed text to be read out loud was only in specific types of modules, mainly tournament competitions like Tomb of Horrors or The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Those were designed from scratch to be run against a timer, by many tables competing for prizes. So, the context of the module is important too.

The idea of a set of modules providing everything from beginning to end - world building, narrative, end-to-end verisimilitude, etc. didn't really show up until Dragonlance.

I could go on, but what I wanted to get across was that there are many reasons those old modules are they way they were, and it's not because the original designers didn't think things through. They just had far different intent, for a much smaller, weirder audience than today.

[Willie the Duck]

I could go on, but what I wanted to get across was that there are many reasons those old modules are they way they were, and it's not because the original designers didn't think things through. They just had far different intent, for a much smaller, weirder audience than today.

This can really be generalized to most things 'old school.' Most of the complaints about the games, the rules, the modules, so on and so forth tend to be that they do not match up well with a set of TTRPG expectations that they were never intended for, because those expectations didn't yet exist. There are exceptions (I'll say it, even by 1974 wargame standards the original LBB game manuals were poorly edited, poorly communicated, and have amateurish art). But for the most part, the response to "Old school product X doesn't Y" is correctly, "it was never intended to be. Our expectations are what has changed."

[PhoenixPhyre]

This can really be generalized to most things 'old school.' Most of the complaints about the games, the rules, the modules, so on and so forth tend to be that they do not match up well with a set of TTRPG expectations that they were never intended for, because those expectations didn't yet exist. There are exceptions (I'll say it, even by 1974 wargame standards the original LBB game manuals were poorly edited, poorly communicated, and have amateurish art). But for the most part, the response to "Old school product X doesn't Y" is correctly, "it was never intended to be. Our expectations are what has changed."

That's something that's frequently missed. We judge X by what we want X to do, even when X never claimed it was intended to do that. We judge (metaphorical) pitchforks to be bad because they suck for pounding nails. We judge fish to be poorly designed because they can't ride bicycles very well. We judge modules as bad because they don't have a coherent story, when they never were intended to have such things. We judge rules as bad because we don't like what they were intended to do.

There are plenty of well-designed things that don't do anything I need done. That doesn't make them bad, just not for me. There are plenty of poorly-designed things that claim to do something I want done, but fail at that task. Those are bad--they make a claim and then don't meet it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I personally define "well-designed" as "fit for the intended/claimed purpose" (whatever that might be). Everything should be judged in context of its own claims, without forcing our own preconceptions onto it.

[Unoriginal]

This can really be generalized to most things 'old school.' Most of the complaints about the games, the rules, the modules, so on and so forth tend to be that they do not match up well with a set of TTRPG expectations that they were never intended for, because those expectations didn't yet exist. There are exceptions (I'll say it, even by 1974 wargame standards the original LBB game manuals were poorly edited, poorly communicated, and have amateurish art). But for the most part, the response to "Old school product X doesn't Y" is correctly, "it was never intended to be. Our expectations are what has changed."

Though in this particular case, the problem is that people are assuming things from old-school dungeons and thinking "well, it's a problem, I don't get why they did that", when the assumption is wrong.

Old school dungeons don't mean static environment with monsters calmly waiting their turns in their designated area.

[Tanarii]

The idea of having literal boxed text to be read out loud was only in specific types of modules, mainly tournament competitions like Tomb of Horrors or The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Those were designed from scratch to be run against a timer, by many tables competing for prizes. So, the context of the module is important too.
Not only that, "descriptive" information given the DM or boxed text was relevant, not descriptive. Paying attention to the details the DM is giving you could easily save your life or result in more fat lootz.

Contrast that with mid-80s TSR, where they lost that understanding and started focusing on "real" Roleplaying, trying to paint a picture in the player's mind, using boxed to try and set a scene. Suddenly players are tuning out what the DM is saying as soon as she starts getting "descriptive", because it's 90% meaningless babble.

The worst example being parapraphs of text about the decor, followed by not actually mentioning the monsters visibly in the chamber.

[Willie the Duck]

Though in this particular case, the problem is that people are assuming things from old-school dungeons and thinking "well, it's a problem, I don't get why they did that", when the assumption is wrong.

Old school dungeons don't mean static environment with monsters calmly waiting their turns in their designated area.

Absolutely true, and I do not understand why the OP thought that that was the way of it. Some cases the assumption is wrong. In others, the assumption is right, but the statement "it's a problem" is dubious because it's only a problem 40 years after-the-fact, applying different expectations upon the thing.

Case in point would be the example Mith brings up about dungeon inhabitants and rations (or water, where their waste goes). The example used has fish, yes, but plenty of dungeons didn't. Why? Because that kind of verisimilitude was not expected at the time. These were mad funhouses from hell, they were asked to make that much sense. Except of course when they were. Mike Mornard, an early gamer who played with Gygax, Arneson, and Barker (of Tekemul fame) in their early games tells of someone asking, 'well, what do all these monsters eat?' when reviewing a dungeon someone had made (Barker I think, or maybe it was one of Mornard's). The dungeon maker cheekily proceeded to add a food court to the 4th level. And that was more than enough justification, given the expectations of the time (and not just because it was funny).

Yes, it is fun to ask the occasional 'what do these goblins eat?,' or, 'who keeps building these undoubtedly-expensive-to-make underground series of rooms and tunnels with no clear purpose?' Just as it is to overanalyze whether the perfectly flat stone ceilings make any sense or whether the local D&D town's economy makes sense. But in the end, the answer will usually be, "no. Probably not, but no one told the designer that that was an expectation that they should be working around."

[KorvinStarmast]

To answer the OP:
They made perfect sense at the time.

Modules were introduced for a couple of reasons, one of which was tournament/convention play (which is different from a regular campaign), and the other was as a revenue stream.

Take a look at the original example offered in Wilderness and Underworld Adventures(OD&D book 3, TSR, 1974), pages 3, 4, 5 & 6. The first two pages have sample maps/layouts, with pages 5 and 6 containing notes.

A lot of play was in dungeon crawl format, with the campaign level play usually coming in once characters got a few levels and we left the first dungeon and began to explore the world, which the DM was building in parallel as we played. Most of us didn't build a whole world and then invite players in. The world grew as the play continued.

Some of the most dangerous play was in wilderness encounters, since the random monster tables had such variable results. You could have a "level non appropriate encounter" on any given day, and had to "learn when to walk away, or learn when to run."

That was part of the fun: the unknown and the danger.

PS: gelatinous cubes were the cleaning crew for mad wizards in their towers.

[MadBear]

Absolutely true, and I do not understand why the OP thought that that was the way of it. Some cases the assumption is wrong. In others, the assumption is right, but the statement "it's a problem" is dubious because it's only a problem 40 years after-the-fact, applying different expectations upon the thing.

Case in point would be the example Mith brings up about dungeon inhabitants and rations (or water, where their waste goes). The example used has fish, yes, but plenty of dungeons didn't. Why? Because that kind of verisimilitude was not expected at the time. These were mad funhouses from hell, they were asked to make that much sense. Except of course when they were. Mike Mornard, an early gamer who played with Gygax, Arneson, and Barker (of Tekemul fame) in their early games tells of someone asking, 'well, what do all these monsters eat?' when reviewing a dungeon someone had made (Barker I think, or maybe it was one of Mornard's). The dungeon maker cheekily proceeded to add a food court to the 4th level. And that was more than enough justification, given the expectations of the time (and not just because it was funny).

Yes, it is fun to ask the occasional 'what do these goblins eat?,' or, 'who keeps building these undoubtedly-expensive-to-make underground series of rooms and tunnels with no clear purpose?' Just as it is to overanalyze whether the perfectly flat stone ceilings make any sense or whether the local D&D town's economy makes sense. But in the end, the answer will usually be, "no. Probably not, but no one told the designer that that was an expectation that they should be working around."

The reason I thought it was true, was really simple. When looking at most dungeons, you have different groups of enemies in different rooms, and after the first battle, it seems that you'd think that the rest would often rush to their allies defense. And in that case, a DM could often and easily overwhelm the PC's causing a party wipe with little to no effort.

Since I'm assuming that murdering the PC's after room 1 wasn't the design goal, I'm not sure how to justify the more static response that most seem to have. With that said, some have made some interesting arguments for why the creatures wouldn't necessarily hear the skirmishes, so that helps a bit.

[Bohandas]

Yes, it is fun to ask the occasional 'what do these goblins eat?,' or, 'who keeps building these undoubtedly-expensive-to-make underground series of rooms and tunnels with no clear purpose?'

Oftentimes there is an explanation in the form of a builder who is simultaneously 1.) a very powerful supernatural being and 2.) literally insane
(Castle Greyhawk, Tomb of Lyzandred the Mad, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, etc


whether the local D&D town's economy makes sense. But in the end, the answer will usually be, "no. Probably not, but no one told the designer that that was an expectation that they should be working around."

D&D's economy and pseudo-medieval setting has the makings of a great conspiracy campaign. Like somebody needs to write an epic adventure wherein the enemy is some interplanar group conspiring to keep the world messed up like this (and who are also an in-universe cause of most of the more incongrous balance restrictions)

[Tanarii]

or, 'who keeps building these undoubtedly-expensive-to-make underground series of rooms and tunnels with no clear purpose?'BECMI answered that one. Wizards. Level 9 plus Wizards.

[KorvinStarmast]

BECMI answered that one. Wizards. Level 9 plus Wizards. Didn't BECMI adhere to the 11th level being name level for Wizards, or did they level the field and make name at 9 for Magic USers? (Don't have books handy ...)

[Tanarii]

Didn't BECMI adhere to the 11th level being name level for Wizards, or did they level the field and make name at 9 for Magic USers? (Don't have books handy ...)I may be off. It's been a few years.

Edit: Just checked, Name level is level 9 for all classes (including Elf and Dwarf) in BECMI. You must be thinking of AD&D 1e, which definitely had different Name levels for different classes.

[Mith]

Didn't BECMI adhere to the 11th level being name level for Wizards, or did they level the field and make name at 9 for Magic USers? (Don't have books handy ...)

I was introduced to D&D with BECMI and I believe name level was the same across the board. The different level tracks were the balance for when characters reached name level.

[Willie the Duck]

Oftentimes there is an explanation in the form of a builder who is simultaneously 1.) a very powerful supernatural being and 2.) literally insane
(Castle Greyhawk, Tomb of Lyzandred the Mad, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, etc
...
D&D's economy and pseudo-medieval setting has the makings of a great conspiracy campaign. Like somebody needs to write an epic adventure wherein the enemy is some interplanar group conspiring to keep the world messed up like this (and who are also an in-universe cause of most of the more incongrous balance restrictions)

I am all for coming up with explanations, or for the explanation of 'a mad wizard/lich/whatsit did it' when it is there. My predominant point is that often time it was left blank strictly because no one said it was supposed to have one.


The reason I thought it was true, was really simple. When looking at most dungeons, you have different groups of enemies in different rooms, and after the first battle, it seems that you'd think that the rest would often rush to their allies defense. And in that case, a DM could often and easily overwhelm the PC's causing a party wipe with little to no effort.

Since I'm assuming that murdering the PC's after room 1 wasn't the design goal, I'm not sure how to justify the more static response that most seem to have. With that said, some have made some interesting arguments for why the creatures wouldn't necessarily hear the skirmishes, so that helps a bit.

Yeah, sorry if I seemed a little judgy, that wasn't my intent.

The goal was not to cause a party wipe, but at the same time the goal (at least very early in the games' run) was "this is going to be really amazingly hard if you just go in guns a-blazin'" So, sometimes yes, the opponents in room #2 wouldn't hear you wiping out those in room #1. Other times they would, so maybe you'd best sneak past room #1, or negotiate with room #1 (perhaps to together gang up on room #2), or use that precious sleep spell to take out room #1 quietly. And sometimes, frankly, the designer thought that people would catch that the smart way to finish the module is XYZ, but that is only intuitive if you are ___ (some trait that much of the audience wasn't) and instead most people ran it like UVW (but most of those are now considered bad modules that no one bothers remaking/reprinting/discussing). There's certainly plenty of design failures in the TSR-D&D era. So much so in fact that I feel confident in saying that there's no one "right"... be it in regards to how to play or just in interpreting how good/bad the game was back in that era, etc. D&D is a series of "but..." statements, such as "my favorite era was '76-'83 basic, but..."

[KorvinStarmast]

I was introduced to D&D with BECMI and I believe name level was the same across the board. The different level tracks were the balance for when characters reached name level. Yeah, I have so many versions in memory I was maybe confusing a couple of them.