My 4e dungeon project of a couple of days ago is getting shelved.. I have the maps done, but I need to convert them into graphics, for an eventual public posting similar to what I did for WoAdWriMo. (When's the next one, by the way?). But without encounters and the 4e Rules I can't really fill it in properly.

So I was talking to some local guys and I ended up involved in the planning of a "Celebration of the Legacy of Gary Gygax" taking place out here in Maryland. We are running old editions of D&D as well as a 3e Living Greyhawk module that reportedly features Tenser, Mordenkainen, Rary, and Bigby somehow. This will take place on April 12th and 26th, pm me for details if you like. It's going to be a party.

While I've been planning this shindig, I got the (hilarious) idea that I wanted to run AD&D1e again... Perhaps online. (See my post in the play by post forum). I'll probably run it via ScreenMonkey Lite, which is a free virtual tabletop program, and hopefully some of you goons can play. Especially James Skach.

So I designed a town and built a dungeon, again in profile first. This one goes the full 10 levels and includes the town for reference.



The town is called Raven's Hollow- it's built in and around the stumps of 3 ginormously huge "Planar Oaks". Clans of gnomes and dwarves live on the insides, and the town outside is mostly humans, half-elves and halflings. A community of elves lives nearby. The nearby dungeon is about 18 miles away, and known as Kaer Korogard. I spent way too much time in MS Paint (yes, MS Paint. Don't laugh!) making that map but my mind was kind of wandering the whole time.

I'm hesitant to detail out all 10 levels here, but level 5 is known as the "Demon Cocoons".

I'll be doing the encounters from AD&D1 Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, and the original Fiend Folio. I had lost my original copies of all of these but I got PDFs via RPGNow.

Goon, is it?

Should I stop reading?

BTW - how sure are you on the specifics? I don't want to install software only to never use it. So if you're pretty sure on Screen Monkey and/or Skype - I'll put it into motion this week.

Oh you can read all of this.

Screen Monkey Lite + Skype seems like the way to go. (and both of those are free).

 I foresee the game kicking off as soon as we have 4 players who can decide on a date and time. I'm actually very flexible on time and date. I've dropped out of my weekly group to gear up for LFR admin stuff, which is like.. just enough work to keep me from going to a game but not enough to keep me from running something online. In a pinch I'll even run it as play by post. (It's AD&D1e.. so there's very little need for tactical representation.)

Oughtta be fun.

I'm curious, how close to the book are you going to run the game? And what supplements are you going to allow?

Quote from: DeadUematsuI'm curious, how close to the book are you going to run the game? And what supplements are you going to allow?

As close as possible- the only 1E book that matters for you is the PHB. No Unearthed Arcana.

I have the Fiend Folio, MMII, and ..the three core books.

This is AD&D1e so there's not much else to supplement with anyhow

I have now finished(!) the dungeon maps for my second dungeon, which is what the online campaign will sort of be based around. (And if anyone wants to play, please let me know! Skype, microphone and headphones, and your browser is all you need. SUndays at 1PM!

All that is left at this point is the actual stat-blocking of the denizens (both as encounters and a few unique NPCs on every level), and the sort of "plot hook" type stuff that ties the dungeon back to the village (one of which is well known and public-- there's an entire goblin village on one of the entry levels where illicit goods can be bought and sold). I have enough notes to do every level at this point.

Ten unique levels (each one covering it's own entire sheet of graph paper) is about as deep as I've ever done. I'm not going to bother converting it to graphics I think. The maps are just too detailed.

I am still debating how steep to make the power curve.
The standard AD&D Dungeon encounter tables (pg 174 DMG at the bottom) suggest distribution of encounters that generally allows for a spread with the highest level monsters (from table X.) occurring 5% of the time as early as the 8th layer of a dungeon. However, because of the way I arrange dungeon layers, though.. they aren't vertical. They are staggered and sometimes parallel, depending on which path is chosen. There are definitely 5 vertical "bands" of dungeon here, with the lowest band making up the entirety of the 10th dungeon level.

So the way I see it now is this:

1st band: level 1 (newbie zone)
2nd band: levels 2 and 7 (and 7 is also an entry level that links to the surface)
3rd band: levels 3, 4, and 6.
4th band: levels 5, 8, and 9.
5th band: level 10.

(And in general the "bands" represent a logical delving strategy, so level 1 links to both 2 and 7..kinda. Although there are several ways to bypass by accident or on purpose the middle levels and zoom straight from level 3 (for example) directly to level 10. I'm just assuming a careful party will want the encounters to ramp up as they get braver and go down deeper)

By this reasoning, I could have perhaps a single encounter as tough as Table VII on level 10, but with the majority coming from tables III and IV. For reference purposes- a typical Table VII monster might be a 10-headed Hydra or a Bone devil. a Typical Table III monster might be a "1d4 ghouls".

This sounds great!  I wish I could take part in the game, but 1PM is just a couple hours too late for me (I make a weekly pilgrimage to visit the family every Sunday afternoon and I don't get home until late).

Best of luck...can't wait to see how this turns out for you.