The Young DM - part 2

Well, first chance he got, he took it.

Junior Grognard was keen as mustard to get a session in and last Sunday we did do a bit of gaming with him as DM and me as player.

JG drew a map on some A4 sheets, no dimensions as such and he laid it all out in one go rather than piece by piece but it all went very well. He'd remembered some of the features of the training dungeon and most of the combat sequence, which was good. We had to go through a couple of character roll-ups so that he would get the feel for what to use, the names of the abilities, dice to roll for money. I'd got my PHB out but I also had OSRIC printed out (without the monsters) and he may run from that instead.

I took a thief and a cleric down and both got killed several times (he's using the 'get killed and go back to the start' idea from the Training Dungeon). We were mostly facing kobolds who got some suspiciously good hit rolls and as the thief only had 2hp, he became intimately acquainted with the floor very quickly. The cleric, on the other hand managed to wangle scale mail and shield plus 8hp and was able to finish off several kobolds before an encounter with about eight of them plus bugbear sealed his fate.

JG's enthusiasm and relish in laying it out and bringing it on carried him through - he didn't have access to a quick reference for the monsters (THAC0, HD, AC, damage etc) so I've knocked something up and printed it off as a kind of ready reference sheet, very like the monster summary at the back of the DMG. Basic humanoids, low grade undead and creepy crawlies should see him through the first sessions.

I'm also doing a quick start primer for 1e for any of his chums he manages to recruit. It's heavily adapted from Chgowiz's S&W Quick Start but of course the terminology needs to be altered, plus some of the stats. There is still a lot of work to do on it; I need to let JG read it and see if it makes sense to his age group. It needs to be exciting and enticing enough for seven year olds.

So in summary - JG did a great job and I think that as he does more sessions and learns to build on what works and winnow out what doesn't and gets a feel for what monster levels work with a party, he'll get better and better. He needs to talk the game up with his friends (or at least offer them free pizza - thanks, ZeBulette!) but that's probably going to come as he gets more into the DMing side of things.

As he went to bed that night, I wished a welcome to 'the newest DM in the world'. It can be the toughest job in the game but also the most rewarding - I'm sure he'll find that out.

The young DM

Regular readers of this blog may remember last autumn that I was busy introducing Junior Grognard to the delights of AD&D via my Training Dungeon concept (click on the Training Dungeon label to review this series). We then moved into a bit of sandboxing but with the lengthening days of spring and other demands on Sundays, things went quiet. As he was the only player, the workload of running a party of six or so got a bit much and if he didn't feel like doing a session, there was no game, full stop.

There was also some trouble with the degree of scariness involved in my adventures (hell, I like CoC, I'm a dark dude) and after some discussion with Mummy Grognard, we decided that it would probably be best if I put things off for a couple of years (he's seven and a half at the moment).

However, just the other day, we were walking from school back to the car and our route took us past the cemetery. I made a few comments about skeletons and turning them, he countered with a comment that he would use his hammer (as it was a blunt weapon) and before we knew it, he was wanting to game again. He wanted to re-do the Training Dungeon but his conversation left me in no doubt that he remembered all the tricks and traps and it would be no good going down that route.

Then I had a flash of inspiration and proposed the following:

If he could get three or four of his friends to form a party and he felt he was up to it, he could DM the Training Dungeon for them. The responsibility of selecting and recruiting his players would be up to him, giving him an incentive to be a bit more evangelical about the game. I would sit in and give advice and adjudication on points (if required) where his understanding or confidence was a little short. I even dug out and gifted him a downloaded AEC so that my vintage 1e books would remain free from creases, stains and notes.

I'm quite keyed up for this; I hope it comes off for a number of reasons, not least because it gets us gaming again, expands his knowledge of the rules and the skills of DMing and hopefully establishes a group of players who can then spread the word that D&D is cool - and good - for kids.

Anyone got any ideas as to ways that we could make this work out?

The Training Dungeon - the Final Chapter

A Token Victory

This morning, JG took the initiative. He told me to clear the dining table and get Team Adventure ready to roll. I needed no further bidding and things were soon in place. I remembered (but the last session was a while ago) that they were hunkered down in room 22, busily getting their spells back and curing each other. JG, after a bit of prompting thought to cast Read Magic on the spell book and duly noted down what spells it had in it. He didn't actually do anything with said spells, however.

The party then set off up the corridor, heading back towards the ogre room where they had identified several passageways as worthy of attention. They had intended to look up the corridor past the zombie room but as they were about to turn up that corridor, they heard the door opening and the chant of "Brains! Brains!" getting louder. TA decided to skeddadle very quickly across the ogre room and down to the area that abuts onto the water area. They had remembered that there was a passageway leading off it, ending up in room 17. As they approached, they spotted a large winding wheel on the wall and a bony arm sticking through a heavy portcullis.

Alurax and Hruthnor decided to turn the wheel and sure enough, the gateway raised a bit. They tried this several times, each time retreating as the portcullis lifted. Eventually, their bravery cut in and they got it all the way up. Everyone else was up at the bend in the passageway while our heroes tried to see what was inside and debated the wisdom of going in.

Suddenly, there was the sound of bowstrings and Akurath took an arrow from an unseen shooter. Another missed Elise. The rest of the party scrambled down to the entrance to 17, and Alurax and Hruthnor stepped in. They started to look around the room; I watched carefully and when they moved across the centre of the room, I deemed that the portcullis had slammed down again. Fortunately, the rest of the party swiftly raised it and got them out, just as a leathery flapping in the ceiling cavity got louder and louder.

The arrow had come from one of the three remaining kobolds who now jumped out from their hiding place at the corner of the passageway and fired again. Garazor took an arrow this time. The members of the party who were facing the right way fired back and one kobold crashed to the floor. The other two legged it.

Finally, the party decided to give the passageway to room 21 a try. They got halfway down the passage before a querying glance from the DM gave them cause for pause. I described what they saw, both thieves having failed their find traps rolls. I had to carefully guide them from conclusion to conclusion before they eventually realised that a section of the wall about six feet off the ground was marked with grubby and large fingerprints. As if someone had been pushing at that bit quite often. They cottoned on that it was some sort of switch to activate the traps and pushed it. Then pushed it again. This switched the trap back on. Lannius edged forward, using his 10' pole and set off two sets of spears that flew out of the wall, then drew back in again. Needless to say, if the entire party had moved down the passageway to the door, at least two members would have taken a possible 3d6 of damage (I'd have allowed a save vs DEX to halve that).

Finally, switching off and switching on again, using a real light switch as a prop, they worked it out and moved forward in relative safety. Both thieves failed their locks roll for the door and most of the strongest characters also failed their Open Doors rolls.

Surprise, surprise, Zhastar the hobbit got it open eventually. Inside, they could see bundles and bundles of stuff, but being very cautious (I wonder why that could be so?) they sent Lannius in, having just about made his Hide in Shadows roll (okay he missed it by one but I was in a generous mood). He made several runs, bringing all the bundles out and eventually the last stone token as well.

JG was delighted to have found the last token and they set off back to the 3rd level and the treasure chamber. But as they were heading along the passageway towards the area of 25 and the shaft, guess who they should see, coming the other way? Yes, eight lean and hungry figures. JG scented the odour of corruption and the chance for revenge. Elise and Zhastar were put to the front and in came the ghouls - holy symbols were displayed and though Elise failed her roll, Zhastar made his and rolled an 11 on the d12. An oil bomb came sailing over the heads of the party and I rolled to see where in the ghoul pack it would land. JG rolled his 2d6 per ghoul caught in the splash and three went down. (yes, I know that in the rules, a direct hit gets the 2d6 and splash damage gets 1-3 but as the oil bomb fell amongst four of them, I ruled that each was susceptible to the full damage. Hey - they could have rolled a 2, or I could have rolled and found only two ghouls were hit) A fourth was on fire but this was only a temporary setback as Alurax and Hruthnor gunned it down with arrow and crossbow bolt. The surviving ghouls shambled off up the corridor and JG and party descended to level 3. I was rolling to see if they met anyone else on their journey to the treasure room but no-one else came up.

JG took each of the tokens and slotted them into place. The pillar started to rise into the ceiling, leaving an empty space behind. JG thought that this was it, and that there was no pay-off. Then the bottom of the pillar, now flush with the ceiling, opened up and gold pieces cascaded out.
"How many?" asked JG
"Oh, hundreds" I said
"What, a thousand?"
"Yeah, about that"
Lottery factor strikes again. He was somewhat disconsolate to find that there were no magical goodies in the haul until I pointed out that they had found plenty of magic goodies elsewhere in the dungeon.

There remained only the task of dragging all this loot back to the surface. When they reached the shaft, I pointed out that the rope would not take the weight of characters loaded with stuff and so Lannius climbed up and hauled each bundle up one at a time. He was halfway through when the sound of shuffling and the words "Brains! Brains!" came down the corridor. He at once descended on the rope and waited until the zombies had gone. No-one seemed particularly interested in bundles by a shaft (the cleric's priorty is new recruits, after all) and once the area was safe, the rest of the loot and the party ascended. Pausing only to collect the bones of the friendly ghost, they left the dungeon.

I concluded it there. As a wee giftie to the party, and to equip them a little better for the nasty world outside, I've decided to list out all the magic items that they've found and either let JG pick one for each member or let the dice decide. There will be no xp for these items - just a little something to give them a chance in the big bad world.

The Hex Factor

I had come to the conclusion that eight is too strong a party to be taking on first level dungeons. I had decided quite a while ago that JG would have to reduce the character roster by two and now had come the time to do so.

He decided that Garazor and Alia would be leaving the party at this stage. JG's rationale was that the party he picked (Akurath, Hruthnor, Alurax, Zhastar, Elise and Lannius) filled the slots that he reckoned were necessary for a party. Two fighters, a F/Mu, a Cl/Mu, a cleric and a Thief. In retrospect, Alia had sleep but sleep is in the spellbook that they picked up, and Garazor, whilst very handy, was always seen, I think, as a guest character. Never mind - he may well reappear - it's a big sandbox out there!

Next time, the party starts in the real world, no soft corners. Experience points are there for the taking, but so is death in all its cold and heartless glory.

Brains! Brains!

Previously on this adventure, our brave heroes - and their hobbit - were in room 16, having just slaughtered the ogre and his kobold hordes. They had a quick hunt-around but I completely forgot about the oubliette (where the ogre had been storing his prisoners for later devouring), so I decided to put it in where the hatch is on the passage to room 18, down which no-one had gone yet.

The party eventually headed down towards the water feature, a huge area of flooded dungeon. Regular readers will remember that the party had discovered that one of the missing stone tokens had the symbol of water on it. The discovery of such a large area of water at once set the alarm bells ringing.

Lannius was standing on the edge, tapping the bottom with a ten foot pole, and by chance happened to be standing directly over the grille. Had they approached it from the other end, finding it would not have been quite so simple. It was not an easy job for JG to work out exactly what it was that was being tapped; clink of metal, nothing at all, clink of metal, nothing at all. I even ended up sketching a diagram of the clink and non-clink sectors so that it soon became apparent that there was a pattern. What that pattern was, however…

The conclusion was eventually reached that the only way to work out what was down there was to send someone down. As Akurath had the highest constitution (and I went through the definitions of all the attributes until JG decided that CON was the best for the job) he was stripped of his armour and a length of rope tied around his waist (JG's idea, no prompting). Down he went into the murk and soon found the grille but was unable to lift it on his own. JG - again with no prompting - sussed that two characters were needed but first the lock had to be picked. A quick scan of the character sheets and it was revealed that Garazor had the highest chance. So down went the half-orc and JG rolled 11 on the percentile dice. The lock popped open and Alurax joined the dwarf under the water. As they lifted the grille and dragged out the necklace with the stone token, Alurax failed a CON roll and was dragged, choking and spluttering to the surface.

As they dried off and donned their armour again, Hruthnor, who had been on sentry duty, reported that he had heard a strange whispering and shuffling from the other end of room 16. The party headed off to investigate. They found a slithering trail of smeared blood and no ogre body. JG concluded (wrongly) that the surviving kobolds (all four of them!) had claimed the body of their leader. The party followed the trail and found it leading up the passageway towards 23 and 24. The door to 23 was locked, but Lannius made his roll this time and they pushed the door open to reveal a room full of zombies and an evil cleric busy reanimating the ogre.

With cries of "Brains! Brains!" the zombies lurched towards the door (all 16 of them) led by their newly-raised ogre friend. The party sensibly beat a hasty retreat, probably a good job when the stats of the zombie ogre are considered (MM2 if anyone’s interested). I thought we were looking at some dwarf on zombie action but apparently not. They were so spooked by this that the party legged it to the shaftway back up to the 1st level. For some unknown reason, JG wanted to head back to the slime room - from later discussion, it transpired that he thought the gems that had fallen into the slime would still be there, at the bottom of the pool. Anyway, he indicated his chosen route on the map of 1st level that I had helped them make and they set off down the long corridor that runs 'south' from 14.



Unfortunately, a roll on the very depleted wandering monster table resulted in the 8 ghouls coming in the opposite direction. They met at the crossroads by the wind tunnel. JG put Elise and Zhastar at the front, because they had blunt weapons. He didn't instruct them to try and turn.

It is a sad tale and briefly told. Elise went down, rent to pieces. Zhastar cast Protection from Evil on himself. Garazor (failing his turn effort, which JG eventually agreed to do) and Lannius were reduced to minus, Hruthnor was paralysed as was Akurath. The ghouls swept on; JG was overwhelmed by the tragedy that was unfolding, horrified by his party's inability to stop the ghouls. Realising in the end that he was looking at a TPK unless he did something, Alia and Alurax fled the scene. Zhastar was keeping the ghouls nearest him at bay with the Protection from Evil, but that only had a limited duration. As he was now surrounded and pinned against the wall by the ghouls, moving was no option as the ravening beasts would have moved with him, just outside his circle. The ghouls just waited....

Finally, his spell ran out and a horrible sound echoed in the ears of Alurax and Alia as they fled.



JG, not quite as blasé as he might have appeared in previous weeks, was in tears at this point. He picked himself up and, at a bit of a loss (as one often is after something like that) Alia and Alurax headed for one of the rooms that he had missed on his first session - the spider room (room 1 on level 1). He holed up there until the rest of the party reappeared, and then the two strongest lifted the grille.

Out came the spiders, one for each member of the party. Spider THAC0s are notoriously bad but nevertheless, some hits were bound to make it past the team’s defences and even with +2 on their saves, the party were whittled down - Alurax, Elise, Akurath, Hruthnor and Lannius all dying of poison bites. Alia and Zhastar, despite making some cracking to hits and damage rolls, were reduced to 0hp, and only Garazor was left standing. He performed manfully and despatched the final three spiders single-handed.

Again back up to full strength and with a couple of nice gems (the spider treasure) in their pouches, the party set off again, back down to level 2, where JG decided to check out some of the unexplored passageways on the map. He knew that there was one more token to find but had no idea where it was. The party found themselves going down the passageway to room 19, the water trap. Alurax and Lannius went in on their own. I diced to see if they set off the trap but no joy. Well, not for me, anyway. They found the holes and spotted the grille hung from the ceiling. Being half-elven and elven respectively, I tipped them the wink about some areas of floor looking a bit iffy (the equivalent of secret door location, for which they did get the roll) and JG warned the rest of the party not to come in. There was nothing else in there apart from the trap, and after a brief scout around, the party left again. They decided to rest up in room 22, an empty store room put there by a kindly dungeon designer in ages past.

Anyone counting will have worked out that the total death toll was eleven. A very high casualty rate, proving that ghouls are best attacked in a planned assault and spiders’ poison bites are not to be underestimated.

The wandering monster table is now getting very depleted, with a lot of the location-keyed monsters by now being dealt with. I am of the opinion that the Training Dungeon needs more wandering monsters, even if they are not tied to a particular location, because otherwise the players could get bored of wandering round empty corridors for hours on end. That is something that will be remedied in the second edition, plus more insights from the play-testing of Old 4 Eyes and his merry band.

Whilst on the subject of play-testing, if there is anyone out there who would like to run the Training Dungeon for their Junior Grognards, do please let me know and we'll see what we can arrange.

Ogre and Out - Training Dungeon session report

So, we arrived at the long hallway area on Level 2 between rooms 25 and 24 (see attached map). I'd decided not to make it a room in itself, and so there was nothing to detain the party there any longer than necessary. Off they went, around the loop until they eventually came to the door to room 25.

At this point, it’s best if I depart from the usual format and list in detail what was in room 25, for it plays an important part in what happened to the party therein.

Room 25

As the party enter this room, they will see, against the far wall, two huge statues flanking a stone sarcophagus. Above the sarcophagus is a large mirror with the frame in the shape of a snarling demon, horned head and bat-like wings.

The two statues stand on plinths and their arms are held rigidly as if clasping spears, but there are none to see.

The party, on examining the statues, may notice that there seem to be slight join lines where the body and arm meet. A character of average strength will be able to move the arm up or down. The combinations of arms up and down will produce the following effects (left hand statue arms 1 & 2, right hand statue arms 3&4)

1D
2U
3U
4U
Outcome 1
The mirror activates and shows a landscape withered and barren, the sky grey and threatening. In the distance, there appears to be some sort of cloud approaching. As the cloud gets nearer, it can be seen that it is made up of thousands of tiny flying things. The flying things are in fact a horrible swarm of insects who are the airborne equivalent of the 7th level druid spell, Creeping Doom. The party can try to smash the mirror (it will save vs. Normal Blow, a 15 or better means it does not break) or move the arms again but unless they get the second mirror outcome, the vision will still persist. 1d8 turns from the vision appearing, the insect plague will swarm into the room, attacking every living thing there. With the obvious results, unless the party does something.

1D
2D
3U
4U
Outcome 2
The sarcophagus slides back into the wall and below it is a skeleton (not undead) wearing what appears to be plate armour. If a detect magic is cast on it, it radiates magic, if an identify is cast on it, it is revealed to be +1 plate.

1U
2D
3D
4D
Outcome 3
Trap doors open at all three sides of the sarcophagus and whoever is standing on them is plunged via a chute into a pit below the ground, where a giant poisonous snake is waiting for them

AC5
HD 4+2
1 att
1-3 damage and poison

1U
2U
3D
4D
Outcome 4
The statues animate, step down off their plinths and start to walk around the room. They will do no deliberate damage to the party, although anyone standing in front of them may be trodden on. The plinths open to reveal some very nice magical treasures. The party have until the statues return to their plinths to get the treasures out.

1D
2D
3D
4U
Outcome 5
There is a hissing and from the statues’ mouths comes a gas that causes the same effect as a ray of enfeeblement to all who breathe it in. It will fill the chamber in 1d4 rounds, affecting those closest in 1 round, those next in line on round 2, those near the door on round 3 and those at the door on round 4. The effects wear off in an hour.

1U
2U
3U
4D
Outcome 6
A ray is projected from the eyes of the statues, hitting the party. Whoever fails to save vs. magic is shrunk to 1’ tall (only the person, not their belongings). This effect will wear off in a day.

1D
2D
3D
4D
Outcome 7
The sarcophagus opens and out climbs a skeleton warrior, armed with a bastard sword +1 and chain mail (AC5). The skeleton has 12 HP and a THAC0 of 17.

1U
2U
3U
4U
Outcome 8
The mirror animates and will show the party at some point in their future exploration of the dungeon. They will be shown getting the worse of the encounter in question, but sufficient detail will be available that they will be able to recognise the room when they come to it. This will hopefully enable them to spot a danger and avoid it in time. So for example, they could see one of their party being sucked into the green slime, or being dragged off by the zombies, or lying dead with wounds in their backs while bugbears laugh, or the carrion crawler dragging off the dead.

1D
2U
3D
4D
Outcome 9
The character with the highest charisma in the party becomes endowed with the ability to Charm Person or Monster for 1d4 encounters. He/she will of course not know the number of encounters to which this applies, nor when it will wear off.


1D
2U
3D
4U
Outcome 10
The eyes of the statues glow and emit a ray that turns every piece of metal in the possession of the party – monetary, armour and weapons to lead. This effect lasts for one hour, although the party will not know that.

1U
2D
3U
4U
Outcome 11
A randomly selected character’s hands glow a violent orange and will continue to do so for 1d3 hours. During this time, anything inanimate that the character touches with their hands will swell, bifurcate and become two identical items.

1U
2D
3U
4D
Outcome 12
A glow rises up from the floor and envelops the characters; for an hour afterwards, their every move is accompanied by a loud clanking and clanging noise that will make it impossible to move silently or hide anywhere. Wandering monsters will of course want to find out what’s making the noise.

1D
2D
3U
4D
Outcome 13
The weapon of every character in the party begins to glow with the same intensity as if it were under a Continual Light spell. This effect will last for six hours.




In they went, Garazor and Lannius failing their pick locks rolls and the door finally giving way to a shoulder from Alurax. Inside, they saw the sarcophagus, the mirror, the two statues. I thought I described the statues quite well, with mention of the join line between the arm and body but JG still decided to give them a good whamming with hammers and anything blunt. No effect. Finally, he grasped the notion that the arms could move up or down, and, with my encouragement, began to think about the possible combinations. Then they started to experiment. The first result was the one where the statues got off their plinths and walked around the room before returning again. JG and co were very quick about scooping the treasures out and had the plinth interiors cleared by the time the statues got back.
The next option they got was the one that released the skeleton swordsman, who leapt out and aimed a blow at one of the three nearest characters - this, decided by a d6 roll turned out to be Zhastar the hobbit.

Excellent! A skeleton swordsman with his priorities right - attack the hobbit first!

Blow me if he didn't miss by one (yes, even with the bonus). Up stepped Elise, rolled to hit and did so. JG chose this moment to claim the session's roll of the D30 - mainly out of novelty, methinks, but he was delighted when he rolled 16, the lucerne hammer smashing the skeleton to bits.
No-one thought to check that the sword was a +1 bastard sword, but they had little time to worry about that because the next option they got was the one that showed a possible future for the party, and the one I showed them was the party being overwhelmed by kobolds with an ogre taunting them with the stone token in his hand.
While they were still pondering that one, there came the sound of shuffling footsteps, followed by a banging on the door. Then more banging. And growling. JG and co spiked the door shut and prepared for battle. The door shook. The door shivered. The door splintered and in poured the ghouls. Garazor and Elise (I think Zhastar was skulking at the back - what a hero!) stepped forward with their holy symbols and did the turning speech. I paraphrased it for JG, in a bid to increase the role-playing aspect of the Training Dungeon thus

"Back, shambling corruption, grave-spawned minions of darkness, I banish you and command you return there at once, in the name of [insert your deity's name here]" And yes, I did that last bit in brackets as well.

Well, blow me if they didn't roll 17 and 19 respectively. The ghouls retreated. I rolled to see how many rounds they were gone for and decided that for that many, it would be more likely that they would return to the wandering monster table.
JG did one more try with the arms and managed to get the sarcophagus to slide back to reveal the skeleton in its suit of plate. He had no idea what it was, but deduced that it could be magic armour and put it onto Alurax, bravely so since I could have given it any number of curses. But no, Alurax was now AC1, although he didn't know it since I didn't give any details, just informed JG if any attacks hit or missed.
The party decided that they had chanced their luck enough now with the figures and set off down the long passageway towards room 16. At the far end, they saw a shadowy figure at the entrance to a big room, and Hruthnor got his crossbow out and shot the figure dead with no questions asked. Good job it wasn't friendly, just a kobold sentry. His dying rattle gave his colleagues time to grab weapons and head for the doorway just as Team Adventure came charging down the passageway.

I had visions of it being another meat-grinder like the battle at the crossroads, but JG had Alurax and Hruthnor at the front and the kobolds were falling like ninepins. They did manage to get some blows in and the thing about kobolds is that they don't do much damage with their hits but slowly and surely, those hits wear you down. Such happened to Hruthnor in the end, but before that, Lannius had lit and lobbed an oil bomb in and Elise had cast Affect Normal Fires. I ruled that this did double damage on the first round, and the impact managed to wipe out four kobolds. Team Adventure sent some arrows in to the waiting kobolds (JG getting a double 20 with an arrow, which probably meant the kobold got it straight in the eye or something) then - once the oil had burned down - they charged in.

By now of course, the ogre had come in to see what was going on and pushed his way to the front. He launched his attack on Alurax who, despite having AC1, got hit and badly so (8 damage), which took him down to -6. He was dragged out of the melee by Lannius who decided that he wanted to try the armour. Akurath stepped into the breach.
Now yes, Lannius is a thief and so I decided that he could wear the plate (albeit taking three rounds to get it off Alurax and onto him) but could do no thiefly activities in it. Because of the AC of the plate, and his DEX bonus, he was at AC -3, which mean virtually unhittable. But JG decided to send him in against the kobolds, rather than the ogre. Hmm.. anyway, the ogre made some truly crap rolls, three rounds without getting over 10 on a d20 (!) Bit by bit the ogre was whittled down, until at last he fell (he had 20 hp to begin with and Akurath got some good damage rolls - 7, 5, 3 and 8 if I read my notes correctly).

At that, the remaining kobolds fled. I can't remember which of JG's characters decided to fire at them as they went, but Garazor and his sling and bullets took down a couple.

I decided to end it there, as we had gone over time because I wanted to get the melee over. JG had a very good session, the party had turned undead, magical treasure had been found and he had his first ogre kill.

I'm beginning to think that Team Adventure in the 'real dungeons' might have to be limited to six characters, for two reasons - firstly that eight might be a little overpowered for 1st level dungeons, and secondly that, as I've already said, JG has trouble sorting out the paperwork for eight. With the lack of other young players, this situation seems likely to continue but what other option is there? He's getting a lot more familiar with his character sheets and the ways in which they can be used (so score one to the Training Dungeon) but sometimes the disarray is obvious and it's not fair on him to expect him to keep track of 8 lots of information. Still, we'll have to see what comes of it.

Rat Trap, or Who's that Ghoul?

It's just occured to me that it's been a while since the last session with Team Adventure got an airing on the blog. So, without further ado...

This entry is best read in conjunction with the map which can be found here.

You will recall that last session, after the finishing off of the two bugbear brothers, the team hunkered down in room 32 to recover their lost hit points. I don't know what it is about these particular sessions but getting the hp sorted, casting the cure lights and such like seems to take forever. It could be that JG now has eight characters to cope with and prefers, as he said at one point this session to 'just fight something'. They searched the bugbears' room, 31, and found, amongst the other loot, a golden chalice but this went into a backpack and was remarked about no longer.

Fully recovered, they set off along the corridor to room 35, where they were faced with a multiplicity of choices. Room 35 has no inhabitants, traps or tricks and yet, in a way is at the very centre of Level 3. They chose to try the door to room 34, and had no trouble opening it. Inside was a huge statue of a dragon, its snarling mouth open and pointing straight at the party. JG rushed off to make a model of the dragon statue out of Lego when I told him what was there. Three characters had gone in when my rolls indicated that one of them had triggered the trap. Hiss went the dragon breath and Garazor, Alia and the hobbit failed their saves vs. breath weapon. I rolled the damage, and found that Garazor and Alia were at zero and the hobbit went down to -7.

JG knew, for I had mentioned it, that a pressure pad on the floor was the cause of this, but thought that the entire floor was a trap. Lannius tied an iron spike to a piece of rope and tossed it across the room to the far entrance where his high Dex ensured that it snagged onto a crack in the stone. With Hruthnor holding the other end, making it a tightrope just above the floor level, Lannius shimmied across it. I thought that this was such a neat idea that I ruled each person had to make a dex save per 10 feet, which made two saves in total. Only two character failed their saves and at once got back on the rope and scurried across. No damage ensued because they were nowhere near the pressure pad.

JG, rather pragmatically, left the three incapacitated characters behind and pressed on. They moved on down towards room 37, entered and saw a pile of rubble in the far corner. Deciding that this warranted attention, they approached. Suddenly, over the stones came 15 giant rats, flinging themselves at the party. Despite only doing 1-3 points of damage per attack and having a THAC0 of 20, they managed to hit Lannius (that happens very rarely) and brough Alurax down to -1. Well, he only has 4hp to begin with.

The rats were eventually despatched, proving wearing and worthy opponents. The party headed on, down and around a big loop of corridor, eventually finding their way back to room 35. I had been rolling for wandering monsters but as you will recall, the table is getting emptier and emptier and no-one put in an appearance.

Back at the figurative crossroads, JG decided on the room that I'd been dreading them going into - 33. I knew that this had eight ghouls inside, but the party were unaware of this. They got to the door and started to investigate. Lannius reported a foul smell, and JG immediately thought "Carrion Crawler". They got the door open and from the darkness came a stronger smell and the sound of shuffling feet and growling. They slammed the door shut and started to iron spike it closed. Thumps and bangs from the other side of the door convinced them to hurry and whilst they were doing that, Garazor, Alia and Zhastur arrived. Garazor had used a Cure Light on himself, then cured Zhastur, who had reciprocated, bringing the three of them to full HP.

With 'something' banging on the door and nobody wanting to find out what it was, the party headed back to room 31, which they knew was safe, to rest up and recover their strength. Again, the iron spikes came out to prevent unwanted intruders.

Finally fully recharged, Team Adventure set off again, passing by room 35 and noticing that the door to 33 had been riven to shards of splintered wood. Whatever had been inside was inside no longer.

(I ruled that the ghouls have now taken the goblins' slot on the Wandering Monster table). JG has no idea what they are or where they are.

They now headed off towards the blank spot on the map, rooms 27 and 26. The door to 27 was locked and Lannius was about to open it when Garazor grumbled about not having had a go this session (or indeed, at all). Lannius stepped aside and let Garazor have a go. Garazor fluffed his roll. Lannius rolled and got a 03. The door clicked open. They found themselves in a room facing a table covered in dusty potion bottles. JG moved Lannius straight to the table and started picking up the bottles. Dismayed at his lack of caution, yet knowing that there was no threat, I decided to teach him a lesson, and started rolling dice by the handful, asking him exactly where the character was standing, what was his AC, etc. Cue dread and fear on JG's part, then I dropped the pretence and told him that nothing had happened, but not to go rushing in next time.

They pocketed the potions, having forgotten about Identify in the dead magic user's spell book (while I was waiting for JG to finish looking at the potions, I was reading up Identify and I'll have to have a good long look at that, because it doesn't look like an easy spell to adjudicate). Beyond this room was a locked door into room 26. Garazor had another go at the locked door to this room and failed, and Lannius did his trick again, rolling 08.

This room contained a puzzle. Briefly put, it was a case of matching small counters in a box with both the colour and shape required on slots in the wall. I thought that it would be reasonably challenging, but by no means impossible for a 6.5. year old. I drew it out on a piece of paper, but in retrospect, it might have been better to do it in coloured pencils. With a little gentle guidance from Mummy Grognard, who I'd enlisted for that purpose, JG got the puzzle and was rewarded with the appearance of a replica of the pillar that they had encountered in the treasure room, 36. The replica showed the pillar with the stone tokens in place and their correct order, but as well as that, the missing two were shown with their designs on.

The first two, having been found with the wolves and the water weird, had a wolf and snake on respectively. The missing two had a wave design and the best attempt at an ogre head I could manage. JG now knows roughly where to look for the last two tokens, and has sussed that level two is the place to go. He also recalled, without prompting from myself that they had seen a side opening on the way down the shaft to the third level but that, at the time, they had passed it by.

He returned to room 29, where they had fought the centipedes and found the room empty and the rope still hanging there. Their climb to the second level was about to begin.

It was there that I left it. I was quite pleased with the way that it had gone today, despite no figures with the exception of the party having made it out of the box. That may well change next week when they hit the meaty stuff on the 2nd level.

It occured to me that the ghouls could be reasonably quickly despatched with the clever use of dungeon geography and the use of Protection from Evil spells. Have a cleric at each end of a straight bit of corridor, casting their Protection from Evil and using these as a block for the ghouls, who cannot pass the magic circle (see MM entry). The rest of the party, using missile weapons and oil flasks, just send arrows and oil bombs past and over the heads of the clerics and turn that stretch of corridor into a killing zone (if you can call it that when the ghouls are already dead). No holy water available (well, not in the quantities required for splash damage and such like) but if there were, it would just add to the butchery. The ghouls would be so closely packed that even those not directly hit would be caught by splash damage, and that's no mean amount. And let's not forget that the three MU-classed characters (Alurax, Elise and Alia) could cast Affect Normal Fires to add to that cosy glow of roasting ghouls.

Well, that was about all for this session. Oh yes, they did encounter a wandering kobold down near room 36 but he spotted the party and ran for it rather than face them. Sensible fellow.

The Training Dungeon - more vict..er, sorry, players

I had a great bit of news yesterday when my good buddy Old 4 Eyes let me know that he'd finally managed to persuade his medium-sized boy, formerly a devotee of video games and Pokemon (1gp in the swear box) to roll up some characters and give my Training Dungeon a try.

I'm delighted and a little nervous to see what they will make of it. New readers should check out my Training Dungeon adventure logs to catch up with Team Adventure's efforts to clear it out.

Old 4 Eyes is thinking of running it with Castles and Crusades or possibly Hackmaster. I guess that shows the adaptability of the dungeon, and I hope he makes a great success of it.

I've been in regular contact with him for about eight months now and he's seen the gestation and development of this project. Feedback from the adventure logs has enabled him to hone and adapt it for his players. I had always hoped that others would take it on and test it on their Junior Grognards. I'm very happy that he was the first.

The Training Dungeon - creepy-crawlies and a descent into the depths of the earth

We start in room 2, the old goblin chamber where the party was resting up after the previous week’s exertions. The clerics got their Cure Lights ready, a bless, a protection from evil and a couple of others, the MUs learned up sleep, affect normal fires and detect magic.
After consulting the map, they finally sussed that the route to room 13 was the way to go and off they went, arriving at the door to find that it was not locked. Few are in this dungeon. They listened, but Lannius failed his hear noise roll and they opened the door to find a scene of decay and carnage. Bits of bodies, rotting flesh, bones. Slowly, they edged into the room and someone made a hear noise roll, result - a slithering scuttling from overhead. At which point, party members actually looked up and there it was a - a nine-foot scurrying worm shape, heading their way across the ceiling and down the wall.
It was at this point that the party did the last thing that I'd expected - they ran away. Specifically, they dived back through the door and shut it. They heard the noise of tentacles hitting the door and Hruthnor and Alurax readied their missile weapons.
"We open the door" said JG.
"How?" I asked "You've both got your hands full of bows"
After much prompting, Lannius tied a wire loop to the end of his 10' pole and used that to pull the door open. Through came the Carrion crawler and lunged for the two front members. Bows twanged and the CC got an arrow in the head. I should point out at this point that the CC only had 10hp (bad rolls on my part) but that didn't stop it heading straight for Hruthnor and hitting with four of its eight tentacles. The dwarf hadn't helped matters by getting a fumble (two 1s on the trot) whilst switching from xbow to axe, which meant his favourite weapon skittled across the floor. As the CC entwined a now-paralysed Hruthnor in his tentacles and started to turn to scurry off, the blows rained down and pretty soon the CC was a pile of sticky bits, some of those bits still attached to a paralysed dwarf.
I must admit, having looked again at the stats, that a single CC is actually a poor match for seven 1st levellers. The tentacle attack is all it has - I assume that once it's paralysed its victim, it scurries off to have a munch. The description doesn't give much else away, not even how long the paralysation lasts. Incidentally, this led to an amusingly cyclical conversation with JG, something along the lines of
"No, JG, Hruthnor can't move"
"What, not at all?"
"No, not at all"
"Why not?"
"Because he's paralysed"
"What does that mean?"
"It means he can't move"
Groundhog Day in the dungeon!

The party split into two - Alurax, Akurath, Lannius and Garazor searching the room for treasure and finding nothing, Elise, Alia, Zhastur the hobbit and the paralysed dwarf near the door.
The former managed eventually to find the secret door, Alurax being an elf, therefore having a 2 in 6 chance of spotting a secret door if actively looking.

Meanwhile, a roll on the wandering monster chart (now bereft of goblins) had revealed that the evil cleric and his zombie minions were on the prowl, looking for new recruits. All that Elise, who was rearguard, could hear were whispers, mutterings and footsteps coming out of the dark. She mentioned this to JG, and there was a great deal of indecisiveness on the part of the party (except for Elise, who decided to move everyone into the CC room and close the door). JG wanted to attack, which would have been an interesting fight, but sager heads kept quiet and heard the approaching footsteps and then a muttered "Hmm, what did this?" as the cleric found the remains of the CC. Footsteps went away again.

Eventually, the party made it to room 14, after I had ruled that a couple of CLWs would restore Hruthnor. There, they found the a ten foot by ten foot shaft. Going down....er, not exactly. Elise went down on the 50' rope, only to find that halfway down the shaft there was another opening. She hung around while JG struggled to think about what to do. Eventually, she was pulled back up again and the party set off on the big loop of passageway that goes up and over room 14 to come back on the central north-south passageway. Elise had got a bit bored by now, and was hanging around the shaft room while the rest of the party were following the passageway until they rounded a corner and came face to face with 5 wandering kobolds.

It strikes me that an easy way to clear the dungeon would be to stay on level 1 and wait for the monsters to come to you, four or five at a time. Eventually, you'd have killed them all and could go and pick up the treasure without any risk.
In the fight, the party managed to wipe out the kobolds but Garazor went to 0hp. He gave himself a cure light and got all his HPs back again.
Meanwhile, Elise heard the approach of the evil cleric and zombie friends again. She decided to catch up with the party and let them know what she had heard. (Classic Dialogue coming up)

JG said "We're being followed....we retreat!"

In a rather circuitous fashion, the party arrived back in room 14, all deciding to go right to the bottom of the shaft rather than mess around with the opening halfway down. They arrived in room 29, whereupon they were confronted by a door. Lannius and Hruthnor decided to burst down the door and managed to make their saves vs. DEX, so they were on their feet when the giant centipedes attacked.
Killing one with every hit (I didn't even make them roll for damage, as the centipedes only have 1-2 hp, although a critical hit on a centipede should be something to see), they were soon working their way through the nasty little beasts, although as there were two per character, both Lannius and Hruthnor were pretty soon beleaguered. In strode Garazor and Akurath to lend a hand. Bad move.

As there were more characters fighting, the centipedes had more frontage to attack and so the pincers nipped and bit. Soon Hruthnor, Akurath and Garazor failed their saves, even with a +4 bonus (I ruled that the weakness of the poison meant not that you were ill if you failed your save, but that the save bonus reflected the rarity of fatal results). This result revised my opinion of giant centipedes as the most rubbish monster in the MM. Despite this, JG was not downhearted and pressed on with wiping out the centipedes. The good thing is that we'll not see them on the wandering monster roll any more.

They moved out of room 28 and soon found a blocked passage, complete with heavy rocks. JG correctly deduced, without any help form Daddy Grognard that he needed to add up the STR ratings from the party to see if they could move them and although I did roll for wandering monsters whilst they were doing it, nothing came along.

Once past that obstacle, they found a corridor that ran around a central chamber. The doors resisted attempts by Lannius to pick them, but the combination of Alurax and Lannius burst one open and they were confronted with a stone pillar on which were four slots. JG realised that the four slots corresponded to the four tokens, two of which he had, but without all four, he knew that he could do nothing and off the party went.

They were now going down a long passage towards room 30. There, at the end, they saw a shadowy figure, which they soon recognised as an orc sentry. It had not seen them, but it soon knew they were there when Alurax sent an arrow into it. With one hit point remaining, the orc shouted at the top of its voice that there were intruders attacking. With only five characters remaining, this meant that they were faced by ten orcs, but JG was reluctant to rush in and instead sent arrow after arrow at them. The orcs soon realised that they were sitting targets for the archery and charged in, waving their swords. In the first round of combat, Alurax went down and two orcs were toppled. I then hinted to JG that perhaps he had some resource that he was neglecting to use, some...er..magical resource. He (figuratively) slapped his head and recalled that Alia had a sleep spell learned (so the lesson about remembering which spells his casters had clearly paid off). A quick incantation and behold, the orcs were snoring. And then a quick dagger or two from Alia and Lannius and the orcs were dead.

Another one crossed off the wandering monster list.

There was a mysterious shaft in one corner of the room, which even the orcs had been reluctant to investigate. They went down it anyway, as JG tossed down the bodies, having first of course looted them. This was his introduction to electrum pieces, garnering in total about 100gp worth.

DMing kids is great - you can toss them 100gp and they think that they've won the lottery. I expect XP will be something similar. You can imagine it - "We slaughtered those orcs, how many XP did we get?"
"Oh, a hundred and fifty"
"A hundred and fifty? Wicked!"

They set off up one of the corridors out of the orc chamber and soon found a mysterious alcove. JG had remembered to look up as well as around when exploring a room and realised that there was a shaft in the ceiling. They sent Lannius up. Although he's got a Climb Walls of 85%, he rolled a 92 and fell ten feet, taking 4HP of damage. One occasion that his AC2 didn't help him. This provoked a certain reluctance on the part of the thief to have another go and so they decided to press on, around the corner and along to a staggered crossroads. At this point I rolled on the (increasingly empty) wandering monster list and up came "Party of Adventurers". I ruled that this was Garazor, Akurath and Hruthnor back from the start again.
It was just as well that they were up to eight again, because they headed up to room 32. They arrived to find four bodies lying on the floor.

I had set this up as an ambush scenario. Two bugbear brothers in room 31 had laid out the bodies, planting them with money and items in the hope that anyone finding the bodies would be too interested in looting to worry about watching their backs. So it transpired.

The party spotted the bodies and were immediately searching and checking to see what they had on them. I watched carefully and noted that they were all facing away from the door. So the bugbears burst in and attacked, taking out Zhastur the hobbit. One missed Alia on his first attack (yes, a bugbear missing AC10) but he made up for it on round 2 when he floored her, sending her to -1.
Then the fight was on. With the MU out of action, there was no-one to drag the party members back to safety and their survival depended on getting the bugbears killed before the wounded reached -10. Each bugbear had 18hp (a coincidence as I rolled them up) and those hp took a long time whittling down. Akurath and Alurax were brought to zero but no lower, and the rest of the party flung itself into the fight. Elise was next to get knocked down and finally, one of the bugbears fell. The survivor was backed against the wall but three characters (Garazor, Hruthnor and Lannius) were too great a match for it. It did hit Hruthnor for 8 points of damage but the doughty dwarf, with one HP remaining, bellowed out (in true King Leonidas style) "I...am...Hruthnor!" (okay, I did that bit) and swung his axe.
JG rolled a 20.
And another 20.
I just declared that the bugbear's head went flying off. (he only had 2hp left). I think that Hruthnor Butterfingers is well and truly forgotten.
And that's where we ended it.

Things that I’m learning about the TD

Carrion crawlers need to be committed in groups of 3 - or 1 per 2 party members. They are just too easily killed on their own. Also, the way that they are used and the places in which they live might be better considered. If they came out of holes in the walls or tiny passages and dragged their victims back down said holes, the party might have to go down after them, leading to an interesting session of fighting in confined spaces. The carrion crawler’s tentacles would be a more fearsome weapon if there was no way that the party could get round its flank.

The ideal party size for the TD is six. Eight is perhaps a little too overwhelming, and I don’t mean just from a paperwork point of view. Either that or up the odds a little. Maybe up the orc ratio to 3 per character.

Despite his young age, JG is acting very much as a player would be expected to act. Which is heartening. And he’s getting used to the dice that he needs and where to look on his character sheets for information.

In fact, as a DM running dungeons for kids, that’s the one thing that I would say needs sorting – much as I love the old goldenrod character sheets we used back in the day, they are overly complex for kids to read. Something nice and simple, with the to hits, the hp, AC and saves laid out in large script. I use, as I’ve already mentioned, the Dragonsfoot character generator and the sheet it prints out, with a little extra info on, could work just fine for youngsters’ character sheets. It really only needs the to hits, weapon damage and a note of the hp.

I’m also thinking of approaching the local school and seeing if we can’t get a small room at the next school fair (probably Easter or the summer) to set up a demo game with JG and perhaps a couple of his little friends. There’s nothing like seeing a game in action to whet the appetite either of those who used to play or kids who will be interested in the figures and the funny shaped dice (plus the home-made DM’s shield).



I have a good stack of pre-gens for anyone who wants a (very) quick start and there are several introductory dungeons for low-level beginners’ parties.

Now where did I put that copy of The Grinding Gear?

Talk to the axe - 'cause the dwarf ain't listening!

From previous sessions, it will be recalled that the party was approaching room 7, haunt of the water weird. They all filed in and spotted the treasure under the water, but sensibly didn't disturb the pool itself, being more interested in the door on the far side of the room.

(DG memo to self - if you don't want the party to disturb something in a room, put a closed door on the far side, it seems to draw them like moths to a flame)

They opened the door, no traps there, and found within a statue of a nymph, her feet encased in the stone of the plinth. As they approached the statue, a magic mouth appeared and recited the following rhyme.

You see my whole enchained in stone
I flowed but flow no longer
Though my will to be free is strong
That which chains me is much stronger
Water bound by earth
The battle won or seems it so
But those with strength enough and arms
Can start again my flow
And ‘neath my feet, unseen
There lies, yours free to take
A precious gift that may lend
Aid in your struggle with the watery snake.

JG put two and two together about the watery snake, concluding that the bones in the pool were indeed its previous victims. They set to smashing the pedestal and as the statue’s feet were freed, it turned into a woman made of water, who then cascaded to the floor and flowed into the ground. In the rubble, the party found a flask which, although they didn’t know it, contained a potion of purify water. JG at once realised that it could be used to fight the water weird.



Back they went into the fountain room, and while the water weird was forming up (two melee rounds, apparently, according to MM), JG let it have it with the potion - result, one dead water weird. JG quickly scooped the coins out and found the second token as well; I got him to add up the total of the gold pieces he's now got, using his maths skills to get the answers right - another educational plus for D&D! (he can also keep track of his HPs as well - good number skills)

From there, they managed to find their way down towards room 5, where there lay in wait a bubbling pit of green slime. There were two narrow walkways to a platform, ten feet by ten feet.

I should add at this point that JG had got Alia the MU to memorise unseen servant.

They arrived at the 'northern' door, the walkway from which required only one Dex check to reach the platform, rather than the ‘western door’ which would have required four.

Hruthnor, Alurax, Akurath and Lannius went across, Lannius missing one roll and making his balancing roll just in time.

Ten feet across the slime was a wall carving, in the middle of which appeared to be something resemblign a tiny keyhole. They managed to work out, with a little help from Daddy Grognard, that they could use the ten foot pole to get one of Lannius' tools across to the panel with the keyhole, but although Lannius made his pick locks roll, they had no plan in place to catch the gems and they all plopped into the green slime. At least no characters went with them, although Lannius was sent on the Walk of Slime back to the 'western' door, and this time managed to make his DEX roll four times. Some time later, JG was reminded that the MU had unseen servant and had he remembered this, I would probably have ruled that said servant could have caught the gems. He wasn't too happy when he realised this.

Having had the completed sections on the map filled in for him, JG set off again, this time up the winding bit towards the skull and hands room (3 & 4). As they rounded the bend, they came face to face with three wandering orcs, who waded in with cries of "Death to the humans" (well, something like that, given that the two lead characters were a dwarf and an elf - not too bright, those orcs). The resultant melee was quite bloody, with Alurax going down and Hruthnor being reduced to 1hp. Elise the C/Mu got a cracking hit in with the lucerne hammer, more or less smashing one orc's skull to bits all over the wall of the passageway. But the orcs were eventually sliced and diced, and on went Team Adventure.

They got to the junction and spotted two shadowy figures up by the crossroads. It was two goblins with bows, keeping an eye on things for their mates in room 2. I had planned for them to send a couple of arrows in the party's direction and 'persuade' them to move on to rooms 13 and 14, and the descent to the next level. However, things backfired and JG ordered a charge, with Elise and Lannius in the vanguard. A couple of arrows whistled past them and battle was joined.

To cut a long story short, more and more goblins joined the fray from room 2 (you will remember that there were originally 21 and 4 had been slept and killed by Team Adventure in session 1, leaving 17). One by one the party members were brought down to minus HPs, and were dragged back to be brought round by Alia the MU. First Elise went down, followed by Akurath. Hruthnor was being kept on the bench by the manager, having only 1hp to begin with.



In leapt the hobbit, holding the breach, while Lannius (with AC2) was dodging the goblin blades like Jackie Chan. Then the hobbit took 8hp of damage and was at -6. Despite only three goblins left, JG was looking at the likelihood of a TPK. It was time for the arrival of a saviour with a bendy sword and a fresh set of HPs.

"Need any help, human?" he asked, and when the answer was in the affirmative, he weighed in and the party (well, what was left of it) finished off the remaining goblins.

It was a very long and epic combat, a real old-fashioned meat-grinder with a lot of rounds where no-one actually hit (this often happens at 1st level). I did give JG a couple of chances to leg it, but he stuck with it and managed to wipe out all the goblins in the TD. Result!

The newcomer was a half-orc Cl/Th named Garazor, supplied by my good buddy Old 4 Eyes, who had been following the adventure by e-mail and wanted to vicariously participtate.

Following Garazor’s advice, they are now hunkering down in room 2 for the night. They'll need at least 8 hours, for the respective clerics to get their cure lights back, get the hp levels back up and restock on spells for the next session. Which will contain a tough monster indeed, although the sheer dogged determination that JG displays makes me think that he is a dwarf at heart.

The nymph’s riddle went well. I was concerned that JG might not work it out, but he seemed to get it with a modicum of effort. Wandering monsters caused some problems and the DM's plans went slightly awry, although it ended the session with a melee to remember. I was very pleased that we didn't get a TPK at the crossroads, although there were some very lucky rolls that avoided that and the timely arrival of a certain half-orc.

It's all fun and games till someone loses three characters (Training Dungeon, Session 2)

We started at room 11 (see map above), where, as you'll remember, the party was holed up at the end of the previous session. JG decided to get the two wounded characters healed up with Elise's two remaining Cure Lights. Then, rather than wait another four hours to get the two clerics full of Cure Lights again, he set off for the crossroads and room 9. A quick instruction about ten foot poles and checking for traps and they were in. Inside the room was a set of strange carvings on the wall at the point marked A.

The party approached the carvings but despite my putting a pressure pad trap at X, perhaps assuming (counter-intuitively) that the party would not walk straight down the middle of the room, that's just what they did. Ah well, sometimes DMs think too far ahead of the party.

The trap would have closed the door to the corridor. A strange chanting would have started, and the carvings would have been illuminated by an eerie phosphorescence. In order to open the door to the corridor, the party would need to solve the puzzle, which required a total of 36 INT but there was a chance that even if they did this, the door to room 12 would open, allowing a horde of skeletons out.

The four characters that stood at A, looking at the carvings had a total intelligence of 50, so it didn't take them long to work out what buttons to press, regardless of the fact that the door to the corridor wasn’t actually shut. However, they still managed to set off the part that opened the door from 12, and the skeletons were revealed.

(I should add here that although one of the maxims of Old School play is ‘test the players, not the characters’, I have a problem thinking up puzzles and tricks that can challenge a player’s intelligence. I’ll be blogging on this soon).

The two clerics (Elise, a Cl/Mu and Zhastar the hobbit) rushed forward and managed to turn eight of the fourteen skeletons advancing. The other six weighed in and it was a tough fight. First, the hobbit rolled a 1 on his to hit, so I asked for another roll and he got another 1. Footman's mace went spinning across the room. Elise was swinging left and right with her lucerne hammer, smashing bits and pieces off skeletons. Up stepped Alurax, about to find out the hard way about edged weapons and skeletons.

Next round, down went the hobbit. Alia the MU dragged him to safety, and up stepped Hruthnor, deciding that half a battle axe is better than no battle axe at all. The doughty party whittled down the skeletons while the skeletons whittled them down. Alurax went next, and Lannius Light-finger moved in to fill the breach. Note the edged weapons here, not a good thing. Eventually the six skeletons at the door were despatched, but by now, the other eight were advancing again.

JG chose to have Elise's cleric carry on with the lucerne hammer rather than try to turn them again and make a hasty retreat. Soon she fell to the bony advance. Hell, that MU was doing a lot of binding and resuscitating. Hruthnor, Lannius and Akurath Bladestrong finally managed to prove that while sticks and stones may break bones, swords and axes do just as well, only a little slower. A couple of criticals did help during the melee.

With the party licking its wounds and three of the seven on zero hit points, JG decided to take the three fit and standing PCs (who were all down on their HPs) off on a jaunt of their own, splitting the party. Lannius, Hruthnor and Akurath set off down the corridor from room 9 and turned down towards room 8. In there, they found four sleeping wolves seemingly guarding four clay pots hung from hooks on the walls.

Lannius decided to try and do a move silently. He had a 20% chance but rolled 24 and the first wolf woke and went for him. At the sound of combat, the other wolves woke, but before they could all rush Lannius, the two dwarves had charged in and joined the battle.

Well, you remember the lucky rolls last week. This week it was "the dice are trying to kill me". Wolves with 2+2 HD (HPs of 13, 13, 7 and 13 respectively) THAC0 of 16 (I thought that this was pretty good, perhaps too good but it was the figure from the summary at the back of the DMG) and the lucky dice this time were a bit too much for the dwarves with their ACs of 5, and they went to minus pretty quickly. All four wolves then turned on Lannius (AC2), who had the good sense to back into a corner, allowing only three to get at him. But alas, he too fell.

At this point, JG (who is very taken with Hruthnor) burst into tears. I consoled him with some Daddy DM words of "It happens to us all, mate" and assured him that the three characters, it being a training dungeon, would reappear at the start again.

Curiously, whilst the zero-HP characters were resting up the four hours to get their spells back and some chance of healing, I'd done some wandering monster rolls. In the first hour, the evil cleric lurking deeper in the dungeon and two of his zombies had passed by (no reason for him to go into what is in effect a ruined chapel when he knows that any dead bodies in there are going to turn into skeletons) and in the third hour, I got a roll for adventurers, so I deemed it appropriate that the three previously dead characters were the ones who happened by.

Cure Lights at the ready, all characters back up to full strength, off they went, eager for revenge on the wolves. By now the wolves were not sleeping but were on edge - down the corridor came Team Adventure, weapons at the ready. I deemed that the wolves still had the damage from earlier, to make it a bit fairer on the team - not that they needed any help as JG's dice luck had changed, along with his dice (he’d swapped sets). The wolves were swiftly despatched, Hruthnor lopping the head off one (8 damage on a wolf that only had 7 to start with) and Lannius chasing one badly-wounded one (1hp left) across the room until it turned in the far corner and went for him. Bad dog.

So, to sum up, Wolves lost on the replay. (Okay, English football joke, apologies for the parochialism).

Well, after that, there was nothing to do apart from break open the clay jars. Imagine JG's delight when he found one of the four tokens therein. He remembered who had told him about them (spirit-possessed skeleton in room 3) and knew how important a discovery this was. In fact a high-five between player and DM was in order. Father-son bonding moments are good.

From there, they made their way back up the corridor and down the one that leads to room 7. Halfway down the corridor, I rolled for wandering monsters and up came two giant centipedes. A further boost to JG's confidence as Hruthnor and Alurax pinned the beasties to the floor with a crossbow bolt and an arrow respectively.

(Giant centipedes must be put in dungeons for their nuisance value alone - 1-2 hp and a bite which you can save at +4 - world's weediest monster?)

And it was at the threshold of room 7 that I chose to halt it for this week. Next week, I need to put on my poet's hat again and devise a rhyme for the nymph statue which waits for them in room 6, which should give them clues as to how to handle these two rooms.

What was learned – JG experienced character death for the first time. Although he cried, as I knew he would (a heart-wrenching moment for me as well, thinking 'Is he up to this?') I think that it made him a stronger player. The demise of one of his favourite characters fired him up for revenge. In recent conversations that I’ve had with him, he seems totally reconciled to the notion that a character death in what I’ve taken to calling ‘real dungeons’ as opposed to the soft-cornered Training Dungeon merely means a new one has to be rolled up. And that’s cool.

The party also encountered undead for the first time, and I had to explain the process of turning. With the second group of skeletons, JG decided to have Elise the cleric weigh in with her hammer rather than try and turn them. He seems to have cottoned on to the fact that blunt weapons are the best thing to use against skeletons, but not the crucial part that clerics play in the battle against the walking bones.

JG still has the urge to hurtle off with low HPs and a lack of spells. And on this occasion, he split the party, to his ultimate detriment. But that’s what the Training Dungeon is all about.

Training dungeon - the first session

Sunday afternoon, about three o'clock. All the books were out, the dice bags were ready, two shiny new sets sent to us by my good buddy Old 4 Eyes, and my trusty set, no two alike, carefully kept over the years and now ready to roll again. My son, Junior Grognard (hereafter referred to as JG) had his character sheets, pencil and figures out.

I had written the following introduction for him, setting the scene so that the notion of the VR Training Dungeon would be explained. In the end, it didn't get used, because I judged that he was eager to get into the dungeon and reading this would slow it down. I include it here for interest.

Introduction.

You are villagers and peasants in a small settlement a few days' travel from the city of Stonegarth Hold, which some of you have visited once or twice on the great market days. The city is a cross-roads for travellers from many lands, warriors and mystics, magicians and priests, barbarians and - on rare occasions - elves and dwarves.

You have seen adventurers pass through your settlement on many occasions, but these tough and hardy fighters and magicians seem to come from another world. They have no time for ordinary folk like yourselves - their minds are filled with tales of monsters, danger, treasure and mystery. Stories that they tell at the local tavern, where you have eavesdropped on those rare occasions when you could get away with it tell of lost temples, brave knights, dragons from thousands of years ago, something called The Empire of the Snake (everyone shushes anyone who mentions that), mighty wizards, treasures worth thousands of gold pieces, things that refuse to die and stalk the distant lands. If nothing else, these stories give the adventurer who tells them a round of free drinks. You and your friends play out these stories for days afterwards, all the time wondering if they are true, and what the life of an adventurer is really like. It must be more exciting than endless days of sheep shearing, milking cows, ploughing and weeding, watching another year go by.

Then one day, on the eve of the autumn fair, when tinkers and traders, knife-sharpeners and apothecaries, vagrants and would-be workers come into the village to do business, you see a battered wagon, a tent beside it and the sign that reads

"Enter an exciting world of sorcery, monsters and treasure"

You cannot help but wander over. An old man is busy reading from a musty old book while a curious crowd looks on. Nearby whispers about him mention Stonegarth Hold, wizards, dangerous spells and even mention of Palintor, supposedly the greatest city in the world. It's said that anyone can buy anything there - if they have enough money. All you have is a handful of silver pieces, saved over the weeks in case there is anything good at the fair.

This looks good.

The old man glances up at you. He asks if you're interested in finding out what it's like to be an adventurer. He can see by your reactions that you would. He tells you that there is no need to worry - he can show you what you want to know and you won't even have to leave the village. You look down glumly at the silver coins in your hand. He smiles and tells you that whatever you have, that's how much it'll cost.

You and your friends glance at each other. It has to be more exciting than watching old Gilessa and her boring conjuring tricks or Ref the tinker and his so-called singing dog.

He invites you into the cart, where there are several dusty old chairs, and gestures for you to sit down. Then, from a cupboard he takes a bundle, wrapped in black cloth. You wonder what it is. He closes the door of the cart and tells you to get ready for adventure. Then he takes off the cloth. He holds in his hand a glowing orange gem the size of a child's head. As you look at it, the light gets stronger. You cannot pull your eyes away. Suddenly, there is a flash and when you can see again, you find that you are no longer in the cart, but on a hillside. Nearby is what looks like the entrance to a tunnel, surrounded by old and moss-covered stone. You look at your friends, who are now wearing armour and strange robes, carrying backpacks and swords. Dream or illusion, magic or whatever - it feels so real and you decide to see what is inside the tunnel entrance.

Not going with that, I quickly laid out the first corridor. The party set off from the entrance and soon reached a crossroads. They turned right, towards a large room. This was keyed as being the haunt of a band of goblin raiders but a die roll indicated that they were out and had left only a small, 4-strong presence. JG wanted to steam in and attack, but I had Alia the MU mention that she had a sleep spell and thought that would be better to take them out. Which she did - zonk, down they went. Alurax ran in and killed all four.

He was delighted when I informed him that he had garnered 20gp of coins from the mattresses and sacks scattered about the room, less so when he realised, after I had pointed it out, that there were mattresses enough for 21 goblins and they had only encountered four so far. They returned to the crossroads, went straight across and this time headed down towards a smaller room, where they found a metal grille in the floor and noticed that something was glinting and glittering below.

They took so long trying to work out who was going to try and open the grille and how it should be done that I decided to do some wandering monster rolls and sure enough, a group of 5 kobolds came marching up the corridor from deeper into the dungeon. Alurax and Akurath, the dwarf with the sword launched into the attack. It didn't take long - I think JG rolled a 20 on his second roll of the attack dice and Akurath's rolls were similarly good. The dwarf took 4hp of damage from a determined spear thrust by a kobold that had dropped to 1hp on the first round but had hung on in there and refused to die. He fell eventually.

The party made its way down the way the kobolds had come to another turn-off. I noticed that they seemed to have completely forgotten (in the excitement of their first melee) about the glittering gems below the metal grille. The spiders will have to wait for their dinner.

They arrived at the turning, and saw two doors down the side passage. The party chose the further of the two. Lannius checked for traps and found none - Alurax then kicked the door open to be confronted by an old man in chains. As they came towards him, he fell apart and his hands and skull launched their attack. Alurax dodged and struck and one hand was shattered into its component bones. Unfortunately, even with AC2, Lannius still got hit by the second hand and his CON started to drop. Meanwhile, the skull headed for the door, keen to get in on the action. Outside were Hruthnor and the hobbit, Zhastar. The latter cast a protection from evil and the skull decided it wanted a taste of dwarf instead. Hruthnor was having none of this and swung his battle axe, scoring a hit and doing 8 points of damage. As the skull only had 6 to begin with, it was well and truly shattered. Alurax then managed to get a hit on the hand fastened around Lannius' neck but not before the thief had lost another point of CON (down to 11) The hand succumbed and the party withdrew to congratulate itself and regroup.

Behind the other door was a manacled skeleton, wearing the remants of stout adventuring gear. This provoked immediate suspicion, considering what they had just faced, but it swiftly became apparent that there was no danger. With glowing eyes, it rose up and explained that it was the mortal remains of an adventurer that had come to the dungeon seeking the treasure hoard at its heart. But death was his only reward and in return for the party swearing to give his bones a proper funeral so that his spirit could move on, he told them that they needed to gather four tokens, currently scattered around the dungeon. Only these would enable them to claim the treasure.

After this, the party headed off down a long tunnel, down which a strong wind was blowing; their torches blew out and they were plunged into darkness. Elise the Cl/Mu cast light and this guided them to the turn-off to amother room. As they approached the door and tried to open it, there was a voice from inside, saying 'Stay back or we shoot!'

This was like a red rag to a bull for JG and the door flew open to a determined shoulder from Hruthnor. At once, the sturdy dwarf took 5hp of damage from two magic missiles. Our doughty adventurers returned fire, and the 3rd level MU took damage from a crossbow bolt and an arrow. He was preparing to web Alurax and Hruthnor but this spell was spoiled by the hits. As the bow has a rate of fire of two per round, I ruled that Alurax got his second shot in at the end of that round. He rolled great die rolls and the MU thudded to the floor, a veritable pin cushion. The dead magic user's companion, a thief had been firing at Hruthnor without success and as the party swarmed in, he dropped his weapons and surrendered. JG wanted to kill him but I explained that NG characters do not kill unarmed prisoners. He grudingly accepted this but cheered up when I revealed more gold pieces and a magic book were amongst the pickings from this particular encounter. Since there are three MU or MU multi-classed characters in the party, there could be some resentment at the fact that Alurax has claimed it. Were this a multi-player dungeon, the party dynamics could be quite intereting.

With the captive thief in tow, they filed out into the wind tunnel again. By this time, the light spell had expired and they were in darkness again, but of course the wandering monster rolls decreed that two giant rats were approaching from behind. Alurax, being an elf had infravision and launched into an attack, using his bow and killing one, whilst Hruthnor took out the other in a couple of rounds.

At the end of the wind tunnel, the party relit their torches and headed left, down towards a doorway. They made it with no further encounters and realised that it was an empty store room. As it was approaching six by now (real time) I suggested that the party should use this as their base for recovery and regrouping, which was accepted without demurral.

I was delighted that it had gone so well; I could have made a right fudge-up of the whole thing and put JG off D&D for life, but he seemed to be hooked.

Reflections - JG picked up the concepts well, although I noticed that handling seven characters was overwhelming him with paperwork, so for next time, I suggested that he should have uppermost only the character sheets of the two at the front. I had to help out a few times, pointing out things on the character sheets, and occasionally correcting him when he picked up the wrong dice for damage (the fact that his seet was all the same colour was a disadvantage here as I couldn't say 'No, the D8 is the blue one'). He got rather demoralised when Hruthnor took the 5hp of damage from the magic missiles (assuming that the doughty dwarf was going to die), but the death of the magic-user seemed to cheer him up.

I thought that the three hours we played was a good length for JG and his concentration. Considering that his teachers tell us he has problems concentrating in class, I found this an encouraging sign for the benefits of playing D&D.

I am including some links to forum posts on Dragonsfoot, where other parents have been running their kids through adventures. It was reading logs such as these that convinced me that the time was right for JG.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=34204

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=34578

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=14615

Also, if anyone knows of a way to import pdf images into a blog, could they advise? Or how to convert pdf to jpeg? Thanks, otherwise I can't see how I can get the maps in.

The Magnificent Seven

Previously, I discussed the philosophy of the training dungeon. Having written it up and with a very excited 6.5 year old waiting, it was time to get a party together. I thought we would need a cleric, a couple of fighters, a thief, a magic-user and of course my son's character. He'd rolled up a pretty good set of stats, (S 17 I 16 W 13 D 13 C 12 Ch 9) and rather than just make him a fighter, I thought that he could use the high intelligence and make him a F/Mu. Of course, the logical choice after that was to make him an elf, since the character level limits are better for elves than half-elves (check in the PHB if you don't believe me).

The rest of the characters were rolled up on the Dragonsfoot 1e Character generation system and here they are, in all their glory.

The cast (all 1st level)

Zhastar Kutulnar, halfling cleric. HP 2, AC6 - I reckon he'll be the first to go. 3 1st level cleric spells to be chosen at the start of the session.

Hruthnor Notchblade, dwarven fighter - HP9, AC5. 2 hand-axes, 1 battle axe, light crossbow. The tank of the party.

Elise - half-elf cleric/magic-user. AC5, HP 4, lucerne hammer and staff. M/U spells read magic, enlarge, affect normal fires, detect magic (handy but not as handy as....)

Alia - human MU, HP 2, AC10. 2 daggers, five darts, one staff.
Spells Sleep, read magic, hold portal, unseen servant (see, very handy - I rolled them up from the DMG, no fudging)

Alurax - elf F/Mu. AC6, HP4. My son's character. Short sword, short bow, dagger. As an elf, he gets +1 to hit and damage with both bow and sword. His spells are Feather Fall, Affect Normal fires, Charm Person, Read Magic

Lannius Light-finger, elf thief. HP 5, AC 2 (yes, that's right. Studded leather and shield, dex 18 gives him -4 defensive adjustment). Short sword, dagger, bow.

Akurath Bladestrong - dwarf fighter. AC 5, HP 10. Tank 2 - the word meatshield never even entered my head. Longsword, battle axe, lucern hammer. Use him till he's dead, then throw him at the enemy for 1-6 damage.

I might use one or other of the characters to perhaps channel sage advice, if needed, but it's up to my son to decide if he wants to take it.

And so let the mayhem begin... place your bets on how long before the Training Dungeon claims its first TPK.

The Training Dungeon

So, 6-year old, wants to do D&D. However, there is a problem. Small person, like most other small people (and if you've got a small person, you will know this) tends to get easily disheartened if things don't go his way.

What could be more disheartening than a TPK two rooms in, caused mainly by his total lack of knowledge of the game mechanics? I know that many of us have experienced TPK before and just picked up the 3D6 and gone off and rolled up another character (or now, in this more technological age, logged on to the Dragonsfoot character generator), but then we're not six years old and we can contextualise character death a lot easier than small boys.

Solution - create an environment in which he can learn the mechanics of the game whilst at the same time not losing a precious character or two due to...how shall we say, unfortunate happenings?

Thus, the training dungeon. The concept was that the characters are running through what, for the want of a better term, is a VR dungeon. For them, it's totally real, but each time a character dies, he reappears at the start of the dungeon, intact and ready to restart the adventure. They get no experience points, because they don't face real death. What they do is face situations where their knowledge of the combat system, saving throws, spells and class abilities is expanded and advanced.

I sat down and listed out all the things that needed to be learned and then drew up a list of situations in which those things could be introduced.

Save vs. DEX? A narrow ledge over a diluted green slime pit, with a DEX throw needed every ten feet.

Cleric needs to learn about turning undead? Rooms of zombies, skeletons and ghouls.

The virtues of carrying rope, iron spikes and hammer? Access to the lower levels by 40' shaft only.

And what better introduction to combat than rooms full of goblins, kobolds and orcs, ready for it and tooled up?

You get the picture.

Thanks to Gozzy's map generator (www.Gozzy's.com - recommended) I soon had three levels and then started stocking them with the created situations. Eventually, I had a 38-room dungeon ready for its first influx of characters, with one aim - explore!

Because that's what it's all about. It's not for nothing that the first B module is called In Search of the Unknown. Exploring is fun, exploring is scary, exploring is not safe - it's like Forrest Gump's life: you never know what you're going to get.

Remember when we were young. And shone like the sun...(oops, too much Pink Floyd). And being scared was the most fun we could have. I can still remember my first dungeon and I should think that most of us can.

However, we got to experience our first exploration in our early to mid teens. My son is a lot younger than that, and needs something that little bit safer to ease him into it. I think that the Training Dungeon is it.

I could have waited until he was in his mid-teens, another six to eight years. But by then, I'd be in my fifties and he might be lost to the X-box and the Wii.

I can't risk that, so that's why I can't wait.

Francis Xavier, a Jesuit leader said "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man"

Grognards, the man has spoken.