Developing the sandbox hooks and doing a bit of hexcrawling.

The Hooks in practice.

In the previous post, I gave a list of names that I had keyed to the hex map for my sandbox. Now I’m going to outline some of the ideas that a few of those have generated.

I have already written up Skeleton Tower, an ideal introduction to the area for new players. I list below some ideas that have sprung to mind following the hooks that I listed above. Associated with that is the Shrine of the Silver Knight, which has links to Skeleton Tower but can be played as an entirely stand-alone adventure.

Redstone Ruins
Some great slaughter or combat at this location has left an evil legacy - the blood stained into the stone, and it's given the stones a taste for blood. Perhaps they've got some sort of sinister, malevolent intelligence, keen to see more killing, sending out suggestions to all and sundry that they ought to get their blades red. Illusion and mental manipulation will be the order of the day.


Burnt Man's Haunt - I thought that this could be a situation where a group of hunters/poachers/etc stumbled across a rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire and some were possessed by fire spirits, becoming Flame Zombies - a bit like the Harginn in MM2. They can only be doused, as it were, by holy water blessed by a sufficiently high level cleric. A party managed to seal them into the cave where the rift is by use of Move Earth or some such, but now a landslide has set them free and now we have burnt bodies littering the landscape. Maybe a fire-deity cleric seeks the rift to set free some serious fire elementals to run rampage.

Ogre's Point.
A big gang of ogres used to live here. They were regarded as stupid and slow-moving, the first port of call for any young blade that fancied a scrap. Then an ogre mage happened by and whipped the ogres into shape, so much so that they creamed a 3/4 level party and got the town panicked. Some tougher adventurers eventually killed the ogre mage and quite a few of his gang, and all fell quiet again. The ogres are now a sorry bunch, who hide in the forested hills, skulking in caves and fighting back only if they are pinned into a corner. But of course, someone might happen along again with thoughts of stirring them up. The ogre mage's skull and bones are now part of their shrine, deep in one of their caves.

The Grey Ravines
I’m still sketching this out, but I know that it will include rock and stone creatures, such as the boulder roller and galeb duhr from MM2 and a pack of gargoyles who pretend to be outcrops of stone during the day and swoop on unsuspecting parties at twilight. There is also some sort of dungeon there, with a trapped tiled floor in one of the rooms. On two or three of the tiles are some stone figures, in positions of horror. What happened was that a party of adventurers were crossing the floor when the leading female MU trod on a stone that polymorphed her into a medusa. Before she realised what had happened, she had turned to her party to see if they were okay - with obvious results. The ones that made their saves fled, and she was stuck with the knowledge that she was now a monster and had killed two/three (not sure how many) of her friends. She is now a bit bonkers.

Clawbriars – thickets with very sharp thorns, possibly some stirges that live there, or tiny creatures like jermlaine and pesties. Vampiric plants, all sorts of plant-based nasties. Yellow musk zombies.

No prizes for guessing what lives in Firebreath Forest.

Wandering Monsters for the Sandbox

Whilst looking at the A4 hex sandbox that I published in the previous post, I had an epiphany (albeit one that I suspect many other DMs have had). I suddenly realised that I should treat the whole thing as just one huge dungeon. Each hex is like a room in a dungeon, with its own static feature, either a monster, trap, trick or puzzle. The players can approach a hex from a variety of directions and feel their way across the map, hex by hex. Some hexes they might miss, others they might deem too strong to take on. Some they will clear out after a good fight, and then when their backs are turned, something nasty creeps back in, unless they are astute and work out some way of stopping it.

And then there are wandering monsters. Basically, either
a) the whole map,
b) a cluster of hexes or
c) each hex
has its particular wandering monster roll and whatever comes up is whatever is prowling that particular hex of the sandbox. It could be a really tough monster, in which case, run away! run away! (brave Sir Robin) or it could be remnants of something, bones, bodies, clues, NPC character classes, other adventurers (but only to 6th, methinks, at first), bandits, brigands, military personnel, crazy cultists, etc. Or it could be a bombardier beetle! Going through the MM, I realised that some monsters are static, some are peripatetic. The former can be used as feature creatures, the latter as wandering monsters. Some might fall between the two stools and be static but with a range of a couple of hexes.

I listed out every peripatetic monster that might conceivably be found in the wilderness, including the naturalistic but giant-sized animals and NPC parties up to 6th level, and interwove an equal number of No Encouner rolls, then scored it up and came out with 200 different possibilities.

Once a static monster has been deemed present by a die roll, it will be noted as present thereafter on the map unless the party has wiped out all that they encountered.

The wandering monster list is also useful for deciding what, if anything, might wander into a previously-cleared hex and decide to take up residence.

Once the march of civilisation has moved south, the hexes that have been cleared will be checked for on another table, that for semi-civilised lands. It is not guaranteed that there will be no hostile incursions, but their frequency will be much reduced.

Next time, I’ll be handing out another list of name hooks for your consideration and use, and making a start on the campaign history.

Albie Fiore

I only found out the other day about the death of Albie Fiore back in July. He died from complications connected with a lung tumour. I guess many of you probably knew already, but I wanted to add a few words of my own.

You can read an obituary from the Guardian here, and a more personal reflection from his wife Sue here.

Although he was an incredibly talented and versatile man, as can be seen from the obituaries, I guess that many gamers, like myself will remember him for his modules that first saw the light of day in White Dwarf way back when, and which, by virtue of their inventiveness, playability and sheer genius of vision, have sunk into our subconsciousness and become part of gaming history.

Anyone who enjoyed Halls of Tizun Thane and the Lichway will also remember Albie and I'm sure will join me in rolling a D20 in his memory.

It's sad to see that in recent years, so many of the seminal figures of the great game have died. We owe it to them to continue to play and to pass on the love of gaming that they inspired.

Welcome to two new followers!

Greetings to John L Williams and Narmer, my two latest followers.

To John, I'll say that I find your blog stimulating, thought-provoking and very amusing, and I'm glad to have you on board. To Narmer, I'll say Iiwy em hotep, which I'm unreliably informed is Ancient Egyptian for Welcome.

Narmer, I see that you have a 9-year old son, who's just getting into RPG. I found your posts on this subject very interesting and hope that you might take away from this blog some insights into gaming with kids - a very rewarding activity.


Now I'm just off to make a start on decorating the house for Christmas, and hope to fit a session of the Training Dungeon in this afternoon.

Saturday Night Fight Club - Stirges take on all comers.

Yes, I said Stirges. You won’t be laughing when you see who they can take down.

Let’s have a look at their stats first.

No. appearing 3-30 (that's an average of 16)

AC 8

HD 1+1 (that’s right, these little devils have the same hit dice as a hobgoblin)

No of attacks 1

Damage per attack 1-3

Special attacks Drain blood

Size S

Move 18" in the air (try and outrun them....if you can!)

Stirges attack as if they were a 4HD monster. So even though the DMG lists its THAC0 as 18, it is for attack purposes 15. So on 15,16,17,18,19,20 it will hit AC0 (6 out of 20 or 30%)

The proboscis inflicts 1-3 hp of damage (an average of 1.5) and then they suck out 1-4hp (an average of 2.5) of blood each melee round until they’ve drunk 12hp and then they fly off to digest it.

Every round past round 4, the number of stirges who hit four rounds previously will detach and go off to enjoy their tasty repast (and probably a cigar or two and maybe some fine cheeses?)

Let’s do some quick calculations based on the AC of respective targets.

Orc AC6 Stirge to hit = 9 (60%) , Average orc hit points = 4.5. A stirge swarm of 16 attacking a gang of orcs would take out three on round 1, assume three stirges were killed, another two orcs the next round, assume another three stirges killed, another two orcs go the next round. Fourth round, down to four by its end but another orc killed, and by round 5, it’s more or less over for the stirges but they have killed eight orcs.

Okay, so orcs tend to hang around in groups which might make them a harder target (and believe me, it's a very good tactic when these little pests are in the air), but what about something a little heavier? Surely an ogre will be able to fend them off?

Ogre AC5 Stirge to hit = 10 (55%) , Average hit points = 19

Let’s assume that of the 16 stirges, 9 hit and will therefore detach on round 4 to fly off and digest the blood.

So on round 1, 9 x 1.5 = 13 points of damage. Let’s be fair to the big guy and allow him to kill one stirge with each hand per round. Let’s also assume that he sees sense and kills the ones that have already attached, since they do the most damage (if he’s stupid and goes for the ones in the air, that’s his hard luck). Total number of stirges on him now = 7, total stirges in the air = 7

On round 2, the seven who hit last round and survived start sucking blood, at 2.5 average HP per round. Round 2’s damage therefore is 17hp. Of the other seven who didn’t hit, 4 will hit this time, although two will be killed by his fists. The four that hit will now do 6 points of damage.

So by the end of round 2, the ogre has taken 13 + 17 + 6 = 36. Our ogre is a dead ‘un. There are twelve stirges left in the flock, nine of which are drinking blood. Three are flying around just waiting for their meal.

But what if there are two ogres?

On round 1, the stirges split so that eight attack one ogre, eight the other. Ogre 1 suffers four hits, at 1.5 hp per hit = 6 damage. Ogre two suffers the same. Both ogres are able to kill two stirges apiece with their fists.

On round 2
There are now twelve stirges alive. Both ogres have two stirges sucking their blood (5 damage) and take another six hp apiece from fresh attacks. They are now down to 2hp left. They kill two stirges apiece.

On round 3, there are now eight stirges alive, four of which are sucking the ogres’ blood. The ogres take 5hp damage each and although they kill two stirges apiece (leaving four alive) both ogres are dead. Exsanguinated.

Not much better for the ogres.


Okay, let’s pit the littlest guys against the biggest guy.

Hill Giant AC4 Stirge to hit = 11 (50%), Average hit points = 38


Let’s assume that of the 16 stirges, 8 hit.

So on round 1, 8 x 1.5 = 12 points of damage. As before, we’ll let the hill giant kill one per round with his hands, and as with the ogre, assume that he kills the ones that have already attached. Total number of stirges on him now = 6, total stirges in the air = 8

On round 2, the six who hit last round and survived start sucking blood, at 2.5 average HP per round. Round 2’s damage therefore is 15hp. Of the other eight who didn’t hit, 4 will hit this time, although two will be killed by his fists. The four that hit will now do 6 points of damage.

So by the end of round 2, the giant has taken 12 + 15 + 6 = 33.

On round 3, the stirges attached (six from the first round, four from the second round, less the ones that the giant killed (2) = 8) will drink another 20hp of blood. The giant is down and dead but not before killing two last stirges that are sucking him dry.

So by the end of round 3, there are ten stirges in the flock, six of which are drinking blood. Four left over may well have a go at anyone else in the area.

So a flock of stirges can take down a hill giant in three rounds. And an ogre in two. And remember that this is the AVERAGE number encountered. It could be as high as thirty.

Oh, and if it was thirty, and we have a party of low-level (say 2nd) adventurers, average AC4, six in the party, average hp 11 each….

That’s a 50% hit rate for the stirges, meaning 15 hit first round, doing 22.5 hp of damage. Each character has lost 3.75hp. The party kills six stirges. Twenty four remain. The next round seven hit, doing 10.5hp of damage. The party also takes ((15-6)*2.5) = 22.5 hp. Six more stirges are killed.



In round 2, the party took 33hp of damage, or 5.5 each. That’s a total per character of 9.25. Round three, there are ten stirges on bloodsucking duty. Twelve have been killed, meaning there are eight left to strike. Four hit, doing 6hp of damage. The ten doing the draining do 25 damage – the party kill six more. At the end of round 3, the party has taken another 31hp of damage, 5.16 per character. Each character has now taken 14.41 – they are all at minus hp and with no sign of rescue, they are a tasty meal for the stirges, of whom twelve are left.

"So, anyone else think we look stupid?"

Do not underestimate the power of the proboscis.

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?

Rare but dangerous - the Catoblepas

You don’t come across it that often; hell, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it. Probably just as well. Just look at those stats.

Don’t worry about being stunned for 1-10 rounds by its tail. That’s by far preferable to its gaze. If you meet its gaze, you die – no saving throw. It’s like Tomb of Horrors on legs. No matter what level you are, no matter what magic items you’ve got, you die. No saving throw.

There’s a 2 in 6 chance that someone in your party is going to meet that gaze. It might be you. If it’s not you, the danger’s not over because, there is a 25% chance that it will raise its head long enough to gaze at you. It increases by 15% per round if both you and it stand still.

If you’re not dead by now, then run and dodge while you’re doing it because if it has to move its head around, the chance of it gazing at you drops to 10% per melee round. Don’t bother going astral or ethereal – its gaze works there as well.

Oh and even if you avert your eyes while fleeing, the gaze still works. Okay, you get a saving throw against Death Ray. Good luck!

Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

"My name's Jason and I'll be your Dungeon Master tonight...."


Recently, Jim Raggi was posting on Horror in RPG, the mechanics of fear for PCs and particularly on scaring your players. He’s not posted Part 2 yet, which I’m looking forward to reading. But it led me to think on ways that DMs have of putting the frighteners on players, or creating that feeling of unease in a dungeon.

A recent blog from Alexis on Tao of D&D talked about keeping players in the dark and allowing their imaginations to fill in the blanks. This is sound advice – no-one is better at scaring someone that the person himself.

A wise man once said “When you know what frightens someone, you can control them”. If you’ve been playing with the same group for a while, you will have a fairly good idea of how they react and what does frighten them. That knowledge can be used to rack up the tension and make the players sweat. Everyone likes being frightened at a certain level and there’s nothing guaranteed to make a dungeon memorable like making it scary.


Here are a few of my ideas – some are just DM psychological tactics, others are things to present to your players that may well create that edgy feeling.


Ask the players to describe what they are doing in great detail. Then seize upon the most mundane statement and repeat it back to them as a question, putting the stress on some harmless word.

E.g.

Player: “We’re standing around the table, looking at the dusty bottles to see if they’re potions”

DM: “You’re standing around the table?”

Player (as minis are hurriedly moved) “No, we’re well away from the table. We’re nowhere near the table. Wherever the table is, that’s where we’re not”

The same can be done as a party enter a seemingly empty room.

DM “Okay, now could everyone show me exactly where they’re standing”

Have a corridor strung with fine wires and strings which are perfectly visible. The party must try and bypass every one as they have no idea which is the trigger for the inevitable trap. Maybe they all are. Or maybe none of them is.

Finding the remains of other adventurers who have fallen to the dungeon’s perils is a sure-fire memento mori, especially if those adventurers look as if they’ve died horribly and are sufficiently fresh as to display that.

Ask the players to make a series of D20 rolls but don’t tell them why. Once they’ve rolled, scribble something down, check in the PHB or DMG, mutter meaningfully to yourself, then smile pleasantly and continue with the game. Now the players are on edge, waiting for the inevitable. Or is it inevitable?

A DM with whom I played long ago used to observe dryly as the party marched down a corridor in a tight cluster

“Oh look – fireball formation”

And how quickly the party would spread itself out.


Smells – DMs often forget this feature of a dungeon – I’ve recently been using it myself and the party now associate a certain smell with carrion crawlers. What they didn’t realise was that ghouls smell very much the same.

Dungeon floors – why should they be level and smooth? Why not have them made of uneven slabs, crooked flagstones, pieces that don’t seem to match the rest of the floor. They’re not pressure pads but the party don’t know that.

Whilst we’re thinking about dungeon geography, the walls don’t have to be perfectly smooth and featureless. If you’re underground, you would expect there to be small holes, perhaps a foot or so in diameter every so often. Dark holes. Holes out of which things could crawl when you’re not watching. And why stop at the walls? What about the ceilings? A lot of players ask about the walls and the floors when they enter a room but how many look up?

The party is confronted by a stretch of water blocking their way. It’s only knee-deep but there could be anything in there. Or nothing.

If your party is one of those that actually remembers to post rearguards, they can be a good source of tension. As they move deeper into the dungeon, either pass the rearguard a note or ask to speak to them alone. Suggest that they hear slight noises, unnatural shadows. When they report back to the rest of the party, someone will invariably ask if anyone else sees anything. Say no. A bonus will be if the party then starts to mistrust the rearguard and subsequently ignores real warnings.

That having been said, shadows that flit across the far end of a dimly-lit passageway and then vanish are a good way of making players edgy. Do they investigate and risk being led astray or do they press on and risk something following them? A lot of DMs treat a monster encounter as a pretext for immediate attack, but more tension can be obtained from having the monster bide its time, waiting for the right moment to strike. Stalking the party.

Splitting the party is always a good tactic – I mean, what’s the one thing that the bold adventurers on any good horror film always do? If the party has split up and is out of visual contact, why not have magic mouths that are triggered by one or two people passing by and let out a blood-curdling scream of terror or something like “Help me! Please don’t kill me! No….aaaaargh!”

The idea is really to keep the tension up. If the players are scared of their own shadows three rooms in, the DM has done his job well.

What do you think? Have you got any techniques for getting the players freaked out and ready to run? Or perhaps you’ve got a story about a time when this happened. Let me know.