Not Just Low Levels, All Levels Part 3: The Phases of Difficulty for Scaling Characters

In the sample campaign world that I haphazardly slapped together last time, we wanted many more adventure sites, more lairs, and some more supporting tent poles on a broader map. There's also a thoughtful placement of certain challenges, campaign world cohesiveness and interconnectivity to consider, but that's next time. While mixing in difficulty is the right and privilege of a Adventure Gaming DM, much of the bands of difficult should roughly align to the phases of long term campaign play. 

In short, a starting (phase one) party shouldn't have to travel across troll valley, red dragon ridge, or past a nest of Umberhulks and Mind Flayers to get to their destination of an orc hole. Just like in the dungeon, the top floor would be goblins and kobolds and displacer beasts and 7-headed hydras (WotC IP not withstanding) would be on the encounter table for level 5. 

Given a hex world of at least 34x56 (ideally more like 51x56) hexes of about 5-6 mile scale, you should be able to accommodate, through distance and depth, all of the bands of difficulty for all primary phases of play. For reference, that's 4 Judge Guild sized maps. 

The gist being expressed best in Keep on the Borderlands where the Caves of Chaos is the main hook, but trouble can be found with lizardmen or the hermit in the nearby area. Players will enjoy options of going for a distraction, even if just information gathering, rather than simply trying to make a 1.5 day trip to the chosen adventure. Some of the time, that might not be an option and getting lost in the woods can lead you to the Swamp Witches lair instead of the Bullywug infested Ziggurat.

Below, I am going to elaborate on the phases not only to illustrate what they look like in my game, but also to differentiate a long term Fantasy Adventure Game from the typical shorter form game (phase one to two).

What are the primary phases of combat difficulty?

Phase one - Mathematical difficulty of low levels

The game play of level 1-3 is at a place where, mathematically, it's the easiest to challenge a player. Resources like food, water, light, encumbrance, and ammunition are specifically important here, as well. Monster encounters almost always tax the group. For example, consider the below encounters as they are all mathematically draining from an attrition standpoint, even potentially deadly.

• 6 Skeletons vs 5 level 1 characters 
• 5 Orcs vs 5 level 1 characters
• 10 Goblins vs 5 level 1 characters
• 2 Giant Spiders vs 5 level 1 characters
• 1 Owlbear vs 5 level 2 characters 
• 3 Ogres vs 5 level 3 characters

In modern D&D, those costs get rested away. In Old School D&D (both CAG and OSR), resources matter and leaving the dungeon to recover is a real tough decision. Aside from the ability to successfully turn undead on the skeletons or use Sleep on the goblins, engaging in combat is mathematically likely to drain valuable resources. Those resources are key to survivability towards the next challenge. 

If the party is missing half of its fighters hit points and the sleep spell has been spent, then an encounter with an another 5 orcs, the encounter can go wrong in the way that coasting on fumes to get to one more gas station exit can. A few lucky hits and a fighter goes down, the other gets overwhelmed, people are trying to escape, and more people die. Even if they skate that encounter without real loss, a random encounter on the way out/back to town might just finish people off.

Make a dungeon with 24 rooms, make 10 of them on this challenge scale, toss treasure in 7 of them (some hidden), make 7 rooms virtually nothing but supporting flavor, and finally add like 5 traps and 5 locked doors. Boom. D&D dungeon. Mix in another axis of attrition such as carry weight and light limitations and you have a balancing act that the game performs for you. OSR modules are largely set in this phase and these are the reasons why they have such gravity to both write and the ease for DMs to run.

Hirelings are highly valued, a well placed charm/sleep spell can eliminate a room enabling a push that much further, and turn undead has a chance to do the same. But overall, most combat encounters drain the sand out of the top of the hourglass at alarming rate. Veterans know how to balance this while newer people tend to make deadly resource allocation errors.

Even the modules that are considered the best in the past decade or so follow this formula. Add in a dash of seasoning for flavor (i.e. giant goose dragon, a fresh take on orcs, a fairy tale vibe, an undead horde to end the world, etc) with some fundamentals of dungeon layout and you get enjoyment for the 3 sessions it takes to complete it. Given the level spread of about 1-5, you can comfortable get 20 something sessions into phase 2, more so if your sessions are short, players are slow, and rooms are basic. And for a lot of people that's perfect.

In terms of CAG style gaming, consider that a play group is generally going to only hit a few of these before their options go to more lucrative options. If your group beats Keep on the Borderlands (B2), The Moathouse (T1), and Saltmarsh (U1) then they aren't going to also want to do Against the Cult of the Reptile God (N1) but another group might want to. If you plan on making the world persistently played by multiple groups, offer enough options. If you start your game at level 3, you probably don't need many of these. 

Phase two - accelerating campaign momentum

Starts at about 5th level. Resources change. Torches are replaced by magical items and continual light spells. Food, Water, and Ammunition are still considerations but spells (create food and water, bags of holding, etc) and resources mitigate some the need for such laborious tracking. Item saving throws are used more as a higher amount of situations can make that potion, scroll, or magic arrows ignite into flame.

The dynamic of encounters is trivialized or made more potent by an action economy, monster abilities, and more powerful magic. 

• 5 Ghouls and a Ghast vs 5 level 5 characters (either ambushed and shredded or turned and hand waved)
• 8 Gnolls vs 5 level 5 characters (party positioning is likely to trivialize the encounter)
• 4 Gargoyles vs 5 level 5 characters (12 attacks vs a party with 5-8 actions per turn)
• 3 Wights or 2 wraiths vs 5 Level 5 characters (Risk of someone getting level drained, though not particularly difficult otherwise)
• 2 Trolls vs 5 level 5 characters (action economy becomes more level, trolls deal significant damage and have 3 rolls each to do so, combined with a sturdy hp pool and regeneration, there will be attrition loss)

The bestiary of monsters start to widen as more of the Monster Manual(s) are able to be used. There are 350 monsters available in just the core AD&D Monster Manual and they aren't all for decoration. Relatively normal 'on-level' creatures (like a ghast or a troll) all pose a risk, surprise can be deadly, rewards become steeper tempting journeys to extend just one more room. With steeper rewards come the chance at more magic items that add another layer of complex decisions as well as increase power. 

Limited use items such as potions, scrolls, and wands ask the question if this encounter is worth it. Contextually good items become choices for setting up encounters (The crypt head is guarded by Caryatid Columns, so do you draw your Flametongue for the undead likely to be in the crypt or your Sword +2? Or neither because they could break? 

Encounters, such as those listed above, could be a handwave away. 5 ghouls and a Ghast surprise the party and paralyze two members or positioning of a Paladin. What if it was an ambush while the party was dealing with a patch of mold? What if the Cleric just turned all the ghouls round 1?

These encounters, for all their danger, hit that lower part of the U-shaped difficulty curve. The worlds factions become more center stage beyond vague familiarity. The group has been involved with many of them on some level at this point. This is the stride of a CAG D&D group and continues through the next two phases.

Phase three - full speed ahead

• Lycanthrope (good action economy, difficult lycanthropy risk)
• Hill Giant (high damage, high hit point pool, strong ranged attack)
• Ice Toad (punishing melee range ability, knowledge check)
• Hydra (great action economy, interesting foe)
• Mummy (fear brings high risk, mummy rot is potentially costly)

Phase three is the back swing of the mid-levels, a continuation of phase two. It's where cohesion in play becomes more advanced between the players while the players become more fluid in playing to the options that their characters provide. This could be anything by using class skills to spells prepared, to which magic items are available to use.

More conditional effects, a wider exposure to the breadth of the Monster Manual(s), and a realization of how the action economy plays out on a longer timeline. Specifically, in the context of a sandbox campaign, this is where the freedom of travel, adventure options, and selection of tasks become more decision points. The world expands, travel expands further, and delves become deeper.

Phase four - the base of high level

• Dragon (A deadly encounter in the open, a risk for subdual, or a carefully chosen battleground)
• Vampire (Double level drain, a perpetually escaping intelligent enemy)
• Vrocks (Innate abilities, magic resistance, potential gating of allies)
• Umberhulks (Confusion and Brawn)
• Drow Party/Other Mid-high level party (Steel against steel, bolt against arrow, spell against spell)

At the very top of mid level play, sliding into the real of higher level play, we have the infamous creatures that helped make the genre famous. 

Additionally, this phase largely introduces the concept of Magic Resistance, which can often take party members by surprise the first time. Dispel magic becomes doubly useful and more now than ever, the GM plays the enemies on a level deeper than tactically to make gameplay more challenging.

Take any dragon, vampire, or devil/demon and put them in a white room with 5-7 party members and watch whatever it is get shredded mathematically. A claw, claw, bite routine or a telekinesis isn't going to over come a slow spell and 10 attacks flurrying in the first round. No, the dragon would try to use its flight to an advantage, a demon would care to leverage a situation or incapacitate or gate in help rather than forcefully engage on it's own, and a vampire wouldn't just take gas-form to it's coffin 17 feet away. No, these are true villians, they plot, they scheme, and they prepare. It's another layer to the game to require the same of the adventurers to fairly get a leg up on a powerful opponent.

Lastly, these kind of monsters would be often be systemic in a bigger campaign organism. A lich, a dark god, or Orcus himself. By this point, these figures have been present indirectly the whole campaign and can provide the motivating force for the following high level play.

Phase five

• Demons and Devils (Not only serving to be an in-world threat, with each tier being more powerful and influential than the last, but also the roster of a destination of high-level play.
• Lich (The set up of the lair, the minions, the deadliness of fighting a powerful magic-user)
• Mind Flayer (In groups, in lairs, attack on a different axis than a traditional party is used to)
• More Dragons (More elaborate lairs, top end of the age category, with potential minions)
• The horrors from the planes beyond existence

This is where High-level play starts to take on different forms.

High level adventure gaming is a broad array. It's not just inflating numbers to scale with higher level play, though that can be some of what makes up play. It's also big outer plane adventures, possibly in strange environments that affect movement, casting, magic items, or are even just plain dangerous without taking precautions. It's also moving through armies on a domain scale, leading to massive wars or even territorial skirmishes. It's high risk deadly adventures that leans less into the numbers of the characters, it's so many things in addition to domain/research. It's the tricky/trappy Tomb of Horror type dungeons.  It can border or cross over into PC->NPC progression. 

It's all of these things that the campaign has earned the right to by unwrapping each of these bands slowly to provide the options for high level play. The impressions over the past 15 years of the OSR seem to be like 'yeah man, do politics and domain management' or 'yeah let me just roll up 14 purple worms on the random encounter table' which is kind of like just eating the frosting off the whole cake.

While high level is varied, the world persists. Lower phase adventuring is still taking place in a world shaped by those who came before them. Have the cake, with the frosting, with a coke, and the ice cream on the side. High level diabetes can set in, though. Make sure to balance it with a healthy diet of low to mid range adventures.

In Part 4, I talk about a more cohesive world. Fleshing out more hex entries, interconnectivity, random encounter tables, and a functional world without the players.

Not Just Low Levels, All Levels Part 2: Not Just the Dungeon is Gameable

Not just the Dungeon is Gameable

Part of the CAG identity is a full realized world that allows exploration across all levels of gaming. That starts with exploration, scalable content, bands of difficulty, and giving the world variety with a multitude of biomes. 

Making a world

You can skip all the below and get a proper sandbox setting premade to start. Suggestions being with:

1) Melan's Beyond Fomalhaut zines - Ready to go, ready to expand! Alternatively, Khosura is an excellent starting point, adventurable city, with surrounding hex area.

2) G. Hawkin's Gunderholfen setting. Including Twice Crowned King, Zorth, Nekemte, and Halith Vorn.

3) Nod Magazine or Hex Crawl Chronicles by John Stater. 

There are others, to varying degrees that might fill your needs. These all can be liberally stolen from, as well, for your own world. Making your own map is a matter of generation and tweaking.

Two programs I can recommend are Hextml and Worldographer. Generate something intentional or at random, smooth out the areas until it make sense to you and get yourself a base map with many biomes.

What are the biomes?

Forests, Crypts, Caves, Temples, Ocean, Lakes, Plains, Hills, Swamps, Mountains. You may not deeply adventure in all of these, but you have a feel for most of them. Biomes also serve a sub-purpose (which can be applied to your dungeon design too) to where a change of scenery is nice. For example, if you're playing Barrowmaze only: you're going to get tired of undead crypts with bugs and swamps with undead crypts and bugs. Imagine the breath of fresh air of fighting through a dungeon full of lava, an underwater temple, a mountain in the clouds, or a cool forest. Campaign fatigue can set in if it's always the same.

The world map should have hundreds of hexes ready for exploring in all these biomes, from snowy mountain trails to humid swamp gases. I made a sample map on hextml, I took the default and doodled with no thought or consideration. You'll want, ideally, a 26x17 map to start and probably 2 quadrants to get going, plan on at least 2 more to expand. Give yourself some avenues to add on to the world later.

This map has biomes to work with to start. Hills, plains, mountains, forests, swamps, shoreline, there's the edge of an island. Do one for yourself and number it via both axis's. 

Starting to Take Shape

Add some towns, villages, and cities. Looking here, we'd have a coastal city (City A) right near the bend, a town (Town A) inland along that path, and a village (Village A) to the north for starters. If you have no ideas, maybe my blog post about towns will help.

As an example, we have an ongoing space for people to write lairs and hex entries. So lets just take some of those and add them to the map.

A1 Were-Tiger Lair by SandboxSorceror - in that swampy area in the north eastish area.

A2 Bandit Camp by the_howell just at the foothills to the north west, just in range of easy pickings from travel/trade between Town A to Village A

A3 Mongrelmen by Scott A in the southern most swampy area, just north of City A.

A4 Goblin Lair by the_howell, along the coast south from City A in the forest (add a river going inland)

A5 Ogre Lair by the_howell, right in the middle of the forest where the north edge of the mountains meet.

A6 Night Hag's Farm by Henchman 52, down river (see Goblin Lair) far into the forest.

A7 Tomb of the Storm Giant by Zoranu, right at the whirlpool icon in the ocean.

A8 Lonely Homesteader by Scott A in the middle of the grasslands, opposite from the foothills of the Bandit Camp

A9 Dragonfly, Giant by Zoranu, a hazardous hex in the same swamp as Mongrelmen.

A10 The Whale's Grave by Zoranu, along the northern coast.

A11 The Bleeding Marsh by Zherbus, a hex in the same swamp as the Were-tiger lair.

A12 The Shrine of Sound by Zherbus, in the hills just north of the south west forest.

A13 Boring Beetle Lair by VinoAzulMan, in the base of the mountains generally south-west of Town A.

A14 Snake, Poisonous by Anung Un Rama, which is actually a shipwreck, along the southern coastline.

A15 Ankheg, Anhkeg, Anhkheg by Zherbus, set in the very north west hills.

A16 Cyclops Lair by Scott A, a cave set on the island across the channel from City A.

A17 Basilisk by Scott A, in the mountains near an abandoned dwarven hold.

A18 Giant Eagle by Grutzi, on the mountain ridge overlooking the forest in the south west section.

A19 Gargoyle by Grutzi, a ruined keep on the north center area of the plains.

A20 Gloomwing by Zoranu, a good hex to help fill out the south west forest.

Plan a desert region to the north:

Thimrithi - Fire Dancer by Zoranu and Crater of the Cavemen by mgtlake.

Add about 3 main dungeons (some of those hex entries are smaller dungeons). We already can use an ex-Dwarven Hold (Dungeon A) in the mountains that runs several levels deep, we could use a main dungeon to rest on the island (perhaps greekish? Thracia?) (Dungeon B), and a good old fashion crypt somewhere in the center of the mainland (Dungeon C).

What are bands of difficulty?

In general, the further away from civilization, the harder the content to find is. It's not a hard and fast rule, a terrible dragons lair can loom over a town causing strange relations, sacrifices, offerings, etc but also may result in a town being left alone by marauders. These exceptions are among the spice of the world. In general, you want the Cave of the White Troll Clan and the Displacer Beasts of Murkfen to be between Civicsville and the Dark Citadel of the Thorn Magi. Keep this in mind when adding more hex entries and determining how your submaps connect.

Considerations should be made for Weather, travel, and campaign timeline (that is, how the world moves on with or without the players). A lot of that I have already addressed in this blog post. 

Where are we now?

What we end up with isn't perfect, but it's a start. Depending on the scale, you might want to double your hex entries. You definitely want to put it on a more complete map with standard dimensions, but it's a start. Rip apart some more books on your shelf, flip through your monster books, write some more entries. Double it, expanding it, let the world take shape. Then let your players change it.

Next Blog post: The Phases of Difficulty in a Scaling Campaign

Rooms Per Hour

There's a metric that has been used when talking about adventure gaming. It's an extremely contextually dependent variable, but it's also one of the easiest short hands to qualify 75% of a conversation. So when people say, "we do 5 rooms per hour", there are a few factors that really go into that metric.

How fast is combat resolution?

In my IRL game, running combat for 6 players takes about 90 seconds per combat round. This generally makes most fights last under 5 minutes. The online game is about the same clip, unless there's a technical burp in which we do our best to 'lets just do this and move on'. The OD&D spin-offs I play in aren't much different. The B/X derived game, and the online B/X games, I played in an 80+ session in through Barrowmaze weren't any faster. 

How fast is exploration?

The procedures for exploration with the passage of time aren't much different in time to perform procedure. Slowness in games, assuming system familiarity, is more a two-part issue with a DM that doesn't move the game along and players who 'dither', get caught in time traps (I know this statue has to have a secret lever, so let me ask 25 minutes of questions about it) or debate endlessly. 

How fast is challenge resolution and time tracking?

Having a cheat sheet/DM screen insert of how long common tasks takes to complete is handy. For instance, Opening a Lock takes 1-4 rounds, the player rolls, the time is ticked off, and then the party moves at an exploration rate and more time is ticked off, then eventually time events happen (usually a random encounter check). 

Players get to manage this at a large degree, but only if they are realizing that time matters. So as long as the DM is tracking time well enough, players won't be incentivized to take every single action on every single square inch of the dungeon by running down a check list.

Not all rooms are created equal.

Rooms per hour is kind of an iffy measuring stick too. But it's necessary to a point, as long as you realize that the two room keys, explanation, and resolution will be different for the two below rooms:

In some games, half of the rooms were empty rooms. In others, some have a more complicated scenario presented while others just have X things run out and attack you and there's nothing in the room behind them. If one wanted to truly crank the number, they'd bunch a ton of rooms together, make half of them empty, 3/4 of the remainder would have monsters that would die in 2-3 combat rounds.

The playtest, for example, for Carcass was timed at 90 second combat rounds and 63 out of the 67 rooms being done in 10 hours. There were an average of 4 combat rounds per encounter. That's 6 minute battles. That includes town set up, traveling through hexes on 3 occasions, and the adventure sites themselves.

Hex Exploration has open spaces and safer routes.

When Hex crawling, a lot of travel incidentally reveals terrain. And not every hex is going to have a keyed entry. Many of them will be countryside, possibly a lair for a random encounter, or just a village. Not every hex is going to have an ancient dwarven ruin or giant obelisk with strange markings. Being able to agree as a group on what to investigate and how much to get sidetracked will go a long way to having action packed sessions.

In summary:

A playgroup has control over practicing procedures, time-tracking, and exploration procedures. Rooms per hour is a loaded metric, but its how we differentiate between gaming styles. Those more efficient adventures will show more of the world that is adventured in and explored. This is particularly conducive to worlds that are rich in content and aren't afraid of advancement. Also, I find these much more engaging on both sides of the table. Does CAG own these? No. This is just solid old school gaming that is interesting to the kind of party that enjoys depth. 

Generating Cults

Generating Cults 

I saw a discussion asking about generating cults, what power level to give them, and some other related questions. For the Cults created specifically with NPCs or villains that serve the mode of a campaign world in a deeper sense or the backbone of an adventure site, there's a lot more intentional care that should go into creating that cult.

However, for creating a cult on the fly (either to serve in the moment or to build off of) I had worked on a cult generator for my campaign almost two years ago. While it's still in draft mode and subject to change, I'll share the images here so that some may get some use out of it.

Enjoy!

Adjusting N1 - Against the Cult of the Reptile God

Disclaimer:

I wrote this after running it, a few years ago. I saw this in my drafts and decided to clean it up and make it a bit more coherent. I have other modules write ups (you could call them reviews I suppose) in the wings, but I am only writing about the modules that I have actually played with alterations (or should have altered) because I feel there's something constructive to say that could be helpful to prospective DMs going in blind. 

The Blurb

Terror by night! The village of Orlane is dying. Once a small and thriving community, Orlane has become a maze of locked doors and frightened faces. Strangers are shunned, trade has withered. Rumors flourish, growing wilder with each retelling. Terrified peasants flee their homes, abandoning their farms with no explanation. Others simply disappear. . .

No one seems to know the cause of the decay -- why are there no clues? Who skulks through the twisted shadows of the night? Who or what is behind the doom that has overtaken the village? It will take a brave and skillful band of adventurers to solve the dark riddle of Orlane!

Overview

N1 - Against The Cult of The Reptile God was the first adventure made by Doug Niles for TSR in 1982. The work was finished in four weeks and for its time, it was a progressive module. The formula of town-with-nearby-dungeon had already been established in earlier works, notably by Gary Gygax himself. But N1 really set the adventuring to begin in the town, rather than having to travel to the nearby dungeon before some action (unless robbing people was the action). This would be something that T1 The Village of Hommlet would touch on, correctly, but not over-focus.

The Town Stuff

It contains elements of town-play, wilderness, and of course, a dungeon. There are layers of discovery as the characters arrive in the village of Orlane. People have mixed reactions, from friendly to suspicious, and an investigation begins. Eventually, the players will learn of the presence of an evil cult. Some amount of exploration later, and the players will enter the dungeon itself. There is a stronger degree of investigative roleplay than what I prefer, but I think this stuff could be a bit more directly fed to the players via rumors, preferably before the PCs would even arrive to Orlane.

The module contains a lot of detailed information on the village of Orlane, which is needed to get to the meat of the adventure. Some of that juice could be squeezed and repurposed for a wider campaign. There will be signs of the cult and even confrontation. An adept Dungeon Master could easily lift these connection points and drop them into a town in their own campaign or even simply just take Orlane and drop it into a Hex.

The local temple has also been corrupted which provides a miniature dungeon itself as it proceeds to the mazes and tunnels below. What starts off as a normal religious operation is quickly made obvious that the cult ideals have also spread here. Below, encounters are met with monsters that make sense thematically as they have been charmed, and naturally in the case of the Shrieker. 

Another interesting aspect of the adventure is that the party can’t just rest in town indefinitely. The cult will make attempts to abduct them. There’s a very good chance that the characters will become charmed or imprisoned. Even if they attempt to pretend to be charmed, if they are imprisoned, there’s a good chance that they’ll be fed to lizards or killed and animated as zombies. Depending on the status quo of the campaign, a DM might better tip the players off rather than tell them a story about being abducted. This is done by the suggestion to ask the players about sleeping arrangements. In most campaigns, it would be tedious to ask how PCs are sleeping every night in a town/city, so this should raise some eyebrows.

There is an NPC named Ramne who has a critical, as written, importance to this adventure playing out. This seems innocent enough at first, but we'll get to why this is terrible below.

I don't know what's funnier, the calm smiley face of the guy with a bag over his head, or the oof-man.

The Wilderness Stuff

Learning about the Cults Headquarters will kick off the wilderness portion of the adventure. The module has clear and generalized descriptions of the areas the party will move through as well as different appropriate random encounter tables. That's pretty much it. There are no interesting sites, obstacles, or encounters to speak of outside of random encounters. If you're dropping it into your own hex crawl, it's not really a problem.

As the group gets closer to the dungeon itself, it will be clear that Ramne is a critical NPC. The module advises that if he isn’t present or is killed to have the characters find a scroll of minor globe of invulnerability and a 7th level dispel magic scroll. Also, I should mention that Ramne’s familiar “Whiskers” is somewhat needed to trail the Troglodytes. This is the worst part of the adventure, needing the reliance of a 7th level wizard. The module does encourage you to play him up as a feeble old man, but the idea that he’s not only present in a low-level adventure, but also necessary to a degree is awful.

I'm sure that in 1982 that people coming into the hobby just didn't know better and that included a number of people hired at TSR. But looking at it with our crystal clear 2025 20/20 hindsight age-of-hyper-criticism, putting in a powerful NPC that gets you past a powerful obstacle is not a satisfying challenge to player characters. 

The actual dungeon itself is pretty good. I’d say it was reasonably well laid out and has a lot packed into it. It does have a few things that don’t make total sense, but in general, these are minor. I will go into more detail in the “How I’d change it” section.

The Dungeon

After two floors of the dungeon and overcoming its challenges, I’d expect that the party will need to leave and rest or risk some unfortunate random encounters. The entire dungeon is either naturally occurring or excavated with muddy walls held up by slightly rotting timbers. The top floor is largely a constructed dungeon with walls, cultist servants and other monsters. The bottom floor is a more natural cave system with few constructed areas.

Once the party gets to the final encounter, it is revealed that a Spirit Naga is Explictica Defilus, the Reptile God. Here is where Ramne provides a protective and countering magical measures, otherwise a low level party stands no chance in this fight. She will start with a fireball, which requires Ramne’s minor globe of invulnerability. He will cast Lightning Bolt, quite softening her up. She will cast Darkness, which he will counter with Light. And finally, his Dispel Magics will be used to remove Charm.

While I hate that it's in this adventure, there is some value here: When people accustomed to level 1-3 B/X play need context about what a spell battle is like, this is an example that could be used.

How I'd Change It

• The setup: First, it's best to structurally frame important information about this adventure within the rumors/information gathering in your campaign before arriving at Orlane. The play-time juice that you want to squeeze out of this is mainly the dungeon and, to a lesser degree, the church primarily. Seed in hints that The Golden Grain Inn and the Temple of Merikka seem to be at play somehow, likely with local rumors. Perhaps even that Inn of the Slumbering Serpent as a better option for staying out of sight. If the party is suspicious of The Golden Grain Inn, they make poke around there and perhaps even set up a counter-ambush. At the very least, the party will want to check out the Temple and there's a good chance they'll want to break in at night.
• Room 3: The Cultist treasure room wouldn’t make sense that they’d have to brave scary frogs to truck valuables in and out of the area. How about Zombie frogs since the dead work for the cult. Minor flavor change and nobody is any wiser to it.
• Room 6: Burial pool - why waste skeletons when the level below has them trying to keep up with undead production? I'd think it would be easier to expunge what they could, right in their own home, rather than abducting more people and risking exposure unnecessarily. Simple fix: just have it be bones and body parts. Femurs, a skull, somethings hand, and maybe a foot float at the surface of the water.
• Rooms 7-8: It doesn’t sit well that a slime would just be harmlessly hanging out right next to cultist living quarters. Close off the hallway with a door and have the slime hanging above the door way, telegraphed with an unfortunately cultist who wandered in. Or just get rid of this hallway, it's pointless and move the slime to 12a or 12b. Those are prime for this kind of monster and are empty rooms.
• Room 16-17: A harpy lives here. This should be more of a nest than an actual room and it would make sense more if the ceiling had collapsed here, but not required. I'd definitely blow the ceiling open though.
• Room 26: A “Zombie Factory” with a cleric who can Animate Dead once/day. What does Garath Primo do after the few minutes per day or raising a single zombie? I don't know, I'd have him doing other things like trying to assemble a flesh golem with parts, but no means to animate it. Promises of the Reptile God can have him working tirelessly to achieve something out of reach. Also, it would add a bit of gruesome detail to see a patchwork set of stitched together body parts. Perhaps he made a humanoid arachnid or the human centipede? Perhaps there are two or more clerics taking shifts.
• Room 37: Explictica is too strong for this level range of players. So strong that it is assumed that you railroaded your PCs to use the NPC help. She can cast clerical and magic-user spells, including fireball, and her gaze can charm. She's got 9 HD, 40 HP, and an AC of 4. The entire forced guiding around the NPCs of this adventure is there because she is too powerful. Make up something new or lesser, get rid of Ramne. What I did was had a priest (basically Lareth from T1) be the mouth piece of the Reptile God. Or the Reptile God itself could be a stone guardian (MM2) shaped like a serpent man. I also made Ramne a proper old man NPC, with some sagely advice, but not the kind of guy who was ready to run to the dungeon with the players. It worked fine, but in retrospect I might make something like a half-strength Yuan Ti that can cast charm person and replace the cleric with another, even weaker, one. There's really only so many ways you can meet the expectations of a low level adventure alluding to a 'god'.
• Overall: have the undead more detailed, towns people (might even be cool if it was 'oh thats the seamstress' husband!') or failed adventurers adds a bit of flavor.
• Beforehand: Setting this in a world, I would already have a lot of the information gatherable before heading to Orlane if you wanted the session time spent more on the cult and the dungeon and less on in-town intrigue.

Can it CAG?

N1 is not a sure crowd pleaser universally, especially in the CAG circle. It's an investigative adventure and that alone turns some people off. This is not T1 - The Village of Hommlet, you can't just order ales at the Inn of the Welcome Witch, decide "Well there is that pesky Moathouse that probably has some money sitting around even though its caved in and overrun with giant bugs and frogs... lets have at it boys.", head on down to pick up some torches, a 10 foot pole, and some flasks of oil and be on your way.

This is one of those adventures where PCs need to talk to people. They will need to look under a few rocks, flip a few mattresses over, and check under some proverbial carpets. The adventure will come to them eventually, they just need to have faith. It will be a bit rocky getting there if your players are eager to get to exploring, but it will be rewarded.

By putting enough information in the world that can allude to what's going on there, it'll be quicker to get to the adventure. Gaps in knowledge that the players will have can surely be shored up here. As an adventure properly set in the temple and the dungeon, it could be a nice addition to your world with those things considered. Like most things, it could be made to CAG. 

Out of the box, I give it a 2.5/5 but with some mastering of dungeons, you can easily make this a 4/5. There's a lot of baby in that bathwater.

AD&D: Why the -1 Casting Time Shortcut?

I've received some direct messages regarding why I use this in my combat examples. People are pouring over the rules looking for this to be mentioned. This is a practiced shorthand for a lot of us, not deep cited rules lore. Don't like it? Don't use it.

This is not a rule, this is a communication aid. It changes zero outcomes logically. It's great for new people understanding segmented casting times. This is not just useful for the Dungeon Master, but for the players who have a spectrum of system familiarity at the table as well. As someone who has not only taught a lot of AD&D, but ran many tables with a spectrum of AD&D experience, this has worked fantastic in practice for years.

If you remember that a combat round is just 1 minute with 10 segments of 6 seconds each, you can logically see how it works by mapping out a full minute in seconds, then segments. What we refer to is the short cut math for doing a spell in relation to a battery of other actions in combat. I'll demonstrate some of that below.

In short, this takes an abstract segment and places the spell in firm relation to other events within similar timing. There is no granular breakdown of inter-segment resolution in AD&D other that weapon speed considerations and that omits the use of the segment other than it being a tie.

Really, this is such a stupid movement of a <end casting> label and nobody should lose sleep over this. The idea isn't what should happen, but whether everyone understands what does happen.

Breakdown of a round goes like this: 

<<<PREVIOUS ROUND (1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (2) 7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18 (4) 19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) 25 26 27 28 29 30 (6) 31 32 33 34 35 36 (7) 37 38 39 40 41 42 (8) 43 44 45 46 47 48 (9) 49 50 51 52 53 54 (10) 55 56 57 58 59 60 >>>NEXT ROUND

-1 method (Initiative + Casting time -1): 

An initiative of 2 with a stinking cloud counting 12 seconds. (1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (2) <start casting> 7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18 <end casting> (4) 19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) and so on to 60.

The standard math method (Initiative + Casting time): 

An initiative of 2 with a stinking cloud counting 12 seconds. (1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (2) <start casting> 7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18  (4) <end casting> 19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) and so on to 60.

What's the difference?

Either works fine, but consider the following scenarios (note that casting versus melee is handled very specifically in AD&D and is a separate topic):

Zombies are attacking Farmer Fred's homestead! The party goes to rescue farmer friend, a 0 level human, who is fending off a zombie from breaking through his front door. Zombies are everywhere and a melee has broken out. The magic-user is out of lower casting time spells and has to use disintegrate on the zombie before it hit's Fred. Remember that Zombies always attacks at the end of the round. Disintegrate is a 6 segment casting time. The initiative roll for the party comes up 4.

The standard math method (Initiative + Casting time): 

<<<PREVIOUS ROUND (1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (2) 7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18 (4) <party initiative - start casting> 19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) 25 26 27 28 29 30 (6) 31 32 33 34 35 36 (7) 37 38 39 40 41 42 (8) 43 44 45 46 47 48 (9) 49 50 51 52 53 54 (10) <end casting> 55 56 57 58 59 60 >>>NEXT ROUND

What happened first? Did the zombie crush Farmer Fred? Or did Disintegrate do it's thing? We know that keeping in mind the described method that it happens at the top of the segment. But segment 10 and 10 is confusing to some players (and new DMs). 

-1 method (Initiative + Casting time -1): 

<<<PREVIOUS ROUND (1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 (2) 7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18 (4) <party initiative - start casting> 19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) 25 26 27 28 29 30 (6) 31 32 33 34 35 36 (7) 37 38 39 40 41 42 (8) 43 44 45 46 47 48 (9) 49 50 51 52 53 54 <end casting> (10)  55 56 57 58 59 60 >>>NEXT ROUND

What happened first? Did the zombie crush Farmer Fred? Or did Disintegrate do it's thing? We know, right away, that the disintegrate happened to the zombie before any attack was made.

The party is ambushed on the roadside by bandits! Two of them are crested on either side of the road by archers who have glistening arrows dripping in some green ichor. The magic user wants to mitigate the possibility of poison arrow quickly, so he declares magic missile. Initiative comes up 1 for the party and 2 for the bandits.

The standard math method (Initiative + Casting time): 

<<<PREVIOUS ROUND (1) <party initiative - start casting> 1 2 3 4 5 6 (2) <end casting> 7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18 (4)  19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) 25 26 27 28 29 30 (6) 31 32 33 34 35 36 (7) 37 38 39 40 41 42 (8) 43 44 45 46 47 48 (9) 49 50 51 52 53 54 (10) 55 56 57 58 59 60 >>>NEXT ROUND

The clarification of same segment ordering does tell us that the magic missile happens before the missile fire. But again, segment 2 and 2 can be confusing.

-1 method (Initiative + Casting time -1): 

<<<PREVIOUS ROUND (1) <party initiative - start casting> 1 2 3 4 5 6 <end casting> (2)  7 8 9 10 11 12 (3) 13 14 15 16 17 18 (4)  19 20 21 22 23 24 (5) 25 26 27 28 29 30 (6) 31 32 33 34 35 36 (7) 37 38 39 40 41 42 (8) 43 44 45 46 47 48 (9) 49 50 51 52 53 54 (10) 55 56 57 58 59 60 >>>NEXT ROUND

Same result, but we know "Hey Magic missile went off segment 1, so it should blast one of those archers before they fire" and so does the entire table if they've been introduced to the shortcut.

Debating on moving things one second marker forward doesn't change the outcome, only how you shortcut it and refer to it during the dozens of rounds of combat you play in a session. Hopefully this clears things up for people who see the casting time -1 shortcut around the AD&D spaces online.

EDIT:

My friend EOTB posted on this issue in another discord, interesting commentary by Gary. He states that all actions take place at the beginning of a segment, which makes a spell also occurring them real iffy if that is followed.

Basic Campaign Setup

Getting Started on the Classic Adventure Game Sandbox

This post isn't meant to be exhaustive, but it's meant to wrap up a lot of questions that I regularly answer for questions in earnest. A lot of people interested in the CAG playstyle have seen all of the advice over blog posts, adventure reviews, and discussion on the building blocks of a dungeon, but there's very little advice out there on how to build a sandbox.

Before you read my post, check out Melan's excellent post here on a simple Hex Crawl guide. Be sure to check out Rob Conleys exhaustive writings and book on the subject himself.

This guy in the tavern won't shut up about adventure rumors if you buy him drinks.

Tentpole Dungeon

Megadungeons are tentpoles, as the common saying goes. A fully realized campaign will have non-megadungeon adventures, towns/cities/villages, lairs, etc. My campaigns always start with the supports of the adventures, propped by the towns, the canvas that lays over the supports are the wilderness in between. You have a megadungeon and a city. Now make 3 smaller settlements, 2 normal sized dungeons, and then think about how they'd all relate to each other. Are there any ways they are symbiotic already? In what ways can you add to that? 

Now populate a wilderness region to connect all of it, put in your small dungeons, your lairs, and your landmarks based on the culture that exists (or existed) in that region. What are the potential conflicts, what are the major NPCs or monstrous forces moving towards, and how long does that take. Write your brief timeline. Now expand that. Double it, triple it, multiply it by 10, and with each section find ways that the chunks are symbiotic to each other. Look at more things NPCs/monsters moving towards, fill in more of your timeline. Every megadungeon campaign is going to get some level of fatigue at some point. Those events happen, make their way to rumors and town-criers. The world is living with or without the PCs. 

The best product I can cite that captures these elements is Khosura by Gabor Lux.

The Hex Map

The most difficult things for me to articulate are things that I feel come naturally. Mapping is easier than some than others. If you can make a relatively interesting hex map, you don't need my help. If you struggle, then try what's worked for others:

Use random hexmap generators that allow you to edit after the fact and just hit generate. Or use real world maps and make 'not England'. Get yourself something that you can manipulate. Smooth out some terrain that might be too random or too 'in the weeds' for a tabletop game. Make sure water is accessible by settlements, but otherwise make it make some sort of geographical sense. And when it doesn't (why is there a swamp hex in the middle of these rolling hills? Oh, that area has been affected by disease geyser that bubbles up from the depths and a town has sunken into that swamp? Cool, make that a dungeon).

Great to Use for Play or Template

Wilderlands of High Fantasy by Judges Guild

Fomalhaut by Gabor Lux

Nod Magazine by Jon Stater

Black Marsh by Rob Conley 

Generators

Worldographer

https://hexroll.app/

https://hextml.playest.net/

Blank Hex Maps (For Printing or Photoshop/GIMP)

Blank JG Maps (https://devilghost.com/blog/20140705153400.html)

https://molotovcockatiel.com/hex-map-maker/

https://hamhambone.github.io/hexgrid/

 

Starting Towns and Regional Network

One quick method of setting up your own towns, I've already written about here. I recommend, to start, a network of about 5 reasonably sized towns. 'Reasonably' being the term that would at least provide characters the opportunity to restock on gear, visit temples for healing, find some henchmen or hirelings, and rest. One of those should be a city, which I will go in to more depth under City Adventuring. Another few villages as way points may be desirable depending on the size and scale of your planned hex map.

City Adventuring

As mentioned in the Town blog, you can use Sandbox Generator to help you get the bones of a city generator. Personally, I just used my imagination for most cities and started building it organically. If you are not able to, you can use a generator to get yourself started.

Alternatively, this online fantasy town generator  can get you a map in a hurry. You can see I used an convenient sample from below. I simply downloaded the image, opened the file up and started the next step: establishing districts and neighborhoods.

How would you divide up these districts? Where is water coming from?

Once you have the districts laid out, you should have a top down macro view of the general flow of how the city is ruled, who it's ruled by, and who it's really ruled by. You should know which areas are generally non-adventure areas typically and which ones will need random encounter tables (the final step).

Then once you have drilled down just enough to get a real solid idea of what's really happening in the city, start thinking about organizations, military, mercenaries, assassins, spies, thieves guilds, churches, cults, and finally 'what lives below the city'.

Now write some dangerous places that could be adventured within the city. Dark alleyways, warehouses, sewers, territory streets being fought over by rivals, and magic-user abodes. Once you spend a bit of time to really have some meat to find in the city, the next step is random encounters.

Both City Encounters and The Nocturnal Table, as well as a strong template for City State of the Invincible Overlord, have encounters that can fit in any city. The Forgotten Realms City System might be helpful to you, as well as FR1 Waterdeep and the North for inspiration.

Establish a Rough Timeline

This doesn't have to be exhaustive at first. When did the current rulers come into power? What events led up to certain adventure relevant status quos? When were some of those more major adventure sites build and operational? That ziggurat was built by someone. What happened? Then some of the fun of running a long term campaign is sprinkling some specific events to happen in the future, informed by what's already on the hex map.

For example, maybe on session 20 (day xxxx on your timeline), the the leader of the 40 ogre Torn-Face tribe is rumored to have the Blade of the Frostking, (from Hex XXXX) is going to try to set up in the forest stronghold (Hex XXYY) to settle in for a permanent home. The PCs may hear some rumors, one about a forest stronghold to the east where the lost kings treasures were buried with his mummified contingent and has since been eroded until it was partially flooded, letting other foul things slither in. The PCs go travel to it and come across 2 barrow mounds, an ankheg lair, and a fairy ring that was a cruel dryad ambush going back and forth to it but explore/loot the dungeon. Later the Ogres take it over and are there on a revisit. Maybe the PCs need to stop some place for the night and 'shit, 40 ogres'. 

Or the PCs aren't interested when they first hear about the forest stronghold. The PCs, later, having spent 20 sessions in the megadungeon, hear about the ogre tribe smashing through the forest stronghold to the east. The PCs see a change in scenery as a palette cleanser and go check it out. 

The ogres are now part of the upper level that used to be manned by clerics of some peaceful god that had their own obstacle of getting past. The Ogres fear the undead and shambling mounds that were already underneath, but now that site has Ogres to contend with and the undead are restless. Had they acted on a rumor they heard 5 sessions ago, getting through to that dungeon level would have been a matter of convincing the clergy, a very expensive or violent endeavor, who have been keeping the undead pacified. 

That is how 1 timeline entry can facilitate play as you tick the days past and add another dimension to the strict time records that you should be keeping.