tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post2436790818031640477..comments2024-03-14T10:32:29.233-05:00Comments on Blood of Prokopius: Holmes on TrapsFrDavehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-45704063348548796342011-05-14T18:46:23.469-05:002011-05-14T18:46:23.469-05:00Great post. Very interesting. I don't think ...Great post. Very interesting. I don't think the wandering monsters *must* spawn out of nothing. After all, the characters entered the dungeon looking for stuff, couldn't monsters do the same? If the wandering monsters are of a similar type to the other encounters, wandering monsters are simply random Schrödinger instances of the existing inhabitants. :)Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158916950442942918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-89099834397724540562011-05-14T11:45:46.632-05:002011-05-14T11:45:46.632-05:00@Zenopus
Thanks for the kind words and for the bib...@Zenopus<br />Thanks for the kind words and for the bibliographic info!<br /><br />@Alexey<br />Thanks for the kind words.<br /><br />On having a naturalistic dungeon, I would normally agree and I myself play that way (having been influenced by Gygax and Arneson through the decades); however, this series is a thought experiment based solely on the info available in Holmes & Cook.<br /><br />Note the sample dungeon given by Holmes. It only has 22 rooms and no indication of levels beneath (other than an open invitation to do so if the would-be DM wants to). This is no sprawling dungeon of hundreds of rooms where wandering monsters can happen naturally.<br /><br />Though Skull Mountain does suggest that such huge sprawling dungeons do exist, the fact that the sample dungeon is so small and still has wandering monsters as its primary danger for characters strongly suggests that dungeons of all shapes and sizes are something other than natural.FrDavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-41657687148737588462011-05-14T10:51:34.953-05:002011-05-14T10:51:34.953-05:00On the naturalism vs. gonzo: I think the key here ...On the naturalism vs. gonzo: I think the key here is the idea of the dungeon as a fairly large, mostly unexplored expanse of corridors/rooms. It would certainly be gonzo if a small, 5-room underground complex continued to produce groups of 5-15 evil humanoids. But a large scale, multi-level dungeon doing the same? Who's to say that there's not a "naturalistic" explanation for those creatures continuing to show up (secret doors in deep levels, forgotten connections to other chambers, etc.) that the PCs don't know or understand. Perhaps that's one of the main mysteries the party would be investigating.<br /><br />I think one of the aspects of DMing I enjoy most is leaving some of those mysteries unknown even to myself. Introduce weird stuff that might be explained later if the party investigates--but upon introduction I don't even know why it's there/where it came from. "Mysteries only explained by deep delving."<br /><br />Incidentally, and at the risk of stating something obvious to all the well-versed D&D vets here, Moldvay continues to use the same room contents proportions on his dungeon stocking table. <br /><br />Great post, Fr. Dave.Alexeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04962792394148711578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-7844604770326055752011-05-14T10:35:20.499-05:002011-05-14T10:35:20.499-05:00Hi. Great series, I started reading after Grognard...Hi. Great series, I started reading after Grognardia posted the link.<br /><br />Regarding your post, many of the ideas in this section of the Holmes rulebook come straight out of OD&D Book 3, and thus are from Gygax/Arneson rather than Holmes, though he made the sensible editorial decision to include them in Basic. That traps should be non-lethal rather than lethal is on page 6, section "Trick and Traps", which also contains a list that Holmes summarized as the "hidden rooms, etc..." This is followed by a section on distribution of monsters that gives the 1-2 out of 6 and notes there should be "far more uninhabited space on a level than space occupied by monsters". The idea of traps being sprung on only 1 or 2 out of 6 is from page 9. The part about number of wandering monsters is from page 11, though it does not clearly say that the number should be equal to the party. As you can see, this part of the Holmes Basic rulebook is essentially a condensation of the first part of OD&D Book 3. Some stuff is purely Holmes, like the mention of Cthulhu, the new Example of Play, and the new Sample Dungeon.<br /><br />[Edit: I didn't read the previous comments before posting - so I see DHBoggs already brought up some of these points & you responded to them].Zenopus Archiveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-80503115192050625972011-05-13T22:12:05.889-05:002011-05-13T22:12:05.889-05:00@Erin
...especially if I'm rolling my special ...@Erin<br />...especially if I'm rolling my special initiative die that only has 3's...<br /><br />@DHBoggs<br />No doubt about Gygax and Anderson (and I, myself, tend to adhere to their naturalism in my own games); however, I am in the midst of going back to a time in the early 80s when the <i>only</i> D&D I owned was Holmes & Cook. What would my homebrew look like? Following the logic on traps, it looks like my game is going to err on the side of gonzo rather than the naturalism I am normally want to do (primarily because I have been unduly influenced for <i>years</i> by both Gygax and Anderson). Personally, I find that fascinating.FrDavehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00459281821319914530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-63011140298498616142011-05-13T19:56:12.105-05:002011-05-13T19:56:12.105-05:00Interesting post. Although I don't recall the...Interesting post. Although I don't recall the "go off on 1 or two" rule, the rest of it (frequency of empty rooms, commonality and strength of wandering monsters, and preponderance of delaying and confusing traps over damaging ones) is straight cut and paste out of OD&D, and much the same can be found in the FFC.<br /><br />While you might be right about Holmes, in gonzo fashion, imagining spontaneous monster generation, Arneson and Gygax were proponents of verissimilitude (aka "naturalism") and expected monsters to have a history as a part of the ecology.DHBoggshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02170439175265397893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2290828421410624791.post-2103553320723752322011-05-13T16:09:10.308-05:002011-05-13T16:09:10.308-05:00Coupled with the rule that traps only go off on a ...<i>Coupled with the rule that traps only go off on a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6 when characters go by/over them...</i><br /><br />Holmes is full of surprises--I don't recall this in any subsequent version. <br /><br />I like the concept, but could see certain encounters going off too easy if the trap doesn't work. Imagine the beginning sequence in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" if the GM kept rolling 3's or higher...Erin Smalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16085303583608172242noreply@blogger.com