Treasure, Experience, and the AD&D Economy

For some reason, perhaps it is my reinvestigation into Harn as a setting, I've been thinking about the AD&D economy quite a bit lately.  I can't remember where, but there was a thread on some forum that discussed a comment from Gygax saying he might have changed experience for treasure to a 5xp to 1gp ratio.  A commentor stated that they believed this would be coupled with a switch to a silver system, which would actually mean an overall reduction of xp.*

Assuming for a minute the two do coincide, I don't think it would actually mean fewer xp.  When one looks at the Standard Hirelings Table on page 28 of the DMG, the monthly costs for most of them don't go above 5gp, with the notable exception of Limner.  So a tailor would make 18gp in a year.  This is less than the PCs would make in even an unsuccessful delve.  The general economy would likely be powered by sp.  The high prices for weapons and armor are reflective of the pseudo-medieval/early modern society that AD&D seeks to represent.  Gold hoards are found in dungeons because they're the remnants of the golden age that made them.

So let us assume that the 5xp/1gp ratio is designed with the current economy presented in the PHB and DMG in mind.  One thing I noticed using the treasure rules as written for Nightwick Abbey was that after 25 sessions (c. six months) only one PC was level 3.  This strikes me as an incredibly slow rate of advancement, especially if one remembers Old Geezer's tale.  Granted that's a different system than AD&D, but they're obviously related.

For the sake of argument, let's see what this new ratio does to a hypothetical dungeon.  Based on the stocking chart in the DMG, a 100 room dungeon should have 20 rooms with treasure in it.  Using one possible reading of the rules, which will skew high, treasure is determined entirely by the level of the dungeon and not the monsters present.  Using Kellri's  Old School Encounters Reference, our hypothetical dungeon has about 3,600 gp on its first level.  A party of 6 would only get about 600xp from clearing out all of the dungeons treasure.  Now I don't have to tell you that's barely a drop in the bucket on an Prestidigitator's path to becoming an Evoker.  If you assume 5xp for 1gp though, the total xp available becomes 18,000 on the first level.  That's 3,000 a pop for our hypothetical party of 6.  If we assume a high number of 8, that's still 2,250, which is a much bigger boon to that aforementioned Prestidigitator.

The problem then comes with Training Costs.  If that Prestidigitator managed to get the 3,000 experience from clearing all of the dungeon, he still would only have 600gp to spend.  Ignoring upkeep, he still can't pay the training costs to level up.  This brings up the ultimate question: what is the pace of advancement supposed to be in AD&D?  Even with the inflated xp advancement is just as glacial as it was in the Nightwick campaign.  It would possibly be even slower. 

Somehow, I don't think this is the goal.  It could be a function of Gygax's game meeting more often than most modern groups or it could be that I'm a relentless powergamer for my belief that it shouldn't take six months to get to level three or the system could just be poorly thought out.  A the end of the day, I'm still not sure what to think.  While I won't adopt it for my current Greyhawk campaign -- instead I chose to inflate the treasure -- the 5xp to 1gp system is very attractive, if only because it allows me to use the treasure rules as written. 

The training costs strike me as highly unrealistic.  In a world where a light-footman makes 12gp in a year, it would seem unreasonable that his sergeant must pay 1,000gp just to train for a few weeks.  I imagine it's a way to get gold out of the players hands, but if you're only getting 604gp each dungeon level, that doesn't really strike me as game breaking.

Swords & Cinema: Hawk the Slayer

I first became aware of Hawk the Slayer through Knights of the Dinner Table.  It is apparently Bob and Dave's favorite movie, and it's more or less lambasted as being the bottom of the barrel of fantasy movies.  I suppose it says something about my infamously bad taste that Hawk is one of my favorite movies.  It certainly isn't a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something terribly evocative about it.

Our story begins "when the Legions of Darkness stalk the land."  Jack Palance, who plays the villain Voltan with all the range one would expect from Jack Palance, murders his father (who can't be more than 10 years older than him) in order to obtain a "secret."  He then leaves just before the younger borther, the eponymous Hawk, enters.  It turns out the secret was the power behind The Sword of Mind, and his father tells him how to activate it with his dying breaths.

At an unspecified amount of time later, a one-handed man finds his way to a matte painting of a convent. There he is welcomed by the sisters, who tend to his wounds.  He tells them that a "devil" destroyed his village and hacked its women and children to bits.  That devil's name was Jack Pal-- Voltan!  Our villain soon arrives and takes the Abbess captive, putting a knife in the one-handed man's chest.  He survives, and the sisters send him to their sacred fortress to raise a ransom.  There, he is told to seek out Hawk so that he might win the Abbess back.

Hawk, meanwhile, saves a witch from being burned, which seems to be a requirement in these movies.  Viewers may recognize her as the Rock Horror Picture Show's Magenta if she didn't wear a bandage that covered most of her face.  She tells him to ride south to meet the one handed man.  He does, only to find him being waylaid by a gang of bandits.  Hawk rescues him, and they return to the witch's cave.  From there, they embark on a series of adventures to recruit Hawk's old buddies.  Each is supposedly the last of their kind: an Dwarf, an Elf, and a Giant.

Once these demihumans are assembled, Hawk and his band attempt to rescue the Abbess and bring down Jack Palance.  I won't say much more than that because, unlike Deathstalker, I want you to watch this movie. The acting is a bit stiff, especially from our hero, and some of the effects are a bit cheesy.  However, considering their obviously low budget the makers of this movie did a pretty damned good job.  The soundtrack is a bit... odd.  It's a strange combination of Spaghetti Western and disco that somehow seems to fit the movie perfectly.

I think the best I can say about Hawk the Slayer is that it looks like the film version of a Dave Trampier drawing.  The sets and spell effects are especially interesting looking, even if they sometimes reek of the 80s.  If D&D didn't have some effect on this film, I'll eat my hat.

The Sword of Mind
This +1 two-handed sword acts as a +3 Sword in the hands of a Lawful character or creature.  The shares a telekinetic bond with its owner.  He or she may summon it from a distance of 30' (3") and may through it as if it were a dagger.  If thrown, the Sword of Mind still does damage as a two-handed sword.  When drawn, it gives the wielder a -2 defense bonus against missile attacks.

Greyhawk Session 3 Part 2

Part 1

Upon arriving in the dungeon's entry hall, they realized that their previous mapper had the East and West directions on the map flipped.  They decided they'd tell everyone they did it on purpose in order to confuse anyone who stole their map.  They decided to head south this time, and eventually wound up in a colonnaded chamber so large that they could not see it's end with their torches.

They decided to send Xel ahead to investigate, since he was already in the front of the party and could see without the aid of a torch.*  As he entered the chamber, a loud voice from the ceiling proclaimed "WELCOME TO CASTLE GREYHAWK!"  A giant lizard, attracted by the noise, came into the chamber looking for an easy meal.  While it did not spot Xel, the party's torches attracted the creature.

It rushed up immediately.  It then grabbed Synecdoche in its terrible jaws and shook him like a dog with a chew toy. This left Synechdoche terribly wounded and he immediately passed out.  Xel moved in to backstab the creature; however, he was unable to score a hit.  Nilrem managed to pelt it with a few darts, and Slimey similarly tried to use his sling.  Unfortunately, Slimey botched and hit the hireling in front of him square in the back of the head, killing him instantly.  When all seemed lost, Baldric -- Nilrem's hideous henchmen -- moved to the front of the formation with his two-handed sword and sliced the top of the lizard's head off (from the upper jaw up).  He made this into a grim, and huge, trophy necklace.

Realizing that they would need to get Synecdoche to a cleric soon, they immediately dragged him out of the dungeon and headed towards town.  At Castlegate they were stopped by an tax collector in a poofy hat.  They were able to get by him without wasting too much time, but the only temple near enough to service them was dedicated to Garl Glittergold.  They healed him, but due to the severity of his wounds he would need to rest for the rest of Brewfest.

The rest of the party either spent the rest of the festival doing foul deeds (Nilrem and Baldric) or at Synecdoche's bedside (Xel and Slimey).  Once that week was over, the players each payed upkeep, to represent the cost of their Rock'n'Roll lifestyle, and I rolled to see if any of them would suffer from some hideous disease.  It turns out Synecdoche had contracted scabies.  This caused his beard to fall out, and due to this humiliation he went to get it healed at the temple of Moradin in the Bad Food District.

After this, the party once again met at the Green Dragon to organize another outing.  Nilrem told Baldric to give a speech to motivate the hirelings in order to compensate for the fact that Slimey killed one of them on the last expedition.  His "speech" consisted of berating and spitting on them through his hair lip.

They then made their way back to the castle, once again with four light infantry and two porters.  This time, they decided to explore the system of hallways that had contained a strange demon and a chest filled with fake gold coins.  They found a large room containing a stagnant pool.  Disturbing the pool caused three killer frogs to emerge, but these were quickly slain.  Investigating the pool revealed that their were a number of silver coins at the bottom, and the party ordered the men-at-arms to get in it and fill some sacks with coins.  They then left the dungeon with their new booty.

That's where the session ended.  We forgot to ask them whether or not they plan to explore the dungeon more next week or if they want to go out into the wilderness.  I've tried to mix the mechanical information in a bit more with the text this time.

It was a tremendously fun session, and I'm glad I was able to inject a bit more flavor into the city itself.

* I typically rule that the presence of torches dulls this sense since it doesn't allow their eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Greyhawk Session 3 Part 1

Only four of the normal gang of six players could make it, so this session saw...

Xel -- a mysterious Gnome Fighter/Thief
Slimey -- a similarly mysterious Thief from a far off land
Synecdoche -- a Dwarf danger magnet
Nilrem -- Sinister wizard

lead an two delves into the dungeons beneath Greyhawk Castle.  The events of the session began on the first day of Brewfest, and Greyhawk was filled with various drunken activities.  The party met at the Green Griffin to plan their expeditions, but the tavern had filled to capacity.  Outside was a crowed of drunken revelers carousing in the typical fashion for the holiday.

Seeing that some of them were ignorant farm girls, Slimey tried to get lucky.  He found one who seemed interested, but when he asked her if her two friends could join them they all turned away in disgust.  I used a heavily handwaved version of the AD&D henchman hiring rules for this exchanged, and the entire table thanked me for not roleplaying that out.

While Slimey was so engaged, the party noticed a strange procession coming down the street.  It consisted of a few priests supporting a statue resembling this:

Behind them were a number of farmers carrying baskets filled with turnips, cabbages, and other produce.  Several of the revelers approached the priests and placed coins in various slots at the base of the statue.  Doing so caused a dark-ish liquid to shoot out of one of its breasts, corresponding to which slot was used.  The party pretty much unanimously agreed this was the best invention ever, and each set upon the priests so that they might partake of the alcoholic drink that lay within the statue.  Even Xel was able to get some, after a nearby farmer raised him up to the statue.  To their surprise, it was not beer but instead a delicious mead.

After this the party more or less split up.  Synecdoche and Slimey engaged in a drinking contest, which ended quickly as Slimey passed out after a single drink.  Their contest was decided with a save vs. poison by each player, and Slimey's botched the first roll.  Nilrem gave a coin to Baldric, his hideous henchmen, so that he might use the statue.  "Avail yourself of the contents of one tit," Nilrem told him.  Misunderstanding this, Baldric rushed immediately to the nearest brothel.  Nilrem then muscled his way inside the Green Griffin to speak to Boris the Bloated Bartender.  He managed to cut a deal with Boris that would secure the entirety of the Griffin's rooms for the party and their retainers.  My co-DM and I decided that the cost of this should be rolled into the monthly upkeep of the characters, since we are using that rule from AD&D.

Xel, realizing he would not be able to sleep in the inn until after brewfest was over -- the Griffin was booked full for the festival -- headed to the park of pleasures to find a place to squat for awhile.  In the park where a number of troupes performing plays with odd masks and in strange dialects.  Xel also bumped into the park creeper that Slimey had met while looking for the Dryads who supposedly perform sexual favors.  The Gnome tailed him awhile, and saw the man duck into a secret door concealed in an ancient oak tree.

The next day, Synecdoche hid his gold under the floorboards of his room at the Griffin before meeting with the rest of the party.  They hired two somewhat-sober men to act as porters, and marshaled four of the fourteen men-at-arms they had picked up last session.  With that, they cut their way through the Thieves Quarter of the Old City into the Warrens and eventually out of Castlegate and towards the tumbled pile of Castle Greyhawk.

Continued in Part 2

Halloween on the Borderlands

Since my favorite holiday is fast approaching, I thought I'd share an idea I had a few months back.  It's partially inspired by Mike Mearls's infamous B2 review.  Let's take the idea of the Caves of Chaos as a monster apartment building and screw with it.  How about this: once a year, on [the campaign equivalent of Halloween], the orcs and goblins take their little orc and goblin kids out trick-or-treating.  

Now imagine what their costumes look like.  I'm a bit sick in the head, so I think they'd have masks made out of tanned human faces and carry emptied out skulls to put their treats in.  They go from cave to cave collecting eyeballs and grubworms to take home and devour.  If you want to get silly, make them carry around fake versions of the trappings associated with the different classes in your version of D&D.

"What are you supposed to be, little maggot?" a bloated goblin crone might screech at the orc toddler before he proudly holds up his mace and belches "I'm a cleric!"

Now imagine this is the state the caves are in when the PCs next arrive.  Who says you can't do anything fun with all of those monster babies?

Nightwick Abbey in Hindsight Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

In part one I discussed what I thought the failings of Nightwick Abbey were and in part two I discussed it's key strength, strangeness, as well as what I will be changing if I continue to develop it for play.  Now I wish to discuss possible venues for my campaign dungeon.

The most pressing question facing the future of the demon-haunted abbey is whether or not I'll use it again for my current gaming group.  While I hope to be in Knoxville for the rest of my graduate experience, this largely depends on whether or not I can secure funding here for the PhD program.  As such, it seems possible that the Greyhawk campaign might be the last thing I do with this group.

If I do manage to get funding, it could mean I'll be in Knoxville for several more years.  If that is the case, it's possible that the Greyhawk campaign might wind down or become a stale and the players and I will decide to visit something else.  Whether or not this ends up being Nightwick Abbey at least partially hinges on how much of the material I end up folding into my version of Castle Greyhawk.  On the one hand, I want to maximize the usefulness of the material I've already developed.  I envisioned Greyhawk as a more low maintenance project largely made up of the re-flavored carcass of my old dungeon.

However, this is proving to be far from the case.  While zany, Greyhawk is much more in the vein of "classicist fantasy," to borrow a phrase, as opposed to Nightwick Abbey's romantic/gothic streak.  Granted, it still contains much of the mythic underworld in it, but the goblins and orcs who dwell with in mate in the usual fashion and are motivated by more or less the same (base) desires as the humans.  While I think this makes for a more unique dungeon, it does cut down on the re-usability of much of the Nightwick material.

This is both a good and a bad thing for Nightwick Abbey.  It's good because it means that Nightwick's material will stay in Nightwick.  If it was duplicated too much in Greyhawk, it'd be unlikely that I would run it again in the near future.  Since I won't get to use some of my ideas they'll stay fresh if the dungeon should see play again.  It's bad because it means I have to spend more time developing Greyhawk Castle, and I can't devote as much time to fixing Nightwick Abbey's problems and drawing up knew levels beneath its tumbled ruins.

One possible venue then could be google+; however, I'm fairly busy as it is and running anything more than the occasionally side game would probably end with my having a heart attack.  Still, I'll at least think about running a one-shot or two online.

Online gaming becomes much more attractive if I'm forced to leave the Knoxville area.  I have a fairly large following (for which I am extremely grateful) and I imagine that if I was deprived of a group I could leverage that into a semi-regular online game.  I used to be much more dismissive of online play than I am now, especially after I saw how well it worked with my skype-based Traveller game.

There is also the possibility of publication.  This is highly unlikely outside of a free download or some shitty pamphlet I freely distribute myself.  Nightwick Abbey relies far too heavily on others materials, notably the very excellent dungeon geomorphs the OSR has been so amazing at producing.  As such it would require extremely heavy editing before I could produce it in a form that I'm both happy with and that doesn't piss off someone with access to lawyers.  If I manage to produce further material on Nightwick Village,  I may include some notes on the dungeons various levels and specials.  These will not include maps and I'll attempt to avoid any actively AD&D material.

At this point, everything is up in the air.  I'm running a bit longer than I wanted to, so I will discuss the inspiration for Nightwick Abbey in part 4.

As if I needed another project...

In honor of both the first year anniversary of this blog and my new found love of Mongoose Traveller, I've decided to start a side blog dedicated to the development of my Terran Space setting.  You can find more about the project here.

I'll definitely be updating In Places Deep far more regularly, but I felt that another blog would both help me better collect my Traveller setting related material in an organized fashion and help maintain the OSD&D theme of this blog.