Go to Part 1

From 2018 to 2020, I ran an open table set in the dungeons of Castle Blackmoor.

If you’re not familiar with Blackmoor, it’s THE original D&D dungeon. Created by Dave Arneson in the early ‘70s, the very first people to ever play a modern roleplaying game crawled through its tunnels. When Arneson took the game to Lake Geneva and ran it for Gary Gygax, these were the rooms that Gygax’s character hacked and slashed his way through.

In 1977, Judges Guild published Arneson’s The First Fantasy Campaign. Although deliberately incomplete (because Arneson wanted to keep secrets from the people still playing in his campaign) and often frustratingly impenetrable (because Arneson sort of just gave Judges Guild a stack of various notes, drawn from multiple periods of time and with little indication of their context, intent, or even relation to each other), this slim tome provides a unique and irreplaceable insight into the early days of the RPG hobby and the campaign that gave birth to D&D.

In particular, as detailed in my Running Castle Blackmoor series, The First Fantasy Campaign includes a copy of Arneson’s dungeon maps and enough information that you can cobble together something resembling his original stocking procedures. Using this knowledge, I reset the clock on Blackmoor (so that my players would be the first to journey within), stocked the Blackmoor maps to create my own version of the dungeon, and launched a campaign that would, ultimately, last for several dozen sessions.

By the time the campaign came to an end, a little over two dozen players had delved into the Blackmoor dungeons. They’d even begun transforming the village of Blackmoor to suit their desires. (More on that momentarily.) COVID was the primary reason the campaign floundered, but there were also some deeper issues with how the campaign was set up. If not for the pandemic, I might have found the time and effort necessary to correct those issues, but unfortunately that never happened.

Nevertheless, I thought it might be useful to review the lessons I learned from running a Blackmoor campaign – both positive and negative. Some of these may be most useful if you’re interested in setting up your own Blackmoor campaign (which I heartily recommend!), but there are quite a few secrets to be gleaned that could be useful for almost any table.

SPECIAL INTEREST XP

In The First Fantasy Campaign, Arneson also describes an experience system based on “special interests.” Instead of earning XP through combat or simple looting, the PCs would instead need to spend money specifically on their special interests in order to advance.

Unfortunately, the system described by Arneson doesn’t work. (I mean this in the most literal sense: There’s missing and contradictory information that makes it impossible to use as written.) I was fascinated by the potential of the concept, however, and designed my own Special Interest XP System to use in my Blackmoor campaign:

• Special interests included carousing, song/fame, religion/spirituality, philanthropy, caranvale, hoarding, training, and hobbies.
• When creating characters, players would randomly determine which special interests would be favored by their character.
• GP spent on a special interest would translate to XP, modified by the character’s level of interest in that special interest.
• Additional rules limited expenditures by the size/quality of a community, providing motivation for PCs to either (a) pursue multiple special interests, (b) travel, (c) improve their community, and/or (d) avail themselves of trade caravans (which served as an additional font of adventure hooks).

Using Special Interest XP: Implementing (and explaining) this system did increase the amount of time required for character creation. For an open table you really want character creation to be as fast as possible, and there were a few sessions where this extra load had a slightly negative effect. It just took too long to start playing.

The solution I found was to delay explaining how the various special interests actually worked until the end of the session. This:

• Reduced the time spent at the beginning of the session.
• Engaged players when they were most excited about the system (e.g., they had money they could spend to earn XP), increasing their attention and interest.
• No longer kept existing players waiting. Since they already knew how the system worked, they could immediately begin plotting how to invest their loot at the end of the session while the new players got onboarded.

I also experimented with pushing the generation of special interests to the end of the session for new players, but this backfired because:

• Players already familiar with the system who were generating new characters wanted to immediately generate their special interests, often creating confusion.
• It created too much bookkeeping at the end of the session when people often needed to wrap things up and head home.

Effects of Special Interest XP: Tweaking the presentation of special interest XP to make it work smoothly at my open table was well worth the effort because the actual effect of using special interest XP in play was astounding.

Let’s talk about PCs investing in their community – buying houses, founding businesses, establishing strongholds, etc. My typical experience with D&D across many different editions is that, unless the DM specifically frames up an opportunity (e.g., an NPC giving the PCs Trollskull Manor as a quest reward in Dragon Heist), it usually takes somewhere between seven and twelve levels before the PCs start setting down roots like this. In practical terms, it requires not only a certain amount of money, but also for the players to have bought all the other goodies (armor, equipment, etc.) they desire.

Special interest XP, on the other hand, saw the PCs immediately start investing in the local community. Within just a couple sessions, a cleric had built a healing chapel on a hill just outside of town. He only had a limited number of healing spells, but even when he wasn’t playing other PCs could visit his character at the chapel and pay for healing.

Other characters established a meadery, erected an elven tree shrine, took over the local church, bought a house, and all manner of things. When one group found a flying machine, they decided that they should donate it to the Steward and his Council, who then charged them with conveying it to the capital of the Great Kingdom as tribute.

To be clear, this was all happening with characters who were below 5^th level. I’ve run a lot of D&D over the years and, as I say, I’ve never seen anything like this. If you’re interested in exploring this sort of thing in your own campaign, I definitely recommend adapting Special Interest XP to your system of choice.

STOCKING ISSUES

Almost certainly the biggest problem I had with the campaign was stocking the dungeon.

First, Arneson’s stocking procedures simply didn’t generate enough treasure. (This was even more true when it came to restocking.) Since GP = XP, this meant that the PCs were stunted in their leveling. The lack of leveling also meant that the PCs couldn’t penetrate into the lower levels of the dungeon, which exacerbated the problem.

At a certain point, the PCs were just kind of stuck wandering through rooms that had been thoroughly picked over. Obviously not ideal.

I began experimenting with different solutions, but hadn’t found a completely satisfactory solution before the campaign ended. Therefore, I’d suggest going big for your own Blackmoor:

• Double the amount of treasure in your initial stocking.
• For restocking, double both the likelihood of a new treasure and the value of that treasure.

You should be able to dial it in from there.

(I will note that this might be less of a problem if you’re running Blackmoor as a dedicated table instead of an open one.)

Exacerbating this issue is that the first level of the Blackmoor dungeons is rather small, the second level is only of moderate size, and then difficulty leaps up substantially if you go down to the third level.

Related to this is the lack of variety on the stocking tables. Taken directly from Arneson’s manuscript, for example, the list of possible creatures on the top two levels of the dungeon are:

Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Kobolds, Goblins, Elves, Fairies, Sprites, Pixies, Hobbits

Not only is the list limited, but it also contains some problematic elements in the Pixies, which appear in large numbers and, according to the 1974 D&D rules, “are able to attack while remaining generally invisible. They can be seen clearly only when a spell to make them visible is employed.” Low-level characters wisely learned to simply flee whenever they encountered a pixie.

These problems only became more pronounced with some of the foes encountered on lower levels. As a result, the dungeon slowly became overwhelmed by impossible foes, further limiting where the PCs could safely explore.

Finally, partly as a consequence of all this, there just wasn’t enough of the cool stuff that Blackmoor offers: The ghosts, weird items, spell eggs, Arnesonian machines, etc.

Some of these problems could have been mitigated if the PCs were leveling up (with more powerful PCs clearing out problem spots and leading expeditions into the lower levels), but it was clear to me that all of the stocking and restocking procedures needed an overhaul if the campaign were going to perform to its best potential.

Go to Part 12B: More Lessons Learned in Blackmoor

Review Originally Published January 8th, 2001

Tomb of the Overseers and Against the Barrow King are the third and fourth D20 modules in AEG’s Adventure Boosters series. (The first two – Castle Zadrian and Sundered Faith – were reviewed previously.) To recap briefly: The Adventure Boosters are 16 half-pages long, with a map in the middle of the pamphlet, a new monster, and a new magic item. Eight of these Boosters have been released so far, and, at $2.49 each, they’re a great way to pick up a cheap, single session adventure for your gaming group.

Warning: From this point forward, this review will contain spoilers for Tomb of the Overseers and Against the Barrow King. Players who may end up playing in these modules are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

TOMB OF THE OVERSEERS

Tomb of the Overseers is an excellent, tightly constructed dungeon crawl. Surprisingly, despite its short length, it also has a definite – and effective – epic quality to it, which earns Ken Villars and John Zinser, the designers, high kudos from me.

The background for Tomb of the Overseers is evocative: Nearly a century ago a paladin by the name of Lord Eriador led his people to freedom from a great evil. With the land freshly united he was called to continue his fight upon the higher planes, but he left an Overseer to watch over the land in his absence and promised that, if his land was ever in need of him again, he would return upon being summoned from Mount Anduin.

Now, with the Third Overseer upon the throne, the land is in trouble: An evil mage has sent forth his humanoid hordes to oppress the people. The mage has also filled Mount Anduin with foul creatures in order to prevent the people from calling upon their legendary champion. Although three parties have gone and never returned, it is hoped that the PCs will succeed where they failed.

The dungeon itself is, as I’ve noted, of excellent design. Although I would’ve liked to see a greater impact left behind by the three adventuring parties who came this way before, the complex nevertheless has a layered complexity that gives Tomb of the Overseers a nice dynamic during play. Basically there are three things at work here: First, the creatures left by the evil mage. Second, the natural guardians of this place (who will test the PCs to see if they are worthy of summoning forth Eriadon). And, finally, the puzzle of how to access the magical chamber from which Eriadon may be summoned.

The only flaw in this package is the back cover text and adventure hook (which casts the PCs as the long-time residents of Eriador’s country). I consider this to be unnecessarily intrusive upon the DM’s campaign, and a liability in terms of making the adventure truly flexible. Fortunately, this is neatly sidestepped by simply ignoring it.

At $2.49 this one is a definite steal.

(Tomb of the Overseers is designed for 5-6 characters of levels 3-5.)

AGAINST THE BARROW KING

Against the Barrow King is not as strong as Tomb of the Overseers, but is nonetheless well worth the meager price you’re being asked to pay.

The premise: A village believes itself to be under attack by the disturbed spirit of the Barrow King, whose burial grounds (steeped in legend and superstition) are located only a few miles out of town. It is hoped that the PCs will be able to track down the Barrow King and rid the village of his plague.

The twist: If the spirit of the Barrow King truly rests still within his burial ground, then it slumbers still. The village is actually being victimized by a cult of Vroodith, god of Slaughter, which has moved into the abandoned burial grounds.

That’s not much of a twist – but it adds spice to what is otherwise a straight-out dungeon crawl: The PCs go into the burial ground, root out the cult, and solve the village’s problems.

(Against the Barrow King is designed for 4-6 characters of levels 3-5.)

CLOSING NOTE

As a closing note, let me say that it’s nice to see a D20 producer who’s willing to jump immediately to mid-level adventures. With Atlas Games, Green Ronin, Necromancer, Wizards of the Coast, and several others already turning out high quality introductory modules, I don’t think it’s necessary to keep pumping more material into a market sector which has been safely sated for at least the next year.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Title: Adventure Boosters: Tomb of the Overseers and Against the Barrow King
Writers: Ken Villars & John Zinser (Tomb of the Overseers) and Against the Barrow King (Steve Hough)
Publisher: AEG
Price: $2.49/each
Page Count: 16
ISBN: n/a
Product Code: 8303, 8304

As I mentioned last time, I had intended to review all of the AEG Adventure Boosters, but stopped after being hired by Fantasy Flight Games to write for their competing line of Instant Adventures.

I might not have finished the project in any case, as after the first batch, AEG published I believe two more batches, for a total of 40+ adventures. That’s a lot of adventures! These were later updated to the 3.5 rules and collected in the Adventure I and Adventure II compilation volumes.

Next AEG Booster Review: Crypt of St. Bethesda

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Last weekend I attended the Philadelphia Area Gaming xpo (PAGE). While there, Questing Beast interviewed me and a bunch of other guests.

You can check out all of our responses on Youtube now!

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 42A: Rat Mothers

But Ranthir, upon hearing the word “flee”, whirled around and webbed the far side of the room: The mothers, the albino, and Berq were all helplessly caught – except for one mother, trapped in the corner, who futilely screamed for help in her despair. Tor closed on her and ruthlessly killed both her and the baby ratlings.

With the other mothers still trapped in the web. Tee was able to broker a bargain in which they would be freed if one of them would lead the party to the southern sewer entrance. While the mothers were carefully freed from the web, Tor started discreetly taking ears and fingers from the dead as trophies. Meanwhile, Elestra distracted the ratlings with small talk to keep them from noticing Tee looting the coffers of the nest master (which were filled with gems, jewelry, and large amounts of coin; although given the bones and skulls dangling from the ceiling, Tee didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about where it had all come from).

“Killing orc babies” in D&D is a trope not so much because DMs are deliberately trying to present their players with this moral dilemma, but rather because it arises pretty naturally out of the standard D&D adventure type: Dungeons inhabited by X. “Inhabited” leads to community; community leads to babies. And, of course, it’s not just orcs. In this session it happened to be ratlings.

Now, there’s a whole discussion to be had about the colonialist themes in D&D and also the degree to which the traditional fantasy tropes of “species which is inherently evil” and/or “humanoid species with sub-human intellects” are manifestations of and/or informed by real world racism, but I’m going to put a pin in that.

What I’m focused on at the moment is less the specific moral dilemma, and rather the phenomenon of emergent moral dilemmas.

There can sometimes be the impression that moral dilemmas are something that GMs need to specifically create, frame up, and present to the players. But the real world is filled with moral dilemmas with nary a GM in sight, so it’s not really surprising that they’ll also crop up more or less unbidden in our simulated game worlds – whether that’s ratling babies in the ratling nests; the decision to betray a friend; or the opportunity to profit at the expense of others.

Whether a particular moral dilemma is crafted by a GM or emerges from the narrative of play, it can offer a rich opportunity for roleplaying, allowing players to explore their characters at a deep and meaningful level. Like any form of play, it can also be a way to safely explore complex issues.

Or, alternatively, being a form of play, it can also provide an escape from the complexities of the real world.

This is where moral dilemmas can create strife at your table: When some players are approaching the game world as a place of deep meaning and other players are approaching the game world as an ephemera of casual play, this can easily create discordant perceptions. To some extent, of course, this is always true, but when it comes to moral dilemmas, the inherently heightened takes – e.g., killing babies! – will naturally amplify the discordance.

(The issues of how much a player’s actions/beliefs are separated from their character’s actions/beliefs also complicates this, but I’m going to put a pin in that, too.)

Not only will different players have different responses to these situations, the same player can easily have a different response depending on the nature and context of the moral dilemma.

To use a video game analogy, I’ve never seen anyone seriously object to Mario curbstomping koopas to death, but change the context to running down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto and now there are many people who would find it distasteful. But some of the people who object to running down pedestrians have no problem with stealing cars in the same game! Others who will happily go on mass murder sprees in the game will draw the line at running over a sex worker you just paid so that your character can get the money back.

Why?

Because people are complicated.

In the case of the ratling babies in my own campaign, what happened was a combination of several factors:

• A general coarsening of the group’s morality in the face of hardships. (Something which has been commented on several times in recent sessions.)
• The perceived moral positioning of ratlings, with some of the players/characters perceiving them as being more like worgs or cannibalistic apes than human-equivalent sentients.
• The moral importance of the game world. The group was largely on the same bandwidth here, but there were definitely some players with a slightly more casual approach.

Because the players were mostly in alignment with each other – and also because they all had the same clear understanding that character actions were not player actions – these factors kind of balanced each other out: While one player might be slightly more cavalier than another, a player who was taking the world a little more seriously could nevertheless interpret those actions as being consistent with the other character “losing their moral compass,” and it would all sort of muddle out in a collective experience everyone was happy with.

Of course, this will not always be the case! It’s quite possible for disparate reactions to a moral dilemma to cause serious strife!

And the broader point is that, because moral dilemmas will naturally emerge from your narrative, you can’t dodge this issue by just saying, “Well, I just won’t include any moral dilemmas in the campaign, then.” You need to be aware and stay aware of what’s happening at your game table, and when player expectations get out of alignment you need to be prepared to hit the pause button and help everyone get back on the same page.

Safety tools – i.e., structures for having these conversations in clear and productive ways – are obviously helpful with this, and I particularly recommend using them if you’re playing with someone for the first time or with familiar players in a new genre. But a lot of safety tools are focused on identifying topics or themes, and moral dilemmas can often hit the group from unexpected angles and in unanticipated ways. So keep your eyes open!

Campaign Journal: Session 42B – Running the Campaign: Scouting Dungeons
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index