I still think that people confuse 2 related rules ("gm guidelines"), one at the dungeon scale of play - another at the hex-crawl "wilderness" scale of play. I'm not going to make a call on which is named which, and I totally agree that they seem to fill the same "rule slot" in each scale of play so they might as well be called the same thing. I just think that the context is important, especially the time-scale the players have to act in, as they have distinct design differences.

The hexcrawl/wilderness scale has long exploration turns and very abstracted movement "through" large spaces - and a positive result on the "random encounter" means a creature/band-of-monsters/lair is set into that hex and becomes "active" (i.e. the GM is meant to make it part of the living world, big monsters wander around hexes, bands raid out and back to their lairs, and lairs serve as "monster generators" in the video game tradition sense, "Gauntlet" etc). I think that the descriptions and statistical math given in the early Monster Manuals (# appearing, % "in lair" and all that) was intended to fit into this slot.

The dungeon scale exploration turn was 10 minutes, rest after 5 turns of movement - and movement is very detailed and in the players hands. A positive result on the "random encounter" means that one of the possible escalation (the "time sensitivity" meme) or "mood" results are triggered. Read a bunch of dungeon-scale adventure site modules from the early days and this stands out. These are party-scale threats (as opposed to the higher level or larger company threats that some wilderness random encounters generate), and are scaled along the "what belongs in this dungeon level, or the next few below it" design mentality and rules guidelines in those parts of the various oD&D GM materials.

These also serve as part of the "living world" or what is happening in the fog of war of the dungeon, and in my last few Earthdawn games I even pre-rolled the dungeon level random encounter checks for a few hours in advance (what they generated, not the x in 6 chance of one happening). This gave me a time-line of cool shit to spring on the players (& I didn't have to roll in-game for "what the RE is"), but I never knew where in the dungeon they would be when the turn-clock ticked to "2 gnolls patrolling", etc, etc based on the X in 6 each (or every other) turn.

Quote from: Telarus;921713I still think that people confuse 2 related rules ("gm guidelines"), one at the dungeon scale of play - another at the hex-crawl "wilderness" scale of play. I'm not going to make a call on which is named which, and I totally agree that they seem to fill the same "rule slot" in each scale of play so they might as well be called the same thing. I just think that the context is important, especially the time-scale the players have to act in, as they have distinct design differences.

The hexcrawl/wilderness scale has long exploration turns and very abstracted movement "through" large spaces - and a positive result on the "random encounter" means a creature/band-of-monsters/lair is set into that hex and becomes "active" (i.e. the GM is meant to make it part of the living world, big monsters wander around hexes, bands raid out and back to their lairs, and lairs serve as "monster generators" in the video game tradition sense, "Gauntlet" etc). I think that the descriptions and statistical math given in the early Monster Manuals (# appearing, % "in lair" and all that) was intended to fit into this slot.

I always wondered when browsing such books how exactly they expected people to use those stats. I really like your interpretation. That would be a great mechanic for an into-level sandbox game system, or a pre-D&D-style "campaign", i.e. a regional wargame/simulation where a PC party is basically a special set of units, but play tracks heaps of other stuff moving and acting in the world. I've always assumed that was the general idea of a campaign, but never seen explicit rules for running it quite that way. Except in a refereed double-blind wargame campaign (a model I also like a lot). Interesting...

QuoteThe dungeon scale exploration turn was 10 minutes, rest after 5 turns of movement - and movement is very detailed and in the players hands. A positive result on the "random encounter" means that one of the possible escalation (the "time sensitivity" meme) or "mood" results are triggered. Read a bunch of dungeon-scale adventure site modules from the early days and this stands out. These are party-scale threats (as opposed to the higher level or larger company threats that some wilderness random encounters generate), and are scaled along the "what belongs in this dungeon level, or the next few below it" design mentality and rules guidelines in those parts of the various oD&D GM materials.

These also serve as part of the "living world" or what is happening in the fog of war of the dungeon, and in my last few Earthdawn games I even pre-rolled the dungeon level random encounter checks for a few hours in advance (what they generated, not the x in 6 chance of one happening). This gave me a time-line of cool shit to spring on the players (& I didn't have to roll in-game for "what the RE is"), but I never knew where in the dungeon they would be when the turn-clock ticked to "2 gnolls patrolling", etc, etc based on the X in 6 each (or every other) turn.

This I have done for a long time. It helped that the first module I had for my system of choice (TFT, so it was also the ONLY module written in the original spirit and detail level of the core campaign rules) explicitly explained that the random encounters were suggestions that should only happen if/when they made sense, and that they referred to specific denizens which were described in the room and level descriptions, so the GM was to track who was alive or dead, and once in play, where they were and what they were doing. The first time I GM'd that module, I sort of missed that bit, but later I noticed it and "OHHhhhh...!!!" a light went off, and it was suddenly a vastly more interesting thing, and suddenly it mattered far more what the players did, and play was bumped up to the level of the whole map (or at least a level or two at a time), not just one-room-at-a-time.

AD&D lays out fairly plainly how the outdoor system works. Its a little odd in describing the dungeon encounters and how it all meshes. You have to pay attention to the differences.

I agree, and I think that the older products describe dungeon design a bit better. Which led to a lot of confusion...

I think understanding this distinction (how to run a Random Encounter check at each "Scale" of play), along with strict equipment/time tracking, and Morale for both monsters and hirelings, really made the old "campaign map" style of play ("hexcrawl"/"pointcrawls" in some expressions) make a WHOLE LOT MORE SENSE to me.