Free Map Friday

I'm always looking for new maps so I started drawing some. They're pretty rough - but they're free!

Part one of at least three. This is the center section.

Available for use in any way, including commercially, with attribution:

Map by WR Beatty

If you want a larger image or a different format or just to tell me you used the map:

daenralworld AT gmail

Free Map Friday

 I'm always looking for new maps so I started drawing some. They're pretty rough - but they're free!

EDIT: I forgot to mention - this one was directly inspired by another three level dungeon I saw online somewhere - and of course I can't find the source...sigh...

Available for use in any way, including commercially, with attribution:

Map by WR Beatty

If you want a larger image or a different format or just to tell me you used the map:

daenralworld AT gmail

Monday Magazine Classics

A Bar-Room Brawl – D&D Style

Lewis Pulsipher

White Dwarf 11

February/March 1979

“For those of you who would like to stage your own D&D bar-room brawl.”

I like mini-games. I like the game within the game of things like this “adventure,” whether it’s a quick gambling mini-game or some kind of simple “climb the sheer cliff without dying” kind of mini-game. What I enjoy is the break from combat or exploration – from the “normal” rules of D&D and similar games.

What’s presented here is a bit overcomplicated by the inclusion of what we would now call a battlemat and tokens (he calls it a board and tokens so...) on which Pulsipher indicates exactly where the tokens should be placed. Okay.

It’s a one-page outline for how to run that bar fight. I haven’t used this in practice, but it LOOKS like it should work out just fine. The rules, such as they are, are pretty scant. Two paragraphs, really, and most of it is just abstract advice along the lines of “standard D&D rules and common sense are used. If an unusual event like a falling chandelier or thrown chair occurs, the result should be figured as seems logical in the circumstances.” Um... thanks?

This really isn’t a scenario or mini-adventure – it’s little more than permission to run a good Old West Saloon brawl in D&D with some stories of how it went down in playtesting.

My whining aside, there are 23 NPCs that can be used for a fun little bar brawl and the board and tokens are a neat addition.

 

Other reviews:

Not a lot out there:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/

 

Monday Magazine Classics

 The Hall of Mystery

Don Turnbull

Dragon #21

December 1978

“A section deep in the Greenlands Dungeon.”

Don Turnbull brings another section of his Greyhawk/Blackmoor-esque Greenlands Dungeon to light. Unlike Turnbull’s previous entry on this blog (The Lair of the Demon Queen), he keeps most of the writing direct and to the point, only occasionally straying into commentary like, “Normally the main hall is guarded; in Greenlands the Guardians were two Umber Hulks.”

The monsters here are tough (Succubus, Night Hag, Mind Flayer, Flesh Golem, 4 Trappers, etc.) and the mechanism to “beat the room” will have players puzzling for some time. There’s teleporting to other rooms in this weird monster zoo – and even that mechanism is a trick of sorts... Treasure is frustratingly abstracted (again!). He suggests a monster called a Magic Absorber (From Alarums and Excursions 12...) as another “mess with the players” kind of monster... ugh...

This is another example of early dungeon design. It’s clear that this was played as a game – not as amateur theater or storytelling with dice or as roleplaying a character arc or whatever we do these days. Here’s an environment. Here are the obstacles. Your characters and your brains are the tools you use to overcome them.

So I would compare this to a less developed Tomb of Horrors or a more focused (but still less developed) White Plume Mountain. It’s clearly an artifact of its era – bringing with it all that that implies.

I don’t think I’d use The Hall of Mystery per se. Maybe drop it into something like the above mentioned adventures (because, you know, they aren’t gonzo and deadly enough by themselves...heh) or it could be a fun one shot – maybe at a convention or something.

 

 

Other reviews:

Not a lot out there:

 

https://landofnod.blog/2012/11/10/dragon-by-dragon-december-1978/

 

 

 

 

Free Map Friday - Redraw Saturday...

I'm always looking for new maps so I started drawing some. They're pretty rough - but they're free!

This is a re-draw of yesterday's map. Maybe a better style... Funny because it's a throwback to how I used to draw digital maps 15 years ago... just playing around with ideas...

Available for use in any way, including commercially, with attribution:

Map by WR Beatty

If you want a larger image or a different format or just to tell me you used the map:

daenralworld AT gmail

Free Map Friday

 I'm always looking for new maps so I started drawing some. They're pretty rough - but they're free!

Available for use in any way, including commercially, with attribution:

Map by WR Beatty

If you want a larger image or a different format or just to tell me you used the map:

daenralworld AT gmail

Monday Magazine Classics

 The Lichway

Albie Fiore

White Dwarf #9

October/November 1978

 “A mini-dungeon for a part of 6-8 1^st level adventurers.”

 One of the early full-fledged adventures, and still highly regarded in the circles in which I move.

 Fiore gives us just a brief paragraph of background, a few notes on running the adventure and four “Rumours gathered by the party in a village tavern.”

 Right away the map inspires me. It’s a conceit of mine that an interesting map elevates a boring adventure. In fact, a good map (and that’s a moving target for me – at least it should look interesting with its connections and features) raises the bar a little on my estimation of an adventure. That is, if I buy into the map, I’m predisposed to enjoy the adventure. Art can do the same thing sometimes for me.

 So, the map gives us a main entrance but several other ways into the heart of the Lichway – and a variety of interconnections as well. Water is used to good effect in the dungeon. The secret doors and the tricks and traps are suitably old-school. They make sense within the context of the dungeon. Notably, there are rival NPCs already here, doing their own exploring, who can become allies, adversaries or just another obstacle to overcome.

 The main monster here is a Susurrus, a strange Fiend Folio monster whose “song” (the sound of wind blowing through its exoskeleton) causes undead to “sleep the sleep of the dead.” One of the first books I bought for AD&D was the Fiend Folio. I thought the Susurrus was a... strange monster (no flumph or flailsnail perhaps, but odd nonetheless). I didn’t see a use for such a creature as this. But the Lichway gave it some purpose. It’s still an oddly specific creature...

 Tiny print and lack of whitespace make this hard to use, but the information is presented clearly enough that I’ve been able to run this with just a read-through.

 Gripes: most of the treasure in the adventure is pretty specific until the “big treasure” which is simply “gold candelabras, gems, jewelry, silver flasks everyday objects, tools, weapons (none magical), etc. (The total value of the hoard is left at the DM'S discretion.)” Dangit! You told me in one room that a “Loose stone in N. wall conceals 88 g.p. and 89 c.p.” but the big treasure is just “You figure it out DM.”

 Like many adventures, I think you’d want a highlighter – or at least a quick summary page of NPCs (there are 14 individuals named if I counted correctly) along with a handful of monsters and undead (well, there’s a lot of “sleeping” undead...).

 

Other reviews:

 

https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-which-i-read-white-dwarf-from-issue-1.405199/page-6

 

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22832&p=1208631&hilit=Lichway#p1208631

 

https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/review-white-dwarf-9-lichway-due-diligence/#:~:text=A%20mere%204%20pages%2C%20Lichway,the%20mind%20of%20the%20GM.

 

 

http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-lichway-white-dwarf-9-review.html

Free Map Friday

 I'm always looking for new maps so I started drawing some. They're pretty rough - but they're free!

Available for use in any way, including commercially, with attribution:

Map by WR Beatty

If you want a larger image or a different format or just to tell me you used the map:

daenralworld AT gmail