My wilderness travel rules

OD&D and AD&D use a default wilderness scale of 1 hex = 5 miles. B/X and BECMI use a default scale of 1 hex = 6 miles.

In my personal game, I don't let my players see the hexes. Instead I let them choose a compass direction and a length (distance or time) in which they want to travel, and I then describe what they see and experience on the way. This roots them firmly in the perspective of their own character, instead of breaking immersion into a top-down map view, and they never see the changes in scale. Ideally, the experience for the players would be identical whether they are traveling across the overworld or through a dungeon.

On the DM side, I use hexes as handy boundaries for a collection of stuff. As the players' party enters a hex, I'll describe the features within the hex that they can see. This is similar to a videogame like Skyrim or GTA where, as the player avatar nears a location, the compass fills with icons of interesting things to do. In practice, this means telling the players something like "You see a stone tower off in the distance" or "You can see smoke rising from a firepit between a camp of tents", or "you can see a band of goblins down the path".

I never force my players to stick within the bounds of the hex. The PC party travels according to their own judgement and I simply describe what's nearby, even though they would actually be "between" two hexes.

A wilderness travel scale in terms of hours is useful for certain situations and types of terrain, but sometimes days is a more wieldly scale.

I haven't yet tested the mapping procedure for cities by individual streets that I described in this post, but I intend to subject some poor party to it anyway.

D&D solo as a board game?

Just play Advanced Heroquest instead. It does everything that D&D does, but in a more solid system that’s not so heavily reliant on the GM, and has better tables for generating content.

The most frustrating part of playing D&D solo is handling room descriptions.  In purely random play the rooms are either completely bare, or you have to waste time rolling on a table to stock the room with non-gameable content. When playing with a module, it really depends if the room key is split out into player only read aloud text and DM only information, and how well both are written. Sometimes the player read aloud text does not have enough information to spur meaningful choices, and sometimes through no fault of the writer it’s just easy to glance at the GM description anyway. It feels easier to just read the whole text of a room key at once, but in doing so you won’t really be playing the game.

So to solve this problem I have this idea, to tie the game more closely to the board. Almost every module comes with an empty map with numbered keys. Instead of moving my characters abstractly through the dungeon, I’ll select an actual 10’x10’ area per character, move them to that location, and see if anything is there. This necessitates moving the characters through an actual space in the dungeon. Then I’ll flip over to the room key and see what is in the space around each character. If they tripped a wire or pit trap, fell into an ambush by a monster, or discovered treasure or secret door, all would be resolved after my characters first moved into the area ‘blind’.  If I do not look into the right area, or do not do the right procedure to find the hidden element in a square, then I miss it and lose the treasure, fall victim to a trap, or lose surprise to a monster ambush.

This is contrary to the way live RPGs are played and denies me information that I should “know” before entering an area, but on the other hand it is playable and keeps the fun of discovery for myself.

AD&D has more in depth rules for dungeon crawling than any other edition. The sections on movement and searching, lockpicking, and listening at and forcing open doors are the most helpful here. These procedures are tightly coupled with the time scale, so it’s important to keep an ‘adventuring clock’ to track rounds and turns, or a sheet to check them off as they go by. Accurate tracking of time allows the player to coordinate the characters’ actions in a standard way.

For random dungeon generation, this means not stocking the dungeon until after the player characters have moved through it. This incentivizes checking squares, because to do so otherwise puts me at maximum risk for falling for a trap or a monster ambush.

In the case of traps, if I choose a PC to check a square for traps, and if he hits the chance of triggering the trap, then he detects and avoids it and I can mark it on the square for all PCs to know. If I want the PC to do something else, like check for secret doors, and I roll that he gets hit by a trap, then he falls victim to it.

How to use D&D Adventure Board Games to play solo or cooperative D&D

Using a random dungeon generator to create a dungeon on the fly for solo play has existed as a tradition since the earliest days of the hobby, when E. Gary Gygax introduced it in the first issue of The Strategic Review. This initial random generator was intended for Original D&D with its 6 tiers of dungeon levels, and was later adapted and expanded into AD&D in the Dungeon Masters Guide. The solo recommendation from AD&D takes its cues from the wargaming hobby, since that too has a venerable tradition of solitaire play.

I tried using the AD&D random dungeon generator for solo play, but didn't much like the experience. It felt more like an exercise in accounting than in actually playing a game, in which I would roll some dice, look up a table, mark a room on my graph paper, roll some more dice to stock it, then roll some more dice to see if any of my characters take damage or not. I thought it was a great tool for creating and stocking a dungeon ahead of time for an actual game session, and it would lead to some unique and interesting layouts with some surprisingly devious monster and trap placements, but not one for creating a dungeon on the fly.  I think the real problem is that you have to switch "modes", between creating the dungeon and playing through it, and its much more fun to stick to just one operation.

The D&D Adventure system board games, on the other hand, are much more fun. They generate the dungeon by giving you a series of interlocking tiles, and each tile has icons representing the number of monsters, traps or treasure that appear on them. The tiles are shuffled in random order then placed face down, and as each player gets to the edge of the map, the next tile is placed on the unexplored edge to continue the dungeon. The tile itself will display how many monsters or traps to put on it, and the actual type is determined by drawing from a deck of monster cards or trap tokens.  It creates a sense of immediacy and doesn't interrupt the flow of the game by bogging it down in dice rolls and table lookups. Even though I realize its a more limited version of what was going on in those tables anyway, it makes for a much more enjoyable experience in which I can spend more time actually playing as a character.

Even though the system is limited, it provides all the necessary materials to expand the system into a full featured dungeon crawl, simply by injecting a few rules.  I like this chart from the D&D Basic Set for stocking a room's contents:

It's a lot simpler than the AD&D tables, and you don't need AD&D's room layout tables anyway. Simply roll on this chart for every new tile, and couple it with the wandering monster charts. It creates a simple, efficient dungeon crawl that doesn't require a gamemaster, and so can be played solo or cooperatively.

The D&D Adventure system board games use a stripped down version of D&D 4th edition rules, with PC powers and abilities being represented on cards. To play this using any other system, simply replace the characters with your own, and roll up your own character sheets and equipment, using the rules of your favorite RPG.

The Turn Sequence

I've been thinking a lot about this, how to incorporate by-the-book time tracking into my AD&D sessions.  Time is a very important element in the AD&D game, with almost every subsystem requiring or mentioning the passage of time as a factor in resolving an outcome, yet in actual play this element is almost completely ignored. Most parties either abandon it totally or consider the recording of time only randomly when it feels appropriate. The only situation where it gets any focus is during combat and initiative. The DMG itself admonishes, in all caps, to keep strict time records and I feel that a significant portion of the game's balance is bonded to the time system.

For this reason I have an experimental idea - to record the passage of turns first, and then adjudicate which actions can occur within it.

For example, within 1 turn a PC can either move up to his movement speed x10ft while exploring and mapping a dungeon, or search a 20ft by 20ft area for secret doors, or listen behind a door, or disarm a trap, etc.  If a PC wanted to do some of these things in combination, for example, moving up to half his total distance, approaching a door and listening for sounds behind it, then only his movement action can resolve on the first turn and he must wait in position before attempting to listen at the door on the next turn.

In a party situation, this would allow PCs to take separate individual actions and resolve their successes at the same time, at the end of the turn. For example one PC could check for traps, another might search a section of wall for a hidden door, another might try to force open a closed gate, etc.  Combat is always rounded up to the next full turn.

This feels more like a tactical game to me, where characters move into and hold a position before continuing on to the next turn.  A lot of concepts from tactical games have started to appeal to me as a method of playing D&D, such as moving and fighting in formation rather than as individuals.

The DMG has a guideline for searching a room, where if there is nothing in a room a single round check will make that obvious to the PCs, but otherwise a 20' by 20' area can be searched in one turn. With a little bit of math, we can extend this to a room of any size, and simply divide to find out how many turns are required, rounding up to the nearest full turn.

Obviously the main drive for this type of strict timekeeping is in running my solo games, but I feel that this could be used in live play as well. For a live situation, the DM can call out the turn and ask what the PCs decide to do during it.  I have no idea if players will take to such a procedure or if it will be quickly abandoned.

For live play, I like to hide dungeon areas that are outside the PCs line of sight. To incorporate this turn system, I would simply let my PCs walk into any area, revealing what they can see as they go, until they reach the limit of their movement distance per turn.  Of course in such a situation, ambushing the PCs with monsters becomes much easier.

There are tools to aid DMs in tracking time, such as the OSRIC turn tracker, but I assume that this method would make those tools mostly superfluous, except as reminders for torch burning times and monster checks.

Traps and Thieves solo

There is an oft-repeated ruling that every character has a 1-in-6 chance of detecting a trap in a 10'x10' area if they spend a turn searching for one. This ruling exists only in the Moldvay Basic set, and not in BECMI or AD&D. The closest I can find is in volume III of OD&D Underworld and Wilderness Adventures: "Traps are usually sprung by a roll of a 1 or a 2 when any character passes over or by them. Pits will open in the same manner".

 To me this means that there is a chance that the trap will be triggered, not that it will be found. Managing traps while playing solo is actually quite tricky, since it seems very silly to have your characters rush headlong into a trap you have placed yourself. However, using the guidance from OD&D, its possible to manage traps independently of DM/Player metaknowledge with a new procedure:

For every room that has a trap in it, if the players pass through the room, a trap will be sprung on a roll of 1 or 2 on a six-sided die.

This seems a fair method to me and saves me from either triggering every trap automatically when my characters move into it, or avoiding them all completely.  A Thief character can use his class skill to detect a trap beforehand and the Cleric could cast a Find Trap spell, while the Fighter and Magic-User would be the helpless victims of fate.  Unfortunately this method encourages "roll play" instead of "role play". Finding traps, deducing their nature and avoiding or overcoming them is one of the most inventive and engrossing parts of live D&D play, and that element is completely removed in solo play.  Unfortunately in this manner D&D turns from a game about ingenuity and imagination into one of probability and statistics.

A similar procedure exists in B2: Keep on the Borderlands for falling into a pit trap, where PCs in the front rank will fall in on a 1-2 on d6, and PCs in the second rank will fall in on a roll of 1.

The random dungeon generator in AD&D also provides options for pit traps and the like, but in that case pits are sprung on a chance of 3-6. Arrow traps and spear walls do instant damage, 1-3 per missile, while poison, gas, acid and the like force a saving throw. All of these traps, if not found by a Thief, would be sprung automatically, making AD&D more deadly than the earlier systems.

Perhaps a middle ground can be reached where after the trap is detected, overcoming it is an exercise in spending equipment and PC abilities to disable or avoid it.  The only other option would be to borrow D&D 4e/5e's "Perception" checks.

Locked chests are easier to handle. Depending on the size of the chest and the strength of its construction, a Fighter can force it open with either a Lift Gates or Bend Bars attempt. Magic-Users have an infamously easy "Knock" spell, and the Thief can use his class skill.

Procedure for solo dungeon adventuring with AD&D

1. Random dungeon generation (Appendix in the Dungeon Masters Guide)

• Generate rooms from Table V 
• Generate room features
• Generate monsters, traps
• Determine treasure in room 
• Generate doors and exits
• Use graph paper for dungeon layout, and a dry erase battle map for miniatures combat 

2.  Player Characters begin exploring

• Record the beginning of each turn

3. Engage monsters

• Determine surprise (p. 61 COMBAT)
• Determine encounter distance (p.62 )
• Consider avoiding or parleying with monsters (p. 63)
• Consider pursuit and evasion of pursuit if detected (p. 67)
• Roll Initiative and begin combat procedures
•       Procedures from  Here
• Tally the total rounds of combat to determine time spent, rounding up to next whole turn

4. After encounter has been resolved or avoided, PCs explore room

• Use Movement and Searching procedures (p. 96)
• Roll checks to determine if PCs are aware of traps, hidden objects, items and secret doors
• Distribute treasure(s)
• Tally the total time spent in room search procedures

5. Move to next room

• Attempt listen at doors, lockpicking, door bashing
• Organize PCs in movement formation
• Move  through current room (all intra room movement is assumed to happen in one turn)*
• Exit room and go to new room

6. Repeat steps 1 - 5 for successive areas in the dungeon, until the party decides to escape or rest


*I've come to the determination that movement speed per room is largely irrelevant. The large distances a PC can cover in one turn (whether encumbered or not) makes it more convenient to assume that the PC is doing all sorts of little wandering around the room throughout the whole turn, and even moving from one end of the room to the other can all be managed within one turn. Only separate actions, such as detection of hidden features or picking locks, add extra time to what is spent in a room.

This is a house rule, but I consider it a 'soft' house rule since it doesn't contradict or override any existing rule, and preserves the structure of the original rules.  Also, AD&D is a game where the judgement of the DM is absolutely required in order to make the game run at all.