PLAYING THE GAME

The Adventure

Notes for Players

When you go on an adventure, you, and in all probability one or more other characters, will go to explore some underground labyrinth or area of land outdoors. Your Dungeon Master will have carefully prepared a map of the place you and your party are to enter, a map showing all outstanding features of the place, with numbers and/or letters to key encounter/special interest areas. Your DM will give you certain information prior to the adventure - you might have to ask questions of the local populace, or you might have heard rumors or know of legends—so your party can properly equip itself for the expedition, hire men-at-arms, and obtain mounts or whatever in order to have the best possible chance for success in dungeon or wilderness setting. Of course, going about a city or town might in itself be interesting, informative, and dangerous, so a third sort of adventure can occur at any time, the city or town adventure. These three major types of adventures have elements in common and differences; so each will be described separately. The various elements of all sorts of adventures are given thereafter. Your campaign referee has detailed information, including charts, tables, and matrices, so he or she will be completely equipped for conducting any sort of adventure.

Dungeon Expeditions. Adventures into the underworld mazes are the most popular. The party equips itself and then sets off to enter and explore the dungeons of some castle, temple or whatever. Light sources, poles for probing, rope, spikes, and like equipment are the main tools for such activity. And, since none of the party will know the dungeon’s twists and turns, one or more of the adventurers will have to keep a record, a map, of where the party has been. Thus you will be able to find your way out and return for yet more adventuring. As your party is exploring and mapping, movement will be slow, and it is wise to have both front and rear guards. 

In the dungeon will be chambers and rooms—some inhabited, some empty; there will be traps to catch those unaware, tricks to fool the unwise, monsters lurking to devour the unwary. 

The rewards, however, are great—gold, gems, and magic items. Obtaining these will make you better able to prepare for further expeditions, more adept in your chosen profession, more powerful in all respects. All that is necessary is to find your way in and out, to meet and defeat the guardians of the treasures, to carry out the wealth...

Outdoor Exploration. Adventuring into unknown lands or howling wilderness is extremely perilous at best, for large bands of men, and worse, might roam the area; there are dens of monsters, and trackless wastes to contend with. Protracted expeditions are, therefore, normally undertaken by higher level characters. 

Forays of limited duration are possible even for characters new to adventuring, and your DM might suggest that your party do some local exploration - perhaps to find some ruins which are the site of a dungeon or to find a friendly clan of dwarves, etc. Mounts are necessary, of course, as well as supplies, missile weapons, and the standard map-making equipment. 

Travel will be at a slow rate in unknown areas, for your party will be exploring, looking for foes to overcome, and searching for new finds of lost temples, dungeons, and the like. If the expedition continues for several days, there will be a need to hunt for game to provide food, unless some inhabited area is found - a thorp, hamlet, village, or town - in which case your party will then be able to have another short adventure.

Town Adventures. Cities, towns, and sometimes even large villages provide the setting for highly interesting, informative, and often hazardous affairs and incidents. Even becoming an active character in a campaign typically requires interaction with the populace of the habitation, locating quarters, buying supplies and equipment, seeking information. 

These same activities in a completely strange town require forethought and skill. Care must be taken in all one says and does. 

Questions about rank, profession, god and alignment are perilous, and use of an alignment tongue is socially repulsive in most places. 

There are usually beggars, bandits, and drunks to be dealt with; greedy and grasping merchants and informants to do business with; inquiring officials or suspicious guards to be answered. The taverns house many potential helpful or useful characters, but they also contain clever and dangerous adversaries. Then there are the unlit streets and alleys of the city after dark . . . And what lies in wait in the deserted ruins of some lost ancient city? Meat and drink for the doughty [1.25]’er

Preparation for one of these adventures is highly important, and one can lead directly into another sort altogether. Here are the basic considerations you will need to know to prepare your character for success.

Traps, Tricks, & Encounters

During the course of an adventure, you will undoubtedly come across various forms of traps and tricks, as well as encounter monsters of one sort or another. While your DM will spend considerable time and effort to make all such occurrences effective, you and your fellow players must do everything within your collective power to make them harmless, unsuccessful or profitable. 

On the other hand, you must never allow preparedness and caution to slow your party and make it ineffective in adventuring. By dealing with each category here, the best approach to negating the threat of a trap, trick, or encounter can be developed. 

Traps

Traps are aimed at confining, channeling, injuring, or killing characters. Confining traps are typified by areas which are closed by bars or stone blocks, although some might be pits with valves which close and can then only be opened by weight above. Most confinement areas will have another entrance by which a capturing or killing creature(s) will enter later. It is usually impossible to avoid such areas, as continual minute scrutiny makes exploration impossible and assures encounters with wandering/patrolling monsters. When confined, prepare for attack, search for ways out, and beware of being channeled. Channeling traps are often related to confining ones. Walls that shift and doors which allow entry but not egress are typical. While they cannot be avoided, such traps can be reacted to much as a confining trap is. However, they also pose the problem of finding a way back. Careful mapping is a good remedy. 

Injuring traps, traps which wear the strength of the party away prior to the attaining of their goal, are serious. Typical injuring traps are blades which scythe across a corridor when a stone in the floor is stepped on, arrows which fire when a trip rope is yanked, or spears released when a door is opened. Use of a pole or spear as a prod ahead might help with these, and likewise such a prod could discover pits in the floor. The safest remedy is to have some healing at hand—potions or spells—so as to arrive relatively undamaged. Killing traps are typical of important areas or deep dungeon levels. Deep pits with spikes, poisoned missiles, poisoned spikes, chutes to fire pits, floors which tilt to deposit the party into a pool of acid or before an angry red dragon, ten ton blocks which fall from the ceiling, or locked rooms which flood are examples of killing areas. Again, observation and safety measures (poles, spikes thrown ahead, rope, etc.) will be of some help, and luck will have to serve as well.

In summation, any trap can be bad and many can mean a character’s or the entire party’s demise. Having proper equipment with the party, a cleric for healing, a dwarf for trap detection, and a magic-user to knock open doors and locks go a long way towards reducing the hazard. Observation and clever deduction, as well as proper caution, should negate a significant portion of traps.

Tricks

So many tricks can be used that it is quite impossible to thoroughly detail any reasonable cross-section here. As imagination is the only boundary for what sort of tricks can be placed in a dungeon, it is incumbent upon the players to use their own guile. 

Many tricks are irksome only; others are irksome and misleading. Assume that there are several rooms with a buzzing sound discernible to those who listen at the doors and/or enter them. Does this cause the party to prepare for battle only to find nothing? Or is there some trick of acoustics which allows sound from a nearby hive of giant wasps to permeate the rooms? If the latter, the party might grow careless and enter yet another “buzzing” room unprepared so as to be surprised by angry wasps. 

Illusions can annoy, delay, mislead or kill a party. There can be illusionary creatures, pits, fires, walls and so on. But consider an illusion of a pile of gold cast upon a pit of vipers. Slanting (or sloping) passages, space distortion areas, and teleporters are meant to confuse or strand the party. They foul maps, take the group to areas they do not wish to enter, and so on. The same is true of sinking/rising (elevator) rooms, sliding rooms, and chutes. As an example of the latter, consider a chute at the bottom of a pit, or one at the end of a corridor which slopes upwards - so that the effect is to deposit the party on the original level but seemingly on one deeper. Rooms can turn so as to make directions wrong, secret doors can open into two areas if they are properly manipulated, and seemingly harmless things can spell death.

Tricks are best countered by forethought and discernment. They can be dealt with by the prepared and careful party, but rashness can lead to real trouble. Your DM will be using his imagination and wit to trick you, and you must use your faculties to see through or at least partially counter such tricks.

Encounters

A “monster” can be a kindly wizard or a crazed dwarf, a friendly brass dragon or a malicious manticore. Such are the possibilities of encounters in dungeon, wilderness, or town. 

Chance meetings are known as encounters with wandering monsters. Finding a creature where it has been placed by the referee is usually referred to as a set encounter.

Wandering monsters can be totally random or pre-planned. A party wandering in the woods outdoors or on a deserted maze in the dungeon might run into nearly any sort of monster. If the woods were the home of a tribe of centaurs, or the dungeon level-”one” constructed by a band of orcs, certain prescribed encounters would randomly occur, however. 

At prescribed intervals, your DM will generate a random number to find if any meeting with a wandering monster occurs. 

Avoiding or fleeing such encounters is often wise, for combat wears down party strength, and wandering monsters seldom have any worthwhile treasure. If monsters pursue, you can consider hurling down food or treasure behind. Thus, the pursuing monsters may be lured into stopping to eat or gather coins or gems. When confrontation is unavoidable, be wary of tricks, finish off hostile creatures quickly, and get on with the business of the expedition.

As determination of chance encounters is usually a factor of time, do not waste it - and your party - endlessly checking walls for secret doors, listening at every door, etc. 

As noise is a factor your DM will consider in the attraction of additional monsters, never argue or discuss what course of action your party is to follow in an open place or for long periods. A fight will take time and cause plenty of noise, so move on quickly after combat with wandering monsters. Pre-planning and organization are essential to all successful play, no less here than elsewhere.

Set encounters are meetings with monsters placed by your DM. All such encounters will be in, or near, the monster’s (or monsters’) lair; so, unlike encounters with wandering monsters, these incidents promise a fair chance for gain if the monster or monsters are successfully dealt with. A successful expedition usually is aimed at a particular monster or group of lairs discovered during previous excursions Note: a lair is wherever the monster dwells - even such places as a castle, guard house, temple or other construction.

All encounters have the elements of movement and surprise (previously discussed), as well as initiative, communication, negotiation, and/or combat. These aspects of adventuring, as well as damage, healing, saving throws, obedience, and morale must now be considered.

Successful Adventures

Few players are so skillful at fantasy role playing games as to not benefit from advice. Also, many readers will be new to this form, if not totally uninitiated. So what follows are some basic guidelines as to how good players approach the game, and as continued success tends towards even more achievement, those who play well might actually become great.

The most common form of [1.25] play is the underground adventure, whether in dungeons, cave complexes, temple mazes and labyrinths, or whatever. The main thrust of this section will logically aim at improving play in just those sorts of settings. The outdoor and city adventure will be touched on thereafter. 

Now assume that a game is scheduled tomorrow, and you are going to get ready for it well in advance so as to have as much actual playing time as possible—no sense in spending precious adventuring minutes with the mundane preparations common to the game.

First, get in touch with all those who will be included in the adventure, or if all are not available, at least talk to the better players so that you will be able to set an objective for the adventure. Whether the purpose is so simple as to discover a flight of stairs to the next lowest unexplored level or so difficult as to find and destroy an altar to an alien god, some firm objective should be established and then adhered to as strongly as possible. Note, however, that inflexibility or foolish stubbornness is often fatal. More about that a bit later.

Once the objective has been established, consider how well the party playing will suit the needs which it has engendered. Will the characters have the means of accomplishing the goal? Is it well-balanced, so that it can cope with typical problems expected in the fulfillment of the objective? Will it be necessary to find mercenary non-player characters or hire men-at-arms in order to give the party the necessary muscle? Is any special equipment needed? When agreement regarding these and any similar questions has been reached, each participant must ready his or her character, but preparations must be made with the welfare of the whole group in mind.

Co-operation among party members is a major key to success, particularly when the characters are relatively low-level. Later, when players have characters of 9th. 10th. or even higher level, it will be a slightly different matter, for then some adventures will be with but one or two player characters participating, and the balance of the group will be made up of henchmen whose general co-operation is relatively assured.

But to gain the upper levels, it is essential that a character survive, and survival at lower levels is usually dependent upon group action and team spirit. Co-operation must begin when the party prepares for the adventure and continue through safe return to base and division of spoils - including the special treatment required for any unfortunate characters cursed, diseased, maimed, or killed.

Each character has a selection of equipment which he or she will carry on the adventure. Particulars should be given to the party if any equipment is possibly redundant, newly conceived, or of possible special use considering the established goal for the adventure. 

In like manner, spells must be selected in co-operation with other spell-users in general, so that attack, defense, and assistance modes will be balanced properly and compliment the strengths and weaknesses of the party as a whole.

Characters must know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, physical and mental, in order to meet the problem posed with the correct character or combination thereof. Does the group have sufficient equipment of the elementary sort to meet both expected and unexpected challenges (ropes, spikes, poles, torches, oil, etc.)? Are we burdening ourselves with too much because of simple duplication (too many torches, everybody has a 10 ft. pole, and so on)?. 

Do we have as broad a spectrum of spells as possible so as to be able to have a good chance against the unexpected, considering the objective and what it requires in spells? Is there some magic item which one of the party members possesses that will be of special help, or general assurance of survival, in this adventure? All this should be done before play begins, for it is time consuming, and the readying of a party can require several hours if there are more than six characters involved.

At the same time, preparations for the upcoming expedition are under way, each player should see that his or her character has made proper preparations as well. These preparations include the safety of henchmen and/or goods which are to remain behind, wealth safely hidden or placed, instructions as to what to do if the character fails to return left with a trusted person, and a “will” of some sort written out so that the DM will not balk at the arrangements made to assure the smooth transition of goods to the devoted “relative” of the defunct character if those sore straits should ever come to pass.

With everything just about all set to go, a few more touches will be of great help. Assign formations for the group - 10 ft. corridor, 20 ft. corridor, door opening, and any other formation which your party might commonly assume. 

It is always a wise idea to have the very short characters in the front rank, elves and dwarves to the flanks, and at least one sturdy fighter in the rear if the party is sufficiently large. 

Draw these formations out on paper (possibly your referee will require copies for reference), identifying each character carefully. 

The “leader” who is to make decisions and give directions for the party must be in the front rank, or in the second rank if he or she is tall compared to the characters before. The leader should keep a sketch or trailing map as the adventure gets underway, and another member of the expedition should keep a carefully drawn map as well. 

A word about mapping is in order. A map is very important because it helps assure that the party will be able to return to the surface. Minor mistakes are not very important. It makes no difference if there is a 20 ft. error somewhere as long as the chart allows the group to find its way out! As it is possible that one copy of the party’s map might be destroyed by mishap or monster, the double map is a good plan whenever possible - although some players have sufficiently trained recall so as to be able to find their way back with but small difficulty, and these individuals are a great boon to the group. 

If pursuit prevents mapping, always go in a set escape pattern if possible—left-straight-right-straight, etc. Such patterns are easy to reverse. In mazes always follow one wall or the other, left or right, and you will never get lost. If transported, or otherwise lost, begin mapping on a fresh sheet of paper, and check for familiar or similar places as you go along. Never become despondent; fight until the very end.

When everything is all set, it will take only a very few minutes to organize the group for the adventure once time for actual play begins. Your referee will certainly appreciate this, for his or her enjoyment comes from adventuring, not from waiting for a party to get their act together. 

With your objective all set, it will also be a relatively quick trek to the “jumping off” area, as the expedition leader will be able to give clear and concise directions on how to get there to the DM, and that means there will be few monster dice, for the party is marching along quickly down known passages, not mapping or otherwise tarrying. Avoid unnecessary encounters. This advice usually means the difference  between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. 

Your party has an objective, and wandering monsters are something which stand between them and it. The easiest way to overcome such difficulties is to avoid the interposing or trailing creature if at all possible. Wandering monsters typically weaken the party through use of equipment and spells against them, and they also weaken the group by inflicting damage. Very few are going to be helpful; fewer still will have anything of any value to the party. Run first and ask questions later. 

In the same vein, shun encounters with creatures found to be dwelling permanently in the dungeon (as far as you can tell, that is) unless such creatures are part of the set objective or the monster stands between the group and the goal it has set out to gain. Do not be sidetracked. 

A good referee will have many ways to distract an expedition, many things to draw attention, but ignore them if at all possible. The mappers must note all such things, and another expedition might be in order another day to investigate or destroy something or some monster, but always stay with what was planned if at all possible, and wait for another day to handle the other matters. 

This not to say that something hanging like a ripe fruit ready to be plucked must be bypassed, but be relatively certain that what appears to be the case actually is. Likewise, there are times when objectives must be abandoned.

If the party becomes lost, the objective must immediately be changed to discovery of a way out. If the group becomes low on vital equipment or spells, it should turn back. The same is true if wounds and dead members have seriously weakened the group’s strength. The old statement about running away to fight another day holds true in the game. It is a wise rule to follow.

On the other hand, if the party gains its set goal and is still quite strong, some other objectives can be established, and pursuit of them can then be followed. It is of utmost importance, however, to always carry slain members of the expedition with the party if at all possible, so even if but a lone character is lost, it is usually best to turn back and head for the surface.

Co-operation assumes mutual trust and confidence, and this is enhanced when members are certain that the survivors will do their best to see that any slain character is carried forth from the dungeon to be resurrected if at all possible. 

All members of the expedition should be ready and willing to part with any goods, money, and magic items in order to save lives. Failing that, each should be willing to fight to the death to assure the survival and success of the party. This will happen when mutual trust exists. What about Evil alignment? selfish neutrals? uncooperative players?

Intelligent players of Evil alignment will certainly be ready to help in order to further their own ends. This is not to say that they will be chummy with those of Good alignment, but, on a single expedition basis, it is possible to arrange situations where they are very likely to desire to be helpful in order to benefit themselves and their cause. 

Generally, Evil characters, particularly Chaotic Evil ones, are prone to be troublesome and hurtful to the party. They should accordingly be shunned when possible. Selfish Neutrals are similar to Evil characters, but their price is usually easier to meet, and it is therefore easier to integrate them into an expedition which will depend on co-operation for success. 

The character of Good alignment who is basically uncooperative - often acting as an Evil or (selfish) Neutral would - is another matter, for such players usually join under the pretense of being helpful and willing to act in the best interest of the party.

Undoubtedly the best way to take care of such players is to expel them from the group as soon as circumstances permit. Do this as often as is necessary to either change the player’s mind about co-operation, or until he or she becomes tired of having their characters consigned to oblivion because of their attitude.

So much for the underworld adventure. Most of what was said regarding successful expeditions there also applies to outdoor and city adventures as well. Preparation and mutual aid are keys to these sorts of adventures also. It is not usually possible to return to home base in the wilderness, but a place of refuge can be found and used in order to rebuild a party’s strength. The party should avoid confrontations with monsters which are obviously superior and always seek to engage monsters at an advantage.

City adventures are the toughest of all, for they are more difficult to plan and prepare for. Yet with care, and a careful adherence to co-operative principles, they can be successfully handled with the guidelines stated above. Setting out with an objective in mind, having sufficient force to gain it, and not drawing undue attention to the party in the course of accomplishing the goal should serve to bring such adventures to successful conclusion.

Superior play makes the game more enjoyable for all participants, DM and players alike. It allows more actual playing time. It makes play more interesting. The DM will have to respond to superior play by extending himself or herself to pose bigger and better problems for the party to solve. 

This, in turn, means more enjoyment for the players. Successful play means long-lived characters, characters who will steadily, if not rapidly, gain levels. You will find that such characters become like old friends; they become almost real. Characters with stories related about their exploits -  be they cleverly wrought gains or narrow escapes - bring a sense of pride and accomplishment to their players, and each new success adds to the luster and fame thus engendered. 

The DM will likewise revel in telling of such exploits ...just as surely as he or she will not enjoy stories which constantly relate the poor play of his or her group! Some characters will meet their doom, some will eventually retire in favor of a new character of a different class and/or alignment; but playing well is a reward unto itself, and old characters are often remembered with fondness and pride as well. If you believe that [1.25] is a game worth playing, you will certainly find it doubly so if you play well.