Dungeon Master's Guide Chapter 4
Yeesh...another lengthy chapter. But then, this book is 256 pages long, and the first chapter was only 20 or so pages. So yeah, they're all going to be long, I guess. Anyway, this chapter is about adventures, specifically how to create them and make them interesting for players. Away we go!
So there are two basic types of adventures: Site-based adventures (such as the Tomb of Horrors or the Keep on the Borderlands), and Event-based adventures (Dragonlance, especially the 2nd adventure, Dragons of Flame). My preference has always been site-based, but then I grew up reading the old dungeon modules which were almost entirely site-based up until the aforementioned Dragonlance appeared. Site-based adventures can be static, where the only thing that changes is the bodies left in the wake of the adventurers, and dynamic, where things are constantly in motion regardless of what the PCs are doing.
It's important to know how to motivate the players into doing the adventure, so make sure you design adventures that your group will be interested in exploring or experiencing. If they want to plunder the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb tonight, don't give them a railroad event adventure. That's just common sense, of course, but there are DMs out there who think the players should tailor everything to what the DM wants. And that's no fun for anyone except said DM.
Alright, let's move on to designing Encounters. These can be tailored to the PC group or fixed regardless of what comes at them. We are given a lengthy explanation of how Challenge Ratings work, but bear in mind that figuring our a creature's CR is not an exact science; there will be guesswork and estimation involved, at least some of the time.
The table about Encounter Numbers gets very detailed as to what level of creature the party should expect to run into. Again, everything is codified here. You cross-reference the number of creatures in the encounter (one to twelve, plus matched or mixed pairs of creatures) with the encounter level to figure out how many of the desired creatures will be encountered. For example, if you have a 6th-level party and you're planning to have them run into some ogres, you look up the CR of the monster (in this case, CR2). Read the 6th row across until you find the 2, then go to the top of that column to figure out how many ogres will be encountered (in this case, four if you want a balanced encounter). You can adjust the number based on how tough you want to make the encounter, but don't go too crazy.
You can make monsters tougher, as well; there will be rules for doing that in the Monster Manual. If you do make them tougher, remember to adjust the number encountered down a bit.
Okay, so now we get into more detail on creating dungeon adventures. The different types of dungeons include ruined structures, occupied structures, safe storage (tombs and such), and natural cavern complexes. All have their own traits, but the general idea is the same; you're going into an enclosed locaiton with limited ways to get around. Walls, floors and doors are described, with special variations on all of them (especially doors), as well as unusual features that might be found. This is a helpful section for novice DMs, or even DMs with experience, because there will always be new ideas to incorporate into a dungeon to give it a unique flavor.
Of course, dungeons have obstacles and traps to overcome, other than monsters. There is plenty of info on how to set these up, as well as tables for dungeon dressing (a fun feature of the original DMG, now simplified in the new edition). Several basic traps are described, including their challenge ratings (so you now get XP for surviving a trap).
Next is a discussion of dungeon ecology, which basically means how the various inhabitants of the dungeon interact. Wandering monsters are a part of this, of course, and have been since the earliest dungeons were created in the 1970s. However, the emphasis in this edition is more on the set encounters. Still, wanderers do get their time in the sun, so to speak.
Random dungeons! Yes, they make their return after a long absence from D&D. Actually, they don't, really. There's no random tables to create the map; you just have to create a map on your own (or get a random one from the internet; there are plenty of map generators nowadays). But you can use random generation to stock it. The stocking tables are a little more sophisticated than the original ones where you just had 'monster, treasure, and/or trap'. Now there are other possibilities: features, which are basically the dungeon dressing tables from earlier in the chapter. There are lots of combinations of the different possibilities that are rolled on a percentile chart.
So, the encounter table is...complicated. Basically, you roll percentile dice on the chart and cross-reference with the dungeon level to find out the level table to roll the encounter on. It also tells you how to adjust the number encountered, from x4 for low-level creatures on higher dungeon levels, to x1/3 for high-level monsters encountered on lower levels. For example, you're running an adventure for 10th-level characters, so you roll to determine the encounter they will be facing in one of the rooms in your dungeon. You roll a 31 on percentile dice. Reading down the 10th-level column, you find that you're rolling on the 9th-level table, and there will be 50% more monsters than normal in this encounter. Flipping forward to the random dungeon level tables, another percentile roll is made. A 68 means you're encountering 1 hill giant and 1d3 dire wolves. Since there should be 50% more monsters, I would suggest either adding one hill giant or making it four dire wolves, but not both.
Now we get all the different encounter tables. These are full of creatures, the vast majority of which we can't actually use yet because the Monster Manual is still a month away. I've made a list of the available creatures from all the sources we have so far:
Bat (PH)
Boar (Dead of Winter)
Cat (PH)
Choker (Unearthing the Past)
Darkmantle (Dead of Winter)
Dire Bat (Dead of Winter)
Dire Rat (PH)
Dire Weasel (Burning Plague)
Dog (PH)
Gelatinous Cube (PH)
Ghast (PH)
Ghoul (PH)
Gnoll (Dead of Winter)
Goblin (PH)
Grimorian (Dr274)
Hawk (PH)
Hell Hound (PH)
Hippogriff (Dead of Winter)
Hobgoblin (PH)
K'argach (Dead of Winter)
Kobold (Burning Plague)
Monstrous Spider (Dead of Winter)
Ogre (PH)
Orc (PH)
Owl (PH)
Owlbear (Dead of Winter)
Raknakle (Dr274)
Rat (PH)
Raven (PH)
Red Dragon (PH)
Skeleton (PH)
Skerath (Dr274)
Skittermaw (Dr274)
Snake (PH)
Stirge (Dead of Winter)
Toad (PH)
Unicorn (PH)
Weasel (PH)
Wolf (Dead of Winter)
Wolverine (Dead of Winter)
Zombie (PH)
There's also a table of random dragons. This gives a breakdown of what age category of what color dragon will be found on a dungeon level should you randomly roll one. So, if you're rolling an encounter on a level 7 dungeon and the roll comes up 'dragon', you would roll again on this table. Another percentile roll tells you what color the dragon is, and you read down until you get to the correct level to find out how old the dragon is. For example, a percentile roll of 20 on this table gives you a black dragon, and the 7th-level encounter would be with a young adult black dragon. I believe the Order of the Stick once encountered one of these. It didn't end well.
Next, we have...a Sample Dungeon. And this sample dungeon will look very familiar to old-school gamers, because it is the exact same dungeon from the 1st edition DMG, the Ruined Monastery! The map is spiffier, but it's the same map. And the few encounters that are described are exactly the same, albeit updated to the new edition. And the example of play is virtually the same as the original one, as well. The main differences are that this example uses the iconic characters (Tordek, Mialee, Jozan, and Lidda), and there's a lot more rolling and skill checks here than there were before. Oh, and Lidda gets eaten by the ghouls instead of the unnamed gnome thief this time around.
Wilderness Encounters are next, and there are four different types of terrain to determine encounter frequency. Those terrains are desolate/wasteland, frontier/wilderness, verdant/civilized area, and heavily traveled. We then learn how to build wilderness encounter tables that are geared toward the campaign world, rather than having generic 'temperate forest' encounter tables. This is an excellent idea, because let's face it, you're not going to always find the same creatures in different areas even if the climate and terrain are the same. You don't find lions in South American jungles, for example.
The monsters from the upcoming Monster Manual are divided up into their terrain of choice, so you have temperate and warm aquatic creatures, as well as creatures that can appear in any aquatic region. You can use these lists to build up encounter tables that suit the location and give it its own flavor. The terrains are desert, forest, hills, mountains, plains, and swamp. There are lists for each terrain as well, for cold, temperate, warm, and any (those creatures can appear in any location with that terrain regardless of the climate). There is even a table for 'land', which means they can appear in any terrain. Finally, there are lists for civilized areas, as well as haunted and magical encounters (so this would include undead and outsiders, for example). Nearly every monster in the MM is covered here.
We then get an example of a wilderness encounter table for 'the Dark Mountains'. It's divided up into both day and night encounters, and includes the chance a creature appears, how many of it, and the challenge rating and encounter level for the fight.
Next up is Town Generation. This was covered briefly in the Dungeon Master's Screen writeup from earlier this month, and it is expanded here to fill four pages rather than the original two. Basically, it's just more detail. Finally, there is a list of 100 different adventure ideas that can be randomly rolled (ah, the true hallmark of old-school gaming: Random tables).
And that is it for this chapter. It was a big one, but it covered a lot of important information. Next up is Campaigns and how to run them.
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