A Dungeon of Your Own

Have you written your own dungeon?

Everyone should write a dungeon at least once.  You'll be able to write stuff that you like, and stuff that your players like.  You can make it as small or as large as you'd like, based on the length of your sessions.  If your group likes puzzles, then you can dump three of them in there.  And by the time you're done, you'll basically have memorize the damn thing.

And you'll learn all the things that work and don't work.  When you run a pre-made dungeon, you come away with a sense that some rooms were more fun than others, but it might not be clear why.  When you run your own dungeon, your head will be full of the all of the alternatives, and it'll be easier to come up with improvements the next time you iterate on it.

Reasons Not to Write Your Own Dungeon:

1. Arnold, I don't have enough time.

        Fair point.  Have a nice day.  

2. Arnold, I can't write a dungeon as good as published modules.

        Absolute hogwash; get the fuck out of here.

There's some good published modules, but there are many, many more mediocre ones.  One of the oddities of this hobby is that you can have a lot of fun with bad dungeons, as long as you're hanging out with your friends and cracking jokes.  As a result, there's not a lot of evolutionary pressure for dungeons to improve.  

Trust me on this one.  The guys writing published dungeons are not lightyears beyond you.  It's not like comparing yourself to a brain surgeon.  It's more like comparing yourself to someone who is good at making sandwiches.

And even the guys who do write dungeons well and playtest them haven't playtested them with your group.  Everyone is different, so make the sandwich that your group likes.

The Missing Chapter

Writing your own dungeon is a pretty big cornerstone of our hobby, especially in the OSR space.  There's so much other stuff written that it's honestly surprising how little ink has been spent describing how dungeons are made.

I'm not sure if these is because dungeoncraft is a field that is still in its infancy, or because there is no wrong way to do it.  (I'm leaning towards the first one, though.  I certainly notice bad level design in video games, but that's because I've played hundreds of video games and its easy to compare them.  In contrast, I've probably only run a few dozen TTRPG dungeons over my whole life, and there are so many other things distracting me at the table that I don't think I've spent as much time thinking about the topic.)

A few DM's guides have chapters on creating your own dungeon.  A lot of them don't.

A bunch of them have sections on how to stock your own random dungeon, with random rooms and random monsters with random treasure, which I think is absolutely insane.  Imagine if you went to video game school to learn to design good levels for an FPS game, and your teacher was told you to roll dice to determine how big each room was, which weapons there were, and how many enemies there were.  (I am not a fan of procedurally generated dungeons.  You can do better than random.)

I am damn certain that the level designers in Halo didn't roll dice.  They had a system.

The System

I suspect that there are lots of ways to do this, but everyone starts with a concept, like "tomb" or "buried spaceship".  Certainly better is to have a couple of concepts, like "poisonous tomb" or "musical prison".  

It's frequently good to frame things in terms of what they were, and what they are now.  (Dungeons are almost universally old places.  It's how we justify their ruin, isolation, complexity, and contents.)  Examples would be "tomb that is now a hideout for bandits" or "magical library taken over by goblins".

It's also good to have some friction between your themes.  Don't just pick things that align neatly.  "tomb taken over by a necromancer" is a little thin--it's doesn't inspire anything, although it's a perfectly useable concept by itself.  "tomb taken over by necro-artists" is a bit more interesting, since I can already think of a couple rooms.  How about "zoo taken over my a necromancer"?  Also fun.

"temple to a benevolent god of rot"?   Or maybe "underwater prison for a god of fire"?  A little bit of contradiction can generate a lot of creativity later on.

Prior Works

Once you have your concept, you can move onto the dungeon itself.  I found a few good blog posts on this subject.

Chris wrote a really good one, which includes advice on how to include teaching encounters.

Dyson recapitulates the five room dungeon, which is a perfectly serviceable way to make a small dungeon quickly while ensuring that you have some good variety in it.

Gus has an excellent one where he talks about dungeon naturalism, and gives good advice for writing room descriptions.

Lastly, I have the dungeon checklist, which is just a list of things that I think all dungeons should include (except for maybe the smallest, most specialized dungeons).

Other Considerations

It's also useful to think about a few other questions when you are beginning.

1. How big do you want this dungeon to be?

Or to put another way, how many sessions do you expect your group to spend in this place?  Some groups do 2 rooms an hour, others can do 6 rooms an hour.  (You should already have an idea of how fast your group moves in your game.)

I also know that when I write dungeons, they usually bloat by about +20% or +50% from my original sketch as I think of new things to add, usually after running it once or twice.

2. Is this a dungeon with a singular goal (usually a boss the party needs to beat) or is it something that can just be explored partially and then happily abandoned?

3. What do you want the split to look like between combat, puzzles, exploration, and role-playing?

4. Do you want it to be naturalistic (i.e. it's a dungeon in a monastery and it has a floorplan that looks like an IRL monastery) or gamified?

Next Steps

Some people start with maps, other people start with key rooms.  A few people start with factions and random encounter tables.

Starting with maps is very common, and is probably what I've seen the most.  

I do think that dungeon creation is iterative for most people.  The first map you draw probably won't be the final one.  You'll constantly correct and improve, especially after playing through it the first time.  The same can be said for your encounters, NPCs, and magic items.

Beneath the Mouth of Mormo

I'm currently writing the sequel to the Mouth of Mormo dungeon that I posted a couple of days ago.

I want something much bigger, complicated, and challenging.  If Mouth of Mormo is a beginner's dungeon, I want something for experienced groups.

Anyway, I'm going to try to develop it on the blog.  Maybe it'll be useful for some people.  I do think that what I'm doing here is definitely overengineering--you can make a successful dungeon with a lot less work.  I just want to try doing something ambitious.

Concepts

1. Temple to the second goddess in the pantheon.  Mormo's sister.  Mormo is the semi-benevolent goddess of mutation (the sea-change).  Sister is something analogous (except perhaps mind instead of body) or prophecy.

2. Continues the theme of the Mouth of Mormo.  A fallen holy place destroyed long ago by starfish and merpeople.

Map

1 - Flooded rooms, half-sunken statues, and locked doors.  Seems abandoned at first.  Connects to Room 20 in the Mouth of Mormo.  Puzzle required to open doors (put matching hat on statue).

2 - Flooded halls.  You need a boat to navigate.  Some large monster threatens this hub area, but is too large/enchanted to leave.  Eel swarms in water.  You'll need to find a boat to navigate, or find a rowboat in nearby area.

3 - The Reef Beneath.  Navigate around a huge reef.  Morays, crabs, fish-things.  Sleeping monster (don't wake it up).  Giant archerfish spit water to knock you off bridge.

4 - Crypt.  Skeletons seated in chairs, beginning their slow transmutation into a living reef.  Body horror.  History of goddess.  This is where the elevator comes down.

5 - Sea Cave with island in it.  Hard to Reach.  Boss area?  Temple of minor god.  Wizard is here, an ally of the guys who destroyed the dungeon, wants to hire you to kill/loot the place.

6 - Inner sanctum of the Goddess.  Starts out locked.  Boss area?  The woman of sand sits here writing.  She’s writing the whole history of the world on sand.  When she finishes a section, she rakes it flat and starts again.  Wants you to kill the wizard.  Sand = mirror = prophecy = illusion.

Each room has 5-20 rooms, except for Area 2 which is a smaller hub area.

Gimmick

Tides.  Room water level rises and falls.  Combat is worse when the water is higher

History

Was a temple and a monastery.  We need an inner sanctum, monastery bits, some public areas of the monastery, and a crypt.

Factions

Lady of Sand - Cursed remnant of old temple, still loyal.

Wizard in Sea Cave - Wants to finish destruction/looting.

Sentient Undead - Wants you to leave them the fuck alone.

Goblins - Wildcard.

Random Encounters

Drowners.  Ghouls.  1 Elder Ghoul.  1 Necrophidius (forces focus).  More Cloakers.  Giant Fish.  Dungeon Moray.  Dungeon Clam (contains pearl).  Two Giant Starfish.  Flying Worms.

Treasure

I'll do treasure last.  (I'm not lazy!  I just think you can do treasure last, since nothing depends on it.)

Revised Map

Okay, after a little revision I have something like this:

HALLS is area #2.  It's the hub area that has a guardian that cannot leave the area.  Somewhere in this dungeon, there's probably some weapon or tactic that lets you kill it more easily.  I'm thinking a giant water weird that is powered by a skull.  Turns into a couple of different animalistic forms.  If you manage to pull the skull out (trick it into running through a net) you can smash the skull with a warhammer for an easy KO.

BAD HALL is between a pair of closed portcullises.  You can easily open it to get a useful new path, but the bad hall is crammed with a shitload of horrible undead, so maybe you don't want to do this.

Room 2A has a rotating statue puzzle.  Whatever door the statue points at will unlock.  The rotating statue can rotate to unlock 2B and 2C.  However, there's also similar locked doors that lead to 2F and 1D and clever players will realize that the statue's range is unlimited, and that's how you unlock those doors.   Can also use it unlock a treasure vault door on the sea cave island.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

This is my attempt at a comprehensive system for HP, Sanity, Death and Dismemberment.  All that good stuff.

HP

HP stands for Heroic Poise.  This is your ability to survive the world's cruelties, both mental and physical without impact.  HP turns potentially deadly blows into bruises, exhaustion.  It also includes some intangibles such as luck and divine favor.  HP are "don't get hit points" but they are also "keep it together points".

Your HP is a reservoir.  They soak up bodily injury and emotional trauma similarly.  Once you are out of HP, enemy blades start to carve up your belly, and panic begins constricting your brain.  You no longer stand like a hero; you stand like someone in fear of their imminent death.

Digression

Anything that could reasonably kill a person deals at least 1 HP of damage.  Cats don't deal any damage, because cats have never killed a human (except through infection, or that one cat that I assume smothered a baby somewhere.  Babies have 1/2 a point of HP.)

Damage

When the world tries to kill you, you take damage, which subtracts from your HP.

Damage works the way that it always does, except that it includes emotional damage as well.  Your HP can be reduced all the way down to 0 without any ill effect, but any damage that your HP cannot soak up will Overflow and cause something bad.

Additionally, exhaustion can deplete your HP as well.  Run some sprints and I guarantee that you will not be able to defend yourself as effectively as if you were fully rested.  (Exhaustion counts as non-lethal damage.)

• Non-lethal Overflow merely knocks you out for 1d6 + Overflow rounds.

• Lethal Overflow will cause Wounds, and may kill you.

• Emotional Overflow will cause Stress, and may have additional effects depending on the emotion.  For example, fear damage causes you to flee or stand there gibbering (player's choice).

There's no penalty for being at 0 HP (except that you are very easy to kill).

Discussion

Emotional damage is something that I've flip-flopped on many times.  It does make intuitive sense--once you realize that HP is not meat-points, you realize that it can be worn down by fear, depression, and despair.  I guarantee that soldiers do not become better fighters when they are panicked.

Emotional damage will be something rare, though.  You won't see it often.

Wounds

Any lethal damage that is not soaked up by your HP overflows into your Wounds.  So if you had 3 HP and then took 5 damage from an arrow , you now have 2 Wounds.

Wounds subtract from your Max HP, but cannot reduce it below 0. (Damage, Wounds, and Stress actually all subtract from your Max HP, which is why they're linked in the image above.)

When you gain Wounds, you start Dying.  :(

Dying characters fall unconscious and drop whatever they were holding.

Dying characters make a Stabilization check at the end of each round.  This is a Constitution check against a DC of 15 + Wounds.  Every person attempting to stop the bleeding (max 2) gives you +2 to this check.  Certain things (bandages) can give an additional +2.

• Natural 1 = You die.
• Fail = You gain another Wound.
• DC 16 = No change.
• DC 24 (or Natural 20) = You stabilize.

Once you stabilize, you wake up in 10 minutes.  You have gained a scar and you feel like absolute shit.

If you gained Wounds from a critical hit, you gain a Disfigurement (e.g. a missing arm, but more on this later).  (See Disfigurement Table below.)

Disfigurements are permanent, and most will make your character weaker in some way.  Perhaps its time to retire?

So our example adventurer might wake up with 5 Wounds.  Their Max HP, formerly 3, is now 0.  They cannot gain HP until they remove the Wounds (since the Wounds are greater than the HP).

If they woke up with 1 Wound, their effective Max HP would be 2.

Wounds are removed by spending time in a safe place with medical care.  Once the player spends a session playing a different character, the Wounds are removed.  (It is not enough that a character spends a session unplayed--the player must actually play a different character for a session.)

Discussion

Character death is one of the more severe punishments the game can dish out to a player.  It's a Failure condition: you fucked up and now you don't get to play your character anymore.  Consider Wound removal a similar punishment on a smaller scale: you fucked up a little and now you don't get to play your character for a session.

"Take a session off to heal Wounds" also serves another purpose: encouraging troupe play.  A player gets to experience another level 1 character, which could be a nice change of pace, plus it gives you someone to fall back on if your primary character dies.

If you stop here, and don't incorporate Stress (the next section) you basically have the same amount of bookkeeping as your average D&D version.  (Wounds are no more complex than death saves, for example.)

Here's a scrap of a character sheet I drew to illustrate it.  (It doesn't include Stress.)

Stress-Free Version

Stress

Any emotional damage that is not soaked up by your HP overflows into your Stress.  Stress causes Breakdowns (short-term badness) and Derangements (semi-permanent badness).

Stress subtracts from your max HP, but cannot reduce it below 0.

If you have any amount of Stress at all, your Derangement becomes active (see below).

Whenever you gain Stress, you need to make a Stress check.  This is a simple check against a DC of 5 + Stress.  (Roll a d20 without any modifier.)

If you fail this roll, you have a Breakdown.

Every character has a random Breakdown and a random Derangement.  These are rolled the first time that the character has a Breakdown.  Once rolled, they are permanent.  (Think of it as a delayed facet of character creation.)

Whenever that character has a Breakdown, it is always the same one.

On future failed Stress checks, the character merely has a Breakdown (since the Derangement is already active).

Once your Derangement is active, you perform the bad behavior described.

When a character spends time in a safe place that is peaceful, Stress is removed and the Derangement is inactivated.  Once the player spends a session playing a different character, the Wounds are removed.

Discussion

Since emotion damage is rarer than physical damage, we can assume that characters walking around with Stress will also be rarer.  However, the Derangements are pretty shitty, so it balances it out.

Some characters will have worse Breakdowns and Derangements than others.  These are the ones that will probably be asked to read the Latin.  This is as it should be.

The full pain homunculus

Bypassing HP

Emotional and physical damage are ablated by HP, but there are ways to sidestep this buffer.

Horrific Lovecraftian shit will bypass your HP and deal you Stress automatically.

Similarly, an attack against a helpless character (asleep, tied up) reduces their current HP to 0 and deals its damage entirely as Wounds.


Places of Recovery

An army hospital is safe and has medical care, but it is not peaceful.

A farm is safe and peaceful, but does not have medical care.

A monastery is all three.  So is a town, if you know where to look.

Exiting

If your Stress + Wounds ever equal 10 or more, you cease to be a playable character.

If Wounds brought you here, you are merely dead.

If Stress brought you here, you go insane (or some equivalent).  You can be dragged back to civilization (while exhibiting the worst of your Breakdown + Derangement) and rehabilitated, gaining all of the benefits of Retirement, but you can never again be a playable character.

Cheer

This is a buff that you gain when you are in town, and it is gained by having FUN.

Race your horses on the beach.  Cook a big feast for some NPCs.  Host a dance on the village green.

When a party is Cheered, the party gains 3 temporary HP.  These are shared HP.  The first person who would lose HP, instead removes poker chips from a bowl on the center of the table.

It's not hard to get Cheered, but you have to do something different every time (or at least party with different people).

Example

Look at the example above.

We have a character that currently has 9 damage.  They're in trouble, because they're effectively at 0 HP.  If they take any more damage, it'll go straight to Stress or Wounds.

Their Max HP is 9, but if the character recuperated in a monastery while the player used a sidekick for a session, their Max HP would be back up to 12.

They don't have any Disfigurements, but if they gain any Stress, they have a chance to vomit.  They're currently Abusive, and will remain so until their Stress is brought back down to 0.

Tables

Disfigurement Table [d6]
Note: Common sense overrides this table. Falls are unlikely to knock out your eye, for example.  Psychic damage might only put people in comas, or it might roll a d6 like normal (missing leg = all the nerves in your leg die), depending on the DM.
1	Arm Missing/Useless	Lose 1 point of Str.
2	Hand Missing/Useless	Lose 1 point of Dex.
3	Crushed Ribs	Lose 1 point of Con. Cannot speak louder than a whisper.
4	Leg Missing/Useless	Lose 1 point of Str. -4 Movement (assuming you have a crutch).
5	Coma	Lose 1 point of Int. Wake up in 1d20*1d20 days (if either of those dice show a 1, you will never wake up) assuming prompt, competent medical care. 50% chance of waking up with a new skill: Spirits at Rank 1.
6	Missing Eye	Lose 1 point of Wis. -2 Ranged Attacks.

Random Breakdown Table [d8]
Note: No Breakdown lasts longer than 10 minutes (except Alter Ego). When you are panicked, all you can do is move, cry, whimper, and hyperventilate.
1	Fight	You attack the the source of your Stress until it is removed or destroyed.
2	Flight	You flee from the source of your Stress until it is removed or at least 3 rooms distant.
3	Faint	Fall unconscious. At the start of each round, you have a 1-in-6 chance to wake.
4	Vomit	You vomit (free action) and drop to 0 HP.
5	Scream	You start screaming, once per round. Each scream incurs an Encounter check. You cannot stop yourself from screaming, but other people can. Lasts until the source of your Stress is removed or destroyed.
6	Cling	You grapple a random adjacent PC and refuse to move. Lasts until the source of your Stress is removed or destroyed.
7	Self-destruction	The DM chooses 1 action for you to perform. It is always the worst possible action (throwing away your magic sword). If you cast a harmful spell on yourself, you get a Save.
8	Alter Ego	Roll a new set of mental statistics, personality, goals, etc. You are now a new level 0 character with a new name. Whenever this Breakdown occurs again, you switch back. Your alter ego levels up separately.

Random Derangement [d20]
1-5	Proximal phobia	Phobia for whatever gave you the most recent point of Stress. If nothing seems applicable, pick one of the other phobias randomly. Use 6-10 for inspiration.
6	Claustrophobia	You panic in small spaces. Gain 1 Stress each time you end a round in a small space.
7	Acrophobia	You panic within 5' of a fall (at least 10' high). Gain 1 Stress each time you fall.
8	Thalassophobia	You panic in or above water that is deep (5' or more) or murky. Gain 1 Stress each time you end a turn in deep or murky water, or if you fall in.
9	Nyctophobia	You panic when you are without a light source. Gain 1 Stress each time you end a round in the dark.
10	Thanatophobia	You panic when you see a corpse (including the undead), or when a person starts Dying. Gain 1 Stress each time you touch a corpse, are affected by the undead, or if a PC or hireling dies.
11	Talking to Yourself	Never surprise enemies. Enemies surprise the party 1-in-6.
12	Disenchanted	Whenever you are supposed to leave town (or a safe campsite) for some dangerous location, there is a 50% chance that you retire instead. When this Derangement is removed, there is a 1-in-6 chance you decide to retire anyway.
13	Escapism	Automatically fail Initiative rolls.
14	Guilt	Cannot level up.
15	Abusive	Whenever someone rolls a critical failure, you will verbally abuse them, dealing them 2 emotional damage (anger).
16	Pacifist	Whenever you attempt lethal harm, you take 2 points of emotional damage (despair). You can still trip enemies so that your warrior friend can kill them, you just can't trip them off a cliff.
17	Depression	You cannot benefit from Cheer, and neither can the people around you. If the other PCs go get Cheered without you, you have a 50% chance of abandoning the party, fleeing into the night, because fuck those guys.
18	Comfort Object	Pick an item in your inventory. Whenever it is out of your possession, gain 1 Stress. You panic until it is returned to you. (This object doesn't change when this Neurosis is inactive.)
19	Sadist	Once you attempt lethal harm, you cannot take combat actions that don't include attempting to kill your target. (No fleeing, no healing, etc.) If you level up with this Derangement active, you can only take levels in Slayer.
20	Morbid Curiosity	When encountering something that is weird and potentially dangerous, the DM can ask to you to make a Cha Save to resist investigating it ("reading the Latin out loud, picking up the glowing sword, etc.) When you level up, you can only take levels in Warlock. (If you lack a familiar, one will be provided.)

Discussion

Negative traits are fun, but they shouldn't be something that is picked at character creation.  (Balance issues, synergy/powergaming issues) but it works well if they are generated randomly the first time that they become relevant.  (DELAY ROLLS AS LONG AS POSSIBLE).

A person with acrophobia could walk along the top of a tall wall, they'd just be panicked the whole time. They wouldn't be able to attack an enemy or even shout a warning to their allies.

You'll also notice that Sadist and Morbid Curiosity both force characters into choosing a character class that they might not want.  I think this is wonderful.  Why should players always get to choose their next character class?  (ATTACK ALL PARTS OF THE CHARACTER SHEET.)

Disenchanted is a potentially disruptive Derangement, since it can force a player to retire a character that they don't want to.  To that I say "better than being dead".  I almost named this one as Sanity (because what sane person would go into a dungeon) or Family Man.

Advice for OSR DMs

I wrote an introduction section that is meant for the Lair of the Lamb.  

The most interesting part for most of you will probably be the Advice for DMs section, but I'm posting the whole thing here since it's a good explanation of (a) old-school dungeoncrawls, as I see them, and (b) the style of gameplay that I'm shooting for in the Lair of the Lamb.

by Konstantin Kostadinov

What You are Reading

This text is meant to be an introduction to both the GLOG and an old-school dungeoncrawl.

The Goblin Laws of Gaming

The ruleset in this book is sufficient for the adventure in this book.  The rules will serve you well up until the last page of the dungeoncrawl.

But the GLOG that can be printed is not the True GLOG.  The GLOG is a philosophy—gather the rules that improve your game, and exile the rules that don't.  The published rules are just building blocks for you to incorporate or discard as you see fit.

There are two reasons we should shun a monolith.

First, there is no one-size-fits-all RPG.  Your game will improve after you tailor it to meet your group’s expectations and preferences.  Second, the best rules and creatures for your game will not exist in a single book--they will exist in many.  (In another book, I hope I can write about how to best make these decisions.)

An Old-School Dungeoncrawl

The players will control a group of lowly peasants who attempt to escape a dangerous and exotic underground maze.  That makes it a dungeoncrawl.

They will map the dungeon themselves, track light sources, they will rely on their wits (instead of their class abilities), and some will die.  These things make it old-school.

Level-0 Peasants

Each player will play as several level-0 peasants.  By the end of the module, each player will (hopefully) exit the dungeon with a level 1 character who has earned their hit points the hard way.  

We do this so that:

• The players can start playing quickly.  New players are neither knowledgeable nor invested.  (Later, the surviving characters will be flesh out.  Backstories are for closers.)
• The players can learn to play with the simplest character sheet possible.  Mechanics can be introduced one by one.
• The players are not punished too harshly for their mistakes.  Since they have extra lives, they can move on from fatal errors.  Since the dungeon is lethal, it’s best if players are familiar with the genre before they are attached to a particular character.
• Parts of the dungeon can be closed off to groups without particular gear.  Torches, ropes, and weapons can fulfill the role of keys.
• The world's cruelty must be instructed.

Advice for DMs

Meaningful Choices

Give the players as many meaningful choices as you can. This means a choice where:

• The negative outcome is known (at least approximately).
• The positive outcome is known (at least approximately).
• The odds are known (at least approximately).
• The outcomes affect the game (they are not trivial).
• The player is also free to choose not to choose (they can walk away).

Shoot for at least 4 of the 5.

Similarly, try to avoid giving players meaningless choices.  “Do you go down identical tunnel A or identical tunnel B?”

And respect their decisions.  If the players choose to avoid the ogre encounter, don’t reskin the ogres as half-giants and put the encounter in front of them again.  Conversely, if they find a way to easily kill the ogres in the first round, respect their ingenuity and allow the ogres to die (don’t give the ogres more HP on the fly, or re-insert the encounter later).

We want players to feel ownership of the results of their choices.  “I did this.”  For the same reason, players roll as many of the dice as possible. (The DM rolls as few as possible.)

Information

Part of giving the players meaningful choices is giving them the information they need to make their decisions.  They need to know what the risks and the rewards are for any decision (at least approximately).

Don’t hide information behind rolls--just give it to your players.  When in doubt, give them more information.  It is more important to inform your players than it is to find justifications for how the characters would know things.

Impact

You must allow your players’ actions to change, build, and destroy your world.

You are not a tour guide nor a train conductor.  You are the manager of a very dangerous wildlife reserve.  If your players choose to organize the leopards into a militia, tell them where they can find boots.  If your players choose to burn down the forest, let your setting burn.  Let their decisions matter.

(There is nothing wrong with scripted events or fluff encounters; just be cognizant of what they are.)

Lethality

Players in breezy games will sometimes drink random potions just to see the result, because they know that nothing truly terrible will happen.  This isn’t that kind of game.  Sometimes the strange bottle contains poison, and sometimes it kills you without a saving throw.  Don’t drink poison.

The sooner that players learn this expectation, the sooner they will thrive.  Playing multiple characters helps players learn this lesson without a tutorial section.  Do not go easy on them--if your kindness teaches them that their characters will not die even when they probably should, your kindness has become a cruelty, since it creates expectations that will be shattered much later (and more painfully).

The dungeon is not an unthinking meat grinder.  The dungeon is a test, where wrong answers are penalized.  Skilled players will be able to navigate the dungeon without any deaths, while fools will TPK in the first few rooms.

Combat is a little different, since the chaos of d20 rolls means that the weaker party sometimes triumphs--which is why risk-averse players should also be combat-averse players.

Fair Deaths

Players should die, but they should die as the result of bad choices.

A player that dies shouldn’t feel angry at the injustice of it all.  Ideally, they should sigh, shrug, smile, and say “yeah, I kinda figured that might happen.”

Bad: “You walk into the room.  Rocks fall.  Everyone roll a Dex save or take damage.”

Good: “The sagging ceiling seems to be held up by a spear.”

A player that dies in the first room would have good reason to feel bitter.  A player who dies in the second will only have themselves to blame.  Fair deaths result from meaningful choices.

Keep Track

Every action in the dungeon has a cost.  Searching the bone pile takes precious time.  Torches will burn down.  There is the chance that a random encounter might occur.  Searching the bone pile is a bit like a shop where items are purchased with torchlight and blood.

You cannot have a meaningful campaign unless strict time measures are kept.  The same applies to torches and rations.

HP (or the number of peasants) is another resource.  HP can be thought of as the character’s risk budget.  You spend HP on risky actions.  Characters with more HP can do more things because they can afford to take more risks.  A low-HP group is a miserable thing, crawling past the wonders of the underworld, unable to afford a taste.

Allow Failure

Your players will die: sometimes heroically, sometimes embarassingly.  Resist the temptation to save them.  This is one of the hardest things for groups to adjust to (which is why it’s so important to set expectations early).

Allow PCs to flee combat, but never fudge the dice.  After all, they chose to stay and fight.

Your players will not find all the secret areas.  Resist the temptation to drop hints.  Finding secret areas is one of the things that separates good players from novices.  Not that there’s anything wrong with participation trophies, but there needs to be a trophy for excellence, too.

After the session, resist the temptation to tell players about all of the things that they missed.  Those secrets must be purchased through cleverness and bravery, or not at all.

Allow Success

There must be rewards commensurate with the dangers.  Allow players opportunities to feel powerful.  They will sidestep your traps and one-shot your bosses; celebrate these moments with them.

They will want to make their characters cool.  Let them go buy the swordcane that they want.  The dungeon made the survivors rich--let them throw a party.

Allow Players to Pick their Genre

You cannot enforce morality on your players if they want to play as murderhobos.  Similarly, a horror game is impossible if the players keep making Monty Python jokes.  You can nudge in a direction (after all, the DM is a player, too) but you cannot require.

If you write up courtly intrigues but your players only want to kick down doors and kill things, either (a) have an open conversation about your goals for this game, or (b) give them the kind of game that they want.

Never Fudge the Dice

Better yet, roll them out in the open.

If you are adjusting the difficulty on the fly, then it’s no different than wrestling with your dad.  A mock struggle, followed by a fictional triumph.  You might as well not roll dice at all.  (It might still tell a good story, but how shallow must that victory feel, knowing that was never any other outcome.)

If a combat is too easy for the players, the monsters will flee or surrender (see Morale).

If the combat is too difficult, the players can always run away (see Pursuit).  Learning to flee a losing battle is something that many groups struggle with, which is why that is the first lesson taught in the Lair of the Lamb.

Advice for Players

Think in Terms of the Dungeon Level

Other games might envision an adventure as a series of encounters, each relatively isolated from each other.

This dungeon is not like that.  It is a single, interlocking mechanism.  Opening paths creates loops that you can retreat down.  Monsters roam from room to room.  Noticing a blank spot on the map allows players to infer the location of a secret room.  Answers to a puzzle are found in a different room.  Think globally, rather than locally.

Keep an eye on that map.

Learn Everything You Can

In the beginning, the dungeon is unknown, and peasants will die because they didn’t recognize its perils.  But eventually the dungeon will be maps and the mechanisms tamed.  You will turn the traps against your enemies.  At this point, the dungeon is no longer the wolf beyond the firelight, it is the tame dog at your side, another tool in your backpack.  Yet, the only thing that you have gained in knowledge.

Information is a precious resource that can be leveraged to gain an advantage in nearly every situation.  Your DM has been instructed to give you plenty of information in every situation, but you can always ask for more.  Try to ask a question in every room.

The more you know about the dungeon, the better you can use it to be clever.

Be Clever

Fuck your Int score.  Always be as clever as you can.  You are not wrestling with your dad; the dungeon will kill you if you let it.  

The solutions are not on your character sheet.  You do not have class abilities that you can rely on in every situation.  Look at your inventory, look at the map, look at the other players.  The rules have fuzzy edges in the GLOG--bend reality to your will by bargaining with the DM.

“Can I fill the pit with enough bones so that Akina can climb out?”

“Can I use my Butchery skill to help stabilize Goren?”

“Can I use the brightness juice to blind her?”

None of these three questions are covered by the rules, yet they are all indisputably good ideas.  A good DM will find a way to reward good ideas.

Similarly, many of the puzzles in the Lair of the Lamb are open-ended.  They have multiple solutions that I have imagined, and many other solutions that I haven’t.  Keep throwing ideas at them--eventually something will stick.

Treat the NPCs Like People

Think about what the monsters want.  Every sentient thing has a set of wants and fears, even if it’s as simple as “food” and “light”.

Likewise, no NPC has an entirely rigid response.   Enemies can become friends.  Friends can turn against you. Not because it’s scripted or because it makes dramatic sense, but because of how you treated them, and how well you fit into their wants/fears.

There are no social skills.  You’ll have to figure out what they want by asking them the old-fashioned way.

Avoid Combat

Unless you know you are going to win, of course.  The best combats are the ones that you have already won before they start, whether through trap, trick, poison, or fire.  Never rely on the dice--they will always betray you, in the end.

You may spend more time choosing and planning battles than actually fighting.  This is good.  And remember that running away is always an option.

And if combat is unavoidable, at least try to fall back to a more defensible position.  

Focus on the Dungeon

Right now, the real focus is the byzantine machine at the heart of the world: the dungeon itself. Quickly learn its moods and anatomies.

Keep a mind on your goals: water first, escape last.  

Look for Secrets

There at least a dozen secret areas and items to discover in the Lair of the Lamb.  Finding them will give you useful tools (and level-ups).  All of them will improve your chance of survival.

You must balance your hunt for the exit with your search for resources.  It is not easy to find a balance between these two things, and yet the best players will find a way.