What Happened to the Dungeon?

A post on Reddit asked for advice: what should a referee do (if anything) when higher level players return to a dungeon populated with lower level monsters? Users provided some solid responses, including:

• Change nothing, it will remind them how powerful they have become
• Evolve the dungeon over time: new monsters have moved in
• Another adventuring party has already looted the place

Whatever choice one makes, I advise against considering "balance" as a major factor. Do not tune your encounters to make them all "level appropriate." Most good players will notice your heavy-handedness. If you're reading this, you probably already agree.

That said, in a sandbox where players can follow whatever leads they choose, the game world should not stand still waiting for them.

So, how should you determine what happens? Sometimes the answer will be obvious from the establishing fiction of the dungeon: the cultists finished their ritual, or the prisoner you were sent to rescue is already dead. When the answer isn't obvious, do what any good OSR referee does: consult a random table!

I created a d66 table to determine what happens to the dungeon while your party followed other leads. The results generally follow the reaction roll curve: lower results increase the challenge and higher results likely prove fortuitous in some way. Most results in the middle add complexity that isn't inherently good or bad.

What Happened to the Dungeon d66 Table

With these results you can simulate a living world without artificially tuning your dungeons to some "challenge rating" or relying solely on referee discretion. Enjoy!

EDIT: I created the same table in a slightly more attractive half-letter booklet format. I didn't like the way the original looked when printed.

What Happened to the Dungeon d66 Table (Booklet Version)

Scaling Up Player Tools

I often see a variation of this piece of advice in OSR circles:

Give players fun tools without specific applications and encourage them to use those tools in creative ways.

For example, many old-school spells exemplify this adage. They don't simply deal xd6 damage. Instead, they provide you with a tool in your toolbox - the power to warp wood or heat metal - and the spell descriptions lack the hyper-specific limitations included in the name of balance that you see in modern editions.

The principle behind the advice is that giving your players powerful tools without obvious uses enhances your game because it fosters creativity and lets players feel like they outsmarted the game. Use this advice, it's good. Don't try to balance your tools. Let your players "break" the game.

And, importantly, don't forget to employ this adage when your campaign transitions into the wilderness and domain tiers. Your tools don't have to necessarily be more powerful. You can scale them up in other ways: size, distance, duration, etc.

Some examples from my ongoing Age of Discovery campaign include:

• A talking mountain who will let you hide inside its cavernous mouth to avoid magical or mundane detection
• A lighthouse that, when lit, either enhances or repels magic
• A well the purifies anything that passes through its opening
• An entrance to a parallel realm with shortcuts to various places across the continent

A fantastic discovery waiting to break the world

All of these are tools in a party's toolbox. Need to lay low after making off with some hot treasure? Go hide in the talking mountain's mouth for a while. Need to sneak out a besieged army? Brave the freaky parallel realm's shortcut.

Open your mind to radical possibilities that the players suggest. Sure, the magic well purifies water. Is that water considered holy water if the blessing is maintained or enhanced? What happens if an undead creature crosses the threshold?

Too often I see referees saddle tools of all shapes and sizes with strange caveats to avoid making them "game-breaking" (whatever than means); lame restrictions like "you can only send fewer than 10 people into the parallel realm" or "you can only pass inanimate objects through the threshold of the magic well."

Restrain yourself from doing this with magic items and show the same restraint when your party starts discovering magic locations as well. Just like you let them unbalance an encounter with their magic dungeon loot, also let them change the world with their fantastic discoveries in the wilderness.