Of Caves and Kobolds - BECMI D&D

So the action starts! It was all quite low-key at first, and I made an effort to create a simple dungeon that would be representative of the game but also not too complicated. Me? Make something simple? Yeah, like that's going to work...
Check out Viva La Dirt League's hilarious Epic NPC Man series!
• Epic NPC Man | Viva La...

[@TKFKU]

The all elf thing.....I would have pushed for dwarves and "Mornin' nice day for fishin' ain't it?".

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Since we started, all three of them have taken turns as DM for me, sometimes with their brothers as well. For Youngest (Bob Johnny) I made a fighter named Baelin.

[@FunAtStreaming]

Wonderful episode. It's always great to remember how simple everything can be and still become an enjoyable adventure far from a complicated campaign of lore filled ruins, deep politics and confusing puzzles all over the place. Just a simple "allright, here is a dungeon and now lets play". This is exactly why i'm so glad i returned to BECMI after all the years.

[@Eruidraith]

You know, I never ran dungeons much when I was starting to play! Lots of adventuring in the open world, fighting bandits and kobolds ambushing from the trees, street thieves in cities, dragons strafing a castle town. I've still never done an old style dungeon crawl.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Yeah, a lot of our sessions run to outdoors and a few to cities. This was an adventure specifically to demonstrate D&D, though, and since I knew the characters wouldn't be able to handle a dragon...

[@Meeeeeeeestery]

So funny to listen to your game reports. What I like the most is the familiar context: it makes the game more true to itself because it's used for the love of staying together and sharing of fun time. Mentzer mentions the opportunity for the DM of fudging dice results which might spoil the game, and this power is what I've always considered the magic of D&D: a screen and a caring person behind it

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Indeed - a game should be fun, right? I'm glad you're enjoying, and thanks!

[@xyonblade]

I always figured the "rust monster" has a powerful oxidizing saliva, gold can be oxidized, it just happens very very slow under surface normal conditions.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

See, that's the kind of thing I like. Logical, well considered, makes sense. Thank you for redeeming the rust monster!

[@mykediemart]

Thank you for sharing this. It brings back some memories of my boys, who are all grown now.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

I know it's trite, but they do grow up fast, don't they? I took my crew for a bike ride recently, and had a mix of pride and sorrow as even the little guy rode way ahead, no longer needing my help.

[@davemills8193]

After living through the Satanic Panic its nice to see a holy man out on front street. You can cut through kobolds like paper if you run them like paper cut-outs instead of the cunning tricksters and trapsmiths they are.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Yeah, they come into their own once free of gnoll leadership. The other thing is that, as found in the Mentzer Basic rulebook, the only indication of their cunning is "They prefer to attack by ambush." That's something, but a long way from Tucker's Kobolds.

[@DolFan316]

I would say this is the perfect adventure for PCs of that age group, whether they were your kids or not. 😊 And it also works as both a standalone and a prelude to more, since there's an opportunity to wonder why and how a small band of kobolds could be wreaking that much havoc on their own.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thank you! It certainly did open up our own campaign!

[@phildicks4721]

One thing you might want to do as you kid's characters grow in power is to use a concept from a later edition and Pathfinder....mook hordes. These are large hordes of enemies, like goblins or kobolds. However they only do 1 HP Dmg and have 1HP each, so the players can cut down vast swaths of enemies like real heroes. ThIs works best as a nice climatic battle before meeting the dungeon boss. I myself start using this idea once my players reach about 6-8 level.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

That's a good idea...and a funny name. Mook hordes!

[@phildicks4721]

@@TheDungeonMinister it's usually the highlight of the session because the players feel like they're winning against huge odds. I usually have them kill one mook for each point of damage they do, while at most taking one point of Damage each round(you want them fairly healthy because they have to face the boss next). To the players it's like they're fighting the Battle of Pellenor Fields, Helm's Deep, or the Battle of Five Armies from Tolkien.😉🙂 They feel like a action movie hero.

[@paavohirn3728]

Love the dry humor and style of your videos! I completely agree fudging dice is cool in your situation. Especially in the very beginning. Possible options in the future could be having back up characters and/or a grave wound chart when a character drops to zero so zero hp isn't always instant kill.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thanks! Yeah, it's a different game when you're playing with little kids. My eldest could now handle it, and maybe the middle guy. But they'd be upset and the littlest would be so if his brothers died. But since they don't know I'm pulling punches, they still feel the danger. My middle guy to this day thinks I'm going TPK pretty much every session.

[@paavohirn3728]

@@TheDungeonMinister 😁 excellent!

[@Lightmane]

I watched this episode before, but it's fun to watch it again. What a fun simple dungeon. Love the way you ended this video too. That was good : ) When I first played, one of the players in our group had played a lot before. He was a great player, very jovial in his personality, and because of him, the game was a lot of fun to play. When we encountered Kobolds, he cried out "Kobolds! the scum of the Dungeon". I've never forgotten that, so whenever kobolds come up, I always say how kobolds are the scum of the dungeon. It just stuck : )

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thanks! Scum of the dungeon...I won't tell the Kobolds you said that!

[@Lightmane]

@@TheDungeonMinister they'd probably take it as a compliment... so you talk to kobolds, do you? hmmm...

[@Bren71319]

I try not to fudge rolls. I feel like my players can tell when I do... If he dies, he dies!🤣

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Yeah, my preference is to design the adventure so that it's doable, and has opportunities to escape if things look impossible. My players are little kids, though (the youngest was 6 when we played this), and character death would be harder with that demographic. More so because they're brothers. Only slightly related, fudge rolls sound delicious! Though that might just be Lenten deprivation talking...

[@Fnordathoth]

Your placement of the rooms at a relatively close distance is very good dungeon design, makes the order of events rational. You're right about that rust monster in the original book too; there shouldn't be any salvageable ferrous metal in that room at all.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thanks! I do get fussed about these things sometimes. I'm probably too hard on what was, after all, a training dungeon!

[@Fnordathoth]

@@TheDungeonMinister well you are right, it wasn't just the beginner dungeons which had that problem. I always like to make sure my enemy placement makes sense and MANY of the old dungeons were just "here's a monster, kill it or avoid it." and made no rational sense for the creature being there.

[@donc7664]

Sub'd, but I definitely wanna find out more about the baddies in room 4 playin Kobolds&Cave Dwellers

[@ctboomer2000]

I stumbled across your channel, glad I found you! This is fantastic, love hearing these stories!

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thank you! And welcome to the channel!

[@Mercury-Wells]

I tripped over it too and hurt my bottom. 🙃

[@shaunhall960]

Love it!

[@pauloliveira93]

Eeeepic NPC Maaan! Love the Honeywood choice

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thing is, it's been so long that the other day I watched an Epic NPC Man video and was surprised to hear Honeywood! "Hey, they stole my village name! Oh, wait. No, I stole it from them..."

[@docsavage8640]

Just discovered this channel. Great content. I just got back into playing AD&D ("1e") and use a lot of material from Basic.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Welcome!

[@seanharby7439]

I love your theory of dungeon design!

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thanks! One does one's best. Sometimes I think I'm designing a dungeon that I'd like to live in.

[@Lowe505]

i like your channel

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thank you!

[@scottmarsh2991]

The Satanic Panic for me was hard to notice, because many, many people in the school district into which I’d moved in 1979 had always had that cringy mindset. Charlotte, North Carolina, still notorious for provincial attitudes, was less than an hour’s drive away. Ever heard of “Heritage USA?” Not the cool miniatures company-no-the Christian Nationalist training camp! Every and any thing that was at all nerdy-whether science or DEVO or punk rock hairstyles-😅frequently got described as “The Devil!” So by the mid-eighties, my D&D buddies and I were fully “beyond redemption” in the estimation of a lot of my neighbors, classmates, and educators.😅

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Good heavens! Nobody is ever beyond redemption, though I suppose if people think that they'll at least leave you alone! 😆

[@PeterSFam]

If you want to make kobolds a little (or a lot) tougher for as the players get more experienced or the characters gain levels, look into Tucker's Kobolds.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

I hadn't heard of Tucker's Kobolds, but I did read somewhere that Kobolds were tricksy. That does show up a bit in a later adventure, in which a shrewd Kobold attempts to undermine the Gnolls and claim leadership...but I think I might employ a Tucker twist when the party eventually has to deal with the main lair. Thanks!

[@docsavage8640]

Keep in mind that kobolds have a low intelligence and Tucker gave them sophisticated tactics they probably shouldn't have been able to come up with.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

One of the beauties of BECMI is that the monster descriptions are so short, with only the broadest strokes, so Kobolds can be anything from Tucker sharp to Keystone Kop dumb. Mine end up wanting to be Tucker Kobolds, but never quite reaching that goal. Nasty, sneaky, and they WILL kill you if they can...but that's a big if.

[@ethanhammonds9630]

That is my curse as well...Why? At some point I have to have an answer, a reason of why such and such? Just because might work for my players. But it never works for me.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Yeah, a lot of this stuff is just for us, right?

[@paavohirn3728]

Maybe you mentioned already but how did you generate ability scores for the characters? Old-school can feel pretty unfair if someone's out of luck. We certainly didn't just roll when we were kids. Never had such OP characters since 😁

[@TheDungeonMinister]

I used the same rule as when I played back in the day - everyone gets 18 constitution. Just makes things easier. Then roll for all else, in order. Point swapping allowed at a 2 for 1 rate. So you can drop a score by 2 and add 1 to a different ability. They looked at the results and chose their class. The stop gap was that there were a few characters rolled up who went on to honourable careers as coopers, glass blowers, bar maids, etc. In other words, these people had no high ability scores and would clearly never dream of going off to fight monsters. The same way I never even considered playing football or practicing medicine. So they rolled and I decided whether or not the character was playable.

[@paavohirn3728]

@@TheDungeonMinister Sounds good! That's a completely novel approach for me.

[@TheDungeonMinister]

It's a mix of things I've picked up along the way. Long, long ago, when I played, we kept losing characters. So the DM said everyone should start with a Con of 18, so we weren't so fragile. I don't know where the point swap came from, but it seems fair. You can move scores around, but at a penalty. And the scrapping adventuring for carpentry or fishing or something was due to my boys rolling a lot of characters with abilities in single digits!

[@paavohirn3728]

@@TheDungeonMinister Yeah! I love that! I think moving numbers 2 to 1 is in the basic book. Seeing ditched characters as regular people is nice. Give them a name and you can meet them in Honeywood. I used point buy for almost two decades but am back to rolling now mostly. My current favorite is 4d6, ditch the worst die, switch two scores once for free. It's still possible to roll a peasant now and then though 😅

[@kindermord]

How often do you play?

[@TheDungeonMinister]

At first, every couple weeks or so. Now it's every Sunday afternoon.

[@retrodmray]

What is your hex map program you use for your map in these please? Again, as my other comment, outstanding stuff and thank you very much!! One word included in this one that's an issue for letting my family watch them, but otherwise really good!

[@TheDungeonMinister]

Thank you! The language and tone issue has been an issue for us, too. I have to pre-screen everything first. I'm glad to provide a kid-friendly option. Out of curiosity, what was the word? I need to keep an eye on that! I use hextml.playest.net and while it's a bit unwieldy I like the ability to upload custom icons to plop into the map.

[@retrodmray]

@@TheDungeonMinister Not meaning at all to "police" your channel here, ok, but it was badass. Don't change anything based upon me though. Again, your really great and thank you very much. I'm a gospel-focused/centered corporate chaplain and old school gamer since 1978 myself with young kids getting into it now for the last 3 yrs, but finding it nearly impossible to watch anyone's KZbin OSR channels. I'll have to check out that mapping tool...thnx! 👍

[@TheDungeonMinister]

No, I appreciate hearing the feedback. I didn't start out to intentionally make it kid friendly, but the other day I realized that was the direction it was headed and am now looking to make sure it remains so (without making it too "kiddie").

[@retrodmray]

@@TheDungeonMinister Really awesome and thanks again! Would love to hear your take on some of those old rules too as your channel grows... which I really hope it does indeed!! 🙂👍