My AD&D group, which is currently meeting once every two weeks for sessions of 2-3 hours in length, is finally out of Castle Amber (something that was missed by some of the more stalwart players). We had a new player for this session, which saw them exploring what I’m beginning to refer to as the “Ruins of Loki”. It wasn’t meant to be a megadungeon in the beginning, but that’s what it’s turning into.

The dungeon design is aided by the random dungeon generator in the AD&D DMG, especially when the players wander into sections of the dungeon that they haven’t explored yet. That they did so was entirely due to the group not having the map of the dungeon with them; the player with the map couldn’t make this session, and so the group went straight ahead when they should have gone left, and eventually went down a set of stairs to a level of the dungeon I hadn’t expected them to visit. I certainly hadn’t detailed or mapped it yet. I had two rather interesting new levels drawn up and (mostly) detailed, so what were they doing going down this staircase?!?

Four players controlling six characters turned up for this session, so we had a half-elf thief 1 (new player), a cleric 6, a magic-user 7 and his cleric 5 henchman, and the fighter 6 and his fighter 5 henchman.

The forgetful senior players managed to take the group to a room which they’d explored before, and left behind a trap (a swinging log) which they’d drawn a smiley-face on. It was rather amusing when they triggered the trap and the senior players went, “Oh yes, I remember now!”

This didn’t help them go in the right direction, as they continued to wander in vaguely random directions around the dungeon. A group of orcs proved little trouble, although it was somewhat disturbing that this group of orcs wasn’t part of either of the two tribes they’d met before; this one had the symbol of an eye. (The others are the Severed Hand and the Bloody Tongue, IIRC).

So, they found a staircase, and wandered into the unknown. I frantically flipped my DMG open, and started making rolls to see what they found, whilst making notes in my Book Of The Dungeon. So, they found a room in which there were a few skeletons of humans slumped in a corner (not monsters, just bones), then found a small group of troglodytes, a room with a painted eye, before running into a group of boring beetles that proved a lot more dangerous than they expected; Jesse’s cleric cohort was reduced to negative hit points, and the group had to retreat from the dungeon.

Unfortunately, the group weren’t mapping, and their grasp of the geography of what they’d passed was poor. Really poor. So poor that they turned left rather than straight ahead and went into a new room. Circular, with four entrances all leading to long, disorientingly similar tunnels. Good fun. Unfortunately for my amusement, they lucked out and managed to find the route back out with only a few missteps.

It was the next expedition (sadly shortened) that proved the most amusing for me as a Killer DM. One odd things is that I’ve got quite a different personality as an AD&D DM than I do as a 4E or 3E/Pathfinder DM. I’m a lot nastier and adversarial. Thus, when Jesse decided he wanted to fireball a group of giant rats running at him thirty feet away down a 10’ wide corridor, I didn’t say, “are you sure you want to do that, because you’ll toast your party”. Instead, I let him do it.

The smart player of the group, who turned out to be our newest player, ran for the dungeon exit the moment he heard Jesse start intoning the spell. Everyone else moved back a bit… but not enough. 33,000 cubic feet proved to reach Jesse and the rest of the group quite well. No-one died, but Jesse’s cleric henchman was (once again) reduced to negative hit points.

Of course, that was the final straw for his henchman, who – upon being healed – stormed out of the campaign, never to be seen again. The loyalty of Jesse’s future henchmen is likely to be a lot lower…