Preparing the Sandbox

In getting ready for my OD&D "Exploring the Outside Inn" game, I jotted down lots of little notes, some of which became earlier entries here.  This past Friday, during our initial game, I used several of the ideas to give the world a certain feel.  The main door of Milburn Hall, which opened outward, was blocked by a huge wooden T leaning against the door and partially buried.  Kemper village had smaller T-bars blocking the doors of about half the houses the party explored, while the other half had their door broken and the door frame split.  The Kemper Village Mausoleum not only had a T-bar, but was chained and locked as well.

The party has encountered giant rats, kobolds and orcs, zombies, skeletons, rot grubs, and a roc, but not a single human that didn't come to Milburn Hall from Cittá...

They were very interested in the Mausoleum, so on Saturday I wrote a one sentence description of the main building, and each of the first six levels below ground, including the type of construction and the general feel of each level.  I also decided the orcs they had encountered on the way to Kemper Village would be a bit more civilized than your average orcs.  Finally, I decided the kobolds would become more aggressive, since the party had begun to cut down the brambles that provided cover for all their tunnel entrances.

On Sunday morning, getting ready for our afternoon game, I quickly mapped out the mausoleum's main level and described the contents.  I used the AD&D Random Dungeon Generator at Donjon to build the first six underground levels of the mausoleum, changing the Random Seed and comparing the results in each case to the descriptions I'd written the day before.  Those that didn't match what I had in mind were simply ignored and new levels generated until I liked what I had.  I also used it to generate the first level of the caverns the kobolds inhabit near Milburn Hall.

Finally, I used the AD&D Random Treasure Generator to determine the Kobolds' treasure.

A quick trip to Kinkos, and everything was printed and ready to go!