I was curious tonight about what constituted a standard amount of treasure across a dungeon/module in the original Old School games, back when xp and gold were so closely connected. So I pulled out my venerable copy of B1: In Search of the Unknown, because it has two long lists of 33 Treasures and 25 Monster Encounters, which the novice DM was supposed to choose among to fill out the ruins of Quasqueton. I figured I could add all the money and monsters up, calculate the average, and have the beginnings of an answer.
For the treasures, this wasn't a huge problem, though I'd forgotten about electrum (why was there ever electrum?) and at least one of the treasures was listed as "a silver medallion...worth 500 silver pieces." I'M SORRY; DID YOU MEAN IT'S WORTH 50 GOLD, MR. MIKE CARR, AND WHY DIDN'T YOU SIMPLY SAY SO?
But then it came time to total up the experience point values for the monsters. The module itself says to refer to p. 11 (of the Blue Box's blue book), and that page has a very simple calculation based on hit dice. But hit dice aren't listed in the monster table--only hit points! And the module does not suggest any sort of conversion. FINE, I said grimly. I'LL DO THE WORK MYSELF. So I looked up all the 25 monsters listed in B1 to copy down their official hit dice from the Blue Box blue book.
Imagine my shock when I discovered that fully HALF of the creatures listed on the Monster List for B1 (which you're supposed to use to fill out the dungeon, and which came packaged with the blue box) AREN'T LISTED AT ALL in the blue book rules! This includes giant centipedes, giant rats, gnolls, hobgoblins, shriekers, spiders (huge and large) and troglodytes. I can understand why Holmes and/or Carr might have not bothered to explain giant animals, and you could maybe go to a dictionary to figure out hobgoblins and troglodytes (though the latter's nauseating farts would remain a mystery). But what the hell was the Basic D&D player/DM supposed to make of "shriekers" and "gnolls"?
This is such a ridiculous situation--one I can't imagine anyone standing for today--that I thought I'd share. I certainly don't remember having any problem filling the dungeon way back in 1978, but I sure would love to remember how I house-ruled everythings' attack rolls without knowing the creatures' actual hit dice. Amazing that the tool provided to assist the DM would likely only confuse them further.
P.S. for what it's worth, based on the treasure tables, at least, average haul would be 1949 gp in treasure, scattered between 15-25 rooms and divided among 3-8 players (per the module's suggestion) and a few henchmen and hirelings getting partial shares. This comes to a raw unreliable average of 354 gold pieces per player once the adventure's done, and about 97.5 gold pieces in every room that has any treasure at all. This means that, if you were using a strictly gold-for-x.p conversion, players would have to go through between four and eight entire 50-room dungeons before reaching level 2. (Four for thieves, who need 1200 xp, and eight for magic-users, who need 2500. Most everyone else needs 2000 xp)
P.P.S. Only two thirds of the Treasure List contains monetary treasure. The rest are evenly divided between a. temporary magic items (potions and scrolls), b. permanent magic items (+2 spear, +1 chainmail, etc.) and c. cursed/trick items (bag of devouring, false treasure map), at one-third each. The blue book rules specifically state that magical treasure does not count toward experience points. Make of this what you will.
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