You're Doing Vision All Wrong

Artist: Daniele Randazzo

GM: You hear a shuffling noise somewhere down the hall.

Player: What do I see?

GM: Nothing, just 60 feet of hallway and then darkness.

Player: I move down the hallway.

GM: Once you get ten feet down the hallway, you see a goblin 60 feet away from you.

This is how vision, or at least vision in the dark, is almost always described in RPGs: either you see something clearly or you don't see it at all.  In more mechanics-heavy games like 5E this is actually explicit in the rules, but I see OSR referees doing it too, perhaps out of a habit carried over from 5E.

This obviously isn't how vision works; things should come into view gradually.  But it also isn't conducive to tension, fear or mystery.  That intermediate step of "you see a shadowy figure that you think looks humanoid" is nerve-wracking.  It gets under players' skin.  Without it, vision is mostly just information.  

So, add it back in.  Have a level of vision in between "you see something and can tell what it is" and "you can't see the thing at all."  

I brought this up on reddit the other day, and someone told me that AD&D actually had vision chart that worked this way.  Here it is:

These should be self-explanatory, but just to be clear:

Movement: You see shadows/figures moving in the distance.

Spotted: You see something you think looks humanoid.

Type: It's a goblin, or maybe just it's a humanoid figure that's clearly smaller than a human and proportioned differently with longer limbs.

ID: You recognize Tom the goblin.

Detail: You see Tom has a bruise on his cheek and a small tear in his shirt.

So, my suggestion: retype this chart and order the rows from best to worst, or make your own chart.  Personally, I might remove all of the mist and fog rows, and only have rows referring to levels of light, then treat mist and fog as modifiers, like light fog cuts all vision ranges by half, moderate fog by 80%, heavy fog by 95%, etc.   

Then instead of treating darkvision as having a very specific range, treat it as shifting you up a category– from moonless night to full moon, to twilight, to day, or whatever.  Better forms of darkvision like drow and svirfneblin have could be two categories, and spells that grant darkvision could stack with natural darkvision.  

If you shift one level above daytime with clear sky you're fine, but two levels above it and you're blinded by the light.  

This will make vision far more realistic, but more importantly it will change the feel and playstyle of your games.  Half-glimpsed figures will inject some real fear and tension into the game.  It also gives players more choices about the risk/reward tradeoff of getting a better look at things: do you move closer to the shadowy figure to see what it is?  Hide and hope it hasn't seen you yet?  

It makes night feel like night, and dungeons feel like the creepy, hostile environments they're supposed to be.

Dungeon: The Mine of the Fire-Lord

Here's something I wrote up over the weekend.  A fairly simple dungeon with a small group of fire elementals enslaving goblins to mine rubies for them.  You've got some rebellious slaves, drow raiding from below, a couple business opportunities for the players, and a couple of puzzles.  

After clearing it the party is presented with a tough choice: take what they can and run to safety, delve deeper, or roll the dice on mining more rubies, which runs the risk of getting slaughtered by drow.  

Note: Goblins will carry torches.  Fire elementals can’t see in the dark but they themselves cast light for HDx10 feet.  The dungeon is otherwise unlit.  

The values given here assume 1 GP = 1 XP.

Rooms

Note: Multiple doors on the same side of a room will be listed north to south or west to east.  

1

West Entry Locked Good Wooden Door (common lock)

East Entry Unlocked Good Wooden Door

Monsters: 4 dire rats, nesting in a pile of refuse in the NW corner.  Among the refuse can be found d100 copper and d2 silver coins.  

Room features: A crude bed and iron gong sit in the west side of the room, and someone has scrawled "Don't lose your head" in blood on the south wall.  The rats will not approach the gong; if it is rung, a random encounter automatically occurs but the rats flee the room.  

2

West Entry Unlocked Good Wooden Door (slides to one side)

South Entry Stuck Good Wooden Door.  Opens southward. A metal mess plate is propped against the south side of the door; if knocked over, the noise causes a random encounter check.  

Room features: A fountain of water sits against the north wall, overing the 6 northeast squares.  The water is potable and 3 feet deep.   The south wall is covered in scorch marks.  

3

North Entry #1 Archway

North Entry #2 Stuck Iron Door

West Entry #1 Stuck Simple Wooden Door (slides to one side)

West Entry #2 Stuck Good Wooden Door

West Entry #3 Trapped and Locked Simple Wooden Door (superior lock)

 Large Net Trap.  Net is covered in small bells, causing a random encounter check.  

West Entry #4 Stuck Simple Wooden Door

South Entry Locked Strong Wooden Door (common lock) (slides up)

Room features: A tile labyrinth mosaic covers the floor, and the scent of smoke fills the room.  Many tiles show scorch marks.  The 3x3 square area in the middle of the room is a fifteen foot deep pit with gently sloping sides.  Chains hang from the ceiling over the pit, terminating ten foot above the pit floor; one could use them to swing across the pit or climb down safely.  The chains can be raised or lowered via a winch on the south wall.  

Inhabitants: 10 fire goblins sleeping 

Random encounter checks are made every turn in this room because so many corridors intersect here.  

4

North Entry Stuck Good Wooden Door

West Entry Stuck Good Wooden Door

South Entry Locked Iron Door (Magical lock, opens with a spoken password)

Room features: The east wall is lined with flaming braziers, emitting sweetly performed incense.  

A circle of protection from magic is drawn on the floor, covering the tile with the 4 on it as well as the ones to the east, north, and northeast. Nobody can cast spells in or across it until it is physically erased.

Along the west wall are shelves lined with empty bottles, 200 GP worth of uncut rubies, and a wand of fireball with 2 charges left out of a maximum of five.  

Next to the shelves is a portal to the elemental plane of fire, a foot long, embedded in the wall.  If uncut rubies are sent through the portal, gold or platinum worth 20% more than their value will be returned.  If empty bottles are sent through along with at least 100 gp worth of rubies, the bottle will instead be returned with a random potion inside.  If a wand is sent through with rubies, it will be returned with one charge restored for every (spell level x 50) gp of rubies so spent.  

The person on the other side is Kartzo’s business partner, a fire elemental name Sargaszt.  He won’t cheat Kartzo.  He has no way of knowing the players aren’t Kartzo if they send rubies through the portal…unless a player sticks their hand through.  This won’t harm them, but will result in Sargaszt trying to cheat them.  

Inhabitant: Kartzo, a minor fire elemental lord.   8 HD, 2 melee attacks for d8 damage or one fire bolt for d12 damage.  Magic as level 5 magic-user.  If the party is polite and hasn’t already slaughtered his guards or goblins, he will likely hire them for a mission against the drow downstairs.  Also willing to trade for incense.

5

West Entry Locked Iron Door (common lock)

East Entry Stuck Simple Wooden Door

South Entry Stuck Strong Wooden Door (slides to one side)

Room Features: Several headless statues are scattered throughout the room. A  rusted and scorched gauntlet lies in the north side of the room.

Monster: Fire elemental.  6 HD, 2 flaming swipe attacks for d8 damage or one firebolt attack for d8 damage.  Knows the password to the magically-locked door between rooms 4 and 6.  

6

North Entry Locked Iron Door (Magical lock, opens with a spoken password)

West Entry #1 Trapped and Unlocked Simple Wooden Door ; Well-Camouflaged Pit Trap

West Entry #2 Trapped and Locked Simple Wooden Door (superior lock); Rolling Rock Trap

Room Features: This room is full of tables and chairs as well as shattered plates, bowls and rusted cutlery; it was a dining hall in better times. A carved stone statue of a fire elemental stands in the north-east corner of the room, and someone has scrawled "You cannot kill him with magic" in primordial script  on the plinth the statue rests on.  This is a lie written by Kartzo himself; he is in no way immune to magic.  He wrote that due to his phobia of ice and water-based spells.    

7

North Entry Trapped and Unlocked Simple Wooden Door (slides down)   Spiked Pit Trap in front of the door.  

East Entry Trapped and Locked Simple Wooden Door (superior lock)   

Rolling Rock Trap, triggered by a mechanism in the lock.  

South Entry Trapped and Unlocked Good Wooden Door  

Burning Hands Trap, triggered by touching the door at all.  Magical runes are visible on the door, but the color of the ink is so similar to the color of the door that it takes either a spot check or active investigation to notice.  The trap goes off if anything touches the door, including a thrown rock, and can go off only once an hour.  

Inhabitants:  2d6+6 fire goblin slaves mining for rubies, armed with picks (d6 damage).  As regular goblins but resistant to fire. 

Room feature: this room lies in a seam of ruby, and rubies can be seen embedded in the walls.  A goblin can mine d3 GP worth of raw rubies per hour; a dwarf or other skilled miner, d6 gp.  The seam contains a total of 60,000 GP worth of rubies.  Rubies acquired by mining do not count for XP.  

8

Secret Locked Iron Door (magic lock)

The door is concealed behind a statue of an ancient lich holding a book, and opened by pressing runes on his staff in the correct order. The runes carved onto the cover of the book show the correct order in which to press the runes.  

Inhabitants: 5 escaped fire goblin slaves, armed with mining picks (d6 damage) hide in this room.  They want revenge and freedom for their brethren, but are cowardly.  

Room feature: Several ancient statues of what appears to be warriors and nobles, of a race long vanished from the world.  Each is big enough to take cover behind, and could be tipped over onto someone.  

Corridors

a A rusted iron chandelier hangs from the ceiling here

c A group of demonic faces have been carved into the walls.  As the players pass, one moans a warning: “Go no further, unless you seek enslavement or destruction.”

e A toppled statue of a long-forgotten warrior of a vanished race lies across the corridor

i An acrid odor fills the corridor- smoke and scorched stone from passing fire elementals.  

m Several corpses are impaled upon iron spikes jutting from the walls

n Camouflaged Pit Trap

r A group of demonic faces have been carved into the walls.  Kartzo can see out of them.  

Random Encounters

1 d4 fire goblins carrying d100+20 GP worth of rubies towards room 4.

2 A minor fire elemental, patrolling.  3 HD, one swipe attack for d8 damage.  

3 d2 level 1 drow fighters, scouting from a deeper level.  If room 4 hasn’t been cleared, they instead encounter Kartzo; make a reaction roll to see how well they get along with him.  If they fight him, he wins but the fight lasts a turn, during which time it can be heard from as far as room 7.    

4 d4 rebellious fire goblins, trying to escape.  Can’t be quiet to save their lives; make random encounter checks every turn as long as they’re around.  

5 d4 dire rats, scavenging.  

6 d6 fire goblins headed between rooms 3 and 7.  

d4 days after the two drow warriors show up, a drow war party of 6 warriors, a cleric and a magic user will launch a full-blown assault on Kartzo's lair.  Regardless of whether he's already been killed or not, they want the rubies for themselves.  

Dungeon: The Dark Lair of the Entomancer

Here's a quick dungeon I whipped up while I was binge watching Kingdom on Netflix today.  This is probably good for a couple hours of playtime in and of itself, and contains adventure hooks into the surrounding area– particularly the floor below– which you'd have to detail yourself.

In short: it's the lair of a wizard who specializes in experimenting on bugs, and needs to acquire more specimens.  Add some loyal henchmen, some disloyal ones, a really dangerous magic item, and an outside force with a vendetta, and you've got the potential for this to go down a few different ways, most of them not good.

The map was generated by Donjon.  The ant lion and water beetles are from The Tome of Horrors for Swords and Wizardry, the rest of the monsters I just made up stats for.  The weird magic item was generated with the help of the magic item table from Esoteric Enterprises.

Room Key

1- This door is locked…but can be unlocked without a key from the outside.  Skittering noises can be heard if you listen at the door.  

Inside is a hideous goblin-insect hybrid– 5 HD, claw attack for d6 damage plus bit for d6 damage with an additional d4 acid damage.  Completely mad and will charge out and attack indiscriminately if released.  In the back of the room is a waterskin, full of wine laced with sleeping poison, and a gold bracelet worth 10 gp.  

2- A big pit in the middle of the room.   Inside is an Ant Lion- 8 HD, AC 17, bite 2d8, automatically grapples anyone bitten.  Morale 8.  Can move half as fast as a human, and burrow half again that fast.  Too big to fit through the doors.  

The pit is filled with skeletons of previous victims, and some minor random treasure including d100 silver.  

3- The wizard’s sleeping quarters.  Lightning trap on the door, does 3d6 damage to anyone who touches the doorknob with their bare hand.  There is a hidden latch you’re supposed to use instead of the doorknob.  

Contains fine clothes worth 30 gold, four novels worth 5 gold each, a wand of lightning bolt with 1d6 charges left, and a small chest with 2d100 gold and 3 rubies worth 50 gold each.  Also a big mirror that can’t be easily moved, but is worth 100 gold.   

4- Sleep spell trap.  Big runes are inscribed on the ground.  If anyone touches them, the trap goes off, casting sleep on everyone in the room beginning with the one who touched it.  Put here by the wizard to defend against incursions from upstairs.  

5- Doppleganger, disguised as a human adventure.  Is in fact an adventurer.  Came in here alone and got trapped in this room when the portcullis went down.  Hasn’t found the secret door (it’s hidden on both sides) but might if there’s noise on the other side.  Terrified and desperate to get out; will gladly join your party, but will run off at the first opportunity.  Will try to keep his nature a secret; if he escapes on his own, likely to be encountered again.  

6- Three treasure chests.  One contains two random scrolls. One contains 3d100 silver.  One is a mimic.  The door to the room has a poison needle trap, inflicts 2d6 CON damage, save for half.  

7- 4 giant water beetles.  HD 3, AC 13, bite 1d8, morale 9.  Recently wandered up from the level below, which is watery.  This room is a pantry, but the beetles have ruined or eaten all the food.  

8- Marvik the Entomancer, 8th level magic user.  The guy in charge of this place.  This is his laboratory.  The laboratory is filled with test tubes, books on alchemy and entomology, and terrariums filled with various insects.  

He is in need of new specimens– rare insects from the level below, and humanoid prisoners from either the level above or from the area west of this dungeon.  If addressed with respect, will hire adventurers to acquire specimens; pay range should be in the hundreds of gold, and will be paid out of the treasure in his quarters.  Not interested in the giant water beetles, but might be interested in larva.  

Marvik possesses his spell book, a ring of poison resistance, and a staff that inflicts d10 non-lethal damage to insects in place of it’s normal damage.  Spells are whatever makes sense for the system you’re using.        

9- Pit trap on the square west of the western door.  2 half-orc mercenaries (hp 7, chainmail, axes d8, +1 to hit, morale 6).  They have keys to every locked door in the northern half of the dungeon.  They work for Marvik, but have become disaffected and begun talking about desertion– can be bribed away from him quite easily.  

10- Axe trap on the door leading towards 8, triggered by a pressure plate on the other side of the door.  Swings down and does 3d6 damage to anyone in the squares on either side of the door.   

North door is locked.  Signs of battle in this room- bloodstains, scratch marks.  Subtle enough you’d have to look for them.    

11- Emaciated dead half-orc body lying on the ground wearing chainmail.  Nearby is a mask that looks like a face covered in boils. 

Plaguebearer mask.   When a sick person dies nearby (not necessarily of their illness) while the mask is being worn, the wearer gains the ability to inflict that sickness on one person with a touch (save vs poison to resist).  If this ability is not used within a week, the wearer suffers from that illness themselves, no save allowed.  

The mask cannot store more than one illness at a time, and cannot be removed when it has a stored illness.  Diseases inflicted by the mask are treated as non-magical in nature after being inflicted, and are just as contagious as they normally would be.  

The body is a guard who took the mask off an adventurer who was fed to the ant lion.  He never figured out how the mask worked; the other guards are now afraid to touch it or his body.  

Random Encounters

1- d4 giant ants (2 HD, bite d6)

2- Swarm of rats (2 HD, bite d4 against everyone in range)

3- Creepy insectile skittering noises

4- d4 half-orc guards.  hp 7, chainmail, axes d8, +1 to hit, morale 7

5- Giant water beetle.  HD 3, AC 13, bite 1d8, morale 9

6- d4 goblin scouts- 1 HD, short sword d6, morale 5, AC 12.  Scouting for a reprisal raid against the wizard, and his guards, who have been kidnapping goblins to experiment on.  If any of them escape the dungeon, ignore this result if it comes up again, and 3d10 goblins raid it the following day; 2d6+2 orcs help Marvik defend it.  

Note: the goblin warrens can be either above or to the west, depending on which way the party enters from and whether you already established that the way they came from was a goblin warren.  

Other note: Since this dungeon includes the potential for a large-scale combat at some point, familiarize yourself with these tools for treating squads of enemies as single units.  The individual rooms could also be made more interesting by giving them each a feature from this table.