TREASURE HOARDS IN B1: IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN

B1: In Search of the Unknown written by Mike Carr was the first D&D module published by TSR back-in-the-day. It was written for Basic D&D, but my guess was usually played more as a 1E module. It's a particular fave of mine. I've now run through it twice in its Goodman Games 5e iteration -- once with my Adult D&D group at the Library and separately 1:1 with my younger brother, Chris, over Face Time.

(Mike Carr is also responsible for the creation of one of my historical-tactical board games, Fight in the Skies or more recently titled Dawn Patrol. Another fave of mine. I met him last time I was at Gen Con and first played Dawn Patrol there. Mike is one of the funniest and nicest people I have ever met. Just saying.)

Quasqueton is the dungeon, and it is finely described and design. It was meant to be a dungeon that the staerting DM was meant to stock using the creatures and treasures within the pages making up the module. Goodman Games has stocked it somewhat, but only somewhat, for the DM. Monster-wise, what is in there is pretty good -- but can certainly be expanded.

But both groups have complained about the exact same thing: the nature and lacking quantity of the treasure to be routinely found in the module. Treasure is the bait or lure that is dangled in front of the PCs to get then to explore the dungeon. Both groups have complained about how little there is and how it makes them feel like the dungeon has already been looted ahead of them.

While playing with my brother, I found a way to leverage the random treasure table to be found in the book. Whenever you decide to include random treasure as written in the module, you roll 4D6, total the dice and find the single result on the table. My innovation has been to have him roll 4D6, give me the individual rolls, and use the values to create a cascading table of results. If the player rolled 1, 4, 4, 5, I would normally give them the result for 14, which is a hoard of silver coins.

But in my case, I would give them the result for 1 (nothing), 4 twice an art object worth 75 g.p., 5 thrice each for 1-2 gems worth 50 g.p, 8 for 1-4 art objects each worth 50 g.p., 9 twice each for 2-8 art objects worth 25 g.p. each, 10 twice for two separate mixed coin hoards, 13 for 40-240 c.p., and finally 14 for a 30-180 s.p. coin hoard. (Note: I have reduced any coin values in excess of 100 coins or any gold equivalent values for objects in excess of 100 g.p. by a factor of 10.)

It feels like a lot of treasure -- and it probably is, at 1st-3rd level -- but is also probably appropriately bounded because of the same factor reduction described above.

To add an additional wrinkle, you can vary the number of dice rolled: D6 for a minor treasure, 2D6 for a major treasure, 3D6 for a minor treasure hoard, and 4D6 for a major treasure hoard. One can make the determination which applies based on the location description OR when unsure, roll D4 and roll the number of dice indicated by the D4 roll.

I plan on running this module many more times in the future, and this is the method I shall apply going forward to supplement whatever treasure is already listed in the text for a given location.