Dungeon Master Forum

I tend to count from one. I never understood why people don't count HoC as level one. Why call it level zero? How can it be level *zero*? Hey, look, I'm playing a level that doesn't exist!

Sorry, couldn't help it! Just seems really weird to me.

You know it's computer talk by comp geeks...but yes, for a dungeon setting it doesn't make sense, it's not the zeroth level! That would be, say, the prison in CSB : )

Gambit37 wrote:I tend to count from one. I never understood why people don't count HoC as level one. Why call it level zero? How can it be level *zero*? Hey, look, I'm playing a level that doesn't exist!

Sorry, couldn't help it! Just seems really weird to me.

Now, I know that you're British and therefore I think that you're weird by *not* counting the screamer level as level 1...

...let me explain.

Consider the example of another thing with multiple levels, a block of flats or offices. With these, the area where you walk in, there's a reception, lobby, waiting room etc etc and above that on each floor there's the "building proper" (i.e. the living or working spaces).

Now I'm willing to bet that you call the level that's up a single flight of stairs from the entrance the FIRST floor. I'm also willing to bet that you do not call the level the entrance is on the ZEROth floor (because that would be daft). The point is that in a block of flats / offices, the entrance level is special and contains something different to every other level and so you call it something different as it does not belong to the same set of levels as the other levels and is therefore not part of the same numbering scheme.

(Of course if you were American, you'd call the entrance level of a building the first floor, but that's just wrong and leads to anyone who isn't American not being able to find you if you agree to meet in a building ).

The same logic applies to DM. The bit where you walk in is special, it's not like the rest of the levels and is called something special (and the designers even helpfully gave you a title - the Hall of Champions). As with the FIRST floor being the level up a single staircase from the entrance (the special level) in a building, the FIRST level is the level down a single staircase from the entrance (the special level) in the dungeon.

So, I conclude that either you are being irrational or inconsistent with your naming of dungeon levels and buildings - which is it?

I count with HoC as level 1, but that was not always the case. When I first started playing DM at the age of 12, the Screamer level was "level 1" to me, because it felt like it was the first "real" dungeon level, with the HoC being some sort of entrance or foyer if you like. But when I took a look at the maps in a magazine (yes, I was stupid enough back then to spoil me any game by reading a walkthrough or at least looking at maps), it had the HoC listed as level 1, so I changed my view.

And just for the record: Germans count the levels of a building just like Brits do. So once again, it is the Americans who are wrong!

The HoC will always be level 1 to me, despite any reasonably convincing comparison with real-world building logic...

Yeah same here - I've always counted the HoC as Level One. Calling it "The Ground Floor" would just seem a bit weird .

Surely the enter/resume screeen is the lobby : )

HoC has always been level 0 for me and i increment level when i go down. Mongor's lair in CSB is also level 0 but levels increase when i go up !

linflas wrote:HoC has always been level 0 for me and i increment level when i go down. Mongor's lair in CSB is also level 0 but levels increase when i go up !

The CSB counting seems really weird to me! Mongor's Lair is Level 10 for me and Chaos' lair is Level 1.

lol, how about "supplies for the quick" being level 0, Chaos' pit level 4 and Mongor's lair level -5 ?

It's all madness I tells you, maaaaadness!

I never used to have any clue how the levels were set out in CSB (but then, unless you have a map guide, who does?) since there was so much pit-falling and teleporting randomly all over the place. I printed off the hint book from the DM Encyclopaedia site a couple of years ago and that has them numbered from 1-10 upwards from the bottom so I just stick with that. My DM hint book has them numbered 1-14 downwards so that's why I use that.
Why are we even having a massive discussion about people's 'preferences for the numbering of the DM/CSB levels? Oh it's like Wuffy said - maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadneeeeeessss .

Arrays are always numbered from 0.

PERIOD!

And so you attended grade 0 / primary 0 on school? : )

Right, I've changed my mind, HoC is 'HoC' and the mummy screamer level is level 0. There we go, that's the convention becuase now everyone's maps and vocabulary is wrong, we will all have to learn and adapt togerther

No no, I've got a better idea - number the Dragon's Lair level 0, because it is deep below in the depths of nothingness .

I would like to propose that we agree that level 5 is level 5 and then work forward and backwards from there.

but where's level 5 ?

It's errm...somewhere in the dungeon, probably between levels seven and twelve, but possibly somewhere after level two which is of course next to and slighty behind level twenty-seven. Not to be confused with the OTHER level twenty0seven which was, until recently, tucked away in a little crack int he wall, having been swept there by Lord Chaos's broomstick. Oh and then, of course, there's the might-maligned level ninety-six which ran away about five years ago to see if it could find levle two-hundred-and-seventy-eight. Oh but anyway, yeah, I think level five might possibly be in league with level zero in that they both decide they'll move around randomly (Burned Woods! ) according to wherever people think they might possibly be that week.
Or something.




Wheeee haven't had a random-bollocks waffle like that for yonks .

lol, maybe we should ask George and Paul to allow half-levels like in "Being John Malkovitch". Well, maybe without that portal...

So we're agreed then, by majority vote level three is now officially level 2.99678

..and a half.

linflas wrote:but where's level 5 ?

Between 4 and 6, of course!

I always count HoC as level 1. The screamer level is the 1st level 'down', but the 2nd level in total. The HoC has a playable area and items/doors so is mechanically the same as all the rest. And as you start there, it is the 1st level you encounter. Zeroth level is absurd! Scientists invented the term 'zeroth' when they forgot about things!

What he said ^_^

But is "1" the 1st number? Or would you say that "0" is the number 1?

Zero means nothing. And as a level is clearly there, unless my eyes deceive me, its the 1st level!

Zero wasn't invented til aaaaaages later by some clever arabic people called...umm..Sven *nods*

It still means bugger all anyway you look at it!

The rich man wants it the poor man has it...

Basically people can label anything to anything as long as they define it and it has structure. If you want the HoC to be 0,1,-54 or a giraffe, fair enough, but most normal people asscociate 'zero' to be the abscence of an entity. The argument here however is that we are not normal!