A Pircture's Worth

Now that Christmas is over, I've had time to reflect on the couple of D&D sessions I've run with my group in these last weeks. In particular, last week's dungeon delving stands out.

To recap: I'm running an old-school influenced D&D campaign. Rules-light, dungeon-centric adventures, with crazy caravan owners and malicious innkeepers and 3rd level theives posing as guides to the ruined monestary to serve the role-playing aspects of the game.

So what I've found out is this: DON'T TELL THE PLAYERS WHAT MONSTERS THEY'RE FACING!
Last week my adventurers chose a path through the dungeon that lead them to an ochre jelly, the most powerful monster on the first level of the place (keep in mind that i told them, straight off, that this was not a balanced dungeon; some foes are weaker, some foes are stronger, and the only thing that may keep PCs alive is a survival instinct all but lost in modern RPGs). I didn't say, "You encounter an Ochre Jelly." Instead, because I was seriously stumped, asked my players what that Nickelodean slime substance that made the farting noise was.

For the record, it was Gak.

So here was this unknown entity assaulting my players, making prepubescent farting noises and "gallumphing" as it reared up to attack them. In an act of desperation (after his sword refused to penetrate the things rubbery hide), my fighter PC threw his torch at the thing. Now, anyone knows that an ochre jelly hates fire; it deals no additional damage, but prevents the bugger from splitting via lighting magic or whatever. SO! My players had no idea what they were dealing with (as they are all 1st level, this seems likely), only that fire seemed to stave it off for a bit. SO! The very next round the mage was burning hands the shit out of it while the fighter was lighting nearby bones on fire (with adquate wrapping, of course) and hurling them at the unknown monstrosity. The party's priest, after screaming and bleeding for a bit (cause she was the first to feel the jelly's wrath), retreated back to the doorway to heal her fire-throwing comrades as they assaulted the vile thing.

In the end, they destroyed it. I fudged nary a single dice roll; the encounter was won through ingenuity on my players' part. By not calling the thing an "ochre jelly," instead focusing on its characteristics and what it looked like (in the eyes of my players) created an organic encounter that had them on the edges of their seats because, in the final analysis, they had no goddamn clue what this thing was they were fighting, and somehow forced them to deal with it in a realistic and human way, instead of just stats dodging. Big Victory for the grognardia-inspired goings-on!