Restocking

Hack & Slash did a nice post on dungeon restocking in answer to a question from a reader.  And I have to say, I don't do restocking, mainly because most of the adventures I run are one shots and there isn't enough time for anything to creep back into the area between forays by the party.

In my soloplay with Castle of the Mad Archmage, I'm attempting to follow the restocking rules that +Joseph Bloch wrote into the mega-dungeon.  But those come down to after awhile the creatures will be replaced by something similar*.  That's pretty broad and leads us to the point of Hack & Slash's post.  There are a couple ways you can approach it.   You can come up with some sort of random stocking tables, such as a vermin table to determine what moves in after you kill the fire beetles in Room 27.  It doesn't need to be limited to just insects and arachnids, any sort of non-intelligent creature would do.  The second way is to have or steal a good idea and run with it.  I'm in the midst of doing that.  The party recently cleaned out the bandits on the surface, leaving me with the question 'What, besides more bandits, has a role similar to the bandit's role in he dungeon?'  The first step is determining what the bandits' role is in the dungeon - stealing the characters ill-gotten hard earned loot.  Now most humanoids and demi-human can be cast in that role, in fact that's what the dwarves and elves in the first level do.  But a group of orcs inhabiting a castle just a couple miles outside of town, sort of begs for the town to clean them out in the interest of hygiene and public safety.  Then I had what to me is a good idea.  Replace the bandits with tax collectors aka government backed bandits, pulls money out of the campaign, creates incentive for the characters to find alternate means of egress or practice hiding their loot.
 

One of the esteemed Mr Bloch's rules is that dead characters have a chance of rising as undead. Not exactly the same as re-stocking as whatever killed them is probably still there, nut an idea that I shall shamelessly steal when running other dungeons.