Random Impedimenta (d100)

Slowly returning to blogging life, I’ve been making an effort to catch up on a few things. Over on Trollsmyth’s I mentioned a d100 table that I’ve been finding very useful during my recent games. Jeff requested that I share the chart. I believe he uses a similar method of distributing random items to characters (but with the added benefit of incorporating Index Cards). So without further ado, here’s the d100 chart of Random Impedimenta to foist upon foolhardy adventurers:

1. Apple Core	51. Mummified Finger or Toe
2. Small Ball of Wax	52. Nails or Tacks (d12)
3. Berries (Dried or Fresh) (Blackberry, Blueberry, Cranberry, or Mulberry) (d12)	53. Nuts (Acorns, Cashews, Pecans, Walnuts)
4. Bones (Bird, Mammal, Reptile, Humanoid)	54. Palm Fronds, Pine Needles, or Cedar Shavings
5. Bottle or Flask (Empty)	55. Patch (Fabric, Hide, Leather, or Skin)
6. Broken Buckle, Brooch, Clasp or Fibula	56. Pebbles or Small Rocks (2d12)
7. Broken Glass or Beads (Colored or Clear) (d12)	57. Petals or Dried Flowers
8. Butter Knife (Bone, Pewter, Silver or Wood)	58. Piece of Antler or Small Horn
9. Buttons (d12)	59. Piece Of Charcoal
10. Chess Piece (Bone or Wood)	60. Piece Of Fruit (Apple, Melon, Orange, or Pear)
11. Chipped Cup or Mug (Bone, Clay, Tin, or Wood)	61. Piece of Tree Bark (Birch, Oak, Pine, Yew)
12. Chunk of Algae, Fungus, Moss, or Lichen	62. Pieces of Candy or Sweets (d6)
13. Claws, Fingernails or Toenails (d10)	63. Pinch of Salt
14. Clump of Brimstone	64. Plum Pits, Pine Cones, Coconut Shell, or Cherry Stones (d6)
15. Clump of Sand	65. Metal Shavings or Powdered Rock
16. Corks (d4)	66. Reed Flute or Harmonica
17. Crude Bowl (Bone, Clay, Tin or Wood)	67. Roots or Bulbs (d4)
18. Crude Pipe (Bone, Clay, Corncob or Wood)	68. Scrap of Cloth (Linen or Wool)
19. Cubit of Wire (Copper or Tin)	69. Scrap of Lace or Silk
20. Dead Amphibian (Frog, Toad, Newt or Salamander)	70. Seven Dried Herbs or Spices
21. Dead Arthropod (Crab, Insect, Scorpion or Spider)	71. Sewing Needle or Pin (Bone, Copper, Silver, Wood)
22. Dead Mammal (Bat, Mouse, Shrew, or Vole)	72. Shards of a Broken Mirror
23. Dead Reptile (Lizard, Snake, Tortoise or Turtle)	73. Simple Hairbrush or Comb (Brass, Bone, Tin or Wood)
24. Ear (Elf, Human, Gnoll, Other)	74. Single Cloth or Leather Glove or Mitten
25. Ear (Ox, Rabbit, Pig or Wolf)	75. Single Stocking or Sock
26. Edible Shoots or Leaves (d12)	76. Skeleton Key
27. Eggshells or Egg (Bird or Reptile)	77. Skin (Mouse, Rabbit, Rat or Snake)
28. Feathers, Hair or Scraps of Fur	78. Small Ball of Tar or Resin
29. Few Feet of Thread (d4)	79. Small Chunk of Cheese
30. Fish or Reptile scales	80. Small Fossil or Shell
31. Fishing Hooks (d4)	81. Small Knife (Skinning or Whittling)
32. Greenstone, Flint, Shale or Chert Shard	82. Small Pumice Stone
33. Foot of String, Twine or Yarn	83. Small Shard of Petrified Wood
34. Fork (Bone, Pewter, Tin, or Wood)	84. Soiled Handkerchief, Bandanna, Rag or Scarf
35. Glass Vial (Empty)	85. Some Fruit Peels or Rinds
36. Handful of Barley, Couscous, Oats, or Rice	86. Spool (Bone, Clay or Wood)
37. Handful of Dried Peppers or Peppercorns	87. Spoon (Bone, Wood or Pewter)
38. Handful of Flour, Grain, Meal or Spelt	88. Stale Heel of Bread, Biscuts, or Crackers (d4)
39. Handful of Seeds (Flower, Fruit, Tree or Vegetable)	89. Stamp, Quill, Nib Pen or Chalk
40. Incense Cones, Herbs or Sticks (d4)	90. Stub of a Candle or Wicks (d4)
41. Iron Arrow or Spear Head	91. Teeth (d12)
42. Jermlaine, Pixie or Sprite Skull	92. Thimble (Bone, Clay, Silver, Tin, Wood)
43. Ladle (Bone, Tin or Wood)	93. Tiny Bell (Brass, Tin or Silver)
44. Leather or Hide Cord	94. Tiny Ingot Of Metal (Iron, Pewter, Steel, Tin)
45. Length of Ribbon	95. Tiny Lead Figurine
46. Little Box (Bone or Wood)	96. Torn Vellum, Papyrus, or Parchment with Notes or Drawings
47. Lock Pick (Elfnose, Faeriefork, Spiderlimb or Wyverntail)	97. Twigs, Kindling or Slivers of Wood
48. Lump of Tree Sap	98. Two Dice (Bone or Wood)
49. Morel Mushroom, Vanilla Bean or Cinnamon Stick	99. Un-worked Strap or Belt of Leather or ide
50. Morsel of Meat, Strip of Jerky	100. Whistle (Bone, Tin or Wood)

The Parenthetical Materials and Serving-Size Suggestions are by no means exhaustive, just brain food. I usually give each player a few rolls on the chart at the end of character creations (post equipment) and maybe a bonus roll or two for high Wisdom scores. I’d imagine the average value for items from this chart weighs in at around half a copper piece, and I’ve tried to keep encumbrance negligible.
Many of the items are only as useful as the adventurer chooses to make them and some even become mini-McGuffins in their own right. Maybe my players are just suspicious of “free stuff,” but I’ve found that frequently, they make a concentrated effort to incorporate these tiny, inconsequential things into the adventure, attempting to distract a spider with a dead insect, using a piece of string to monitor activity on a dungeon door, et cetera.
Naturally, I’m sure a list like this could have other uses (Spell Components, Dungeon Dressings, maybe even Gullet Contents), so let me know if and how you end up using it!

Labels: tables

They certainly don't make them like they used to...

I've been lax with the posting as of late. RC Hacks will continue eventually. In the meantime I've been playing as much as I possibly can, and the good news is it's mostly Classic.

One of my co-workers found out that I play Dungeons & Dragons. She also played quite a bit of OD&D and 1st Edition in the mid-to-late seventies.

She brought in all the miniatures that she still has, most of which she painstakingly painted and kindly let me photograph for posterity.

If you can identify any of the figures, please don't hesitate to comment. Wherever possible I have included any intelligible markings I found on the bases.

For Scale is an old Quadrille Pad (6 squares per inch).




Enjoy! The Slideshow skips some Amazon warriors that were marked moderately/potentially risqué.

RC Hacks and House Rules: Page 226 - More Treasure!

The next random number takes us to page 226, still within Chapter 16: Treasure.

A couple of Treasure related charts here, but the one that really stands out as potentially much more useful than it initially presents itself is the Average Treasure Values Table.

Here we have a breakdown of Treasure types A-M (Lair only) by their average values in gold pieces. When I was younger, I always had an absolute blast generating treasure using the charts on the previous page. Having never owned the Monster & Treasure Assortment accessories, I instead made my own.

Classic D&D Hack:
I had a small container of index cards with alphabetic dividers A-V, with a dozen or so pre-generated treasure hoards waiting between each letter. I was always fairly meticulous about designing my treasures for adventures, but having a bunch of “DM Approved” hoards to hand out at a moments notice, definitely saved some time when players decided to sidetrack-down the lair of a Random Wilderness Encounter.

In the top right corner of each of these cards, I scrawled the overall gold piece value for the treasure for Experience purposes, but never in my many years of Classic did I ever bother to consult this Average Treasure Values Table to see how “close” I was with the average.

My first thought after studying this table was somewhat akin to a mental forehead slap. While the hours I spent throwing down percentile dice on the preceding charts were definitely fun, I could cut out some serious prep time by simply building this kind of Random Encounter coin out of these averages₁.

Let’s take the Medusa: Lair Treasure Type F

The average value of this treasure in gold pieces is 7,600. Although the coins indicated in the treasure table for lairs are in the thousands, we can break this down any way we wish:

200 platinum
2,000 gold
4,000 electrum
5,000 silver
10,000 copper

But wait! Sharp eyes may have noticed my math is missing a thousand gold. That’s where a quick d1000 comes in handy. I rolled a 464, which gives me some more gold to play with and “uneven” the numbers of the smaller coins. The remaining 536 will even out the gold and above. This option is great for sticklers that prefer organic hoards that are random down to the last copper piece. Since the denominations of coins are mostly metric, this adjustment process is pretty quick. Just watch out for that pesky electrum.

Another way this table comes in handy is when planning character advancement. The Medusae in my Rules Cyclopedia are only worth a paltry 175 experience points apiece. But add in the average treasure value of 7,600 gold pieces and now we’re talking some actual advancement for low to mid-level parties. Most DMs prefer to intuitively adjust treasure and experience awards on the fly, but this table could serve as fairly useful guides for beginners who are trying to design by-the-book adventures with character advancement in mind. Locate the Treasure type that is most inline with how many experience points you would like a given adventure to reward (remember to divide it by the party), then simply locate a monster that has that treasure type. This sort of backwards design seems rather strange to me, but I could see it being useful.

Also on this page we have a few more tables pertaining to another type of treasure. Any Dungeon Master worth his or her salt can look at the following list of words and be relatively comfortable with them:
Agate
Garnet
Topaz
Carbuncle
Jacinth
Onyx
Peridot

The DM wears many hats: actor, storyteller, puzzle-designer, world builder, and yes, even amateur gemologist. Although I prefer to encrust my gems on large, unwieldy surfaces to encourage time-consuming prying (more Wandering Monster!), gems are still a staple of the fantasy treasure hoard. Getting to know your gemstones a little better is quite easy with access to the internet. Familiarizing yourself with a few more gemological terms and expressions as well as having some visual inspiration can really help make that dreadfully boring “500gp ruby” a thing of the past.

1. Since these averages do not include the value of magical items, and for magic items, the only pricing information in the Rules Cyclopedia pertains to creation (which is only a rough indicator of actual value). This means that the DM can’t easily just “buy” magical items to place in a hoard using the Average Treasure Table values. This is just as it should be, providing a few extra steps of deliberation before plunking down that Horn of Blasting.

Labels: dnd, dnd hacks, house rules, RC hacks and house rules, rules cyclopedia