Gems: A Short Series

I’ve been meaning to do another movie review for a while, so obviously it’s time to start a series of posts discussing dungeon treasure stocking instead. Specifically, how to handle gems. It’s inspired by this OD&D forum post that’s been going on for that last month or so.

How do you assign gems to treasure? More specifically, how much information do you include, or should you include? Full description of each gem and quantity, minimum information necessary, or something in between?

I lean towards the minimum, with a few extra details. But before I get into that, I need break down the steps to assigning gem details. Loosely based on the “official” process, the steps are:

1. Check if there are gems in a treasure cache or trove.
2. Check the number of gems.
3. Assign base gem value.
4. Check how many gems are of higher or lower value.

If randomly assigning treasure, Steps 1 and 2 are handled as part of the treasure table in either Volume II: Monsters & Treasure (page 22) or Volume III: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (page 7) depending on whether it’s a wilderness treasure or dungeon treasure. Step 3 involves a roll on the Gem Base Value table on page 40 of Monsters & Treasure, followed by a d6 roll for each gem or group of 5 to 10 gems as Step 4.

In the official process, you could argue that there is a fifth step, “Record the info, along with extra details like gem type or color”. But the books do not actually say that all four steps must be done at the same time, before the dungeon key is completed.

I would argue that it’s easier to do Steps 1 through 3, record the info as Step 3.5, and put off the final roll for Step 4 when each gem is appraised.

So here is my suggested gem generation process for GMs stocking treasures:

Step Zero: Pick a Dungeon Theme

Picking a theme is of course is part of the dungeon creation process, rather than the gem generation process, but what kind of dungeon you are creating and where it is should, logically, affect what kind of gems might be available. One trivial example is pearls, usually treated as if they were gems. Underwater treasures or coastal treasures might reasonably include more pearls than someplace far from an ocean. Other gem types could be more or less common depending on the region: if jade is more common in one area, dungeons in that area or connected in some way to that area might have more jade in their treasure troves than other gems.

Step One: Pick Your Gem Types

It’s arguably not immersive to describe gems to players this way:

“You find 30 gems of 100 gp value.”

It’s more immersive to describe them this way:

“You find 20 sapphires and 10 diamonds.”

But it’s crazy to roll for each gem to see what its type is, especially since the average PC probably won’t know the exact type, just the general appearance. The easier method is to assign three gem types to the dungeon as a whole, for example opaque red, murky green, and clear yellow. All gems in that dungeon will be one of those types, simplifying the next step.

Step Two: Check the Number of Gems

As you stock each treasure trove in a dungeon, you make three rolls:

• How many gems are Gem Type 1?
• How many gems are Gem Type 2?
• How many gems are Gem Type 3?

You defined each gem type in Step One, so all you need to roll is a number. Gem Type 1 will be different for each dungeon. There is no table lookup for this step.

Since we can subtract a number from the roll and discard any result of 0 or less, we can fold “Check for Gems” into this step as well.

Step Three: Revealing Details to Players

For reasons I’ll explain more in a future post, each of our gem types has a predefined base value. We actually don’t need to roll any more as part of dungeon key creation. We just need to tell the players “You find 10 gems that look like this, 8 that look like this, and 2 that look like this.” And there’s only three "this"es per dungeon, so players can just keep a running total of each gem type found.

If there’s a dwarf in the party, or someone with gem appraisal skills, they can find out more details, including the exact value. Or they can have the gem appraised, or just sell it blindly without knowing the details.

I plan on detailing each of these modified steps in a separate post, with appropriate tables. I won’t be posting before next week, however.

Series Index

• Gems Intro (this post)
• Gems I : Types
• Gems II: Quantities
• Gems III: Assessments

(Will edit to add links as the posts are published.)

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Even Simpler Treasure Codes

I wanted to take a break from endless treasure codes posts, but they keep reeling me back in…

I started a thread on the OD&D forums to get more feedback, and got some that caused me to think of alternatives to making the system even simpler. Two of the main goals of coming up with a new treasure system are:

1. Keeping the codes short but readable, and
2. Reducing the amount of die-rolling.

Switching to roman numerals for base values and reducing the main treasure codes to three is good, but as waysoftheearth pointed out in the thread, having two capital letters with two completely different domains of interpretation right next to each other can cause confusion. But if we replace the codes B, E, and A with actual words like “coins”, “gems”, and “magic”, or even use the standard coin abbreviations in place of “coins”, we still have a fairly short descriptive phrase while making things easier to understand.

We could also eliminate the need for a “chance of treasure” index by making the target number for a d20 roll = HD +/- hp modifier. So, a 1+2 HD creature has treasure on 3 or less on d20 (because 1+2 = 3.)

This still leaves the roll for “how much treasure”. One thing I considered early on, but couldn’t figure out how to do, was making the chance roll the same as the quantity roll. But we could use the chance roll result to set the quantity as well.

So let’s try this treasure code format:

5+1 HD monster, gp D, gem C x10, magic

How to use this code:

1. Roll 1d20 for coins. If <= 6 (HD + hp adds,) there are coins.
2. Multiply the result by 4 for number of containers. The code gp tells us these are gold coins. The roman numeral D tells us there are 500 gps per container.
3. Roll 1d6 per HD (in this case, 5d6.) Count the number of 1s and 6s you get, tracking them separately. Multiply each by the d20 result for the number of containers of coins of lower value and higher value.
4. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for gems. In this case, if there are gems, also multiply the result by x10. This is the total number of gems of base value C (100 coins in value.) You can skip figuring out higher/lower value gems until a PC tries to appraise them.
5. By default, the roll for jewelry is the same as the roll for gems, even if not listed. However, some codes may say “no jewelry” or give a different value/multiplier.
6. Roll 1d20 for magic or other items. If <= HD/2, round up (in this case, 3,) there are items in the treasure. The result is the number of special items, but the target number (HD/2) is the total number of items, so there may be “duds”.
7. Roll 1d6 per special item. On a 5+, it’s a treasure map. Otherwise, it’s magic.

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Simpler Treasure Codes

So, I did all that stuff about mnemonic treasure codes, and then I decided there was a way to make the mnemonics much easier to read and more compact: (1) Fewer primary treasure prefixes, and (2) Ditching table lookups for base values.

Explaining the New Codes

First, the prefixes. We only need three:

• A = Arcane Artifact or Magic Item
• B = Bulk Treasure (coins of various types)
• E = Extra (or Expensive) Treasure, for gems and jewelry

The suffixes remain the same, but come immediately after this prefix, and only when necessary: Bc specifies copper as the default instead of silver. Eg specifies gems only, if jewelry is absent or less/more abundant.

Artifacts (A) only need a numerical prefix and optionally a suffix: 3 A means 30% chance for three items and 4 A+s means 40% chance for any four items + one scroll. For Bulk treasure and Extra treasure, though, use a roman numeral, which is easier to use than the vowel system I came up with earlier.

• V = 5 coins value
• X = 10 coins value
• L = 50 coins value
• C = 100 coins value
• D = 500 coins value
• M = 1000 coins value

To shorten things a bit, though, we can mix in arabic numerals instead of using more than one roman numeral (so, B3X instead of BXXX.)

Most of the time, coins will be in small bags (BL,) large sacks (B3C,) or chests (BM.) 5 BgM means 50% chance of 5d6 chests with 1,000 gold coins each. For gems and jewelry, that roman numeral refers to the base value of each gem or piece of jewelry, not the quantity. The most common value will be EC (base value of 100 coins.) In general, all gems and jewelry can fit into a single container.

How to Check for Treasure

For arcane artifacts, only one roll is necessary: a Chance Roll to see if there are any magic items at all. There may be additional rolls to decide which items are present, but this is optional; you could just pick whatever you want, any way you want.

For coins, you can handle all treasure checks with three rolls.

1. Chance Roll (d10 roll under prefixed number, or whatever you prefer) to see if any coins are present at all.
2. Default Coin Amount Roll (prefixed number = number of d6s to roll.) Total this, then set aside highest d6 rolled; call this the secondary coin amount.
3. Secondary Coin Amount Roll (secondary coin amount = number of d6s to roll as a dice pool.) Every 1 rolled is an extra container of lower-value treasure and every 6 rolled is an extra container of higher-value treasure.

So, if the code is 5 BsM:

1. Roll d10. If result <= 5 (50% chance,) there are coins in the treasure trove.
2. Roll 5d6, get {1, 3, 3, 4, 4}. Total is 16 chests of silver, 1,000 coins each.
3. Since highest d6 in Step 2 was “4”, roll 4d6 and get {1, 1, 2, 6}. Result is two chests of copper and one chest of gold, 1,000 coins in each chest.

If a prefix has two suffixes (Bsg,) roll Step 2 twice, but only set aside one d6 as the secondary coin amount for Step 3. The lower-value treasure is below the lowest value listed as a suffix, while the higher-value treasure is above the highest value listed. In the case of Bsg, this means there would be copper and platinum.

For gems and jewelry, either roll the same as you would for coins, using the third roll for gems or jewelry of higher and lower value mixed in with the rest, or just roll for chance and quantity, then follow the procedure in Monsters & Treasure, p. 40.

Using Treasure Codes for New Monsters

When designing new monsters, you would want to follow a more rational pattern than the original treasure types:

• Don’t worry about minimum quantities, only max quantities.
• Don’t use the plus or minus modifiers.
• Don’t split probability and quantity. Just use one number. If you want the treasure amount to be higher or lower than the probability would indicate, adjust the roman numeral instead (poor monsters might have small bags instead of chests, for example.)
• Only record the most common type of coin, letting the rules above handle other types.
• To make treasures fit better with each monster, focus on exclusions and bonuses. 4 A+2s no w as a magic-using monster’s artifact treasure is a much better customization than randomly raising and lowering coin amounts. 3 BgM no s might make sense for custom lycanthrope treasure.

Instead of assigning numbers to treasure probability and amount at random, work out a formula tying this to monster level. I think this is a good start:

Hit Dice	Quantity X	Base Value	G/J	Magic
up to 1+2	max hp/2	X BL	x1	1 A
2 to 10+	HD/2	X BM	x1	X/2 A
11+	HD/4+1	X B2M	x10	X+1 A

Replace the X in columns 3 and 5 with the value from column 2 (round up) to get the coin and magic treasure codes for a monster. For gems and jewelry, use X EC, replacing X with the value from column 2, then add the multiplier from column 4 as necessary. So, for example:

• For a 1+1 HD hobgoblin lair: 4 BL 4 EC 1 A.
• For a 6 HD troll lair: 3 BM 3 EC 2 A
• For a 10 HD hydra: 5 BM 5 EC 3 A.
• For a 12 HD dragon: 3 B2M 3 ECx10 4 A.

This starter code could then be customized, shifting some low-HD monsters to copper instead of silver, for example, or adding a x10 multiplier to gems for a gnome lair, or adding bonus magic items to mid-level monsters that have more powers than usual.

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Treasure Codes and the Treasure Table

I wrote a lot of posts over the past couple weeks about a new mnemonic way to mark treasure in monster descriptions:

• Part One: treasure codes
• Part Two: coins
• Part Three: gems and jewelry
• Part Four: maps and magic items
• Part Five: dice and probabilities

I promised translations for the existing treasure types, although I will warn you right now that they look pretty ugly. This is mainly due to the treasure types not being very well thought out. Aside from scattered patterns I've already mentioned (higher treasure amounts for hoards and active treasure collectors, for example,) there's no real rhyme or reason behind assigning probabilities and quantities. This means you have to record lots of info for each type and can't compress it down to something simple.

And I confess: after I finished writing up the conversion table, I decided I wanted to improve the mnemonic system even more, and maybe do a complete overhaul of the treasure types, which really are quite bad. But for now, here's the conversion table.

Type	... Converts to This Code
A1	2:1 Coyc 3:1 Coys, 3:2 Coyg, 5:6 Gee/Jee, 4:3 Xu
A2	2:1 Coyc/s-1, 2:1 Coyg, 5:1 Gee/Jee-1 x10, 6:3 Xu
A3	6:5 Coyg (no cs), 6:1 Gee/Jee x10, 5:1 Mu
B	5:1 Coyc+1, 2:1 Coys, 2:1 Cyog-3, 2:1 Gee/Jee, 1 Xuw
C	2 Coyc, 3:1 Coys-1 (no g), 2:1 Gee/Jee-1, 1:1 Xu
D	1 Coyc+1, 2 Coys, 6:1 Coyg, 3:1 Gee/Jee+1, 2 Xu+p
E	(1/2):2 Coyc-2, 3:2 Coys, 2:1 Coyg+1,1:2 Gee/Jee-2, 3 Xu+s
F	1:4 Coys-4, 4:2 Coyg, 2:4 Gee/Jee, 3 Xu+ps (no w)
G	7:1 Coyg-1, 3 Gee, 3:2 Jee-2, 4 Xu+s
H	3:4 Coyc, 5:2 Coys-2 x10, 7:1 Coyg x10, 5:2 Gee-2 x10, 5:1 Jee-1 x10, 2:4 Xu+ps
I	5:2 Gee+2, 5:2 Jee+2, 2:1 Xu

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Treasure Codes: Thoughts on Quantity and Probability

This is Part Five in an ongoing series re-examining treasure types in OD&D and discussing a possible mnemonic replacement.

• Part One: treasure codes
• Part Two: coins
• Part Three: gems and jewelry
• Part Four: maps and magic items

Today’s topic: Dice ranges for treasure amounts and the probability of finding each variety of treasure.

I mentioned one way of sorting the treasure types in Part Three based on quantity. But we could also sort based on likelihood of finding maps or magic. Mixing the two methods and splitting off Type I as an outlier gives us six categories:

Types	Category Name	Examples
A1/A2	Active Treasure Collectors	bandits
A3	Active Waterborne Collectors	pirates
B-F	Standard Treasure Troves	orcs, ogres
G	Dwarven Hoard	dwarves
H	Treasure Hoard	dragons
I	Individual Items	rocs

Active treasure troves have generous quantities of gems and jewelry and high chances of magic items, although pirate treasures (A3) have no magic, only a map, which is why it’s separate.

Standard treasures have smaller quantities of all monetary treasure varieties and lower the chance of copper coins in a trove as you progress through the alphabet: 50% for Type B down to 0% for Type F. Oddly, the chance of a magic item being in a standard treasure trove increases as the number of items increases. It’s roughly a 10% chance for each item, excluding bonus items like potions and scrolls.

Dwarven Hoards have generous quantities of gold coin, gems, and jewelry, no other coin varieties, and follow the same pattern for magic items as Standard treasure troves.

Dragon Hoards have generous quantities of just about everything, but half the expected chance of finding magic items.

Individual Items have no coins and low quantities of everything, although the chances for gems, jewelry and a magic item are high.

Treasure types with generous quantities of coin, gems, and jewelry have at least 50% chance for each, while almost all types with standard quantities of a category have a chance less than 50%.

Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern linking quantity (dice) to chance of finding (probability.) But we can ignore that and create a link, just to make the mnemonics easier. I’ve already assumed all quantities are rolled with d6s only. Modifiers to the roll can be placed after the mnemonic code. This gives us:

• 3 Coyg = 3d6 chests of 1,000 gold coins each

• Jee-1 = 1d6-1 (or 1 to 5) pieces of jewelry, base value 100 coins each
• 4 Gee x10 = 10 to 60 gems, base value 100 coins each
• 2 Xu +p = any 2 magic items, plus one potion

The base probability for any of these is 10% per die rolled for quantity. So: 30% chance for the 3d6 chests of gold, 10% chance for the jewelry, 40% chance for the 10 to 60 gems, or 20% for 2 magic + 1 potion. No need to use percentile dice: roll a d10 instead, any result less than or equal to the number shown means that treasure is present. If the probability doesn't match the number of dice, use a target number prefix followed by a colon and the dice number:

• 6:3 Coyg 60% chance of 3d6 chests of gold
• 4:2 Xu +p 40% chance of 2 magic items + potion

Some options:

• d20 instead of d10: double target number
• 2d6 Drop 6s: Treat each 6 on a die as a zero, for number from 0 to 10. Target number is the same, but probability is no longer linear.

Next up: I finish this long series by translating the existing treasure types into mnemonic codes to create a new treasure type table.

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Treasure Codes: How Items Work

This is Part Four of in a series re-examining treasure types in OD&D and discussing a possible mnemonic replacement.

• Part One: treasure codes
• Part Two: coins
• Part Three: gems and jewelry

Today’s topic: maps and magic items.

Unlike other treasure items, the monetary value of maps and magic items is not used in the treasure types at all. One obvious reason for this: the random treasure tables include cursed items mixed in with useful items. That’s kind of what you want, if you are aiming for an old-school experience: players never know if an item is useful or cursed based solely on superficial examination.

Instead, items are sorted by their general form and function, which is why I originally chose to assign one letter to each form:

• M for Maps
• P for Potions
• S for Scrolls
• W for Weapons or Armor
• X for Any Magic Item

But in way, this doesn’t make sense. Because:

Any time a treasure type specifically includes a Map, Potion, Scroll, or Weapon, it’s one added item of that type, over and above any other maps, potions, scrolls, or weapons that are rolled by accident.

In other words, “Any 4 + 1 Potion and 1 Scroll” may mean:

• 5 potions and a scroll,
• 1 potion and 5 scrolls,
• 1 potion, 1 scroll and 4 items that aren’t potion,
• Some other mix of 6 items that includes at least one potion and one scroll.

Since the only vowel code that makes sense for items is “unique” (u), it makes more sense to cluster all magic items together in one “word”.

So: 4 Xu+ps would be a better way to write “Any 4 + 1 Potion and 1 Scroll” than “4 Xu Pu Su”, because it’s more compact. Besides, the repeated “u” codes makes the code look repetitive.

There’s only one roll to see if a treasure trove includes maps and/or magic items, not one roll per potential item.

Again, the “4 Xu Pu Su” code would be misleading, because it looks like there are four rolls: one for four magic items of any type, one for a potion, and one for a scroll. It should actually be a single all-or-none roll.

You can still use M/P/S/W if there is only one item type. One example: pirates do not have magic items, but do have a chance for a single treasure map. This would be the code Mu.

Next week: dice and probabilities.

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Treasure Codes: How Gems and Jewelry Work

Topic Two in a series of explainer follow-ups for the treasure codes post is gems and jewelry. The original treasure table specified that gems and jewelry are rolled separately, but in all but two cases, the chances of finding each and the quantities found are the same for any given treasure type. They are just combined into one column to save space.

There are two broad categories of treasure in relation to quantities of gems or jewelry in the trove: standard quantities (in the 1 to 3 dice range) vs. generous quantities (either 6d6, 1d100, or 1 die x10.) Gems/jewelry collected by bandits and other large bands of humans are generous, as are dragon hoards. All others are in standard quantities.

[There’s a similar distinction for gold possessed by pirates, dwarves, or dragons (generous) vs. all other treasures (standard,) which when combined with gems and jewelry gives us four categories: standard, generous gold, generous gems, and doubly generous.]

Vowels in gem and jewelry codes should be used to represent base values of each item, rather than the multipliers we use for coins:

i for inferior gems (10 coins base value)
a for average gems (20 coins)
e for excellent gems (50 coins)
ee = 100 coins
o = 500 coins
y = 5,000 coins
u = 50,000 coins

Most of the standard gem values are represented here, with a few extra. If the base type is y or u, don’t roll a d6 for the number of gems, but instead assume it’s a single gem (or, for example, 5 gems if the code is 5 gy, etc.) Jewelry will normally just be joo, but the value can go up or down for either gems or jewelry.

Each piece of jewelry, gem, or group of 5 or 10 gems of the same value, gets a d6 roll on the value adjustment table:

d6 roll	Gem Value	Jewelry Value
1	half normal	3d6/10 x base
2-5	normal	1d6 x base
6	doubled	2d6 x base

This is a simplification of the way gems and jewelry are handled in Monsters && Treasure.

As for suffixes, most of the time there won’t be one. If you really want to specify different kinds of gems, you could use codes like r(ed), g(reen), b(lue), and y(ellow), or p for pearls. But probably the most useful suffixes would be those indicating size.

gyl is a large gem (10x normal size, about the size of someone’s fist)
gyh is a huge gem (100x normal, about the size of someone’s head)
gyt is a titanic gem (1000x normal, about the size of someone’s torso)

The size multiplier doesn’t affect the base value, but it affects the space it takes up in a bag, sack or pack. You can’t fit a titanic gem into a large sack, but 1 to 3 huge gems could fit. These size codes would be especially useful if we added another code, F, for fancy items like vases, urns, paintings and other decorations.

Next up: maps and magic items.

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Treasure Codes: How Coins Work

At some point, I plan to do a conversion table for OD&D treasure types to the treasure codes I wrote about last week. But that’s going to take a while to assemble, so in the short term, I’ll try to explain some of the thinking behind the codes, with an eye towards things I might change in the future.

First topic: coins in treasure troves.

The original treasure tables had separate rolls for three kinds of coins: copper, silver, and gold. Later official versions of the treasure table often include new columns for electrum and/or platinum. I decided it makes more sense to use relative coin values. This has a couple advantages:

• It keeps the number of rolls low.
  The full AD&D treasure table would require five rolls just for coins. This way, there’s only three rolls in most cases.
• It allows adjustments for GMs who use the silver standard.
  This is a pretty common house rule that interprets equipment prices in silver pieces instead of gold pieces. There are rarer variant house rules for a copper standard or other alternatives.
• It allows temporary shifts for unusual treasure troves.
  Even if using the silver standard, a GM could change the common coin type for a dwarven hoard to “gold” to make it much more valuable.

In the previous write-up, I used the codes

C (common coin, in bags of 300 coins each)
Cl (low-value coin, bags of 300 coins each)
Cr (rare coin, bags of 300 coins each) and
L (loose coin, in smaller quantities)

Plus optional suffixes to specify other types. Re-thinking this, I’ve decided that it’s easier to just use C + vowel + suffix. Suffixes are up to individual GMs – they are mnemonics, after all – but my own suggestions, based on stuff I’ve seen, are:

c for copper
s for silver
l for electrum
g for gold
p for platinum
m for mithril
j for junk (any coin less valuable than copper, frex iron)
double or triple letters for larger coins, small bars, etc.

The missing element to these mnemonic codes, of course, is the vowels, which I defined as quantities. My original approach was to pick some of the most common quantities and assign them to vowels, but now I’m thinking that, if the die-type is constant (1d6) and we use numeric prefixes to indicate how many dice to roll (3 cig = 3d6 gold coins,) all we really need to use the vowel for is the multiplier (base number of coins.) So here’s a rewrite:

a for average (x20)
e for extra (x50)
o for overflowing (x300)
i for individual (x1)

These multipliers are based on container sizes in Men & Magic: 20 coins in a pouch, 50 coins in a small bag, 300 coins in a large sack. Which means that the first three vowels can be read as those container types. So:

2 cag = 2d6 pouches of gold pieces, or 40 to 240 gp
5 cog = 5d6 sacks of 300 gold each, or 1,500 to 9,000 gp

Double vowels, or vowel combinations, add the multiples together before multiplying: coog is twice as many sacks of coins as cog.

The missing vowels, y and u, can be redefined as needed, but by default. u is “unique” (no die roll, just a single item) and y is an abbreviation for “two sacks and two bags”, a x700 multiplier. This makes it easy to get the original quantities of coins in the treasure table with the oy combo (x1000).

Next up: gems and jewelry.

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Treasure Type Links

One thing I may not have made clear in the treasure codes article is that I’ve thought a lot about treasure types and written about them in the past. Lots of analysis, most of which we can probably ignore. But for the curious, these specific posts might be useful.

• Probably the most useful thing I’ve done with the treasure types is to create a list of monsters sorted by treasure type.
• I rewrote and tweaked the treasure types many times for my clone project, including these thoughts about treasure types.
• At least a tiny bit of that work resurfaced when I wrote about restocking dungeons.

Delta’s D&D Hotspot has some relevant articles as well, at least one of which was around the same time as I was writing about it. These are much more math-intensive than anything I ever did.

• Expected Treasure
• Expected Treasure and XP
• Dungeon Treasure Revisited

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Treasure Types, or Treasure Codes?

The treasure types table in OD&D’s Monsters & Treasure booklet has slightly obscure design goals, which carry over into B/X, BECM, and AD&D. As a result, it gets tweaked or completely replaced in most retroclones and many house rules. It’s tricky to figure out which type to assign to completely new monsters, or which old monsters can have their types swapped, since it’s not entirely clearly what the differences between most of the types really are.

But there are a couple distinctions worth noting:

• Most treasure types have all three coin varieties, but a few have no copper or silver, and one has no coins at all.
• The max number of gems is the same as the max number of jewelry items in all but two cases.
• Most types can have any kind of magic item or map, but three of them limit this to one variety, while some other have 2 to 4 items of any type plus one potion or scroll (or both,) guaranteed.

Having coins, gems, jewelry, magic items, and maps all specified for any given treasure type confuses the design and reduces usefulness. What we could do instead is use treasure codes made from more than one letter. Something like:

Code	Treasure Type
B	Basic Treasure
C	Common Coins (sack)
Cr	Rare Coins (sack)
Cl	Low Value Coins (sack)
G	Gems
J	Jewelry
L	Loose Coins
M	Maps
P	Potions
S	Scrolls
W	Weapons and Armor
X	Other Magic Items

Coins are separated into Common, Rare, and Low Value, corresponding to your standard coin used for prices in your campaign, a rarer coin, and a “junk” coin that’s less convenient to haul out of the dungeon. By default, these are in the proportion 1 rare : 10 common : 100 low-value, but you can change this to fit your campaign. The way you’d most likely use these codes in a monster description is to assume every treasure type is potentially present in standard quantities at standard chances, then specify anything that’s different. (That’s what Basic Treasure is for: a catch-all for any treasure type not otherwise specified, so that you can note a monster has ten times normal gold, no silver, and everything else is standard.)

Quantities for coins are assumed to be measured in “sacks” (300 coins each.) Other items like Gems and Jewelry are counted individually. This base number is multiplied by a dice roll, which we could choose to link to vowel codes like this:

Code	Size Modifier
a	Abundant (5d6x10)
e	Extra (3d6x10)
o	Ordinary (2d6x5)
i	Individual (1d6)
u	Undefined

So that we can specify treasure types like:

CaBo no S

Which would mean “this monster has abundant common coins like gold, ordinary quantities of other treasure types, but no scrolls.”

Undefined by default means “unique” (only one of this item,) but can also be redefined each time it is used.

Additional notes:

• Coins are broken down the way they are because you might want to set standard chances for each type, like “25% chance for common coins, 10% chance each for low-value and rare coins”.
• Magic items are broken down the way they are partly because that’s the way they are broken down in the original treasure type table, but mostly because those types have special restrictions: armor and weapons probably won’t be in an evil wizard’s lair, potions and scrolls won’t be underwater.
• If you want to specify absolute coin type instead of relative coin type, for example because you don’t want lycanthropes to have silver coins, you can follow the vowel with a lowercase letter (Cos = silver coins, Cog = gold coins.) This is especially useful for the “loose coins” type.
• You can do the same for other treasure types, like magic items (Wis = magic shields, Sic = cursed scrolls.) Some of these might wind up pretty cryptic, though, so adding an actual word after the code (Si (cursed)) might be a better choice.
• You can also use the “rare”/“low-value” modifier to breakdown gems into different values, for example, or to show that a magic item is fancier than normal or appears like a cheap common tool or weapon. (Gri = rare gems, Wlow = wooden magic weapon.)

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Monsters in Large Numbers

Delta asked on the OD&D Forums What dice do you use to roll large numbers of creatures? Which got me thinking about some things...

For those not clicking the link, we're talking about monsters listed in Monsters & Treasure as appearing in numbers like 10-100, 20-200, 30-300, and so on, the immediate example being bandits. Delta's asking about what dice most GMs use (he's been asking a lot of survey questions lately, to get a better idea of how many techniques are out there in the wild.)

But I'm thinking more about what that number is for. As many people will tell you, the numbers listed on the Monsters & Treasure table are meant more for wilderness hex stocking than for dungeon stocking or random encounters. I'm pretty sure neither Gary Gygax nor Dave Arneson ever did something like:

Gary/Dave: "As you enter the forest, ahead you see..."

[Stops to roll dice]

Gary/Dave: "300 bandits."

I mean, first of all, why would they wait until the last minute to work out an encounter of that size? Why would they pit that many opponents against 1 to 6 PCs, an equal number of retainers, and a handful of miscellaneous hirelings? Why wouldn't the PCs detect what is basically a military camp until they were almost in the camp itself?

Aside from obvious references in the rules themselves that contradict the above hypothetical example, and people who actually played with Gary or Dave reporting that they didn't roll for monster numbers at the table, but picked a reasonable number from the listed range, we have to take into account what you would even need this number for. Wandering monsters are typically in multiples of 1d6, modified for party size and monster level, so we don't need it for that. What we need it for is:

• Approximate encampment or lair size (30 bandits have a couple tents, 300 bandits probably have a small fort and a couple buildings.)
• Guide to encounter size (patrols follow wandering monster rules, deliberate response to threats will be up to a third of the full force, major expeditions will leave at least a fifth of the force behind to guard home base. Also useful for mass combat encounter designs.)
• Total pool of available monsters (PCs should stop encountered bandits when the bandits have been wiped out.)
• (For bandits, goblins, orcs, and other structured groups:) Calculating leader types present.

So really, it doesn't matter how you get to that total number of monsters in the group, or if every possible number within that range can be rolled, or has a probability that fits into a linear or bell curve distribution. You just need a number beforehand so that you can make broad decisions like "What's the camp/lair look like?", "How far away can it be detected?", or "Have they run out of cannon fodder yet?"

What that means to me is that we don't need to figure out what die roll best fits the listed range. Instead, look at the maximum. Is it one significant digit? Rounded to the nearest ten or hundred? Roll one die to determine that first digit. For a range of 20 to 80, roll a d8, treat a 1 as a 2, and multiply by 10. For 30 to 300, roll d6/2 and round down, multiply by 100, and treat a 0 as the minimum. If you really don't want a round number, roll d10 or d100 for the last one or two digits, if the number isn't already at the maximum.

Approaches to Fantasy Settings

There was a little discussion in the comments on the fantasy literature post, which I expected. Whether or not to use a pre-existing setting is a highly-charged discussion with a lot of varying opinions, some of which were in those comments:

1. Fully-Statted and Described Commercial Setting, such as Hârn, Greyhawk, or licensed settings, for people who prefer most of the heavy lifting to be done by someone else;
2. Third-Party Setting, adapted on the fly from the source material, for those who want the familiarity of Middle Earth, Narnia, or Westeros without having to memorize or look up exact stats;
3. Patchwork Setting from more than one source, with or without the “serial numbers” filed off, with little concern for precise emulation of any of the settings;
4. Collaborative Setting Building, with or without an aide like Aria or Champions of ZED, allowing a closer connection between the players and the setting;
5. GM’s Personal Setting, either loosely or thoroughly detailed, to allow GM familiarity with the setting;
6. Minimalist Setting, with the bulk of the setting details left undefined until actually needed.

I’ve tried to arrange these in order from completely defined by people who aren’t playing in the group through completely defined by the group or by a single person in the group, but there are certainly crossovers, as well as heavy front-loading vs. heavy improv. And there are possible variants of the first three or four based on where on an existing timeline play begins, and how sacrosanct that timeline’s future is. In the case of Middle Earth, you could begin play after the events of LotR, to avoid spoilers, or between LotR and the Hobbit, or before the Hobbit, and in the latter two cases you have a few options:

• Future Doesn’t Happen (the events of LotR or even the Hobbit are ignored except as possible reference for motivations of major players)
• Future Is Malleable (Sauron’s searching for the Ring, Saruman is corrupted, Wormtongue is corrupting Theoden, but the Fellowship doesn’t exist and the players are free to interact with events however they see fit)
• Future Is Fixed (Events in Hobbit and LotR happen exactly as described no matter what players do)

The main considerations for which of these many options to choose are GM workload, player workload, familiarity, and flexibility.

Commercial settings keep the GM workload low before play, but both the GM and the players need to become familiar with the material, and extensive reference materials may mean a heavy GM workload during play.

Extremely well-known settings are easier to get into because of the familiarity, but may still have a high GM workload before or during play.

Collaborative worldbuilding means better familiarity for everyone at the table, but players may resent sharing some of the pre-game workload, depending on their personal interests.

Minimalist and/or improvised settings decrease pre-game workload, but may be uncomfortable for some GMs, and hard to become familiar with unless crossed with minimal references to another setting.

There’s way more that can be said about all of these, which perhaps I need to go into.

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Fantasy Lit Sources as Settings

A random Twitter poll about perception checks and an unrelated forum discussion on using Middle Earth as an RPG setting got me thinking about the way GMs handle “out-of-character” knowledge. For GMs of a certain type, keeping strict separation between what the players know or believe and what the characters know is overwhelmingly important. After all, you don’t want characters inventing gun powder and machine guns, allowing them to take over every medieval kingdom, do you? For GMs at the other extreme, player knowledge is fine, although for technical knowledge they may use character scores and cultural assessments to judge how successful medieval versions of modern inventions will be.

This range of responses to player/character knowledge affects one area in particular: using books, film, and other media as source material for a setting. It’s a tempting choice for most GMs, because it saves some effort and allows players to get the feel of a setting quickly, allowing them to “act” like characters who really do live in that world. But this runs into the player knowledge problem: how do you prevent characters in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, for example, from finding the One Ring, or killing the Balrog before it kills the dwarven colonists (or battles with Gandalf)?

You can, of course, not worry about whether players change what’s supposed to happen, according to the novels. Or on the other extreme, set the date after the events of the novels. But even in those circumstances, allowing players to quickly find locations or items without the same effort that characters in the source media had to use may feel a bit off and spoil the mood. What do you do when a player says “I go to the Gates of Moria, say ‘mellon’ to open the gates, and go inside”?

The strict separation GMs usually either flat-out tell the player “Your character doesn’t know that”. Or, if feeling generous, they call for knowledge and perception rolls to see how close the PC gets to the location of the gates, and whether the PC knows what the inscription says and figures out what it means.

I tend towards the opposite extreme, myself, and don’t like knowledge rolls or perception checks. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make it easy. It’s been a while since I’ve read The Hobbit or LotR, and even a few years since I’ve seen any of the movies, but I don’t remember them giving precise locations for the Gates of Moria or other points of interest.

A Middle Earth character probably knows which direction to go from where they are to reach the Misty Mountains. If they are from a region within sight of the Misty Mountains, they probably know the names of the peaks in the range. Very specific types of characters may even know where the mountain passes are. But unless you’re Gandalf or a member of a dwarven expedition that’s seen historical records relating to Moria, you wouldn’t know where the gates were. And if a player wants to use player knowledge to get to Moria… fine. Where are they, exactly? Even if you are allowed to read the books during a play session (and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that. Just saying… ) Fellowship skips over the gritty details of how to find the mountain, let alone the gates into the mountain. Moria is in the “middle” of the Misty Mountains, which I see according to a Tolkien wiki are about 700+ miles long, so a player without special knowledge could get within about a hundred miles of the gate’s location, I suppose. Then they could spend a few weeks or months searching for the gate.

From the perspective of people in Middle Earth, a PC searching for Moria would look like a kook, running back and forth across the foothills trying to find some lost city of the dwarves. With luck, they might become the Heinrich Schliemann of Middle Earth. Play this out! Make the PC actually set up camps, gather resources, and explore the region.

I may develop more ideas on this later.

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