“Harlot encounters can be with brazen strumpets or haughty
courtesans, thus making it difficult for the party to distinguish
each encounter for what it is. (In fact, the encounter could be with
a dancer only prostituting herself as it pleases her, an elderly
madam, or even a pimp.) In addition to the offering of the usual
fare, the harlot is 30% likely to know valuable information, 15%
likely to make something up in order to gain a reward, and 20% likely
to be, or work with, a thief. You may find it useful to use the
sub-table below to see which sort of harlot encounter takes place:
01-10 Slovenly trull
76-85 Expensive doxy
11-25 Brazen strumpet
86-90 Haughty courtesan
26-35 Cheap trollop
91-92 Aged madam
36-50 Typical streetwalker
93-94 Wealthy procuress
51-65 Saucy tart
95-98 Sly pimp
66-75 Wanton wench
99-00 Rich panderer
An expensive doxy will resemble a gentlewoman, a haughty courtesan
a noblewoman, the other harlots might be mistaken for goodwives, and
so forth.”
Unfortunately, Gygax did not explain why you’d never meet a haughty
strumpet or a brazen courtesan. However, he did offer valuable advice
on other urban street characters: “Drunk encounters are typically
with 1-4 tipsy revelers or wine-sodden bums,” and 40 percent of the
time when you meet a gentleman he’ll be a “foppish dandy” with
“1-4 sycophants.”
Table III: Minor Malevolent Effects
Artifacts and relics are the most powerful type of magic items in
D&D, offering god-like abilities. In 3.5E, you pretty much just
get the god-like abilities. But Gygax was obsessed with checks and
balances, and like a Madison of magic items, created a complex,
six-part system for artifact/relic powers, including minor and major
benign powers; minor and major malevolent effects; prime powers; and
side effects. Best of all, you selected or randomly generated such
powers yourself. The following is the selection of minor malevolent
effects:
“A. Acne on possessor’s face
B. Blindness for 1-4 rounds when first used against an enemy
C. Body odor noticeable at 10’ distance
D. Deafness for 1-4 turns when first used against an enemy
E. Gems or jewelry found never increase in value
F. Holy water within 10’ of item becomes polluted
G. Lose 1-4 points of charisma for 1-4 days when major power
used
H. Possessor loses interest in sex
I. Possessor has satyriasis
J. Possessor’s hair turns white
K. Saving throws vs. magic are at -1
L. Saving throws vs. poison are at -2
M. Sense of smell lost for 2-8 hours when first used against
an enemy
N. Small fires (torches, et al.) extinguished when
major power used
O. Small items of wood rot from possessor’s touch (any
item up to normal door size, 1-7 days time)
P. Touch of possessor kills green plants
Q. User causes hostility toward himself in all mammals
within 6”
R. User must eat and drink 6 times the normal amount due to
the item’s drain upon him or her
S. User’s sex changes
T. Wart appears on possessor’s nose
U. Weight gain of 10-40 pounds
V. Weight loss of 5-30 pounds
W. Yearning for item forces possessor to never be away from
it for more than 1 day if at all possible
X. Yelling becomes necessary to invoke spells with verbal
components”
Wand of Wonder effects table
D&D’s random magic item system is well-known, part of building
any treasure horde for the game. But there are all sorts of fun
little sub-tables within the treasure lists. A great one came with a
great item—the Wand of Wonder, which set off a random magical
effect every time it was used. Gygax’s suggestions for a standard
Wand of Wonder:
“01-10 slow creature pointed at for 1 turn
11-18 deludes wielder for 1 round into believing the
wand functions as indicated by a second die roll
19-25 gust of wind, double force of spell
26-30 stinking cloud at 3” range
31-33 heavy rain falls for 1 round in 6” radius of
wand wielder
34-36 summon rhino (1-25), elephant (26-50) or mouse
(51-00)
37-46 lightning bolt (7” X ½”) as wand
47-49 stream of 600 large butterflies pour [sic]
forth and flutter around for 2 rounds, blinding everyone (including
wielder)
50-53 enlarge target if in 6” of wand
54-58 darkness in a 3” diameter hemisphere at 3”
center distance from wand
59-62 grass grows in area of 16” square before
wand, or grass existing there grows to 10 times normal size
63-65 vanish any non-living object of up to 1,000
pounds mass and up to 30 cubic feet in size (object is ethereal)
66-69 diminish wand wielder to 1/12’ height
70-79 fireball as wand
80-84 invisibility covers wand wielder
85-87 leaves grow from target if in 6” of wand
88-90 10-40 gems of 1 g.p. base value shoot forth in
a 3” long stream, each causing 1 h.p. of damage to any creature in
path—roll 5d4 for number of hits
91-97 shimmering colors dance and play over a 4” X
3” area in front of wand—creatures therein blinded for 1-6 rounds
98-00 flesh to stone (or reverse if target is stone)
if target is within 6””
Potion Miscibility Table
Anybody can invent a list of magical potions and a table for randomly
inserting them into a treasure horde. Only Gygax would also write up
a table about what happens if you drink two different potions at the
same time, and teach kids the word “miscible” to boot:
“Dice Score
Result
01
EXPLOSION! Internal damage is 6-60 h.p., those within a 5”
radius take 1-10 h.p. if mixed externally, all in a 10’ radius take
4-
24 hit points, no save.
02-03
Lethal poison results, and imbiber is dead; if externally mixed, a
poison gas cloud of 10’ diameter results, and all within it must
save versus poison or die.
04-08
Mild poison which causes nausea and loss of 1 point each of
strength and dexterity for 5-20 rounds, no saving throw possible;
one potion is cancelled, the other is at half strength and duration.
(Use random determination for which is cancelled and which is at
half efficiency.)
09-15
Immiscible. Both potions totally destroyed, as one cancelled the
other.
16-25
Immiscible. One potion cancelled, but the other remains normal
(random selection).
26-35
Immiscible result which causes both potions to be at half normal
efficacy when consumed.
36-90
Miscible. Potions work normally unless their effects are
contradictory, e.g. diminution and growth, which will
simply
cancel each other.
91-99
Compatible result which causes one potion (randomly determined)
to have 150% normal efficacy. (You must determine if both effect
and duration are permissible, or if only the duration
should be
extended.)
00
DISCOVERY! The admixture of the two potions has caused a
special formula which will cause one of the two potions only to
function, but its effects will be permanent upon the imbiber. (Note
that some harmful side effects could well result from this…)”
Morals table
Gygax provided a way to “easily” create detailed Non-Player
Characters for players to interact with. By “easily,” he meant
you would roll on 19 different characteristic tables. Of the Traits
Tables, the one for Morals may be the most interesting, with its
weird recalibration against immorality. 1E was heavily biased toward
good deeds, which is probably narratively sound and appealed to me as
an innocent teenager; but now this just makes me scratch my head:
“Morals (d12)
1. aesthetic
2. virtuous
3. normal
4. normal
5. lusty
6. lusty
7. lustful
8. immoral
9. amoral
10. perverted*
11. sadistic*
12. depraved*
*Roll again; if perverted, sadistic, or depraved is
again indicated, the character is that; otherwise, the second roll
tells the true morals, and the first roll is ignored in favor of the
second.”
Apparently, no NPC was ever perverted and sadistic, or aesthetic and
amoral.
Types of Insanity table
The insanity table is another well-remembered classic, but worth
including here for its deliberately bizarro use of retro-Freudian
terminology:
“Types of Insanity
1. dipsomania*
11. mania
2. kleptomania*
12. lunacy
3. schizoid*
13. paranoia
4. pathological liar*
14. manic-depressive
5. monomania
15. hallucinatory insanity
6. dementia praecox
16. sado-masochism
7. melancholia
17. homicidal mania
8. megalomania
18. hebephrenia
9. delusional insanity
19. suicidal mania
10. schizophrenia
20. catatonia
[Asterisks denoted insanities susceptible to the game’s psionic
mental attacks—an interesting artifact of the 1970s interest in all
things ESP and telekinetic.]”
Dr. Gygax didn’t just provide this list, but detailed diagnoses,
making this a kind of “DMG”/“DSM.” Lunacy, for example, was a
werewolfism-type disease that caused mania during the full Moon, and
during the new Moon only a mindset “perhaps a bit suspicious and
irascible.” The idea of a character becoming an alcoholic or S&M
lifestyler was my first indication that D&D could be as deeply
weird as I hoped and needed it to be.
Saving Throw Matrix for Magical and Non-Magical Items
The saving throw—a last-ditch miracle roll of the dice to save a
character from near-certain doom—is a core D&D concept, one of
the things that makes it inherently magical and that appealed deeply
to my love of randomness. Saving throws for player characters are
well-known and still a standard part of the game. Lesser known are
the saving throws for inanimate objects. Gygax’s matrix juxtaposed
exotic substances with exciting events in a way that turned a box of
numbers into a sort of reverse-engineered adventure. Just looking at
the table still gives me strange ideas. I’ll leave out the strings
of numbers and simply provide the categories:
Attack Forms:
“Acid
Crushing blow
Normal blow
Disintegrate
Fall
Fireball
Magical fire
Normal fire
Frost
Lightning
Electricity”
Item Descriptions:
Bone or Ivory
Ceramic
Cloth
Crystal or Vial
Glass
Leather or Book
Liquid*
Metal, hard
Metal, soft or Jewelry**
Mirror***
Parchment or Paper
Stone, small or Gem
Wood or Rope, thin
Wood or Rope, thick
*Potions, magical oils, poisons, acids while container remains
intact.
**Includes pearls of any sort.
***Silvered glass. Treat silver mirror as ‘Metal, soft,’ steel
as ‘Metal, hard.’”
Just trying to rationalize the difference between “Fireball” and
“Magical fire,” or “Lightning” and “Electricity,” forced
a mythological innovation. And such ideas as ivory facing a lightning
bolt or a basin of evanescent potion being touched with a
disintegration spell drew darkly dramatic pictures in my mind.
Grappling Table
The Grappling Table did not have as funny a name as the Pummeling
Table, but it had better ultra-detailed outcomes of messy
hand-to-hand combat. (Especially with the slash-mark separation that
made it look like some Hemingway-esque form of poetic scansion.) To
wit (minus the “H.P. or Special Damage Scored” stats):
Adjusted Dice Score
Result
under 21
waist clinch, opponent may counter
21-40
arm lock/ /forearm/elbow smash
41-55
hand/finger lock/ /bite
56-70
bear hug/trip
71-85
headlock/ /flip or throw
86-95
strangle hold/ /head butt
Over 95
kick/knee/gouge
If you’re wondering, or are not a pro wrestler, a “higher
percentage hold” always beats a lower form—“a hand/finger lock
breaks an arm lock, and so forth.”
Monks’ Open Hand Melee table
The monk character class is probably the most overpowered in the
overpowered 3E game, essentially becoming invulnerable while able to
kill everything else with a single blow. Arguably, the worlds of Jet
Li and Arnold Schwarzenegger were never meant to collide. But it must
be admitted that in 1E, the monk was even more overpowered, with even
a novice character capable of killing with any blow. The one
restraint on this power was that it worked only on opponents of
“man-size…or smaller.” Realizing that had to be defined in a
game world with a high prevalence of various stages of gigantism,
Gygax pegged it as a maximum height of 6 feet 6 inches and a maximum
weight of 300 pounds. (Thus rendering many of today’s pro athletes
immune to death blows.) But another tenet of D&D is that
abilities increase with experience; thus, the monk should be able to
instantly off larger opponents as his or her skills increase. Ever
the systematizer, Gygax proposed the following: “For each level
above the 1st,
the monk will gain additional stunning/killing ability at the rate of
2 inches of height and 50 pounds of opponent weight per level of
experience gained.” He then illustrated this with the Monks’ Open
Hand Melee table, a monument of Lombroso-esque pseudo-scientific
insanity:
“Monk’s Level Opponent Maximum Height
Opponent Maximum Weight
2nd
6’8”
350#
3rd
6’10”
400#
4th
7’
450#
5th
7’2”
500#
6th
7’4”
550#
7th
7’6”
600#
8th
7’8”
650#
9th
7’10”
700#
10th
8’
750#
11th
8’2”
800#
12th
8’4”
850#
13th
8’6”
900#
14th
8’8”
950#
15th
8’10”
1,000#
16th
9’
1,050#
17th
9’2”
1,100#”
Did Gygax really expect you to know the height of every bugbear you
stick into the game to a precision of 2 inches? Do you count the
loincloth during the weigh-in? Does anything about this ability or
system make a lick of sense? Does it belong in this column as it
doesn’t involve dice rolls? Well, this shows D&D at its most
laughable. Superficially, it shows how over-mechanized it can become.
On a deeper level, its sheer absurdity should’ve indicated to Gygax
that the system itself was stupid and a different solution should
have been sought, such as breaking down the ability, rather than the
opponent, into rationally phased steps. For me, it’s one of those
amusing bits of D&D-iana that I would pass over with a laugh and
never use. Another brilliance of the game is that I was
allowed—indeed, encouraged—to do just that. Gygax’s foremost
rule was that there are no rules; it was your game, not his, and you
could keep or discard whatever you liked. In this case, he provided
an excellent incentive for the latter.
Effective Location of Henchman table
Let’s say you need a henchman. (Usually associated with “Batman”
villain cannon fodder, this term meant anybody’s cannon fodder in
D&D.) Perhaps you wish to “try a media blitz” to find one.
Unfortunately, Craigslist is right out. You thus turn to the
Effective Location of Henchman table.
“Method
Cost
Effectiveness
POSTING NOTICES IN PUBLIC
50 g.p.
10%-40%
HIRING A
CRIER
10 g.p.
1%-10%
HIRING AGENTS TO SEEK PROSPECTS
300 g.p.
20%-50%
FREQUENTING INNS AND TAVERNS
special
special”
What’s special about frequenting inns and taverns? Gygax offered a
complex answer, but I would suggest that getting majorly wasted would
have special results.
I was always of the mind that any DM who left something as
story-affecting as henchman appearances up to pure chance was a lazy
ass. But I always appreciated how just about every facet of D&D
can come down to a dice roll if you wish. God can play whatever games
he wants; DMs definitely play dice with their universes.
Values of Other Rare Commodities table (furs)
Sometimes you just need to know how much a muskrat pelt jacket cuff
would be worth. Don’t you?
“Type
Pelt Trimming
Cape or Jacket
Coat
beaver
2 g.p. 20 g.p.
200 g.p.
400 g.p.
ermine
4 g.p. 120 g.p.
3,600 g.p.
7,200 g.p.
fox
3 g.p. 30 g.p.
300 g.p.
600 g.p.
marten
4 g.p. 40 g.p.
400 g.p.
800 g.p.
mink
3 g.p. 90 g.p.
2,700 g.p.
5,400 g.p.
muskrat
1 g.p. 10 g.p.
100 g.p.
200 g.p.
sable
5 g.p. 150 g.p.
4,500 g.p.
9,000 g.p.
seal
5 g.p. 25 g.p.
125 g.p.
250 g.p.”
Parasitic Infestation Table
While the aforementioned Disease (Or Disorder) Table of Galen, er,
Gygax, is well-remembered, less so is the great Parasitic Infestation
Table. It is not so amusing in itself as in its conception. Gygax was
a relentless hardcore realist in his own way. Today’s D&D is
made for the everybody-goes-to-college era, a career-path game that
shoots you rapidly toward 20th
level so you can start fighting dracoliches with one arm tied behind
your back. Gygax D&D made you roll once a month to see if you got
ringworm. And if you were the typical dirty barbarian, you had about
a straight-up 15 percent chance. A 1E hero might be fighting with one
hand behind his back—to scratch something.
Random Book Generator for 14,000-Volume Library
Any fool could have just systematized fantasy fiction and had a fun
enough product—indeed, that’s all most alternative RPG systems
amount to. But Gygax et al. created a system that was itself
creative, that spawned as much as it imitated. Random dice rolls were
one of the prime sparks of inspiration. Granted, dice are as old as
games themselves, but D&D didn’t just take them at face value
or use them to move a pawn; it employed them, in very odd varieties,
to create an entire probabilistic universe. D&D doesn’t tell
you what an adventure is; it tells you what it might be.
When I speak of inspiration, obviously the ones being inspired are
other players. Gygax’s wacky tables inspired thousands of DMs for
better, for worse, and most usually for both. I was certainly among
them. I’ve even used D&D dice to determine real life; during my
stint as an art critic, I used a d20 to choose exhibits to go see as
a routine-breaker. But in-game, randomness and the exotic matrixed in
my mind in the form of a giant imaginary library from which I could
pluck randomly generated tomes, a fantasy born of inclination, early
exposure to “The Name of the Rose,” and the hyperliteracy that
plunged me nose-deep into D&D in the first place.
D&D inspired me to have such dreams, and skilled me in executing
them. One of the privileges, or dangers, of DM-ing is being able to
project, or inflict, one’s fantasies on other people; so I created
a random book generator for a 14,000-volume library I installed in a
castle in the first epic-length campaign I wrote. I’ve now played
that segment of the game through with three different people (it is a
single-player campaign), only one of whom actually plucked books from
the library shelves, as I recall, and then only perhaps a half-dozen
tomes. I, on the other hand, have probably spent eight or 10 hours
enjoying the random book generator by myself, just me and my dice
bag. It’s not the greatest thing I ever made; indeed, it’s a
rather depersonalized, high/generic-adventure device in a fairly
imitative game designed by someone still learning the ropes (or
tentacles). But in substance and style, employment and enjoyment, I
think it says as much about D&D as Gygax’s 1E originalities do,
so I offer it here for edifying comparison—and, in the communal DIY
punk-as-fuck spirit of D&D, for incorporation into your game, if
your wrist be strong enough to roll it up:
*90% of volumes bear no title on spine
*20% in language reader doesn’t know (-1% modification for every
language reader knows)
Subjects:
1-9 History
10-19 Religion
20-29 Art
30-39 Mathematics
40-49 Linguistics
50-59 Science
60-69 Geography
70-79 Literature
80-89 Religion
90-99 Arcana
00 Special
[The library was designed with the possibility of offering clues
to the plot of my game, in which religion was significant; hence, the
weighting toward that subject.]
History
1-49 “Evidence of the Alignment Wars”
50-70 “Arton’s Guide to Greyhawk”
71-00 “Rise of the Bandit Kingdoms”
The latter details Tyrol and Alcierc’s attack on his minions.
Religion
1-49 “Blinding Light Prayer Book”
50-70 “Powers of the Death Goddess”
71-00 “The Martyrdom of St. Lacroix”
The second tome gives much information on Kali, the goddess Tyrol
worshipped to achieve his present state.
Lacroix was cooked alive by the Vicelords of Thann for whittling
cudgels on Thannsday.
Art
1-49 “Tomb Carvings of the Inner Lands”
50-70 “Renderings of the Devil in Holy Art”
71-00 “How to Create Deathmasks”
Mathematics
1-49 “Rapid Calculating”
50-70 “Secrets of Numbers”
71-00 “A Survey of Codes and Ciphers”
The latter gives a character +75% chance of breaking Tyrol’s
code.
Linguistics
1-49 “Basic Orcish”
50-70 “The Development of the Common Tongue”
71-00 “The Thieves’ Cant of the Costal Regions”
Science
1-49 “Elminster’s Bestiary”
50-70 “Weapon Forging”
71-00 “Navigation by the Stars”
The first details the following creatures with 85% accuracy:
Quaggoth
Harguinn Grue
Troll
Algoid
Giant Crayfish
Succubus
Ochre Jelly
Bookworm
Astral Deva
Ascomoid
Gold Dragon
Catoblepas
Owl
Hollyphant
Hobgoblin
Masher
Rat
Killer Frog
Cave Bear
Pseudo-Undead
[Detailing a creature with “85% accuracy” is a vague precision
worthy of Gygax himself, if I may say so.]
Geography
1-49 “Beyond the Sea of Dust”
50-70 “The Major Seas of Oerth”
71-00 “The World of Greyhawk”
Literature
1-49 “Elvish Songs from the Duchies”
50-70 “The Illiad”
71-00 “The Satanic Verses”
Arcana
Roll from the Arcane Books list (1-50)
Special
01 “Book of Vile
Darkness”
02 “Libram of
Ineffable Damnation”
03 “Manual of Gainful
Exercise”
04 “Manual of
Quickness of Action”
05-96 Roll from Scroll list
97 “Book of Num the
Mad” (containing spells)
98 “Trimia’s
Catalogue of Outer Plane Artifacts”
99 Tyrol’s Spellbook
00 “Strahd’s
Necromancy” (containing spells)
[Spells not listed for whatever concision may be left to this
column. The Scroll list was 50 randomly generated magical scrolls;
make your own.]
Arcane Books
[All of these were titles that, if read, divulged various
subject-related spells within their texts; spells omitted for a
semblance of sanity and encouraging tease to draw up your own lists.]
1. “The Good Earth” (clerical, good)
2. “Falzoon’s Dark Formations” (magical, evil)
3. “The Heaven’s Power” (clerical, good)
4. “Notes of a Monk of St. Festus” (clerical, good)
5. “Conjuring and Summoning” by Pratt (magical, good)
6. “Beast Handling” (magical, good)
7. “Bible of the Black Lords” (magical, evil)
8. “Book of Graves” (magical, neutral evil)
9. “Foundations of Nature” (magical, good)
10. “Hymns to Xerbo” (clerical, neutral)
11. “Libram Inquistorium” (magical, good)
12. “Powers of Creation” (clerical, good)
13. “Secrets of Mutability” (magical, good)
14. “The Note-Book of St. Cuthbert” (clerical, good)
15. “Signposts and Wards” (clerical, good)
16. “Num’s Book of Destruction” (magical, evil)
17. “Manipulating the Four Elements” (magical, good)
18. “Travel in the Abyss” (clerical, evil)
19. “Natural Wonders and How to Tap Them” (magical, good)
20. “Hornung’s Realm of Chaos” (magical, evil)
21. “Curious Writings Found in the Rift by M.D.” (magical,
possibly good)
22. “Rudd’s Book of Chaotic War” (clerical, neutral)
23. “Control of Life and Death” (clerical, evil)
24. “Pholtus’ Book of Law” (clerical, good)
25. “Spiritual Fortification” (clerical, good)
26. “Spiritual War” (clerical, good)
27. “Beast Mastering” (magical, neutral)
28. “Other Dimensions” (magical, evil)
29. “Plant Lore” (clerical, good)
30. “Xam’s Necromancy” (magical, evil)
31. “Tricks for Entertaining” (magical, evil)
32. “The Basics of Empowerment” (magical, evil)
33. “Protection from Chaos—Some Advice” (magical, good)
34. “Weather Forecasting” (clerical, good)
35. “A Treatise on Conjuring” (magical, good)
36. “Weapons of the Mind” (magical, good)
37. “The Earth Mother” (clerical, good)
38. “Soul Trapping” (magical, evil)
39. “Rary’s Commands” (magical, good)
40. “Manfred’s Invocations” (magical, evil)
41. “Sands of Time” (clerical, good)
42. “On Disorder” (magical, neutral)
43. “Roots and Barbs” (clerical, evil)
44. “The Worship of Evil” (clerical, evil)
45. “Liquidity and the Elements” (magical, good)
46. “The Pilgrim’s Travels” (clerical, good)
47. “Investigations in Liquid” (magical, good)
48. “Enslavement” by Therod Dall (magical, evil)
49. “Travels to Holy Lands” (magical, good)
50. “Rumors and Notations” (magical, good)
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