Fantasy Wargaming

The Dungeoneer 24 - Dec/Jan 1980

 The Urban Crawl A specific procedure is not compiled and detailed in a step by step order in any of the AD&D core rulebooks.  So, I've attempted to gather together my best attempts at understanding the different portions of the rules and how they would apply to the adventurer in an Urban Environment. The way to handle sessions within a Urban Environment really depends on what the Party is attempting to do.  There are a number of reasons a session can utilize a Settlement: Overland Travel - Just passing through, resupplying, or resting/healing. Exploration - they actually want to know what's in the Settlement and engage with the environment or this could take on a few different aspects:  Investigation - Searching for a specific person, item, or information Spell Research or Magic Item Creation Cure for Disease or Resurrection Carousing - Spending all that loot they just acquired, trying to level up through training or improved equipment and spell casting ability ...

The Empre of the Petal Throne was a setting developed and published in 1974, it uses a system slightly different than OD&D, but similar enough to consider. In this system everyone has certain skills (EPT 15): NPCs will have skills informing you of their occupation. Obviously, not a complete listing, but most that PCs may want to interact with. EPT divides NPCs into slaves and non-slaves. How likely will PCs encounter these different types of NPCs? Granted, these tables assume the PCs are actively looking for these types of people.  To equate this to AD&D one could likely average the these tables.

 The Judges Guild published a supplement for OD&D called the Ready Reference Sheets (RRS) in 1977.  This little booklet contained a wealth of random tables for all sorts of uses.  One in particular, on page 3, included who one might encounter in an Urban locale: This is useful for more than just for random encounters.  It provides an insight into who lives and works in the City.  Every bricklayer must have somewhere to live.  Every merchant has to have a shop and/or warehouse.   Backing up one page, RRS provides the City Encounter matrix: Analysis of these figures provides some additional probabilities of each being available in the city.

 TSR Hobbies published a Playing Aid called OUTDOOR GEOMORPHS Set One:  Walled City in 1977.  In this supplement, GG included some guidance concerning how he thought a City/Town should be constructed for use in D&D.   Just like other supplements of the time some common themes are present: Divisions within the City - also referred to as Wards or Quarters Government Military Force Occupations On the last, GG provides a somewhat extensive list of occupations for citizens living in teh Town: All of these people have to live somewhere and work somewhere, so GG gives us some typical locales for these: One could create quite a random matrix just from these entries alone.

 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is rather slim on the construction of Settlements straight out of the core rule books. GG tells us the major Settlement should already be developed with encounters  on DMG 190: He follows immediately with his Matrix.  With some analysis and deduction, we can glean some valuable insight into what GG had in mind.  For instance, Appendix C includes a City/Town Encounter Matrix on DMG 191 which point us toward some of the inhabitants of these larger settlements.  Looking into this data further we see the likelyhood of each appearing as follows:    This gives an idea of the mixture of inhabitants on the streets and the relative danger of a major Settlement. In future posts we'll analyze some of these encounters and how they can influence your Settlement.