Fantasy Wargaming

How to Set up Your Campaign GG giving his 5 steps to starting a campaign: Setting :  GG suggests ripping off setting material from history or fantasy novels. Overland map :  Interesting he says to generate the initial map on a 1 hex equals 1 mile scale...Wonder how big an area he is suggesting you start with? GG's dungeon design advice is very interesting.  Themes for levels is something everyone has heard many times, but how would you do this in your game? I like the central "Special Room" idea as well, maybe start with that and connect the monsters to the nature of the Special Room. The Town :  As with so many other things GG seems to say, "get a rough outline of what is in the City, maybe a roster of factions, quarters, and individuals, then figure out the details when the Players engage with them.   NOTE: GG THINKS ALL THIS SHOULD BE DONE IN ONE WEEK!!! Should be a warning to all of us who over develop the setting be...

Another encounter between the Brigands and Orcs inhabiting Hex 45:47 in sub hex 4.  They met on a battlefield of general Scrub Terrain.  Rolling for the 16 sectors of the battlefield, resulted in just three alternate terrain features:  a marsh in sector 9 and woods in sectors 2 & 10. The Brigands arrived with 110 regular troops from the Southwest (which gives them the option to enter the battlefield from sectors 9 or 13) vs. Orcs numbering 140 strong which enter from the South (sectors 14 or 15). Time of day (1d6: 1-3 am / 4-6 pm) (1d12: hour) = 8:00 am.  Early 8n the morning, this will benefit the Brigands, because Orcs suffer a penalty in daylight. Checking for surprise Brigands (5) gain 3 surprise rounds over the Orcs (2). The distance is rolled as 10" (6d4 - 2+4+3+2+1+4, reduced by 3 for the Scrub terrain, reduced another 3 for surprise).   Since the Orcs are surprised, they deploy their troops first.  The Orc commander arranges his...

 Our first encounter between two groups of Monsters occupying Castles in the same adventure hex as our Cleric Patron (Hex 45:47).   Randomly determining where they meet involved simulating excursions by each group from their Castle hex with Direction (d8) Distance (d6) rolls.  I'm assuming these represent weekly forays into the wilderness for various reason, hunting for prey, exploration, random pillaging, etc.  Once the path of travel for each group intersected on the same roll, the groups would meet up. This encounter occurs in sub hex 6, this is primary Scrub 1 mile hex with a road running through it from the Northeast to the Southwest.  To set up the battle map (24"x48"), we divide the playing area into 16 sectors numbered as shown below.  Rolling against the Appendix B Random Terrain chart from the DMG, using the Scrub column provides these results: The terrain generation resulted in a few features:     Two small ponds     A sm...

Running the Thief Domain: So, you have some followers, what are going do with them? The domain I am currently running has 15 thieves ranging in level from 1 to 7.  They are mostly Human, but few are different races. They have to earn, how do you put them to work? RANDOM ENCOUNTERS IN TOWN Any Master Thief's stronghold must be located in or very near a Town or City, so his followers will spend a lot of downtime in these urban settings. Sure, there is the chance they'll randomly encounter a good target for pickpocket or mugging while moving around town.  Though the DMG 191 random City encounter entry indicates a gang with a leader,  minimum 8th level, one could create a gang with the same total levels... So, say you have a 7th level Thief follower and pair him with two 2nd levels...that's more than an average total number of levels for a Random Thief encounter from the City description.  Or a 5th with two 3's. RANDOM ENCOUNTERS IN THE WILDERNESS...

 Mercenaries in Modules T2 - The Temple of Elemental Evil - Nulb and the Ruins  Where do you find them?   Location 1.  The Waterside Hostel So, an average of 24 people will be in the tavern room at night, 25% are bandits or mercenaries, so around 6.

Appendix N - Inspirational and Educational Reading includes stories showing the various Classes in AD&D.  What are the best examples of the Thief class? Some answers are obvious:  - Jack Vance's Cugle is probably the closest thing to the Thief described by GG   - Fritz Lieber's Grey Mouser  - Tolkien''s Bilbo & Frodo Not thought of often, but clearly Conan was a multi-class Fighter / Thief, e.g. "The Tower of the Elephant."  Taurus of Nemedia from that story is also a good example.  Another example of Conan as a Thief is "The God in the Bowl". A lesser known example is Satampra Zeiros from Clark Ashton Smith's "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros".  He had a partner in crime, who didn't make it through the adventure...the life of a thief. Gygax later wrote a series of novels about a Thief named Gord. I've been told, Zelazny, Roger's Jack of Shadows is a good example of the AD&D Thief, ...

The Brigand in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) is a subset of the Bandit entry found on Monster Manuel (MM) page 67. So, the comply otherwise with all other details of Bandits.  The stat block is: When using this Monster in a Wilderness setting, the rank and file troops will have the following likelihood of type: So, wielding Pole Arms and wearing Chain Mail would lead anyone to concludeif  these guys were slotted into a class, then it must be Fighter.  Strange considering a Brigand is basically a Highway man or Thief who uses force to hijack Merchants and accost travelers. Maybe my modern understanding of the term doesn't quite match up with the older meaning.  I wonder about this sometimes, so I like to consult the 1828 version of Websters Dictionary which is available online: Brigand 1828   Not much difference, really more generic than my view.