Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Stocking Dungeons fast with 2d6


Breaking news! I had my first game in ages yesterday, and when I grabbed my old notebook, I found a lot of useful shit I had written six months ago. The practical kind of stuff; which I intend to post in here in bits.

This is a table for stocking dungeons based on a 2d6 roll, instead of making two separate d6 rolls in two tables like BX says. The bell curve distribution is calculated to give similar enough probabilities (the actual calculations are lost but I trust my past self). Maybe you think that rolling 2d6 is about the same as rolling 1d6 in two different tables, but I drew 20 bubbles per page, connected them with random lines and stocked 2 dungeon floors faster than a cheetah. Roll once per room/area.

12 - Hidden treasure + special OR trap
11 - Hidden treasure
10 - Trapped treasure
9 - Treasure in plain sight
8 - Treasure guarded by a monster
7 - Monster
6 - Empty, showing tracks or clues about another room.
5 - Empty
4 - Special as by the book*
3 - Special + monster OR trap
2 - Trapped room

* I always struggle a little when coming up with special rooms. My first choice is put some useful items that are not considered properly "treasure". Other options are secret doors or windows to other rooms, stairs up or down to other levels, unsual features such as  an unnatural echo, a spring of fresh water, etc.  Maybe I should come up with a pre-planned list of random special features.

When a room contains treasure, you roll 2d6 in this table: sum both quantities and its the value of the treasure in silver pieces (using silver standard). Then multiply the amount per the dungeon level. A level 1 treasure is 290 sp on average.

6 - 500 sp
5 - 250 sp
4 - 100 sp
3 - 10 sp
2 - 5 sp
1 - 0 sp

If you roll doubles and the result is equal or lower than the dungeon's level +1, you also find a magic item. So if you get 0 sp you still get a magic item even at the first level of a dungeon (where the chance of magic item is 1 in 18 per treasure). If I recall correctly, I tried to replicate AD&Ds magic item chances with this, while also making treasure "level dependant" instead of "monster dependant".

 At the end is also written a table about what shape the treasure has:

6 - Gold pieces
5 - Silver pieces
4 - Silver pieces
3 - Jewels or gems
2 - Big or fragile items
1 - Small valuable items

No comments:

Post a Comment