Ibn Shisha's Old-School Gaming

  So far, in the Cultures subseries of my Setting the Setting posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area, Eldorian Humans, our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs - and two of our minor cultures - the Vindhyaksha Goblins and the Hearthwarden Halflings. I'm saving our second Human culture for last, so next up we have Lizard Men. For the Cultural Archetype, I eschewed rolling and selected Barbarian. With our Minotaurs, Goblins and (yet-to-be-posted) Orcs having all gotten different cultures by rolling, I knew I wanted to have Barbarian on there somewhere and this was the best fit. Barbarian: The realm is a tribal group or kingdom of people considered barbarians by their neighbors. These can be historical barbarians such as the Celts, Picts, or ancient Germans, or you may prefer to mold your kingdom after fantastic barbarians such as Robert E. Howard's ...

In the first episode of this series I took a look at what makes up the Fighter in the Original D&D Three Little Brown Books. Today we're diving into the Magic-User (a class name that would stick up to AD&D 2nd Edition). We are told on page 6 of Volume 1 - Men & Magic that, "There are three (3) main classes of characters." (I am inordinately amused by that emphasis on "three (3)!") The second class listed and described is 'Magic-Users.' We are told that Magic-Users include only Men (humans) and Elves. The full class descriptions follow this - with Magic-Users getting one paragraph taking up about one-fifth of page 6, and about half of the next page (though half of that  is a table of costs of manufacturing magic items). Magic-Users are described as potentially the strongest characters in the game at high levels, but initially weak, requiring protection from other characters. Magic-Users are allowed the use of all magical items except weaponry ...

  So far, in the Cultures subseries of my Setting the Setting Posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area, Eldorian Humans, our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs. Last post we looked at the Feudal Indian inspire Vindhyaksha Goblins, one of area's minor cultures. Next on the list is Halflings. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled, getting European Middle Ages, the same as the Eldorians. I considered rerolling, but then I thought about Pathfinder, where, aside from a few distinct groups, Halflings tend to blend into and take on the cultures around them, and decided to let it stand. European, Middle Ages: The classic AD&D setting, this presents a fantastic kingdom of knights and ladies. It is an age of chivalry and castles. Power lies in the hands of the landed nobility and the various churches or temples of the realm. Now, with the seed of the idea of...

So far, in the Cultures subseries of my Setting the Setting Posts, I've detailed the dominant culture of the area, Eldorian Humans, and our three major cultures - the mercantile Thunderan Dwarves, the Egyptian-like Sunari Elves, and most recently the militaristic, Roman Empire inspired Tauren Minotaurs. Now, it's time to start on our five minor cultures, and we'll begin with the Goblins. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled. I was expecting maybe to get something like Savage, or Barbarian, or even Ancient or Viking. What I got though, was Indian: Indian: The campaign is modeled after medieval India. India's social structure was feudal in nature, with an amazing number of independent rajahs, moguls, and princes each governing over one of hundreds of small kingdoms. Now that description did kind of make sense to me, with the typical tribal band structure of Goblins straight out of the core books of most editions, translating that into multiple petty kingdoms instead does...

  In the past 3 Setting posts, I have taken a closer look at three of the 9 cultures generated for my Local Campaign Area.  The first was the dominant culture of the area, the Eldorian humans, who despite not being native to the area, have given it their name. Next came the Thunderan Dwarves of the Cobalt Bastion, merchants and emissaries of an advanced and mercantile Dwarf republic. Most recently were the Thal'Sunari - Ancient Egyptian-like Elves with a tradition-bound culture. Today we're looking at the third of the 3 major cultures of the area, the Minotaurs. For the Cultural Archetype, I selected Roman, which makes sense, given the Greco-Roman mythological origins of Minotaurs. Roman: The major kingdom of the campaign is patterned after the Roman Empire. Naturally, the historical accessory The Glory of Rome is the best resource for setting an AD&D game in this realm. Now, technology level could  have been rolled, for a somewhat different take on a Rome-like cultu...

  In the previous 2 posts, I took a closer look at two of the 9 cultures generated for my Local Campaign Area.  The first was the dominant culture of the area, the Eldorian humans, who despite not being native to the area, have given it their name. Next came the Thunderan Dwarves of the Cobalt Bastion, merchants and emissaries of an advanced and mercantile Dwarf republic. Today, I'll go over some rolls and choices I made to further define another of our 3 major cultures, the Elves. This is where things really start to get interesting. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled and got Egyptian. At first glance, this might seem strange, but if one thinks about it, there's a fair amount of precedence for Elves being associated with stars and other celestial bodies, from Tolkien's Elves' association with stars, to the Forgotten Realms Sun and Moon Elves. Given the significant role of the Sun and the Moon in Egyptian mythology, this cultural archetype seemed intriguing and worth ...

  In the previous post, I took a closer look at one of the 9 cultures generated for my Local Campaign Area.  That was the dominant culture of the area, the Eldorian humans, who despite not being native to the area, have given it their name. Today, I'll go over some rolls and choices I made to further define the first of our 3 major cultures, the Dwarves. For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled and got European Renaissance, which I decided to roll with. The description of this Archetype focuses a lot on a mercantile class, and I feel like this makes perfect sense for Dwarves. European, Renaissance: Art, literature, and technology all flower in this setting. A wealthy merchant class has risen to contest the landed nobility's hold on power. In many places, the increasing strength of towns and cities leads to a new age of mercantile city-states . In going with European Renaissance as the Cultural Archetype, and considering these are Dwarves, that kind of made Technology Level a no-b...

  In the first two posts on generating a setting for a try at soloing Original D&D, I used 2nd Edition World Builder's Guidebook to generate some World Hooks for the world our characters will adventure in, then generating some ideas for what the Local Campaign Area would be like, culminating in generating some cultures to populate it. This will be the first post taking a closer look at one of those cultures, some rolls and choices to further define, and breathing some life into it. We'll start with looking at the dominant culture of the area, one of 2 human cultures. For the Culture Archetype, I selected European Middle Ages. At its core, I wanted the culture to still have that familiar (TSR) D&D feeling.  However, there will be acknowledgement of the environment as well. A European Middle Ages culture doesn't just spring up on a large, grassy isle in a tropical sea, and if such a culture settles in such a place, there will be adaptations. European, Middle Ages: Th...

  Well, I'm sure any old-school gamers like myself are well aware that Original D&D was a little... sparse... on the class descriptions, and also aware that this is a situation that stuck with the Fighter Class through at least AD&D and Basic. The first episode of this series will offer an examination of what we do have on the Fighter in original little brown books. We are told on page 6 of Volume 1 - Men & Magic that, "There are three (3) main classes of characters." (I am inordinately amused by that emphasis on "three (3)!") The first class listed and described is 'Fighting-Men,' (though in the very next paragraph, the word 'fighters' first appears, and will be used interchangeably with the official 'Fighting-Men' throughout the edition, as well as in Holmes, changing completely over to 'Fighter' in AD&D. We are told that Fighting-Men include Elves (though they are also Magic-Users), Dwarves and... Halflings (the...

  In the previous post, I picked (some randomly and some directly) some 'World Hooks' for our 3LBB OD&D Setting, getting Cultural:Seafaring, Climate/Landform:Archipelago, Situation:Religious, Historical:Insurrection, and Sites:Shrines. Now it's time to shrink back down to a Local Campaign Area. The first table for Local Campaign Areas concerns bodies of water, but given our World Hooks this was more of an easy choice than a roll - 'Island.' Island: The local campaign area consists of a single good-sized island about 20 to 40 miles across. Most or all of the island's coasts will appear on the map of the local area. The isle may feature minor lakes, streams, and other bodies of water. The next table concerns topography, and for this I did roll, getting: Plains: The area is predominantly flat, although small ranges of rolling hills and outcroppings of rock may create minor hill systems covering about 10% or so of the local area. Plains may also feature depres...

  Although I'm sure there is material I could use for setting generation in OD&D era 3rd party content, or in Strategic Review / Dragon, the 2nd Edition World Builder's Guidebook is something I've had in my collection since it came out - often perused but seldom used. My first step was to look at the 'World Hooks' table in Chapter 1 - Worlds and Planetology. I initially rolled, getting the 'Cultural' category, then the 'Seafaring' entry. I then decided to either roll or choose a 'hook' from each heading. For the category 'Climate or Landform,' to keep with 'Seafaring,' I chose 'Archipelago.' From 'Situation,' I rolled 'Religious.' From 'Historical,' I rolled 'Insurrection.' For 'Sites of Interest,' I chose 'Shrines.' The descriptions are thus: Archipelago: No large continents exist, only countless islands. (Ursula K. Leguin's Earthsea is a good example.) Kingdoms...

  The first set of characters I'll be making are for Original Dungeons & Dragons, using only the original '3 Little Brown Books,' though I have them in the form of last year's 'Big Red Book.' I'll get to characters using the supplements, and probably some magazine or third party content later. Ability Scores I rolled up all the characters using 3d6 in order, and ended up keeping 8 out of 12 sets of rolls. This time we're looking at our final one, roll #12. For most of the characters, I determined gender by rolling 2d4, one pink and one blue, taking the higher die. However, I decided to make this roll a Cleric, and since we already have a Cleric who is female, I determined this character would be male. Since we don't have setting details yet, I used the Name Generator at capitalizemytitle.com, and got 'Ormund Lightbringer.' The unmodified rolls were: Strength 13, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 13, Constitution 16, Dexterity 8, Charisma 9. Startin...

  The first set of characters I'll be making are for Original Dungeons & Dragons, using only the original '3 Little Brown Books,' though I have them in the form of last year's 'Big Red Book.' I'll get to characters using the supplements, and probably some magazine or third party content later. Ability Scores I rolled my characters using 3d6 in order, and ended up keeping 8 out of 12 sets of rolls. Today we're talking about roll #11. This roll had all 11s or above except for yet another 5. The scores could have gone several different ways, but for getting an even spread, I decided to make this a Halfling. For each character I determined gender by rolling 2d4, one pink and one blue, taking the higher die. Our Halfling came up as our third male character. Since we don't have setting details yet, I used the Name Generator at capitalizemytitle.com, and got 'Percy Thornwhistle.' The unmodified rolls were: Strength 11, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 5,...