Ancestors

Written by Norton Glover on 2024-12-27 at 16:11

Thinking about a new game for 2025 in my local game group.

I've always wanted to try running a West Marches style-campaign

I'm thinking of keeping it simple - Basic Fantasy OSR rules in a standard D&D environment. Nothing exotic - the usual D&D monsters in a hex/dungeon crawl environment.

I'm hoping to use this as an on-ramp game for new players.

I'll also use miniatures. Cheap paper minis, but minis all the same.

[#]TTRPG #OSR #BasicFantasy

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Written by Laurens | Wanderer Bill 🌍 on 2024-12-30 at 15:16

@ng76 for populating a hex map I feel I'm getting great results with those old rules about Castles in OD&D, Vol III, page 15.

Place maybe 3-5 of those on a sheet of hexpaper and roll for what's there: you'll get cool inhabitants like a Lord with 1d6 griffon riding heroes or an Evil High Priest with 1d20 White Apes.

Some more rolls tell you their retainers, men at arms, number of villages and inhabitants they control, and how much taxes they get. Thus you get an idea about the economic outlook of the place.

When I put those villages around the castle within a radius of about 3 hexes, I draw roads in between and get an idea about the "civilized" parts of the land.

Potential conflicts start to suggest themselves. Maybe a first mission for the PCs?

Don't forget to roll up the treasure for each castle. After all these are "Lairs". Other Lairs can be rolled up and developed as they come up in wilderness encounters.

It's a bit like rolling up a subsector in Classic Traveller ;-)

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Written by Michael / Chgowiz 🎲🎲 on 2024-12-30 at 15:49

@wandererbill @ng76 If you use the old MrJoshBear OD&D tools, a lot of those rolls can be automated too :)

I host a slightly modified (a clear button, mainly) version.

https://etinerra.com/oddtools/odd-referee.html

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Toot

Written by Laurens | Wanderer Bill 🌍 on 2024-12-30 at 15:54

@chgowiz oh, that's nice. I like that village function gives you numbers for "Fyrd".

After I just finished a first read through The First Fantasy Campaign, I wonder: do you understand Fyrd as the villages milicia or rather troops that may be raised given the circumstances and money? @ng76

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Descendants

Written by Michael / Chgowiz 🎲🎲 on 2024-12-30 at 16:02

@wandererbill @ng76 For me, and my wargames/AD&D campaign rules, it's both. Every village and above, as well as strongholds/forts/towers/castles, has a guard. (the militia).

But I also have mobilization rules for locales (Class A - Cities to Class F - < 10 villages per 26mi hex).

If I were doing same in OD&D, I'd probably find a happy agreement between my wargames approach and the OD&D RAW.

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