Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Monster and Treasure Assortment

This was one of the first non-core book, non-adventure module gaming supplement I purchased. You've got the great Tramper cover art and other small pieces woven in. Basically this is a two sets of random tables divided between monster and treasure. The title wouldn't make much sense otherwise. And each set is divided into nine different levels. Formatting wise, what I love, is they wasted no space. Even the backside of the front and back covers are used.

I used this book to help populate my 'folder modules' (I used Manila folders and would staple my map to the inside and some information about the dungeon on the other so when we would play I would use it like a regular module from TSR). I would draw a dungeon on graph paper, number the rooms and then start rolling. All the treasure and monster tables use 100 entries in each. No duplication or fudging with saying on a roll of 44-48 1-6 Orcs. Each one is assigned one number.

An example room would be this. I'm going to use a 5th level table for both monster and treasure. I rolled a 88 for the monster so that gives me 1-4 Giant Rattlesnakes. And I rolled a 17 for the treasure giving me 1 jewelry worth 3000gp. Now in the front of the book are three tables for how to present the treasure. One is what is the treasure contained in, the next what is it guarded by (traps) and the last one is what is it hidden by. The contained and hidden b are d10 and the guarded by is a d16. So let's see what's going on with this treasure. The treasure is contained in an iron trunk, trapped with spring darts firing up from the top of the container and is hidden under a loose stone in the floor. Of course you may only want to roll on one or two of theses tables, but its fun to roll on all three and keep what you like.

I know I stocked a lot of dungeons using this book. It is simplistic and will make dungeons that have no rhyme or reason, but that's okay. It may spark some great ideas by positioning a couple of things near one another you would have normally never attempted.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this. I have this and sort of dismissed it for its very randomness but your mention of how the treasure is stored, protected and hidden piqued my interest again.

    I dug it out and I'm going to use those tables or revised version to help me generate hoards.

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  2. randomness is good, it helps spur the creative juices!

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