tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post4411389590563718244..comments2024-03-25T21:52:03.310-05:00Comments on Hill Cantons: AD&D's Domain Game: Growing a Demense from the Beautiful Chaos of Encounter TablesChris Kutalikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01414743509426875792noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-60996781963590973812012-04-26T14:48:39.429-05:002012-04-26T14:48:39.429-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Nagorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10805769538648631984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-74179832896805230292012-04-26T11:40:45.056-05:002012-04-26T11:40:45.056-05:00They were an army of two characters: Gromm, a 5th ...They were an army of two characters: Gromm, a 5th level half-orc cleric, and Charnan the Permanent Fiend, a 6th level human Fighter, both amoral miscreants who tended to wander around the Wilderlands, try various get rich schemes, run into trouble and flee while they still could. At least until they came to the village of Orthil, ruled by Narzugon the Evil Cleric. <br /><br />Here, they duped a party of three NPC adventurers into formenting a slave revolt, snuck into the local salt mines where all the NPCs perished (some PC manipulation was involved here), and defeated the garrison stationed there with a pack of commanded undead. This involved a whole lot of dumb luck. Then, freeing the slaves in the mines and arming them with the available equipment, they marched on the evil cleric's keep, who was arrogant enough to come out personally to put down the rebel scum, and unlucky enough to fall almost immediately. The rest was a mop-up, and the remaining guard at the keep immediately capitulated in exchange for given quarter and a chance to leave alive.<br /><br />After that, the rest of the campaign arc was half domain management, half exploration and traditional adventuring. This was all set in a dangerous environment with city states ruled by petty despots, a local dragon, the dungeons of Rappan Athuk on the same peninsula, and various adventure sites. Many of them were written in a way to allow for both skirmish combat between small armies (we used a variant of the EPT mass combat rules) and a more infiltration-oriented approach. It was a very casual game in some ways, and chock full of enthusiasm.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the game ended midway as two of the pool of four players emigrated to the UK, just as the party was cleaning out the dungeons of an ancient warlord (this was published as the free adventure Strabonus, available at http://fomalhaut.lfg.hu/2010/03/07/strabonus/ ).<br /><br />I later resurrected the same rules for a campaign centred on Tegel Manor and its vicinity; here, it was not as successful because the players spent too much time planning their actions and not enough actually doing something. Still, when it worked, it worked fine.Melanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07165894144553629675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-58645057335339515242012-04-26T11:01:05.495-05:002012-04-26T11:01:05.495-05:00Cool! Feel free.Cool! Feel free.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12508594597349248576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-86692764726890495032012-04-26T10:58:23.190-05:002012-04-26T10:58:23.190-05:00Taste wise those encounter charts would work prett...Taste wise those encounter charts would work pretty well in some of the areas of the Hill Cantons in the Weird. I may use some of them some time.Chris Kutalikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01414743509426875792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-26022191592622233122012-04-26T10:55:10.709-05:002012-04-26T10:55:10.709-05:00Love those kinds of backstories for published mate...Love those kinds of backstories for published material that was gamed. The Taxes and Death encounters look pitch perfect to the AD&D domain game. I'm curious, what level where they when they took control of the village? And how did that work in your sessions? How much of center stage did it become in other words?Chris Kutalikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01414743509426875792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-51729278931446951592012-04-26T05:44:59.908-05:002012-04-26T05:44:59.908-05:00About eight years ago, I started from the same tex...About eight years ago, I started from the same text when characters in my campaign took over a village ruled by an evil cleric and his minions (the scenario was published as <b>Slaughter in the Salt Pits</b> in Fight On! #13). I worked out a basic "random encounter" system for small settlements, which had random monsters settling nearby, colonists looking for a place to settle, visiting dignitaries and more. You can find the basic module, <b>Taxes and Death</b>, at http://www.judgesguild.com/fans/maps/taxes_death.pdf I think the frequency of encounters can be bumped up a bit, but the framework worked like a charm.Melanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07165894144553629675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-16578932156376158502012-04-26T05:22:41.796-05:002012-04-26T05:22:41.796-05:00what I'm going to grow a colony of wandering a...<em>what I'm going to grow a colony of wandering ankhegs, satyrs and stag beetles here</em><br />YES.<br /><br />This goes straight to my continuing efforts to assimilate the "standard" setting of DnD into my tiny brain. If your game world is like Vance's Dying Earth then sure, interdimensional wanderers, things based on half an insect and a nightmare, sarcastic smartass shrimp-critters, of course, you go hit them up for protection money and they want a quiet life so it's a negotiation, who can extract what from whom. Or any game of Carcosa that lasts more than a couple of sessions really ought to wind up with a little domain of men and not-men, living if not in harmony then at least in desperate mutual protection against something much worse. It's only if you insist that DnD is somehow a historical European feudal game that you could have any objection to this.<br /><br />...but for years somehow I fell into the trap of insisting that it really was such a feudal game. I suspect it was the weapons and armour tables that lead me down that road - if only there'd been a Klingon fighting barbecue or some rayguns or a Holtzman shield generator right there on the lists, I'd've <em>got it</em>. But there weren't, and there were all these magazine articles about "realism," so apparently I wasn't the only one who didn't <em>get it</em>. And so every time DnD threatened to turn into He-Man and the Masters of the Universe it would put me off and I'd go play something else, like CnS or Ars Magica. As if those somehow were less insane.<br /><br />...well, in a way they were. They were less inclusive. Less hell-bent on having fun.<br /><br />In the early 90s I played a bit of Serim Ral (hey look, it's <a href="http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list/descriptions/serim_ral.html" rel="nofollow">still around!</a>) which is a turn-based strategy domain game that sounds like it was based directly on this set of ideas you talk about right here. Your PCs are "leaders" and are drawn from any of the critters you attract/conquer. Once you recruit critters they all live "in your castle" (which means on your lands until an enemy shows up and then they claim shelter), cheerfully or fractiously. So you can wind up as a lich leading an army of men, goblins, elves and harpies, needing to expand in order to feed your levies, and clearing hexes and getting more levies and fighting next door's kingdom.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-77286791403178348822012-04-25T23:16:42.846-05:002012-04-25T23:16:42.846-05:00I hope that you keep discussing these. For years, ...I hope that you keep discussing these. For years, I overlooked a lot of this, and considered the domain level stuff to be largely missing in AD&D. Recently, I've been re-reading the DMG, and found a lot of these little references. Having someone go through them and collect them together is very helpful to me.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-81499078798505586482012-04-25T22:54:16.687-05:002012-04-25T22:54:16.687-05:00Inspirational.
Our group's noble master of th...Inspirational.<br /><br />Our group's noble master of the land is a player character: High Priest of Chadhros, the Grim Reaper of Pan Tang. He's the governor of a colonial backwater used to grow crops and supply slaves. The wilds around his demesne all have encounter tables, including the outlaying villages; but, I love the idea of doing encounter tables for the core settlement.<br /><br />FWIW, here's the Mist Marsh <a href="http://ewildebeast.blogspot.com/2012/01/swords-and-dark-sorcery-encounter.html" rel="nofollow">encounter tables</a>.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12508594597349248576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-55768672159071968632012-04-25T20:44:37.591-05:002012-04-25T20:44:37.591-05:00This has been a great series.This has been a great series.Zenopus Archiveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14069501995927451558noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-36043315884741693242012-04-25T16:55:40.727-05:002012-04-25T16:55:40.727-05:00That was the phrase that triggered the whole serie...That was the phrase that triggered the whole series.Chris Kutalikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01414743509426875792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-75480426943167711082012-04-25T15:24:49.162-05:002012-04-25T15:24:49.162-05:00pure awesome.pure awesome.UWS guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01277557128674527225noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1389986049507804094.post-86625459417942164512012-04-25T15:16:24.527-05:002012-04-25T15:16:24.527-05:00"Because this is a fantasy adventure game, it..."Because this is <i>a fantasy adventure game,</i> it is not desirable to have any player character's territory become tame and staid."<br /><br />I think that pretty much says it all.<br /><br />(Italics mine, obviously)Mirandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10745062840676790649noreply@blogger.com