We just had our third DCC Greyhawk session, our intrepid heroes have escaped the Undercells of the Order of the Viridian Star, made sure that the foul demon Mabogog remained imprisoned, and are travelling east as a 1st level party to find the last rogue member of the cultish Order, an elf named Tanfalas.
As they journey into the wider world, I think about what are they going to run into? Famous NPCs from Greyhawk seeded into our game, everyone from Elmo Renton to Melf the Magician ... and it makes me think about what kind of power level exists in Greyhawk.
Greyhawk is down and grungy, and while there are the lofty mages of the Circle of Eight, the demigod Iuz treads the land, and retired soldiers and heroes abound, it's not quite the power level of the Forgotten Realms, but certainly more than the DCC Core Rules set out to be.
I agree with the base premise, commoners or 0-level characters are 95% of the population -- but 7th level characters being limited to 'one per continent'? Seems a little off. My last DCC campaign got up to 7th level, and while the players were Conan-level-fearsome-at-what-they-do-kings-shall-take-note, they weren't that out of place.
Enter Populated Hexes Monthly by Third Kingdom Games! Their Domain supplement (which is free or pay what you want) can be found here. They have some great ideas of setting market sizes for various population centers, and then determining what levels of NPCs are in that settlement. It's built for OSE, ranking up to level 14, so I tweaked the idea for DCC levels 1-10, and provide it in the table below.
So Verbobonc, with 11,000 people, will likely have a few powerful NPCs over level 5, and Hommlet with a population of around 300 might have a couple of level 3 or higher. Seems right. Especially with the nextpage in the Core rules stating NPCs get experience, likely at a rate of 1 XP per year, so 1st or 2nd level farmers and blacksmiths are quite possible.
Thoughts? Drop me a note at archadethered@gmail.com
Heroes
Heroes and
monsters are both rare. When populating non-player characters in your world,
use these guidelines based on market size of a town or other settlement for the
frequency with which higher-level characters appear.
Domain Demographics (% of population)
|
Level |
M1-2 <100 |
M3-4 101+ |
M5-6 1001+ |
M7-8 5001+ |
M9-10 50001+ |
|
0 |
95% |
95% |
95% |
95% |
95% |
|
1 |
3% |
3% |
3% |
3% |
3% |
|
2 |
1d4 |
1% |
1% |
1% |
1% |
|
3 |
1d4-1 |
1d4 |
2d4 |
3d4 |
4d4 |
|
4 |
1d3-1 |
1d4-1 |
1d4 |
2d4 |
3d4 |
|
5 |
1d2-1 |
1d3-1 |
1d4-1 |
1d4 |
2d4 |
|
6 |
-- |
1d2-1 |
1d3-1 |
1d4-1 |
1d4 |
|
7 |
-- |
-- |
1d2-1 |
1d3-1 |
1d4-1 |
|
8 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
1d2-1 |
1d3-1 |
|
9 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
1d2-1 |
|
10 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
No comments:
Post a Comment