Movement Rates Across the Editions of D&D (Part III: WotC-era D&D)

In previous posts I examined the evolution of character movement rates across the TSR editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Now we turn to the 21st century, and the editions which brought many changes, for better or worse, to D&D.

D&D 3e (2000)

In some ways Third Edition D&D was a story of standardization and simplification, but it other ways the game became far more complex than ever. 

As in 2e, humans, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs move faster than dwarves, halflings, and gnomes, but the shorter races are now a little faster relative to their larger comrades than before, with base speeds of 30' and 20' rather than 12 and 6. Certain classes (e.g., barbarians and monks) have a bonus to their speed. These speeds represent feet per round in combat, but rounds are now defined as six seconds. ("Turn" has been abandoned as a defined amount of time, although many spells still have durations in the form of "10 minutes per caster level", so the notion lingers on from previous editions.) In a combat round, a PC can move their speed and take an action. By using that action to take a double move, they can move twice their speed in a round, or by running they can move quadruple their speed (but only triple if wearing heavy armor). Charging allows movement of up to double speed along with an attack at +2, but penalizes the PCs AC by 2 for a round.

These combat movement rates are fairly brisk, with an unarmored human moving at a base speed of about 6.8 mph if doing nothing other than moving. 

Wearing medium or heavy armor slows humans, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs to 20', and dwarves, gnomes, and halflings to 15'. This represents a simplified encumbrance system, and a more detailed encumbrance system is also offered, with the PC using which of the two penalties are worse. Encumbrance is divided into three categories (light, medium, and heavy loads) and these bands are determined by the PC's Strength score. Either a medium or heavy load reduces the PC's speed in the same way as medium or heavy armor does. Coins continue to weigh 50 to the pound, as in AD&D 2e.

Outside of combat, the same movement rates apply (i.e., an unarmored human walks 300' in a minute). There's no slow exploration speed as in previous editions, and no distinction is made in the rulebook between exploring a dungeon and walking overland or in a city, so it would seem that PCs are exploring the dungeon faster than ever.

D&D 3.5e (2003)

The "half edition" revision three years later didn't change any of the movement rules significantly, although the emphasis was increasingly placed on playing with miniatures on a battle map with a 5' grid. This reaches its peak in...

D&D 4e (2008)

Fourth Edition committed itself fully to the use of miniatures on a 5' grid. (Indeed, many would contend that 4e is nothing but a tactical miniatures game with D&D theming.) Movement rates are now given in squares, rather than feet. Most races have a base speed of 6 squares (i.e., 30'), while dwarves move 5 squares (25') and elves move 7 (35'). Perhaps oddly, even halflings move 6 squares!

Heavy armor (chainmail, scale armor, and plate armor) reduce speed by 1. Encumbrance has been radically simplified in some ways, while still being fiddly in others. All mundane equipment (but not magic items) has a weight specified in pounds. A PC can carry 10 times their Strength score in pounds without penalty. They can carry up to twice that at half speed. Coins continue to weigh 50 to the pound. (Although I personally don't have a ton of experience hiking or the like, these capacities seem unrealistic to me. I don't think the average human could carry 100 pounds all day long without being slowed down or fatigued.)

Exploration continues from 3e to use the combat speed extrapolated to feet per minute (e.g., a PC with speed 6 travels 300' per minute). The book notes that "if you're in a hurry" you can move at twice this rate with no penalty (similar to the ~7 mph "hustle" from 3e).

Combat rounds continue to be 6 seconds long. The term "turn" has now been entirely repurposed to mean an individual PC's actions within each combat round. In combat, PCs can move their speed and take an action. Another movement can be substituted for the action, so the double move notion from 3e is preserved, however these is no longer any concept of running at quadruple speed in combat. It has been replaced with a Run action that simply allows a PC to move their speed plus 2 squares (10') in exchange for significant penalties.

D&D 5e (2014)

Fifth Edition retained many of the simplifications and standardizing of 4e, but reframed them in a style of gameplay that felt much more familiar to players of 3e and earlier. Movement has returned to feet rather than squares (although 5e does retain an implicit focus on the battlegrid that is evident in the detailed way that many spells and class abilities work). Most races move 30', although dwarves move 25', wood elves move 35' (these two are holdovers from 4e, it seems), and halflings and gnomes move 25'. (Over the next decade, there was a general trend to standardize all races, even small ones, at a speed of 30'.) Many class abilities (especially for monks) modify speed.

Fifty coins continue to weight a pound. Encumbrance is now an entirely optional rule. The standard rule is that a PC can carry 15 times their Strength score in pounds without penalty, but no more. (Carrying 150 pounds all day without any negative effect seems wildly unrealistic.) The variant encumbrance rule allows 5 times the Strength score without penalty, up to 10 times at -10' to speed, and between 10 and 15 times at -20' to speed.

Exploration movement continues to be the same as it's been since 3e: 300' per minute, and this seems apply for all races and classes, regardless of their actual base speed. The rules now also offer a fast pace at 400'/minute at the cost of a -5 penalty to Perception checks, and a slow pace at 200'/minute that allows the use of Stealth.

Combat rounds continue to be 6 seconds, and "turns" retains the 4e sense of a player's turn in a round. In combat, the same basic system from 3e and 4e applies: PCs get a move and an action, and another move can be substituted for the action via the Dash action. Some classes (such as Rogues) get abilities allowing another Dash action as a bonus action on top of their normal movement and Dash action.

D&D 5.5e (2024)

The 2024 revision of the 5e rules did not substantially change the movement rates of PCs for either exploration or combat. Following the 5e trend, speeds are a minimum 30' for all PC races (now called species), with wood elves and goliaths having a speed of 35'.

Carrying capacity is now so reduced in emphasis as to be tucked away into a Rules Glossary at the back of the Player's Handbook. And the variant encumbrance rules are nowhere to be found! We have come a long way from the treasure-hunting version of D&D where players had to consider whether a bag of 500 gold pieces was worth the additional wandering monster checks it would incur them (if they even had enough torches left to exit the dungeon!). Now, a typical 1st-level fighter can carry up to 255 pounds without breaking a sweat.

To Be Continued...

I'm planning to finish up this series by looking at a few retroclones and "D&D-like" systems with which I'm familiar, to see if they've made any divergent choices regarding PC movement. 

Movement Rates Across the Editions of D&D (Part II: B/X, BECMI, AD&D 2e)

In my last post, I looked at the history of movement rates in early D&D, covering the products produced in the 1970s. Moving into the 1980s, let's look at the "Basic D&D" line and, at the end of the decade, AD&D Second Edition.

B/X D&D (1981) 

The 1981 Basic D&D rules edited by Tom Moldvay and its matching Expert rules edited by David Cook and Steve Marsh maintain the basic hierarchy of movement rates established by AD&D. However, the tracking of time within encounters returns to the 10-second rounds introduced in Holmes Basic D&D (exploration turns continue to be 10 minutes).

All PCs have a base movement rate of 120' per turn, matching AD&D. No distinction is made between any of the PC races. Encumbrance slows PCs as follows:

• Unarmored OR up to 400 coins: 120'
• Leather armor OR 401-600 coins: 90'
• Metal armor OR 601-800 coins: 60'
• Metal armor and carrying treasure OR 801-1600 coins: 30'
• Carrying treasure in addition to wearing armor: Use the movement speed one line lower than normal 

This represents a simplified version of AD&D encumbrance system, effectively making detailed weight tracking optional in favor of setting speed by the armor type and a vaguely defined "carrying treasure". For those who wish to track detailed weights, coins continue to be rather enormous at 10 to the pound, as they have been from the very start. The weight thresholds of the different movement speeds differ somewhat from the ones in AD&D, but the same progression of movement rates continues here.

Wandering monsters now occur on a 1 in 6, checked every two turns in the dungeon. This has never been consistent from edition to edition, even though it has a significant impact on the average distance the party can explore between encounters. The fatigue rule (the party must rest 1 turn after 5 turns of exploration) appears yet again.

This exploration movement rate is extraordinarily slow (0.14 mph for an unarmored PC, and as slow as a mere 180' in an hour for a heavily burdened PC!). The Basic rulebook does offer "The DM may wish to allow characters to move faster when travelling through areas they are familiar with." (In AD&D, Gary Gygax explicitly states that a party can move 5 times faster than normal when following a known route.)

Movement in combat per round is the base movement speed divided by three (i.e., 40'/round for an unarmored PC). This turns out to be exactly twice as fast as the combat speed in Holmes Basic or in AD&D. When fleeing a combat, PCs may move at their base movement rate per round (i.e., 60 times faster than the normal dungeon exploration speed!).

This series is mostly concerned with exploration and combat speeds at the dungeon scale, but it's worth pointing out that the Expert rulebook established that in the wilderness, all movement rates are defined in yards rather than feet (i.e., tripled). Somewhat oddly, missile weapon and spell ranges are also tripled (though spell area of effect is not). I believe this rule was also present in AD&D, also not particularly explicitly.

BECMI D&D (1983)

Frank Mentzer's revision and expansion of the B/X rules makes no significant changes to the B/X movement rates, although it adds at speed of 15' for encumbrance of 1601-2400 coins (and therefore expands the maximum carrying capacity from 1600 to 2400 coins). Instead of setting movement rates by armor time, Mentzer suggests that unarmored or leather armored PCs have a base encumbrance of 300 coins, and those wearing metal armor have a base encumbrance of 700 coins. This improves the movement speed for those in leather armor who are otherwise unencumbered by treasure.

AD&D 2e

AD&D Second Edition retains the one minute combat round and ten minute exploration turn from AD&D 1e. However, some significant changes have been made to movement rates.

For the first time since Chainmail, different PC races have different base speeds. Humans, elves, and half-elves have a base speed of 12, while the smaller races of dwarves, halflings, and gnomes have a base speed of 6. These speeds are defined as tens of yards per round outdoors, or tens of feet per round in a dungeon. This essentially replaces the "per turn" exploration rate of previous editions, amounting to a tenfold increase in exploration speed! (An unarmored human walks at 1.36 mph in the dungeon, or 4 mph in clear terrain; these speeds seem much more reasonable than previous exploration rates.)

Encumbrance is explicitly declared an optional rule, which is probably for the best because it is more complicated than ever, with a table mapping Strength scores and weight carried (now in pounds, rather than coins) to an encumbrance level, which reduces movement as it increases. Alternately, another table maps Strength into a very granular scale of carrying capacities, giving a smooth movement rate from 1 to the racial base speed. Incidentally, coins have now shrunk to a much more realistic 50 coins to the pound!

Combat movement is the familiar tens of feet per round. However, the rules state that a PC may only move half their speed and still make a melee attack. This replaces a complex 1e rule in which PCs may not attack on the same round in which they close to melee range except by using a charge, which allows double their movement and an attack but can only be done once per turn, and encumbered PCs may not charge at all.

As far as I can tell, the feet/yards scaling of dungeon/wilderness movement and ranges has been entirely dropped for combat movement.

Wandering monsters (now called random encounters) have been severely reduced in emphasis. The Dungeon Master's Guide provides substantial advice on creating encounter tables and suggests frequencies and chances in different terrain types, and suggests that in a typical dungeon, random encounters happen on a 1 in 10, checked every hour. This is significantly less frequent than the 1 in 6 every 20 minutes of the Basic D&D line!

To Be Continued...

So, at the end of the '80s, where do we stand? AD&D 2e characters are now zipping around the dungeon at 10 times the speed of BECMI characters, but an unarmored and unencumbered human can only move 60' in a 1-minute combat round and still attack, while the equivalent BECMI PC can move twice as fast, covering 20' in 10 seconds. Did any of this minutia factor into the written adventures of the era, when many people freely interchanged AD&D and D&D modules? Very doubtful!

Next time, I will look at the 21st century evolution that occurred in PC movement rates after Wizards of the Coasts acquired D&D from TSR. And finally, we'll wrap up this series by looking at some of the retroclones and "D&D-likes" that have popped up over the years and see whether they diverge from their parent games in this regard.

Movement Rates Across the Editions of D&D (Part I: OD&D, Holmes, and AD&D)

One of my hopes for 2026 is to get an ongoing in-person home campaign running again, using the DCC RPG rules. For public games, which are often one-shots, I tend to handwave many aspects of the game that I would be much more rigorous about in an ongoing home campaign. Mechanics for exploration (encumbrance, movement, etc.) are a bit of a blank spot in DCC, on the assumption that the judge will be familiar with earlier editions of D&D and will adapt their favorite version of such rules into their game. So I've been researching how past editions handled these mechanics, in order to decide how I will handle them in my game. I thought I would compile a brief history of how each edition of D&D (and offshoot games like DCC) have handled player character movement over the years, partly for my own reference, but hopefully this might prove interesting to others.

Chainmail (1971) 

Even though it was a tabletop wargame rather than a role-playing game, Chainmail was essentially the primordial soup from which D&D formed, so it's worth reviewing how it handled movement speeds.

In each turn (defined as one minute of time in battle), each player gets one move (potentially split in half). Relevant to D&D PCs are the following unit types and their movement: Armored Foot (6"), Heavy Foot (9"), and Light Foot (9"). The scale is 1" to 10 yards, giving movement rates of 180', 270', and 270' in a minute, respectively. There are also several unit types which get a 12" move: Landsknechte/Swiss, Arquibusiers/Crossbowmen, and Longbowmen.

There is a fatigue rule in which moving for 5 consecutive turns incurs penalties, which are removed by one turn of non-movement.

Finally, the "fantasy supplement" at the end of the booklet specifies speeds of 6" for dwarves and 12" for elves and (oddly) halflings.

Original Dungeons & Dragons (1974)

Men & Magic (Volume 1 of the three little brown books) mentions movement rates only in terms of encumbrance. A PC carrying up to 750 gold pieces of weight moves at the speed equal to Light Foot Movement (12"). (But note that this doesn't actually map to the speed of Light Foot in Chainmail.) Between 750 and 1,000 gold pieces, a PC moves as Heavy Foot Movement (9"), and between 1,000 and 1,500 gold pieces as Armored Foot Movement (6"). Above 1,500 gold pieces a PC incurs a half-speed penalty (i.e., 3"). These speeds are described as being per turn. Men & Magic does not define "turn", so we might initially presume it remains 1 minute as in Chainmail.

However, Volume 3, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, does define turns and explains how to scale inches to feet: "In the underworld all distances are in feet, so wherever distances are given in inches convert them to tens of feet. Movement (distances given in Vol. 1) is in segments of approximately ten minutes. Thus it takes ten minutes to move about two moves - 120 feet for a fully-armored character. Two moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situations where the moves/turn will be doubled (and no mapping allowed)." This actually contradicts what Volume 1 said (e.g., 6"/turn for an armored footman), but at least we have clarity on how far a PC can move. In a 10 minute turn a PC receives two moves at their movement speed at a 1":10' scale, giving us the following movement rates (at least in the underworld):

• 0 - 750 gp weight: 240' 
• 750 - 1,000 gp weight: 180'
• 1,000 - 1,500 gp weight: 120'

OD&D does not differentiate the four PC races; all travel at the same speeds as determined by their encumbrance.

I'll note that 240' in 10 minutes is barely a quarter of a mile per hour, much slower than the 360' in 1 minute (~4 mph) that the equivalent character in Chainmail travels. It is logical that one would travel much slower in a dangerous dark dungeon than on an open plain, but this does seem ludicrously slow.

OD&D requires that one turn every hour must be spent motionless, which is a direct translation of Chainmail's fatigue rule. There are ten rounds of combat per turn, making a round 1 minute (so the duration of each combat "action" remains the same as in Chainmail; it's just the terminology that has changed). It isn't clear to me, though, how the speed in inches translates to each combat round. (But to be blunt, the entire combat system is extremely vaguely described in OD&D!)

Wandering monsters appear on a 1 in 6, rolled at the end of every turn.

Basic D&D / Holmes (1977)

The Holmes Basic D&D set was being developed concurrently with Advanced D&D, and it is interesting to see how they diverge. Speeds are translated from inches into feet, but the overall movement rates from OD&D are retained (all speeds are per 10 minute turn):

• Unarmored and unencumbered: 240'
• Fully armored, or heavily loaded: 120'
• Fully armored and heavily loaded: 60'

These speeds are explicitly stated as "exploring/mapping" speeds, and the rules allow for PCs to move at double speed when "moving normally", or triple speed when running.

Oddly, all monster speeds are given as feet/turn, but they all in the range of 60'/turn, 90'/turn, 120'/turn, etc. It appears that only PCs receive two moves per turn, and monsters simply take their base speed once!

Combat rounds are now stated to be 10 seconds long. An unarmored PC moves 20' per round, and an armored PC moves only 10'.

Wandering monsters still occur on 1 in 6, but now the die is only rolled every three rounds. So although exploration speeds are the same as in OD&D, the relative "speed" of distance between wandering monster encounters has tripled!

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977-1979)

For as much mockery as the AD&D books receive for being unclear and difficult to understand, they do in fact finally establish some unambiguous movement rules, although PCs are moving slower than ever.

In the dungeon, turns continue to be 10 minutes long. AD&D continues OD&D's combat rounds of 1 minute, but now they are divided into 10 6-second segments.

The Players Handbook reiterates the usual movement rates at 1":10', but now they are per turn, rather than two moves per turn:

• Normal gear (up to 350 coins): 12"
• Heavy gear (up to 700 coins): 9"
• Very heavy gear (up to 1050 coins): 6"
• Encumbered (over 1050 coins): 3" to 4"

Perhaps to make up for the halving of speed, the rules now allow movement at 5 times the normal speed when following a known route or map.

Combat speed (or when fleeing) is 10 times faster, or in other words, the same numeric values apply per round rather than per turn. Even though the duration of a combat round is different, this ends up being the same combat movement speed as in Holmes D&D (20' in 10 seconds for an unarmored PC).

When moving in an inhabited area like a city, movement occurs at combat speed, but no mapping is allowed. (If PCs are mapping in a city they move at the dungeon exploration rate.) This casual speed is still quite slow at only about 1.4 mph for an unarmored PC.

The Dungeon Master's Guide reiterates the "rest after every 5 turns of movement" rule, and the sample dungeon example implies a wandering monster check every three turns (although no explicit general rule is given).

To Be Continued...

In the next post I will look at the various Classic D&D editions of the '80s, as well as the significant changes made in AD&D 2e.

Shudder Mountains Starting Equipment Values

As a followup to my earlier post compiling prices for DCC RPG starting trade goods, here is a similar list for the custom occupations list provided by the Sour Spring Hollow adventure in The Chained Coffin, an adventure and campaign setting for DCC RPG. The book details the Shudder Mountains, a region inspired by the Appalachian Mountains as portrayed in the Silver John stories by Manly Wade Wellman. Many of the occupations are the same as in the core DCC RPG rulebook, but some have been removed and a few new ones added, to better fit the Appalachian setting. There were a few new trade goods on this list, so I've done the same research as described in the previous post, and here is a list of the items that do not have values given by the core rulebook.

All of the same notes and caveats from the previous post also apply here.

Item	Cost in gp	Notes
Awl	2
Barrel	2
Black grimoire	40	100 pages of parchment
Bundle of wood	5 cp	enough firewood for 1 day
Chisel	2
Clay jug	6 sp
Clay, 1 lb.	2 cp
Cleaver	8 sp
Cow hide	4 sp
Deer pelt	3 sp
Fiddle	20
Fine stone, 10 lbs.	1	granite or marble
Flour, 1 lb.	2 cp
Flute	5
Hen	2 cp
Herbs, 1 lb.	5 cp
Herding dog	17
Iron, 10 lbs.	5 sp
Parchment and quill pen	15 sp, 2 cp	5 sheets of parchment and one quill
Pick	6
Pitchfork	1
Pushcart	8
Quill	2 cp
Rag doll	5 cp
Shoehorn	2 sp
Shovel	2
Side of pork	1	approx. 30 lbs.
Sifting basket	3 sp
Steel helmet	20	treat as Full-face helmet in Crawl #2
Steel tongs	2
Waterproof sack	2 sp
Wood, 10 lbs.	5 cp	approx. two 3' long 2x4s

 

Values for DCC RPG Occupation Trade Goods

New characters in Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG have a randomly determined occupation, which in turn gives them a starting weapon and some sort of "trade good" appropriate to their occupation. The DCC RPG rulebook suggests that these trade goods might be useful in the dungeon but might also be traded or sold. However, despite calling these items "trade goods", the book neglects to place a monetary value on them! What's the judge to do when a player asks if they can sell the side of beef or 3 square yards of fabric they've been lugging around?

After having the question arise in several games and having to come up with an ad hoc estimate, I decided to go through the occupations list and derive values for each of the starting weapons and trade goods that didn't already have prices. These values come from a variety of sources from the old school D&D constellation, tweaked as seemed appropriate for the DCC economy. These sources included (in roughly this order of priority): 

• Crawl! #2, a DCC RPG fanzine issue that includes an expanded equipment list, with prices in line with the DCC economy
• The AD&D 2e Player's Handbook, which is highly recommended for what is probably the most comprehensive equipment list suitable for any kind of old school fantasy setting
• The D&D 3.5e Player's Handbook, for a few items that other sources did not cover
• The Dolmenwood Player's Book, the Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player Tome, and Carcass Crawler #3. I frequently find the prices deriving from the "Basic D&D" lineage to be extremely inflated (always specified in gold pieces and probably a relic of the "XP for gold" mechanic), but I borrowed a few prices that seemed reasonable from these sources.
• Grain Into Gold. This is an outstanding effort to create a plausible medieval fantasy economy, and I used it as a "sanity check" on values, or borrowed values outright when no other source covered an item.

One source I didn't use directly was the original AD&D Players Handbook. Although it has a decent-sized equipment list, one has to be careful because in 1e, a gold piece was equal to 20 silver pieces, as opposed to the 10 sp we have been used to since 2e. Thus, we either have to assume that 1e copper and silver pieces are worth half as much as "modern" equivalents, or assume that copper and silver are the same but the gold piece is worth twice as much. I found it easier to just lean on other sources instead.

A brief note about the "DCC economy": Obviously, we are not trying to accurately simulate a medieval economy here. That is a fool's errand (especially when our understanding of the actual historical medieval economy is fragmentary at best!), and our players probably don't care that much. But it is nice to have things feel at least plausible and within an order of magnitude, shall we say. In judging or setting prices, I attempted to keep things in line with the equipment prices already given in the DCC RPG rulebook, keeping in mind that everything in this world is made by hand, etc.

I use basic living expenses as a rule of thumb. A pint of weak, homebrewed ale, being the medieval equivalent of bottled water, is worth about a copper piece or two. The DCC rulebook says that a day of rations (i.e., hard tack and jerky) costs 5 cp. A simple meal at a tavern would be a few silver pieces. A night at an inn ranges from a silver piece for a spot on the floor of the common room to a couple of gold pieces for the nicest lodgings a town has to offer. Very roughly, I view a copper piece as equivalent to one US dollar (circa 2025), making a silver piece equal to $10, and a gold piece to $100. This won't always reflect modern prices for the same items, but should get you close enough to "How many days of lunches is this worth?" to keep things plausible. I find it a useful calibration when determining how much treasure to place as well.

One last note: If you allow your new Level 0 PCs to trade or sell their starting equipment, I would recommend giving them no more than half the listed values in exchange. How much would you pay for an unrefrigerated slab of beef of dubious provenance from a desperate looking man who is quitting his job as a butcher to become an "adventurer"?

So without further ado, here are my suggested values for all of the weapons and trade goods on the DCC occupation table that do not already have prices listed in the rulebook. You'll note immediately that some occupations provide much more valuable heirlooms than others. Such are the vagaries of luck! I've arranged them alphabetically, as they are written in the DCC RPG rulebook. I hope you find this table useful, and please feel free to comment if you have questions or suggestions.

Item	Cost in gp	Notes
Awl	2
Badger pelt	7 cp
Barrel	2
Begging bowl	4 cp	clay bowl
Black grimoire	40	100 pages of parchment
Book	40	100 pages of parchment
Bundle of wood	5 cp	enough firewood for 1 day
Cheese dip	1 sp
Chicken meat, 5 lbs.	15 cp
Chisel	2
Clay, 1 lb.	2 cp
Cleaver	8 sp
Cow	10
Crowbar	2
Crutches	1 sp
Cudgel	3
Deer pelt	3 sp
Dice	5 cp
Duck	3 cp
Fabric, 3 yards	12 sp
Falcon	20	untrained
Fine dirt, 1 lb.	2 cp
Fine stone, 10 lbs.	1	granite or marble
Fine suit of clothes	10
Fine suits, 3 sets	30
Fine tools	25	treat as thieves' tools
Flour, 1 lb.	2 cp
Fruit	5 sp	1 bushel
Glass beads	1	bag of 20 beads/marbles
Gloves, 4 pairs	4
Goat	1
Goose	5 cp
Hen	2 cp
Herbs, 1 lb.	5 cp
Herding dog	17
Hex doll	5 cp
Iron helmet	10	treat as Standard helmet in Crawl #2
Jar of honey	15 cp	8 oz jar
Knife	5 sp
Linen, 1 yard	5 sp
Locket	2
Mithril, 1 oz.	30	Tolkien said mithril was worth "ten times its weight in gold"
Net	1
Parchment and quill pen	15 sp, 2 cp	5 sheets of parchment and one quill
Parchment, 10 sheets	3
Pick	6
Pitchfork	1
Pushcart	8
Quality cloak	8 sp
Quill	2 cp
Rag doll	5 cp
Razor	5 sp
Sack of night soil	5 cp
Sailcloth, 2 yards	4 sp
Scissors	1
Sheep	2
Shoehorn	2 sp
Shovel	2
Side of beef	5	approx. 100 lbs
Silk clothes	20
Small chest	1
Sow	3
Spyglass	25
Steel helmet	20	treat as Full-face helmet in Crawl #2
Steel tongs	2
Steel vial	1
Stick	0
Stinky cheese	2 sp	1 lb
Strange-looking rock	0
Tarot deck	8
Trowel	1
Ukulele	25
Waterproof sack	2 sp
Wood, 10 lbs.	5 cp	approx. two 3' long 2x4s
Wooden crate	1

My Public Open Table Campaign

For the past year or so, I've been running Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG games at local game shops. It has had its ups and downs (we've had two shops go out of business beneath us!) but it has been great to play in person, and expose quite a few new players to tabletop role playing games, and to DCC RPG.

If you're in the Western New York area, feel free to join us for a game (or for a long term campaign). DCC RPG plays a lot like old school D&D, but with the wild chaos turned up to 11! It goes back to the sword & sorcery and weird fiction roots of D&D, and then provides mechanics that emulate that genre even better than the original game.

Maybe you played D&D a long time ago and would like to recapture that feel of never knowing what's going to happen in a game? Or maybe you're currently playing D&D 5e but would like to try something that plays faster and wilder? My goal with these games is to accommodate busy schedules, by being completely amenable to dropping in and out as your situation allows. Play as little or as much as you like, or drop in and try it out once! The campaign is typically episodic, jumping from adventure to adventure without getting bogged down in the details of how we get from one to another, as befits the source literature. There's no long term commitment and there are no fees to play.

 

I've created a permanent page on this blog with all of the details about the public games along with my contact information. I invite interested readers to check it out and get in touch!

 

DCC Buffalo 

Idalium Game 118: The Great Wizard Quiquaequod

Session date: Monday, November 4, 2019
Game date: Monday, November 14, 211 to Sunday, November 27, 211

PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 74051/140000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 4, hp 15, xp 12678/16000
Adrien, Fighter 4, hp 16, xp 12713/16000

Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 18334/32000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 4, hp 18, xp 6032/12000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 2701/4000
Boe, Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 926/2000

Unusually, we picked up the game just a couple days later in "game time", so that the adventurers could seek a cure for Caryatid, who had gazed upon the face of Atropos the medusa witch and been turned into a granite statue. But because we employed retainers in our game, Caryatid's player did not have to sit the session out, but instead she played the role of Caryatid's retainer, Father Chase Pike.

Father Chase informed the group that no one in his church hierarchy had the power to restore a statue to living flesh, and none of the adventurers knew of a wizard powerful enough to do so. They decided to contact the highest level wizard they were aware of: Caryatid's former teacher and mentor, a Granny Weatherwax who lived near the town of Lancre, roughly 15 miles to the east of Idalium. (Yes, we have at least one Terry Pratchett fan in the group.) They sent a letter describing Caryatid's plight and asked for any advice or leads she could offer. On Saturday, November 19th, they received a reply from Granny Weatherwax. She wrote that such magic was beyond even her grasp, but she did know of a wizard in Idalium that possessed such power: the Great Quiquaequod. Years ago he had been an adventurer himself, but now, as a Wizard of the Twelfth Circle, he was a recluse secluded in his tower in a wealthy neighborhood of Idalium. She wrote that his tower was protected by strange magics that kept it hidden from view from neighboring streets, and that one would most likely need to be led there by one of the wizard's apprentices.

The adventurers garbed themselves in their nicest clothes and combed their hair for a change, in hopes of receiving a good reception in the well-heeled craftsmen's quarter, and set out in search of the reclusive wizard. They made their way through the rougher quarters of the city, through the grand plaza that bordered the Great Cathedral of Idalium, and into a neighborhood they had very rarely visited before. It was a neighborhood of well-kept shops and businesses catering to the well-to-do with time and money to spare. The neatly swept streets were narrow and crooked, making navigation confusing enough even without an illusion-cloaked wizard's tower as their destination.

They stopped into a few shops and cafes, asking discreetly about the wizard's tower without much success, until they found an antique shop whose proprietor said she occasionally sold various knickknacks to apprentices of the Great Quiquaequod. "Well, I don't think his tower can be that far away, although I've never seen it myself. Some kind of enchantment on it, I believe." Father Chase bought a little statuette of a winged monkey for 10 gold darics, to thank the owner for the information.

Outside the shop, the group decided to take a different approach. Perhaps you could only find the tower if you weren't actively looking for it. They blindfolded Gulleck and she blundered around the streets aimlessly, but after a few collisions with irate passersby they abandoned this tactic. Then they decided to walk around abstractly while pointedly not thinking about the tower, but this proved impossible. They stood in the street debating the nature of the magic. Should they map the neighborhood? Is the tower hidden inside a block they can't get to? There was some metagame analysis about what kind of puzzle this was likely to be. In the end, they resumed asking around at nearby shops. They found a bookshop where the bookseller said, "Oh yes, I've only seen the wizard himself once or twice, but one of his apprentices was just in the other day to buy some very expensive paper and inks. The adventurers left a message with the bookseller for the apprentice, saying they were seeking help that only the most powerful wizard could provide. Then, having done all they could think of to find the tower, they returned to the humbler and grimier streets they were familiar with.

Two days later, a messenger came to the Rusty Lantern tavern with a note instructing them to meet next Saturday at the bookshop where they had left their message. And so, on Saturday, November 26th, they returned to the bookshop to be greeted by two young men wearing green robes with the interrobang sigil embroidered on the front in white thread. The two apprentice wizards heard the party's case, and said that they would escort the group to the tower of the Shining One, Quiquaequod, where one of them would be granted an audience with the Shining One himself. The wizards led them through the streets of the craftsmen's quarter, taking them down back alleys that no one could remember noticing before, and suddenly emerging onto a street containing a tall and narrow tower that rose high above all the adjacent buildings.

They were brought into the tower and into a simple sitting room, where another apprentice greeted them. They noticed that the whites of his eyes were "bloodshot" with bright green veins. He explained to them that the Shining One was deeply immersed in communion with the Essence of the Shining Chrysanthemum, and that one of the group would have to partake of the Essence and join the Shining One in the Communion, to prove his seriousness of purpose. Father Chase bravely stepped forward, his loyalty for his employer Caryatid triumphing over any anxiety he might have felt. The apprentice brought forth a small glass flask of bright green liquid and offered it to Father Chase. He drank it down, flinching at the overwhelming taste of licorice. His stomach twisted and shuddered at the unfamiliar and potent elixir, but Father Chase held it down, even as he felt an unusual light-headedness percolate through him. The apprentice told him that he needed to enter the Shining One's chamber empty-handed, and as Father Chase handed over his few belongings, the other adventurers noticed that the pupils of his eyes were completely dilated to the point where no iris was visible, and the whites were already shot through with veins of vivid green.

Father Chase was escorted deeper into the tower by the apprentice. He grew more and more woozy as he was led through long halls and up and down flights of stairs. He became vaguely aware that none of these hallways seemed like they should fit into the tower as they had seen it from the outside, but then he got distracted by what seemed like great mystical significance of the interrobang sigil on the back of the wizard's robe. Finally, a door was opened and he was ushered into a darkened room. An elderly man with a long white beard reclined in a padded chair on the far side of the room, clad in simple white robes. A single prismatic skylight at the top of the arched ceiling scattered scintillating rainbows across the dark room. A brazier burned incense and herbs in the center of the room, in front of the man, and opposite the brazier was another, less ornate chair. The man gestured to the chair with a nod, and Father Chase took his seat. Things were getting very strange for Father Chase now, and he looked around as colorful flowers seemed to bloom and dissolve in the dark corners of the room.

"We... I... need your help. I... this is... I don't understand what's happening," Father Chase stuttered, but the old man raised a finger. His lips did not move, but a voice filled Father Chase's head. "Don't speak. Let go of your fear. Find the center point in the chaos." Father Chase took a deep breath and managed to master his near-panic. The urgent whorls of coruscating color surrounding the Shining One subsided into a more subtle twinkling as Father Chase gazed into the black pools of his pupils.

"Very good," echoed the voice of the wizard. "What brings you to seek audience with the Great Quiquaequod?" In the smoke rising from the brazier, Father Chase saw small interrobang glyphs form and rise lazily through the air before losing shape and dissolving back into the smoke.

Having to focus to "speak" without speaking, Father Chase was surprised to hear his own voice echoing in the shared mental space between the two men. "My friends and I are adventurers. One of my friends was turned to stone by a monstrous witch deep below the city. Only the most powerful of wizards, such as yourself, can help her." Wisps of smoke drifted together to form the face of Caryatid, eyes staring blindly.

"I was an adventurer once myself," the Shining One replied, his eyes narrowing. "I lost several friends in the course of that career. These things happen. Why should they concern me? The physical world is largely irrelevant to me today. All that is of interest is here, in the Communion. Here I commune with the servitors of the true consciousness that underlies all reality. Why should I distract myself to deal with your trivial setback?" Rainbowed chrysanthemums bloomed in the smoke, and in the darkness behind the wizard's chair.

"Oh, Great Quiquaequod," flattered Father Chase, "Truly you operate on a different level from the rest of us mere mortals. But even you must need material wealth to pursue your research. We are prepared to pay well for your services."

The wizard's mouth curved into a tiny smile. "Indeed, there is a need for coin to fund my researches and to procure my stock of the Shining Chrysanthemum. I will deign to help you, for 2,000 gold darics and your assistence in retrieving a small item for me from the home of a colleague who has left this plane of existence and has no further use for it."

Father Chase agreed to the terms, and the Shining One reached down to a small table next to his chair and picked up a small glass flask of milky white liquid.

"Drink this," his voice echoed.

"What does it do?" asked Father Chase.

"Nothing, so long as you are making progress on your work for me. It is merely insurance on my investment."

Quiquaequod extended the potion and Father Chase reached out his hand to take it, and found himself holding the cold glass vial, even though he was dimly aware that there were at least 10 feet, plus a burning brazier, between them. He drank down the liquid and winced as he felt it squirming down his esophagus as though alive. Again his stomach twisted uncomfortably, as he felt the strange liquid settle in.

The wizard told Father Chase to return to the tower tomorrow morning with the statue of Caryatid. Father Chase rose from the chair and stumbled out of the dark room, blinking in the bright light outside. He was escorted back to the rest of the adventurers. They left the tower and Father Chase had the strangest trip through the city of his life, making their way back to the Rusty Lantern.

The next day, Sunday November 27th, the group reunited. Father Chase felt mostly back to normal now (the sky had stopped undulating, at least) but as they returned to the craftsmen's quarter he somehow knew how to retrace his steps to the tower of the Shining One. They wheeled Caryatid's statue along with them in a wheelbarrow, drawing stares from the passing crowds. In the tower, two apprentices took the wheelbarrow through a door while another apprentice escorted the party through many hallways and staircases. They eventually arrived in a simple dining room. Sunshine streamed through large windows on one wall (they could see the rooftops of the surrounding neighborhood below them) and the Great Quiquaequod sat at a long table, eating from a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. Father Chase marveled at the change in the wizard, who seemed like a perfectly ordinary man now, elderly yet oddly spritely. Only the green veins in the whites of his eyes belied the mundanity of the scene. That, and the statue of Caryatid, which had already been delivered to the room and was standing next to the now empty wheelbarrow.

"Ah, there you are. And there's the unfortunate young lady!" smiled the wizard. "Let me just finish my breakfast and we'll have her sorted right out. You can just leave the coins on the table there, thank you."

He stood up and placed a hand on the granite arm of Caryatid and murmured words of power. Underneath his hand, the stone gained color, the green of Caryatid's robes. The green spread from his hand across the statue, and then her hands returned to flesh, her backpack changed back to leather, and her head returned to flesh and hair. She gasped and averted her eyes, covering her face with her sleeve. Then, realizing that she was somewhere else, she looked around in wonder and confusion.

Explanations were made, and then Quiquaequod spoke to them about the other part of his payment. "Not too far from here, just a few day's travel, is the tower of an old colleague of mine. A wizard named Castanamir. He has fled this realm of existence. I would like you to go to his tower and retrieve a certain manuscript of Castanamir's. He had been researching certain elemental spirits from another plane of reality, called gingwatzim. I would very much like to acquire this book. Castanamir will not be coming back to this world, so anything you wish to take from his tower for yourself is of no concern to me."

He drew forth a large brass key and a strange wooden rod. "This is the key to Castanamir's tower. It is no ordinary lock, but it amused him to make it appear so. The tower has powerful charms that will prohibit the removal of any of Castanamir's possessions from it, but this rod will nullify those protections on any five items. One of them must be the book, but as to the other four, choose wisely."

Quiquaequod took another bite of scrambled eggs. "Well, if you have no other questions, you'd best be on your way. Time is of the urgency, as I hope you in particular understand, Father Chase."

The sinister undertones of that last comment were left hanging in the air as the party took their leave from the Shining One and left the tower with their empty wheelbarrow. The wizard has told them the tower was near the village of Oakhaven, several days travel to the east of Idalium. He said that Father Chase would know if they were heading in the right direction or not. And so, the adventurers began to make plans for an unexpected excursion away from Idalium, into the nearby wilderness...