Type of Guards / Retainers in Castle

[Vile Traveller]

I'm having a bit of a brain lock looking at the Type of Guards / Retainers in Castle table on p.15, reproduced below. How do you choose which of the four columns to roll on? Or do you roll once on each column? By the way, what the hell are "S'bucks"? Given that this book predates the well-known coffee chain by a few years.

Die	Occupant	Die 1	2	3	4
1	Lord	1d8 Champions	1d6 Griffons*	1d10 Myrmidons	1d4 Giants
2	Superhero	1d8 Myrmidons	1d4 Rocs*	1d4 Ogres	1d10 S'bucks
3	Wizard	1d4 Dragons	1d4 Chimeras	1d4 Wyverns	1d4 Basilisks
4	Necromancer	1d4 Chimeras	1d6 Manticores	1d12 Lycanthropes	1d12 Gargoyles
5	Patriarch	1d20 Heroes	1d6 Superheroes	1d10 Ents	1d8 Hippogriffs*
6	Evil High Priest	1d10 Trolls	1d6 Vampires	1d20 White Apes	1d10 Spectres

* With a like number of Heroes riding these creatures.

[derv]

1d6 for occupant, then 1d4 for retinue.

S'bucks= Swashbuckler or level 5 fighter.

*you then would go to p.16 and determine number of guards that aid in defense of castle (30-180 on the walls or 3d6x10). These are all low level fighters.

[thorswulf]

I once randomly generated a wilderness using the rules for it in Fight On #2 and used this chart for castles and villages/towns. The Lord and his heroes riding Rocs was a fun combo, as was the Evil High Priest in his Temple of the Accursed One gaurded by white apes!

[Scott Anderson]

Reproducing this table using only six-siders was fun.

[Vile Traveller]

Thanks for the answers, everyone. I have actually been using the 1d6-then-1d4 method as a house rule, but I couldn't see it spelled out so I was wondering whether there might be some other explanation elsewhere in the book that I was missing.

[derv]

It isn't well explained on p.16 that the castle occupant might also have partners too.

For example, if you roll a 2 on a d6 to determine that the castle is occupied by a Superhero. Then on the following table, you would roll 1d4 (or die of choice) with a roll of 1 indicating he is accompanied by a Magic-user or a roll of 1-2 indicating a Cleric. You would then roll another 1d4 (+4) to determine what level the Magic-user or Cleric is. All the levels determined for that table are 1d4 rolls.

[coffee]

I think it isn't explained because the author(s) truly never thought they'd need to tell people how to roll on a table. It was just something they took for granted.

Remember, D&D was initially written for the wargaming crowd, where such things would have been commonplace.

[coffee]

Feb 15, 2015 14:14:17 GMT -6 coffee said:

I think it isn't explained because the author(s) truly never thought they'd need to tell people how to roll on a table. It was just something they took for granted.

Remember, D&D was initially written for the wargaming crowd, where such things would have been commonplace.

I'd like to specify here that the above was not meant to insult anyone. Not the original poster, nor the author(s) of D&D.

It took me a while to understand exactly how to use that table, too. But I wasn't an old wargamer by that point.

There were other similar things in D&D, too; I now see it as part of the charm of the old books.

[Deleted]

If you've played CHAINMAIL the charts in D&D, including the one in discussion here, look very familiar.

Which should surprise nobody.