Prompts for the addition of rivers, roads, and mountain ranges. This may be the only practical way for the generator to handle these.
Four in seven regions will now have a coast to a cardinal direction.
Previous generator had two random terrain types predominate. Now has an equal chance of two types, three types, or one type with a secondary. In all cases. there are still outlier hexes.
Hex descriptions reformatted, with more locations, hex information, and link to relevant OSE encounter table.
Rebalanced hex features to mimic dungeon stocking procedure, after a suggestion from ktrey. Monster lairs now more common.
More detailed monster lairs, including details from Tamás Kisbali. "Monster moots" now no longer a common lair type, but may come up without that name.
More town details.
Added otherworldly portals.
More humanoids and slightly more monsters.
Added links for all spellcasting classes to the OSE spell memorized generator. Added links for treasure maps to the relevant treasure type generator.
I was playing around with the d100 Unusual Thief Abilities table by the prolific creator ktrey, and thinking about its various uses. The B/X thief abilities existed not only to emulate a particular kind of character but also to define the game they were made for. These early D&D thieves have abilities like "open lock" and "find and remove traps" because those are the abilities that many early D&D games necessitated. If there were no thief class, we might imagine that there would have to be fewer traps and locks in dungeons or that rules would have to be added to allow people to have a mechanical procedure for addressing those challenges in a similar way to how the thief class would.
This reminds me of the later principle called niche protection, the idea that the system of the game should not only give a class certain abilities but ensure that other player characters cannot perform the same category of ability well. While I feel like niche protection became a talking point in the more build-focused style of play that meant people were more likely to feel outshon in play by their friend's meticulously designed character, early D&D certainly has forms of niche protection.
Only a thief gets a procedure to open locks. Only a fighter can use a magic sword. Plenty of considerations like that. One difference is that the game (cum fide) assumes that a PC is competent in all general adventuring practices, and this is actually a great consolation. Even if you don't have the thief's trapfinding ability, at least you don't need to roll a die for every five-foot square you probe with your pole.
Another difference, it must be said, is that the philosophy of niche protection is not drawn out to its fullest extent in classic D&D. Consider all the reasons that you need a thief to pick a lock but you don't need an elf to find a secret door. I'm not sure that any given edition of classic D&D gets niches exactly right, but it really does feel like a considered design decision.
Finally returning to ktrey's unusual thief abilities table, it sparks my imagination simply because it leads me to think about the games and game systems that would feature them. It's not every campaign where timing fuses or bootlegging is as central as opening locks. I wonder also at how the game is to be played if no PC can pick locks or perform some other typical thief ability. The relationship between a class's abilities and the shape of the system must always persist. and each must be apt for the other.
For your consideration, ktrey's table turned into a table with Spwack's html tool:
This tool, using Spwack's list to HTML generator, will make a largely system-agnostic 10x10 hex key for a classic D&D region. It does not generate a map image. If you were planning a campaign with this tool, I would recommend labeling bolded entries on a hex map and very little else.
The region will be dominated by two random types of landscape, with a few outliers. It will also describe various settlements and inhabitants, assuming a Human-majority world. Each region will have a couple "motifs," recurring contents meant to give a sense of continuity to the region, so do not be surprised if the same entry shows up a few times.
The generator will suggest naming conventions, but has no way of applying those to all the people and places that are generated. I suggest using the search feature of this website, which should have all types of names that the generator suggests. Omissions in naming conventions are based on the fact that I wanted to suggest names that were easily searchable.
This has been a labor of love, and I can easily imagine spending a lot longer designing this. A future version may one day arrive that includes details like treasure hoards, expanded lists, and greater variety of motifs.
