The table below caused much snickering amongst my Dungeons and Dragons-playing peers in high school:
Is it a description of Jarvis Street south of Carlton at night, or perhaps a random sampling of H&M’s clientele? Actually, it’s the Random Harlot Encounter Table from the Dungeon Master’s Guide, First Edition, written by the late Gary Gygax. It’s part of the section on random encounters in cities and towns. One of the possible encounter types listed was “harlot”, and stickler for details that Gygax was, he wrote this sub-table which described the sort of sex trade worker one could stumble into in a Lord of the Rings mileu.
Here’s what it says:
Harlot encounters can be with brazen strumpets or haughty courtesans, thus making it difficult for the party to distinguish each encounter for what it is. (In fact, the encounter could be with a dancer only prostituting herself as it pleases her, an elderly madam, or even a pimp.) In addition to the offering of the usual fare, the harlot is 30% likely to know valuable information, 15% likely to make something up in order to gain a reward, and 20% likely to be, or with with, a thief. You may find it useful to use the sub-table below to see which sort of harlot encounter takes place:
00 – 10 Slovenly trull
11 – 25 Brazen strumpet
26 – 35 Cheap trollop
36 – 50 Typical streetwalker
51 – 65 Saucy tart
66 – 75 Wanton wench
76 – 85 Expensive doxy
86 – 90 Haughty courtesan
91 – 92 Aged madam
93 – 94 Wealthy procuress
95 – 98 Sly pimp
99 – 00 Rich pandererAn expensive doxy will resemble a gentlewoman, a haughty courtesan a noblewoman, the other harlots might be mistaken for goodwives and so forth.
All in all, Dungeons and Dragons prepared a lot of us for business in the high-tech world.
Needless to say, some of us didn’t quite get what this table was until we looked up “harlot”. You have to remember that this was the late 70s and early 80s, a decade before the World Wide Web, when you had to scour the woods and ravines for free porn. (For some reason, Toronto’s ravines were full of discarded porn magazines. That’s why Toronto guys my age are pretty good hikers.)
8 replies on “The “Random Harlot Table” from the Original Dungeon Master’s Guide”
strangely enough the woods and riverbanks of Cambridge were also stremwn with porn. My first introduction to the naked femal figure came courtesy of some anonymous wanker who thoughfully left a naturalist magazine in a secluded copse by the river. I found it on my way home from school one day. I was in my last year of primary school, and it beat the hell out of poring over the lingerie section on my mum’s mail-order catalogue.
You’re forgetting the search in alleys and garages which open into them. Back then a kid on a bike knew the hidden city better than any taxi driver.
I like that you had to work to find porn back in the good old days. You got a little exercise, and I think having to riffle through brush and leaves just to see a waterlogged photo of Vanna White without pants built character.
We had that “found porn in ravines” thing in Ottawa as well.
What was up with that?
Is there an offshoot of pornis canadinans who’s natural habitat is ravines?
I am amazed. I thought I was the only one who found porn in ravines. Mine was the river valley in Saskatoon, running right through town. Weird.
I tended to find free porn in rusted out, abandoned cars, but maybe that was a northern Ontario thing.
[…] the Random Harlot Encounter Table. Good […]
As one who knew Gary from even before D&D I must say I admired his taste in women. Judged on the above chart his wife was a roll of 76-90 back then. His daughter was definately a 51-65 grade spectacular. Back then they had all us GEEKs drooling.