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Showing posts from July, 2025

OD&D Domain & Faction Play

I've just got done listening to an episode of Blogs on Tape. Specifically episode 172 - Pleasures of the OSR: Emergent Story and Open Worlds, by Ben. L. This got the cogs turning in my brain thinking about "faction play" or "domain play". In particular I felt inspired to take a trip down the rabbit hole to explore what the original Dungeons & Dragons rule pamphlets says about these concepts. From memory, not much considering this original system was marketed as a "top-down" war game. However I have a suspicion that much can be extrapolated from what these pamphlets do say. So let's take a look... OD&D Domain & Faction Play In Men & Magic the character section provides details of high level character play, which is very applicable to domains or factions. In particular what income is available to high level characters: "Top-level fighters (Lords and above) who build castles are considered “Barons,” [...]. Base income for a Baron ...