Gems & Jewelry Roll Tables

I thought I’d share a resource I’ve been working on for a while. I’ve made some random roll tables to generate gems and jewelry for on OSR-style medieval fantasy game.

To me, variety truly is the spice of life. And I draw real interest from the game with detailed, evocative descriptions of things that spark my imagination - not verbose purple-prose descriptions, mind you. I’m just talking about descriptions that make the gems or jewelry you found seem like a real object, rather than just a condensed form of money.

All three of my retroclones of choice – Labyrinth Lord, Old School Essentials, and the Basic Fantasy RPG – provide little help in this regard. Beyond the value of the gems or jewelry, they give minimal description.

Wanting an OSR-compatible table with more detail, my first instinct was to look online. I found Noblecrumpet’s Dorkvision Blog, which has some great gem and jewelry tables on it (part of which served as inspiration for my own).

However, Noblecrumpet’s tables were so rich and detailed that I couldn’t use them at the table. They took me so long to use that I could never do so in front of players; generating gems and jewelry was prep work. As wonderful as Noblecrumpet’s tables were, I wanted the option to randomly generate treasure during the game – and sometimes even let them do the rolling. As such, I needed tables to generate gems and jewelry that were relatively quick-to-use, but still gave interesting results.

As a solution to this problem, I took inspiration from an unlikely source: Stars Without Number. In my GM binder, I have several one-page tables from Stars Without Number that allow quick generation of NPC’s. Using this table, you roll a handful of dice (a d4, a d6, a d8, a d10, a d12, and a d20). Each dice corresponds to a specific attribute of the NPC.

Therefore, you simply grab all the dice you have laying around, roll them once, match them with some numbers, and voila! You have an NPC.

What if you could do the same thing with gems, or jewelry?

The answer to that question is below. You will find one table for gems, and one table for jewels. Each requires you to roll each type of polyhedral dice only once, meaning you do not need to re-roll dice to generate any gem or jewel.

Each table should generate gems and jewels relatively compatible with the tables provided in Labyrinth Lord for gems and jewels.

In Labyrinth Lord, gems range in value from 10 - 1,000 coins, while jewelry ranges in value from 1d4x10 coins (minimum of 10) to 3d6x100 coins (maximum of 1800). I struggled to figure out a way to make the math work out exactly right without requiring multiple rolls, but I consider these tables to be “close enough” for my tastes. Again, I’m open to suggestions.

Each of these tables should also be condensed enough to fit on one side of a sheet of paper, or perhaps even smaller (a half sheet). This intentionally facilitates ease-of-use and to allow you to use them quickly at the table, as needed.

Anyway, that’s enough talking about the tables – here they are. If you find them helpful or useful, please let me know.

For example, I rolled 1d4 = 4, 1d6 = 5,
1d12 = 3, 1d10 = 3, and 1d20 = 17.

This means my gem is an expertly-cut jet the size of a sesame seed and shaped like a star. It is cloudy and worth 300 coins. 

A second roll is 1d4 = 3, 1d6 = 2, 1d12 = 11, 1d10 = 10, and 1d20 = 16.

This means the second gem is a cut emerald the size of a sunflower seed and shaped like a pentagon. It is prismatic and worth 4,000 coins.

Now, onto the jewelry roll table.

For example, I rolled 1d4 = 4, 1d6 = 4, 1d8 = 3, 1d10 = 7, 1d12 = 8,  and 1d20 = 6. This piece of jewelry is a silver figurine of average quality. It is realistic, has a religious motif, and is worth 1100 coins.

The next roll was 1d= 3, 1d6 = 6, 1d8 = 4, 1d10 = 2, 1d12 = 1, and 1d20 = 9. This piece of jewelry is a gold eating utensil of average quality. It is gaudy, has a serpentine style, and is worth 1300 coins.