Dave Arneson's Special Interest rules

30 Sep, 2025

	Dave Arneson Day special

The "Special Interests" section in The First Fantasy Campaign¹ (pp.50-52) provides an alternative way of gaining experience points through practicing within the seven wide categories of interests varying between classes or even individual characters. Originating in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, this optional rule is easily adaptable to any edition, adding flavor and additional motivation to the player characters.

The original wording is somewhat convoluted and has some apparent errors (for example, judging from the context, it appears that rolling for the custom preferences is done with d20 on "Table I" instead of with d100 on "Table II"), thus its fixed and streamlined version is presented below.

Special Interests

Instead of awarding points for treasure acquired, the characters will not receive any experience points until they acquire their special interest items.

Special Interest Categories

A) Wine: Spirits with a relatively high alcoholic content purchased and immediately consumed to the limits of capacity, repeated after recovery, before proceeding on another adventure. If the next expedition occurs before all purchased beverages are consumed, the remainder is considered lost for the experience-gaining purposes. Experience gained while drunk does not count, but treasure does.

B) Women: Funds immediately expended on "room plus extras" in the local establishment or spent on purchasing slaves of the appropriate type. The latter may then be sold at a reduced value. Money stolen does not count towards the experience gained.

C) Song: Funds spent on other player characters present in the local tavern in categories A, B, and C. Damages assessed by the tavern owner are counted towards experience gained only if the character was not inebriated when this was done. Inability to pay all debts may result in imprisonment or banishment.

D) Wealth: Stockpiling of gold, silver, and similar items of value. If these items are stolen, the character loses full value immediately upon discovery and may lose levels as a result.

E) Fame: Gained by straight combat with creatures and characters, publicly attested by another player character (up to 75% of normal experience may be awarded if bodies are discovered by other player characters, who must also attest). Attesting non-player characters grant only half of the normal experience, but can also (depending on loyalty) attest to the false deeds (no experience is gained, but the referee will publicly agree with the "new" level). Experience is gained only when participating in category C (Song), although no funds need to be spent on the party itself (wait for someone else), experience being awarded at the end of the party.

F) Religion or Spiritualism: Gained while engaged on a Quest or otherwise cooperating with a Cleric (or being a Cleric) on a task, funds given to the local religious denomination. Player character Clerics may refuse to accept the offering, denying the experience points gain. Refusal to accept may get the player character in trouble, depending on the Cleric's reasoning. Money given to the denomination may be spent by the Clerics, once d6×10+30% is sent to the headquarters.

G) Hobby: A catch-all category, including alchemy, animals (breeding, growth, lore, magical changes, monster creation, etc.), engineering, languages, legend lore, magical research, etc.

Prices

The value of the goods and services received from the expenditure of funds may depend on the honesty of the proprietor. Multiply the default cost by 3d6/10 to determine the actual price. This can also be used for the value of non-monetary treasure brought back from the adventure or current prices for the adventure equipment being sold to the characters.

Prime Category

Each player character rolls on the following table to determine the Prime Category of motivation, depending on the chosen class.

Prime Category

Based on the selected Prime Category, the character will receive the following amount of experience points for every 100 gp spent in each category.

Experience gained for every 100 gp spent

Alternative Method 1

After choosing the Prime Category, roll d20 (ignoring "---" categories), multiplying the result by the indicated number divided by 10. (For example, a character with Prime Category A (Wine) rolling 8 on d20 for the Song category will have 8×90/10 = 72, thus receiving 72 XP for every 100 gp spent in this category.)

Alternative Method 2

Simply roll d100 for each category, writing the unmodified results in order.

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