d6 Schools of Draconic Art

1. Vaulting - massive and elaborate fortifications; the archetype of this is huge reinforced doors. The message of this is to imply the fabulous wealth of the dragons hoard when all this visible effort has been put into the barriers around it.

2. Relief-work - typically seen in the carving of scenes glorifying the dragon onto the sides of mountains or other suitable rock-surfaces in its territory. The symbolism here is that the dragons control of its territory is so unquestioned, it could take the time to carve all this undisturbed.

Shiny TTRPG links collection #14

Another bumper crop of interesting TTRPG links. Previous list found here. Inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Great, meaty collection of advice on how to run games - if you read nothing else this week, read this.

Collaborative world building in its purest form.

A reminder on how Fighters used to have more attacks and thoughts on recreating Conan or Cu Chulainn style heroes.

A chunky heap of content from Lair Master on tumblr - link to his master index post.

Chekovs Things: managing adventure hooks in long-haul urban campaigns

One of the more useful phrases I heard in the last couple of years was 'catastrophic success' - where things go well beyond your wildest imaginings and suddenly you have a bunch of issues you had never anticipated. For context here, my issue is that my home game has put some serious hours in and chewed through a lot more events and plot than I might have initially imagined. Now the problem is remembering all the dangling plot hooks or fizzing fuses that are scattered around the setting.

This is doubly interesting because of two aspects:
First the party is cunning and ruthless and prefers to skip sword-swinging glory in place of having the palace guard crush their problems. XP gain is lower but it surely is efficient at moving things along.
Second is that we are running an urban game - except for one brief over-night trip most of the action has taken place with them operating out of their bedrooms at the palace. Were they doing the usual slay-loot-scoot dungeon-diving then their problems would be left behind them in the dust as they carted their loot away. By staying static, consequences have time to simmer and form a delicious stew of problems.

What are my odds? Description as DC

I had a recollection of seeing an exercise someone had done that assigned all our common words to state a likelihood of something happen to a percentage value - I did not find that but I did find a report with US/UK policies for communicating probability and I thought it might be useful to convert it to DCs.

Descriptor	% span	d20 span	DC
Almost no chance / remote	1 to 5	1	21
Very unlikely / highly improbable	5 to 20	4	18
Unlikely / improbable (improbably)	20 to 45	9	13
Roughly even chance / roughly even odds	45 to 55	11	11
Likely / probable (probably)	55 to 80	16	6
Very likely / highly probable	80 to 95	19	3
Almost certain(ly) / nearly certain	95 to 99	20	2

Setting this up so an average person of average stats in D&D succeeds an even chance thing 50% of the time, we anchor to DC11 for 'roughly even chance'. This makes "almost no chance" things impossible for an average person to achieve without help, tools, bless or something equivalent. Similarly, it is possible to fail an almost certain task 5% of the time. To my mind, if the dice is being rolled, there ought to be a chance of it failing - if it cannot fail, no dice should be rolled.

This also means that your average D&D character rapidly becomes a creature beyond the abilities of mere mortals in just a few levels. Given that the fraction of PC's among the populace is supposed to be small, this still makes some sense - but it gives a sense of how amazingly different a character dropping a +7 modifier onto a roll is - they will succeed at highly improbably things as often as the average person will make the even chance.

I am still seeking that original article I saw - I know I read it in 2008-2010 so it is out there somewhere. I will follow this up once I find it.

Source:

UK AND US POLICIES FOR COMMUNICATING PROBABILITY IN INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS: A REVIEW on ResearchGate - just click download to get the pdf.

Shiny TTRPG links collection #13

Another bumper crop of interesting TTRPG links. Previous list found here. Inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Also this week from weaver.skepti.ch a good look at the Art of War in Dune.

Nice thoughts on improving lock-picking, hacking or other extended skill tests from Prismatic Wasteland

Thoughts on playing out the last day on earth - or other adventures with a definitive end point.

Super simple Referee reference list - encounters and attitudes - print it, stick it up.

Superlight game of being Red Shirts - some great ideas from Traveling Mailsman.

The War Sword's Thirst: harvesting 4X games for world events

tl;dr: second in the series on using side events in 4X and other games for inspiration at your table

A second in a series about drawing inspiration from 4x games. We return to Fall From Heaven II but this more as a series of events that gives a great emergent high magic disaster.

Once there was a land with a prophecy of doom - four horsemen would come, one after the other, and in their wake the world would be destroyed. First would be Stephanos, who bore a Crown that would seduce those who stood against them to serve him. Second would be Buboes, whos great Sword of War would hasten the apocalypse with every soul it slew. Third would be Yersina bore a plagued sword and would slay cities with their tread. Fourth would be Ars Moriendi who would enslave the souls of those they slew as wraiths to spread further destruction.

In this land there was a great warrior, a mighty giant, who had risen to glory fighting the beasts and raiders of the wilderness. When first Stephanos came to the land this champion faced and slew them with the fiery Axe of Orthus. Later Buboes appeared far away on the far end of the continent from the giants home. Buboes roamed freely, slaying all who faced them, across realms of mages and elves. All who faced them died and hastened the coming of the next troubles.

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part VI - The Chase

The kobolds of the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau return once more. Links to the review and part I of play using it, Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V.

The party stumbles home from a long day and tucks up in bed. They had not acted on their discussion to move the portraits out of their bedrooms and all are sleeping soundly when the next tour of the Kobolds arrives. The Sorceror is woken to find Historian Drap, two of the Clerics sisters and some other mixed nobles of the city filing in.

With some sputtering and complaint the Sorceror orders everyone out, but with the nature of tours, people are filing in to get the message and then shuffling past each other in the doorway to leave. The Bard and Cleric have both been woken by the commotion and the Cleric steps out into the passage way in her housecoat to see what is up. The Bard guesses correctly what is going on, pens a 'do not enter note' to hang on her door, arms her bat-cat-imp thing with a poker and shoves it out into the hall on guard duty. The imp-thing hams up its role and snarls and froths before the Bards door, making the tour members in the hall back away down towards the other rooms where another cousin and one of her entourage have opened their doors.

Meanwhile the Sorceror, muzzy with sleep, decides the best way to emphasize his point is to summon a giant spider to scare everyone off. This works to a point; the giant spider accelerates the departure of the few remaining tour members but then fails in that it is an actual monstrous spider. Usually the Sorcerer summons celestials he can talk to but this is a standard big spider and he promptly loses control and it leaps on Historian Drap.