I took the 3 lists of traits from Out of the Weaving Secrets 638 Primary Personality Traits article in 2014 and set up a trio of random selector functions in my big excel sheet. I get a positive, a neutral and a negative trait. It also randomises male/female and romantic preference.
I combine that with my big list of ancestries - started from Skerples OSR: Table of Races, the usual D&D suspects from the core books and the raceoids from Lizardman Diaries - for 73 different possible ancestries. You could swap this out for a cultural background table also for similar effect.
This gives a bit of who they are, what are they like - combine that with some motivations - basically tagging them to a local faction to say what they might care about and then deciding how invested they are in that factions goals (from fanatic to casual). I talk about this a bit more in NPC motivations to meet player role-play preference. Most of the non-recyclable effort has gone into what he local factions are, who is doing what in a location. That is what I have to put the effort into when the players move around the map. Otherwise, if whatever is going on locally is sufficiently big, bad news (undead invasion, natural disaster) then what anyone encountered cares about will be clear.
And that gives me seeds to get me going:
- What this person is like individually (randomised traits)
- Their background / ancestry (randomised background)
- What they care about (picked faction)
05 October 2022
04 October 2022
Shiny TTRPG links #88
A day late, but hopefully worth the wait! More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Scribblings or Something presents the Benefic Polymorph
Mindstorm writes on Stealth Turns
Prismatic Wasteland on Doppelgänger Dos & Don’ts
Permanent Cranial Damage gives us hexcrawls ARE pathcrawls
Grumpy Wizard writes on How I Use Reputation To Modify Reaction Rolls.
Scribblings or Something presents the Benefic Polymorph
Mindstorm writes on Stealth Turns
Prismatic Wasteland on Doppelgänger Dos & Don’ts
Permanent Cranial Damage gives us hexcrawls ARE pathcrawls
Grumpy Wizard writes on How I Use Reputation To Modify Reaction Rolls.
01 October 2022
Actual Test: Better Labyrinths by Graphite Prime
Lost my original source but when I went looking for 'how to do labyrinths' either OSR discord or the blogosphere tipped me off to this hidden gem by Graphite Prime - Mazes: The Monotony or How to Run an Actual Maze from 2018.
Their moment of enlightenment was that for most mazes, we don't need to draw the maze. We need some mechanics to reflect that navigating is difficult and some tailored encounter tables and good enough.
The article is great, laying out the elements you need and then pulling it all together in a sample maze. I needed a labyrinth for a major quest site in my current campaign and after stomping around trying to figure out how to get what I wanted down in maps, this handy system tossed all that requirement and just solved it.
All your strange inspirations either go into core descriptors of the maze itself, the sites or the encounters - no need to injure your brain trying to figure out how to map 3D mazes or non-euclidean angles.
Picked my themes for the whole thing, drawing on memory of a source I lost which had dungeons built by different forces:
- original builder intent (creator god leaving puzzles for worthy to herald his return)
- environmental factors, original builder power manifestations (using non-Euclidean Gravity from Goblinpunch)
- volcanic damage
- current resident + forces (lifting in an interesting monster from Fire on the Velvet Horizon)
- intruders from surroundings (lost or undead members of the local populace, from the city surrounding this place)
Once I knew what had created the place I filled out the descriptive elements of the maze - what a standard corridor length is like, its illumination, how far to a turn, etc. then the d100 table of 'locations you can find in the labyrinth' and the encounter table for what finds you if you stop in the open labyrinth. All this was far easier than trying to create a map that expressed variable gravity, inter-cut levels, and other things that are hard to express on graph paper and would have been a nuisance to try and use at the table.
The core mechanic of how it all works is players roll Search (3.5e, what we use), Investigation (5e) or Save vs Spells (OSR) against a DC as an extended skill challenge; there is no 'fail' point but after 3 x checks, they run into something on the way - rolll on the sites list. Should they stop to rest, roll on the encounters list. Some sites or encounters may bring or cost additional successes - and that is it. You get in there and you search, defending yourself against whatever else is in there until you find your way out.
There are some additional elements like what happens during a chaotic retreat, where some members of the party become lost in the maze only to be found at certain site encounter roles, that I think would be grim should they come to pass but still flavourful and a nice coherent mechanic.
At table this has played out brilliantly. The party has searched away, run into numerous weird and hazardous things, had fights ranging from the dangerous to the easily overwhelmed but it feels nice any pacy going through it. Since we are running 3.5e and short rests do not matter, they pushed on, eating on their feet for a full days exploring until they got to a specific location, barricaded themselves in and worked on what they needed there. Their actions triggered a bunch of random encounters but because they had secured the perimeter, it ended up being a bunch of unnerving noises they refused to investigate and creepy glimpses out through a massive stained glass window into the rest of the labyrinth.
For me as a DM, setting this all up and letting the dice unfold the story has been a great old school refresh - some major events happened so quickly one after the other that they players got paranoid about 'this was too easy' which was fun. The fact that things are being encountered and yet there is an uncertain amount of encounters still ahead really has the dice reflect the atmosphere.
I really like how this all wraps up in a coherent ball. If the players just attack the maze straight on, that is clear. Use some sort of spells or wild ideas to bypass bits? Great, tag on an additional success per good idea. Rewards the players without trivialising the maze. Anyone thinking of running mazes should give this one a look. Not your classic dungeon crawl, which it is not supposed to be, but I think a really elegant solution for a particular case that should be more widely known.
Their moment of enlightenment was that for most mazes, we don't need to draw the maze. We need some mechanics to reflect that navigating is difficult and some tailored encounter tables and good enough.
The article is great, laying out the elements you need and then pulling it all together in a sample maze. I needed a labyrinth for a major quest site in my current campaign and after stomping around trying to figure out how to get what I wanted down in maps, this handy system tossed all that requirement and just solved it.
All your strange inspirations either go into core descriptors of the maze itself, the sites or the encounters - no need to injure your brain trying to figure out how to map 3D mazes or non-euclidean angles.
Picked my themes for the whole thing, drawing on memory of a source I lost which had dungeons built by different forces:
- original builder intent (creator god leaving puzzles for worthy to herald his return)
- environmental factors, original builder power manifestations (using non-Euclidean Gravity from Goblinpunch)
- volcanic damage
- current resident + forces (lifting in an interesting monster from Fire on the Velvet Horizon)
- intruders from surroundings (lost or undead members of the local populace, from the city surrounding this place)
Once I knew what had created the place I filled out the descriptive elements of the maze - what a standard corridor length is like, its illumination, how far to a turn, etc. then the d100 table of 'locations you can find in the labyrinth' and the encounter table for what finds you if you stop in the open labyrinth. All this was far easier than trying to create a map that expressed variable gravity, inter-cut levels, and other things that are hard to express on graph paper and would have been a nuisance to try and use at the table.
The core mechanic of how it all works is players roll Search (3.5e, what we use), Investigation (5e) or Save vs Spells (OSR) against a DC as an extended skill challenge; there is no 'fail' point but after 3 x checks, they run into something on the way - rolll on the sites list. Should they stop to rest, roll on the encounters list. Some sites or encounters may bring or cost additional successes - and that is it. You get in there and you search, defending yourself against whatever else is in there until you find your way out.
There are some additional elements like what happens during a chaotic retreat, where some members of the party become lost in the maze only to be found at certain site encounter roles, that I think would be grim should they come to pass but still flavourful and a nice coherent mechanic.
At table this has played out brilliantly. The party has searched away, run into numerous weird and hazardous things, had fights ranging from the dangerous to the easily overwhelmed but it feels nice any pacy going through it. Since we are running 3.5e and short rests do not matter, they pushed on, eating on their feet for a full days exploring until they got to a specific location, barricaded themselves in and worked on what they needed there. Their actions triggered a bunch of random encounters but because they had secured the perimeter, it ended up being a bunch of unnerving noises they refused to investigate and creepy glimpses out through a massive stained glass window into the rest of the labyrinth.
For me as a DM, setting this all up and letting the dice unfold the story has been a great old school refresh - some major events happened so quickly one after the other that they players got paranoid about 'this was too easy' which was fun. The fact that things are being encountered and yet there is an uncertain amount of encounters still ahead really has the dice reflect the atmosphere.
I really like how this all wraps up in a coherent ball. If the players just attack the maze straight on, that is clear. Use some sort of spells or wild ideas to bypass bits? Great, tag on an additional success per good idea. Rewards the players without trivialising the maze. Anyone thinking of running mazes should give this one a look. Not your classic dungeon crawl, which it is not supposed to be, but I think a really elegant solution for a particular case that should be more widely known.
28 September 2022
Actual Test: Tales from the Glass Guarded World (Fantasy Space Combat Rules Part 5)
tl;dr: a chunky theater of the mind system that gives a party lots of options to fight spelljamming duels.
Our previous effort tested two magazine-published sets of rules for fighting magical flying ships - the 3e adaptation Shadow of the Spider Moon and the 5e Aces High aerial combat rules from Arcadia #3 published by MCDM as well as the original AD&D Spelljammer and the to-be-published OD&D compatible Calidar.
This set is the house ruleset for the Spelljamming focused 'Tales from the Glass Guarded World' podcast. You can hear them play it out themselves on episode 101 and 141/142. Given that this was created while 5e Spelljammer was still a rumour and actually table-tested and refined, this is a window onto an alternate trouser-leg of possibility, happily one we can pick up and use ourselves.
An interesting system with the focus firmly on giving players tools to use; there are a number of officer positions (Captain, Helmsman, Bosun, Gunner) and the default role of Deckhand which all offer lists of ship actions that can be taken during a round. There is no grid, just range bands of 'extreme', 'long' and 'close. Most weapons only work in long or close. This has a lot of the base elements of 2e ported forward and updated for 5e. Things like Ship Rating, the speed of a ship, being dependent on the type of helm and the level of the wizard remain. There is a lot of cunning redesign work here for the things that were retained to make them relevant to 5e.
Our previous effort tested two magazine-published sets of rules for fighting magical flying ships - the 3e adaptation Shadow of the Spider Moon and the 5e Aces High aerial combat rules from Arcadia #3 published by MCDM as well as the original AD&D Spelljammer and the to-be-published OD&D compatible Calidar.
This set is the house ruleset for the Spelljamming focused 'Tales from the Glass Guarded World' podcast. You can hear them play it out themselves on episode 101 and 141/142. Given that this was created while 5e Spelljammer was still a rumour and actually table-tested and refined, this is a window onto an alternate trouser-leg of possibility, happily one we can pick up and use ourselves.
Cover by Mike Hammock and Ignacio Corva
An interesting system with the focus firmly on giving players tools to use; there are a number of officer positions (Captain, Helmsman, Bosun, Gunner) and the default role of Deckhand which all offer lists of ship actions that can be taken during a round. There is no grid, just range bands of 'extreme', 'long' and 'close. Most weapons only work in long or close. This has a lot of the base elements of 2e ported forward and updated for 5e. Things like Ship Rating, the speed of a ship, being dependent on the type of helm and the level of the wizard remain. There is a lot of cunning redesign work here for the things that were retained to make them relevant to 5e.
26 September 2022
Shiny TTRPG links #87
The plague has caught up with me, so not much this week. More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Methods & Madness gives us Why I like minimalism: complexity is exponential, and exceptions raise complexity
From Kuroth's Quill discusses Astral Adventures in Greyhawk
yog-blogsoth gives us the Blooming One
d4 Caltrops present d100 - What's At The Bottom Of This Pit?
Zedeck Siew's Writing Hours gives us D&D’s Obsession With Taxonomy
Axian Spice writes Talk Like a Pirate Day: d20 Seas Encounters & Events!
Coins and Scrolls gives us OSR: GLOG Book of Spells
The Benign Brown Beast discusses RPG Linguistics
All Dead Generations shares PDF Adventure Archives
Wizard Thief Fighter presents Creative Permutations: Dead City
Methods & Madness gives us Why I like minimalism: complexity is exponential, and exceptions raise complexity
From Kuroth's Quill discusses Astral Adventures in Greyhawk
yog-blogsoth gives us the Blooming One
d4 Caltrops present d100 - What's At The Bottom Of This Pit?
Zedeck Siew's Writing Hours gives us D&D’s Obsession With Taxonomy
Axian Spice writes Talk Like a Pirate Day: d20 Seas Encounters & Events!
Coins and Scrolls gives us OSR: GLOG Book of Spells
The Benign Brown Beast discusses RPG Linguistics
All Dead Generations shares PDF Adventure Archives
Wizard Thief Fighter presents Creative Permutations: Dead City
24 September 2022
Review: The Perilous Wilds
tl:dr; a Dungeon World wilderness supplement that has good advice and toolkits for anyone running overland exploration.
Another strong recommendation from the 'best books of the OSR' crowd, this was my first real interaction with the Dungeon World system - or any Apocalypse World system. I have looked at this with this 'outsiders eye', less judging it on its merits as a Dungeon World book but more as someone coming to it cold.
For the size of the book a lot gets packed in - both from a point of system and useful generators for a setting. Lots to like here whatever system you may normally use at your table.
I think I grabbed by copy from a DriveThru PoD sale and got a slim ~80 page A5 booklet, black and white on the inside with what looks like a sepia-toned cover. Over all I like it, the art-style is quirky and evocative and sets a nice cartoonish-yet-fierce note throughout.
Another strong recommendation from the 'best books of the OSR' crowd, this was my first real interaction with the Dungeon World system - or any Apocalypse World system. I have looked at this with this 'outsiders eye', less judging it on its merits as a Dungeon World book but more as someone coming to it cold.
For the size of the book a lot gets packed in - both from a point of system and useful generators for a setting. Lots to like here whatever system you may normally use at your table.
Cover by Keny Widja
I think I grabbed by copy from a DriveThru PoD sale and got a slim ~80 page A5 booklet, black and white on the inside with what looks like a sepia-toned cover. Over all I like it, the art-style is quirky and evocative and sets a nice cartoonish-yet-fierce note throughout.
21 September 2022
House Rules for the Mythic Plateau
With my house 3.5e campaign venturing up onto the mythic plateau of the giants, an interstitial realm in the roof of the world, I thought it fitting to throw in some of the interesting house-rules I have found around the web to try and emphasise the 'land of myth and legend' atmosphere.
The first few are timely additions from Thalian Musings post on Houserules During Play
Big d30 – once per session per player, that player can choose to roll a d30 instead of the regular die for an attack, damage, saving throw, skill check, spell ability, or anything else a player can make a sound argument for. This is just fun, gets used a lot less than I expected, but has led to a natural 30 being rolled to great rejoicing.
Fleeting Luck - a riff off the Dungeon Crawl Classics idea - a Nat 20 rolled gets a luck token, which acts as a reroll of whatever you like. Anytime anyone rolls a Nat 1, all luck tokens around the table go away. You cannot use your luck to reroll that Nat 1. Every session all players start with one point, fleeting luck does not carry over.
Next I have modified More Risky Spellburn from Sheep & Sorcery to become Alternate Spellburn - a caster can choose to max out a spell effect; damage, HD turned, etc. by taking d6 spellburn to a stat of your choice. Can also be used to cast a spell you know how to cast but cannot normally do so again before rest. This is specifically to allow the sorcerer who is normally using the Spelljamming Saddle to fly the party about to play a more active role in combat if they wish.
On the DMs side of the screen I use the Overloaded Encounter Die - switched out from 4-in-20 for a chance of a random encounter to overloaded d6 for exactly the reason designers stated, got fed up with 'roll for nothing' - all rolls should be meaningful.
I also use Reaction Rolls and Morale Checks for monsters but these are hardly house rules, just gaps being backfilled from older editions. I like them as it makes encounters more than 'scream and charge' and fits well with this menagerie worlds Pratchett-esque attitude of 'people come in all shapes and sizes' and you never know from sight who might be friends or foes.
Another major 'house rule' that I am currently using is to port a mini-AD&D Spelljammer helm into 3.5e as a Spelljamming Saddle and also the Aces High sky combat rules from Arcadia magazine. An example of how that plays out in-game is here.
In addition, recognising that Stunning effects are no fun, I am thinking about a Revised Stun condition inspired by 2c Gamings post 'The Mysterious & Nonsensical Stunned Condition: Fixes & Critiques' that keep the "drops everything held, takes a –2 penalty to AC, and lose Dexterity bonus to AC" but dials it back from "can’t take actions" to only being able to do a single action or a move. No reactions, no 5' step, one thing on your round. Have not yet implemented this but thinking about it.
I thought about dropping in a Cascading Damage Dice - if you roll the max on a damage dice, roll it again. Keep going until you don't roll the max. This proved to be difficult to remember in course of play so has been dropped.
I am a big fan of 'Shields shall be splintered / Mail shall be rent' from Trollsmyth (I think?) where armour or a shield can be sacrificed (and the AC bonus lost) to soak the damage from one hit. However while the other rules above are more aligned with coming to a zone of high mythic weirdness, these are a bit more fundamental operating principles for the campaign and it does not feel right to try and bolt these in at a late stage in the campaign. Next campaign...
The first few are timely additions from Thalian Musings post on Houserules During Play
Big d30 – once per session per player, that player can choose to roll a d30 instead of the regular die for an attack, damage, saving throw, skill check, spell ability, or anything else a player can make a sound argument for. This is just fun, gets used a lot less than I expected, but has led to a natural 30 being rolled to great rejoicing.
Fleeting Luck - a riff off the Dungeon Crawl Classics idea - a Nat 20 rolled gets a luck token, which acts as a reroll of whatever you like. Anytime anyone rolls a Nat 1, all luck tokens around the table go away. You cannot use your luck to reroll that Nat 1. Every session all players start with one point, fleeting luck does not carry over.
Next I have modified More Risky Spellburn from Sheep & Sorcery to become Alternate Spellburn - a caster can choose to max out a spell effect; damage, HD turned, etc. by taking d6 spellburn to a stat of your choice. Can also be used to cast a spell you know how to cast but cannot normally do so again before rest. This is specifically to allow the sorcerer who is normally using the Spelljamming Saddle to fly the party about to play a more active role in combat if they wish.
On the DMs side of the screen I use the Overloaded Encounter Die - switched out from 4-in-20 for a chance of a random encounter to overloaded d6 for exactly the reason designers stated, got fed up with 'roll for nothing' - all rolls should be meaningful.
I also use Reaction Rolls and Morale Checks for monsters but these are hardly house rules, just gaps being backfilled from older editions. I like them as it makes encounters more than 'scream and charge' and fits well with this menagerie worlds Pratchett-esque attitude of 'people come in all shapes and sizes' and you never know from sight who might be friends or foes.
Another major 'house rule' that I am currently using is to port a mini-AD&D Spelljammer helm into 3.5e as a Spelljamming Saddle and also the Aces High sky combat rules from Arcadia magazine. An example of how that plays out in-game is here.
In addition, recognising that Stunning effects are no fun, I am thinking about a Revised Stun condition inspired by 2c Gamings post 'The Mysterious & Nonsensical Stunned Condition: Fixes & Critiques' that keep the "drops everything held, takes a –2 penalty to AC, and lose Dexterity bonus to AC" but dials it back from "can’t take actions" to only being able to do a single action or a move. No reactions, no 5' step, one thing on your round. Have not yet implemented this but thinking about it.
I thought about dropping in a Cascading Damage Dice - if you roll the max on a damage dice, roll it again. Keep going until you don't roll the max. This proved to be difficult to remember in course of play so has been dropped.
I am a big fan of 'Shields shall be splintered / Mail shall be rent' from Trollsmyth (I think?) where armour or a shield can be sacrificed (and the AC bonus lost) to soak the damage from one hit. However while the other rules above are more aligned with coming to a zone of high mythic weirdness, these are a bit more fundamental operating principles for the campaign and it does not feel right to try and bolt these in at a late stage in the campaign. Next campaign...
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