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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Dice Drop Charts

I'm up in the mountains.  Spent the last several days with a bunch of family so my mind is kind of muzzy.  But here are some ideas for dice drop charts for someone feeling more ambitious than me right now:
  • body locations - use it for locating hits in combats, where tentacle mutations emerge from, or even where you got your carousing tattoo
  • ship locations - what the meteorites disabled and how badly, or where the Greek fire is burning
  • fortress locations - which walls the orcs are swarming and how many of them
  • fortress creation - how many troops of various sorts, type of lord etc.
  • village creation -type of lord, number of families etc.
  • city locations - robberies in a hero game, plague outbreaks in a fantasy setting
  • quick and dirty pantheons - have all the domains (war, love, death) drop d4s for lesser deities d8s for the biggies
  • random rituals - gems, plants, and other ingredients needed to make a spell work this time-- for chaotic magic systems or simulating absent minded wizards ("Oh yes, I need some rosemary")
  • character creation - yeah it's more fun to see your character reveal itself before you, but could you make a single sheet of paper that would do it all at once?  drop 6 dice for stats, one for $, one for HD, and maybe even equipment or at least starting wizard spells
  •  demon/monster generation - you've seen plenty of them, now do it in one dramatic role 
  • animal mash-up - chart has tons of animals dice dropped are different colors for different body parts- so if the blue "head" die falls on elephant your creature has an elephant head
  • treasure hoard determination
Hmm, I guess most of those "locations" entries would need a schematic first so they're more a short cut than actual universal chart.  I think I want to do the pantheon one for own campaign.  Maybe that animal mash-up too, that seems fun.. What would you like a drop dice table for?

8 comments:

  1. Well I don't know if it is QUITE what you're looking for but I did a treasure die drop chart a few weeks back...

    http://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/jeff-had-a-question-and-i-had-an-idea-instatreasure-die-drop-table/

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  2. Sweet. Thanks for sharing that I'd missed it. I didn't really have much in mind but to divide a page proportionately to match up the with the B/X treasure table. So, big areas for coins, smaller areas for rings and such.

    Yours looks pretty specific which is easier on us DMs, but might use it self up after a few hoards (we keep finding these Dwarven mugs!)

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  3. @Telecanter- That's true, but that's why I said as you roll up stuff and they get treasure, white it out and write up new stuff :) Keep the chart new and unexpected. :)

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  4. @mwscmeer: Sweet. I'll print it out when I get back down in the valley and give it a test drive. Thanks.

    @wrathofzombie: Hope I didn't come off as too critical, just my categorizing nature trying to think of what kinds of charts might be possible. And you're right, certain blocks with different values/types of treasure items that you refill could be very handy. I'll print it out and try it out too. Thanks again.

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  5. @Telecanter- naw not critical at all duder. :) I just wanted to state the rewrite as you roll shit, because people have missed that in the past :) Hope I did't come off defensive, because that wasn't my intention.

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  6. @woz: No worries. Appreciate all your comments.

    @mwschmeer: thanks for that and sorry for the late response, been kinda out of it mourning the loss of Skyrim.

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