Saturday, August 6, 2016
Geographic Wonders Compilation
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Silhouettes LXIX
More silhouettes for your maps, handouts, and rulebooks. These are all in the public domain, use them as you wish. I've been trying to find some symbols for my friend that could represent material components for spells and alchemical recipes. This is what I have so far.
A demijohn or carboy to represent alcohol:
A bone:
A conch to represent shells:
Coral:
Leaves:
A single leaf:
A flower:
An acorn which could stand for nuts or seeds:
A cactus plant:
And a tooth or fang:
A demijohn or carboy to represent alcohol:
Friday, July 29, 2016
Treasure in the Dungeon
I've spent the last three days fighting LibreOffice and my printer trying to assemble all my treasure tables into something organized that I might share. Haven't succeeded, but in the process I think I have a simple treasure system hammered out now. Here is my attempt to organize the chaos of my many treasure item charts:
How Much Treasure?
The amount of magic treasure you give out will be too much or not enough based on how many players you have and how often you play. But for me, with 4-6 people playing 1-4 times a month, I think this system will work okay. My goal is to get magic into their hands so they can have interesting choices to make and cool plans to come up with using these items. So, 1-4 consumable magic items scattered in every dungeon. I also want treasure to seem cool, more than just money, so at least 1 player valued treasure per dungeon. And a 1 in 6 chance for non-consumable magic items.
Class-Specific Treasures
I think a simple way to make sure all classes present in your campaign get stuff to use is to rotate which class a class-based treasure belongs to. Yes, knowing this might break the sense of realism a bit for a player, but class-based treasures are only one of four things that can be rolled, so they might occur so infrequently players don't notice the rotating pattern. And even if they do, I'm betting it is worth a little gameyness to not randomly end up with magical swords over and over again in treasures found by a party of clerics and magic users.
Birthday Treasures
One curve ball in my treasure allocation process, is that my group and I have a tradition of letting players pick a magic item on their birthday. I think some of the most awesome items my players have, have come from this route. It takes away from the excitement of finding things in the mysterious underworld a bit. But, they only have birthdays once a year, and in our circumstances where our campaign play would sometimes be stopped for long stretches by life it was a way to get some magic items in play. And they love it. So, not sure I would recommend it as a general practice, but it is an option that seems to be working out okay for us.
Work to Do
So, I have most of the charts needed for my system. I still need some class-based consumables for clerics and fighters. I put my idea of what could work for those in my chart-- weapon/armor oils for fighters and candles/incense for clerics seem to fit well. I also need to work on more permanent class-based magic items. A place to start might be One-Page type charts that gather the most iconic magic swords into one place, same for shields. Or just invent more. And yes, still haven't finished the player valued treasure tables. I will try to share these as I finish them.
How Much Treasure?
The amount of magic treasure you give out will be too much or not enough based on how many players you have and how often you play. But for me, with 4-6 people playing 1-4 times a month, I think this system will work okay. My goal is to get magic into their hands so they can have interesting choices to make and cool plans to come up with using these items. So, 1-4 consumable magic items scattered in every dungeon. I also want treasure to seem cool, more than just money, so at least 1 player valued treasure per dungeon. And a 1 in 6 chance for non-consumable magic items.
Class-Specific Treasures
I think a simple way to make sure all classes present in your campaign get stuff to use is to rotate which class a class-based treasure belongs to. Yes, knowing this might break the sense of realism a bit for a player, but class-based treasures are only one of four things that can be rolled, so they might occur so infrequently players don't notice the rotating pattern. And even if they do, I'm betting it is worth a little gameyness to not randomly end up with magical swords over and over again in treasures found by a party of clerics and magic users.
Birthday Treasures
One curve ball in my treasure allocation process, is that my group and I have a tradition of letting players pick a magic item on their birthday. I think some of the most awesome items my players have, have come from this route. It takes away from the excitement of finding things in the mysterious underworld a bit. But, they only have birthdays once a year, and in our circumstances where our campaign play would sometimes be stopped for long stretches by life it was a way to get some magic items in play. And they love it. So, not sure I would recommend it as a general practice, but it is an option that seems to be working out okay for us.
Work to Do
So, I have most of the charts needed for my system. I still need some class-based consumables for clerics and fighters. I put my idea of what could work for those in my chart-- weapon/armor oils for fighters and candles/incense for clerics seem to fit well. I also need to work on more permanent class-based magic items. A place to start might be One-Page type charts that gather the most iconic magic swords into one place, same for shields. Or just invent more. And yes, still haven't finished the player valued treasure tables. I will try to share these as I finish them.
Monday, July 25, 2016
Silhouettes LXVIII
More silhouettes for your maps, handouts, and rulebooks. These are all in the public domain, use them as you wish.
Another undead-- could be ghast, ghoul, or zombie:
An aboriginal Archer:
a peasant with a pitchfork:
A humanoid head which should be good for some mashups:
A creepy looking star fish:
And a more symmetrical star fish:
Another undead-- could be ghast, ghoul, or zombie:
An aboriginal Archer:
a peasant with a pitchfork:
A humanoid head which should be good for some mashups:
A creepy looking star fish:
And a more symmetrical star fish:
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Shopping Mini-Game
I've mentioned a few times in the past that I'd like to make some kind of mini-game for shopping. My players engage in a lot of what we jokingly call Shopping & Dragons. Because they're in a city and I've used a fad table that changes fashionable things to wear from week to week and because they like to buy things for their schemes, they are often shopping. Oh, and the city they are in, Ulminster, is pretty mercantile and has a Mile-Long Market as a landmark. So shopping is something that is going to happen. But I wish it were more fun, more game-like.
Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I had an idea of how to do this simply: have a roll-all-the-dice type table but let players choose which die to apply to which column. That would mean there is luck involved but also player choice. To have a cost of rolling again and again, each roll on the table is 1d4 hours of searching markets and shops.
This is a first draft and I haven't tried it in play. The worst possible outcome is probably having to wait a week for something, or needing something so badly you would settle for 4x the price.
I wanted there to be the element of clothes not being the right fit and I thought Strength and Constitution might be a suitable stand-in for this. If players have minuses on those stats it's more likely they might be slight, if they have bonuses they could be considered burly or tall. I don't know how this applies to buying non-clothing gear. Can ropes and 10' poles be of different, awkward sizes? Maybe just ignore this column when buying gear, that would give players an extra die to choose from, meaning non-apparel is easier to acquire or at least more standard when found.
Another thing I was thinking, a player might apply a roll that exceeds a column's maximum to get their choice of the results in that column. That way a player can "throw away" a high score for certainty of fit or quality.
Here is the table in an editable form.
Of course you will still need a set of simple, well-organized price lists. My buddy and I started on that, organizing them by material the items are made of so we might hook in trading or world event effects later, with embargoes making prices on all cloth goods go up, say, or metal goods becoming cheaper when a new mine is opened.
Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I had an idea of how to do this simply: have a roll-all-the-dice type table but let players choose which die to apply to which column. That would mean there is luck involved but also player choice. To have a cost of rolling again and again, each roll on the table is 1d4 hours of searching markets and shops.
I wanted there to be the element of clothes not being the right fit and I thought Strength and Constitution might be a suitable stand-in for this. If players have minuses on those stats it's more likely they might be slight, if they have bonuses they could be considered burly or tall. I don't know how this applies to buying non-clothing gear. Can ropes and 10' poles be of different, awkward sizes? Maybe just ignore this column when buying gear, that would give players an extra die to choose from, meaning non-apparel is easier to acquire or at least more standard when found.
Another thing I was thinking, a player might apply a roll that exceeds a column's maximum to get their choice of the results in that column. That way a player can "throw away" a high score for certainty of fit or quality.
Here is the table in an editable form.
Of course you will still need a set of simple, well-organized price lists. My buddy and I started on that, organizing them by material the items are made of so we might hook in trading or world event effects later, with embargoes making prices on all cloth goods go up, say, or metal goods becoming cheaper when a new mine is opened.
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Silhouettes LXVII
More silhouettes for your maps, handouts, and rulebooks. These are all in the public domain, use them as you wish. Have some more ships.
A brig:
Another dhow:
A felucca:
A frigate:
A galleon:
another junk:
A square-rigger:
Another square-rigger:
A sloop:
A hermaphrodite brig:
A schooner
A brig:
Another dhow:
A felucca:
A frigate:
A galleon:
another junk:
A square-rigger:
Another square-rigger:
A sloop:
A hermaphrodite brig:
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Silhouettes LXVI
More silhouettes for your maps, handouts, and rulebooks. These are all in the public domain, use them as you wish. A talisman I whipped together for my friend:
A tooth necklace:
A hide:
A rocket:
A bomb or old time grenado:
And some ships. A dhow:
A junk:
And a pirate junk:
Friday, July 15, 2016
Player-Valued Treasure
In trying to follow up my last post and give more explicit rules for treasure placement, I ran into something I thought about a while ago: there aren't really a lot of treasure types. Most treasure, especially with unintelligent monsters, will be incidental, whatever was dropped by their previous victims. So it will be coins or "dungeon tools" like scrolls, potions, and wands.
But coins are boring to me as DM, I've always wanted something more-- art objects and trade goods like bales of silk and such. But I was thinking again lately that anything of that type is just something that players need to convert to gold, kind of like annoying treasure, treasure with an extra step. There's nothing wrong with making some treasure more of a challenge-- something big and difficult to move but really worth it if you get it out. But I always wanted something more, something that when found, players would be hesitant to give up because they considered it cool and valuable in it's own right, you know, like treasure. What would that be? Here are some ideas:
Adornment
Clothing and jewelry they might like and want to adorn their character with. Sashes, cloaks, belts. These things will need to be detailed enough so they aren't just abstract treasure, but might be the players favorite color or style. So specific gemstones and materials, not so we can calculate the value of the ring better if we know it is ruby versus moonstone, but because the player might really dig moonstone.
I like the idea of embroidery or leatherwork that tells stories or has scenes. Maybe they depict a quality the player might want to convey, Bravery, Determination, Cruelty.
They might be in a particular style, that of their home land, or their home village, a kind of embroidery like their mother used to make, say.
Cloak clasps, hair pins, scarves it all depends on your players I suppose.
As a player, I always liked to personalize my gear, carve my staff for example. Maybe let your players find wood carving knives, leather tooling kits, a roll of leather belt "blanks" or various lengths and widths. It's not like players can't carve their staves if they asked, or buy supplies to do these things, but they might not think of doing so (especially if they are new players) until the option is presented. These items turn the abstract idea players hadn't thought of-- hey, I can make my character dress like a crazy pirate!- into the treasure.
Class-Based Gear
Players may be more interested in items they can use: decorative scroll cases or lock pick sets, well-made water proof sacks, light but strong caskets. Interesting Holy symbols of their own deities. Belts with pouches, gloves made of interesting materials like basilisk scales. Armor of normal defense but with geometric patterns or a bright color, or all black. Scabbards, quivers, tabbards.
Character Image Items
Some players (especially experienced roleplayers) might have a conception of their character they want to portray: the drunk, the fop, the scholar. If you get the sense that they are going for that you can personalize treasure with stuff they can use fulfill that role, whatever it is. Tobacco, casks of particular types of drink, musical instruments, books about certain subjects, hobby/craft tools like fishing or hunting gear. Hats, fancy boots.
I suppose much of this could overlap with adornment, but not consumables that have no in-game effect like tobacco and alcohols. And not the interest-based items. Collection display cases, stationary, muzzles and falconry gear.
3 Types of Treasures
So now I'm realizing that what I'm ending up with is that there are probably ~3 types of treasure similar to the way I propose there are three types of monster in my last post: 1) There is raw treasure, coins (a subset would be awkward treasure that needs to be converted to coins and is a bit difficult to do so). 2) there are dungeon tools-- usually consumable magic items (magic items like scrolls or potions, poisons, fire works) that help players survive, and 3) discretionary treasure that you place to try and please your players based on what you know about them.
So, what next? Raw treasure is easy, I just plop down coins equivalent to three times the experience point value of all the monsters in the dungeon. Dungeon tools I feel like I have been working on for years, you can see some of these tables on my DM aids page.
For discretionary treasure, though, we won't always know what characters want until they grab it. So, I guess variety is important and making sure some of each type above is available. The good thing is that most of the clothes and tools won't be worth too much in monetary value, so it won't hurt to make a little available in each hoard or dungeon. Maybe I can make a treasure table for each category above: Adornment, Class Gear, and Image Items. Then I could roll once on each, or roll once on one of the three each time I determine a treasure.
But coins are boring to me as DM, I've always wanted something more-- art objects and trade goods like bales of silk and such. But I was thinking again lately that anything of that type is just something that players need to convert to gold, kind of like annoying treasure, treasure with an extra step. There's nothing wrong with making some treasure more of a challenge-- something big and difficult to move but really worth it if you get it out. But I always wanted something more, something that when found, players would be hesitant to give up because they considered it cool and valuable in it's own right, you know, like treasure. What would that be? Here are some ideas:
Adornment
Clothing and jewelry they might like and want to adorn their character with. Sashes, cloaks, belts. These things will need to be detailed enough so they aren't just abstract treasure, but might be the players favorite color or style. So specific gemstones and materials, not so we can calculate the value of the ring better if we know it is ruby versus moonstone, but because the player might really dig moonstone.
I like the idea of embroidery or leatherwork that tells stories or has scenes. Maybe they depict a quality the player might want to convey, Bravery, Determination, Cruelty.
They might be in a particular style, that of their home land, or their home village, a kind of embroidery like their mother used to make, say.
Cloak clasps, hair pins, scarves it all depends on your players I suppose.
As a player, I always liked to personalize my gear, carve my staff for example. Maybe let your players find wood carving knives, leather tooling kits, a roll of leather belt "blanks" or various lengths and widths. It's not like players can't carve their staves if they asked, or buy supplies to do these things, but they might not think of doing so (especially if they are new players) until the option is presented. These items turn the abstract idea players hadn't thought of-- hey, I can make my character dress like a crazy pirate!- into the treasure.
Class-Based Gear
Players may be more interested in items they can use: decorative scroll cases or lock pick sets, well-made water proof sacks, light but strong caskets. Interesting Holy symbols of their own deities. Belts with pouches, gloves made of interesting materials like basilisk scales. Armor of normal defense but with geometric patterns or a bright color, or all black. Scabbards, quivers, tabbards.
Character Image Items
Some players (especially experienced roleplayers) might have a conception of their character they want to portray: the drunk, the fop, the scholar. If you get the sense that they are going for that you can personalize treasure with stuff they can use fulfill that role, whatever it is. Tobacco, casks of particular types of drink, musical instruments, books about certain subjects, hobby/craft tools like fishing or hunting gear. Hats, fancy boots.
I suppose much of this could overlap with adornment, but not consumables that have no in-game effect like tobacco and alcohols. And not the interest-based items. Collection display cases, stationary, muzzles and falconry gear.
3 Types of Treasures
So now I'm realizing that what I'm ending up with is that there are probably ~3 types of treasure similar to the way I propose there are three types of monster in my last post: 1) There is raw treasure, coins (a subset would be awkward treasure that needs to be converted to coins and is a bit difficult to do so). 2) there are dungeon tools-- usually consumable magic items (magic items like scrolls or potions, poisons, fire works) that help players survive, and 3) discretionary treasure that you place to try and please your players based on what you know about them.
So, what next? Raw treasure is easy, I just plop down coins equivalent to three times the experience point value of all the monsters in the dungeon. Dungeon tools I feel like I have been working on for years, you can see some of these tables on my DM aids page.
For discretionary treasure, though, we won't always know what characters want until they grab it. So, I guess variety is important and making sure some of each type above is available. The good thing is that most of the clothes and tools won't be worth too much in monetary value, so it won't hurt to make a little available in each hoard or dungeon. Maybe I can make a treasure table for each category above: Adornment, Class Gear, and Image Items. Then I could roll once on each, or roll once on one of the three each time I determine a treasure.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Dungeon Master - Basic Tools
One of my long time players had recently gotten super excited about DMing a D&Desque pirate campaign. He has ideas for his own character classes and everything. It reminds me of the young pre-teen me :) And I suppose I have done a good job of conveying my DIY vision of this gaming thing we do, because he didn't ask "What system would be good to play out this idea I have," but just started coming up with his own rules and subsystems.
It has been really interesting for me to try and help him because there are a lot of things I didn't know how to do when I started DMing so I had to craft my own methods and tools. Now I can share those with him and hopefully he can hit the ground running and adapt them however he wants. I have so many tables and charts.
It's also interesting, since I suffered a few hard drive failures over the years, trying to find these tables in editable forms. Some of my tables apparently only exist as a hard copy in my personal DM folder or in posts on this blog. Anyway, it has been fun and useful to try and revisit some of these old tools and revise them and pull together some of the things I've learned into one place.
Map
First I showed him two easy ways to make maps, a Toss & Trace way to make natural caverns (which came from this post) and a Tetromino Template Dungeon for purposefully built dungeons that can still be arranged for variety (originally from this post). For the latter we didn't do the whole stencil thing, just cut and pasted the individual rooms. Here is a revised sheet to make that easier:
Monsters
Then I gave him the run down on how I put monsters in my dungeons. Now, this is for basic lower level dungeons and just focuses on unintelligent creatures at first. But I think it's a handy baseline to have that you can add intelligent faction on top of.
Here is the Wandering Monster table I mention in that document (a revision of this):
There is a lot packed on there. The idea is, if you are in a rush or learning this craft, that you can just reskin the four creature behavior types and use the default stats given. But they are printed in light grey so you can revise them by writing over them if you want. If your pirate cave's vermin are little albino crabs you can make their AC higher and write 14 over the default 12.
The little pips are how much that monster has to outnumber the party by before they become out-right hostile (they may stalk and do other aggressive things at lower ratios). So, vermin would have to out number the party 4-to-1 before you roll initiative and they straight up start trying to attack.
The graph paper is so you can pre-roll creature hitpoints circle the appropriate squares and scratch them off in the heat of combat.
I told my player my dirty little secret that I will often use the rolled hitpoints for double duty, as a set encounter on the map and also as a wandering encounter if it comes up. I figure losing a little randomness by not rerolling 18 crab hitpoints is worth the convenience I get as a DM.
The other table mentioned, What are the Monsters Doing? was from a post here, but I realized I didn't have an editable version anywhere so here it is.
Treasure
I haven't quite put together the handout on treasure yet. I'm heading back up to the mountains, maybe I can add it here when I get back. I need to explain how much monetary treasure I place. How many potions, rings, wands, or other magical items and share the tables I have for all those. And I should probably try to scour my blog for spells. I probably have at least 30 interesting spell ideas. I'm really bad at knowing how to assign levels though. There was a Dragon magazine article I remember about designing spells that gave some guidelines for assigning levels. I think I'll find that, print it out and take it to the mountains with me to study.
Anyway, I've linked all but the two inmages as doc files so you can mess with them if you want. I consider them drafts I will need to revise and maybe put together as a little booklet. I usually annotate my map with traps and treasures so during play I only have two letter-size sheets of paper to keep track of. It is pretty easy and streamlined, no numbered room lists or anything. I hope this is useful for some of you. If nothing else, I've got the files up here for me to access later :) Stay cool, folks.
It has been really interesting for me to try and help him because there are a lot of things I didn't know how to do when I started DMing so I had to craft my own methods and tools. Now I can share those with him and hopefully he can hit the ground running and adapt them however he wants. I have so many tables and charts.
It's also interesting, since I suffered a few hard drive failures over the years, trying to find these tables in editable forms. Some of my tables apparently only exist as a hard copy in my personal DM folder or in posts on this blog. Anyway, it has been fun and useful to try and revisit some of these old tools and revise them and pull together some of the things I've learned into one place.
Map
First I showed him two easy ways to make maps, a Toss & Trace way to make natural caverns (which came from this post) and a Tetromino Template Dungeon for purposefully built dungeons that can still be arranged for variety (originally from this post). For the latter we didn't do the whole stencil thing, just cut and pasted the individual rooms. Here is a revised sheet to make that easier:
Monsters
Then I gave him the run down on how I put monsters in my dungeons. Now, this is for basic lower level dungeons and just focuses on unintelligent creatures at first. But I think it's a handy baseline to have that you can add intelligent faction on top of.
Here is the Wandering Monster table I mention in that document (a revision of this):
The little pips are how much that monster has to outnumber the party by before they become out-right hostile (they may stalk and do other aggressive things at lower ratios). So, vermin would have to out number the party 4-to-1 before you roll initiative and they straight up start trying to attack.
The graph paper is so you can pre-roll creature hitpoints circle the appropriate squares and scratch them off in the heat of combat.
I told my player my dirty little secret that I will often use the rolled hitpoints for double duty, as a set encounter on the map and also as a wandering encounter if it comes up. I figure losing a little randomness by not rerolling 18 crab hitpoints is worth the convenience I get as a DM.
The other table mentioned, What are the Monsters Doing? was from a post here, but I realized I didn't have an editable version anywhere so here it is.
Treasure
I haven't quite put together the handout on treasure yet. I'm heading back up to the mountains, maybe I can add it here when I get back. I need to explain how much monetary treasure I place. How many potions, rings, wands, or other magical items and share the tables I have for all those. And I should probably try to scour my blog for spells. I probably have at least 30 interesting spell ideas. I'm really bad at knowing how to assign levels though. There was a Dragon magazine article I remember about designing spells that gave some guidelines for assigning levels. I think I'll find that, print it out and take it to the mountains with me to study.
Anyway, I've linked all but the two inmages as doc files so you can mess with them if you want. I consider them drafts I will need to revise and maybe put together as a little booklet. I usually annotate my map with traps and treasures so during play I only have two letter-size sheets of paper to keep track of. It is pretty easy and streamlined, no numbered room lists or anything. I hope this is useful for some of you. If nothing else, I've got the files up here for me to access later :) Stay cool, folks.
Friday, July 1, 2016
Mountain Ideas 2
I had great plans to post every other day while in the mountains. Unfortunately, Google decided it didn't like that I was posting from a new location ( though I've posted many times from there before) and would not allow me to log-in without phone confirmation of my account. Traditional security check via email confirmation would have worked, but Google insisted on calling or texting my phone and there is no cell coverage where I was at, so posting to my blog from the mountians is no longer possible unless Google changes its policy. Sucks, but I wrote down all my ideas I had while hiking around and I'll just give them to you all in one dump:
Wound Map
Cast this spell on a bare back and fresh wounds will raise up (1d6 hp) rendering a map of the surrounding paths or passages.
Failed Spells
Trying to think up new spells, I kept coming up with crappy ones. Then I thought, what if a spell scroll might be some wizard's attempt at a spell they wanted, but they never quite worked it out. So, a scroll found in a dungeon might have a sort of abstract with a title and what the spell does, but when the player casts it, it does something less. Not horrible, more annoying and useless. For example, a scroll lists itself as "Astral Arm: a third, ghostly arm appears that can reach through walls. Lasts a day" But on casting it, it is more like "Arm Growth: A lumpy, flesh protuberance begins growing out of the casters back. It takes until that caster reaches the next level for it to fully grow into a crude arm with a thumb and 1d4 fingers. Not useful for much-- add 1/3 to encumbrance and an extra save when falling as it scrabbles to catch hold."
Chaos Blade
This one is pretty obvious, so you might have seen it before. This weapon is +2, but shifts form each time you go into battle
1. 1d6 darts
2. Bow and 1d6 arrows
3. 2-handed sword
4. club
5. glaive
6. dancing long sword
The bonus and the possibility of it dancing are good, but the fact you might end up with darts when you are fighting skeletons hopefully makes it less powerful as well as unpredictable.
Telecanter's Cold Camp
This blue fire casts barely any light and no heat at all unless the caster says "heat this"-- all other objects are unaffected. Allows for preparing food, lighting torches, or keeping warm even in a field of dry kindling.
Rune of Recognition I
Cast the spell, tell anyone you wish to know the shape of your secret rune, and then later, you can make the shape of the rune from stone or sticks, draw it in the sand etc., and anyone told of the shape before hand will see it but it will be completely invisible to others.
Fugitive Blood Ritual
This necromantic ritual of last resort allows the caster to cut their own throat and let their blood pour from their body and escape. The blood flows across the ground, through cracks, and hides until a later time to come back and re-invest the apparently dead body. If the casters body is destroyed in the mean time the blood can persist for years looking for a blood-drained body to inhabit.
Corpus Fungus Ritual
This necromantic ritual of last resort causes the caster to swell with fungal growths and explode into a shower of spores. Anyone breathing the spores (fail saves) will, over the next few weeks, slowly turn into the caster. Multiple versions of the caster can thus result (treat as clones).
Keepsafe Lizard
A wizard casts this spell and whispers something to any normal lizard. The wizard then completely forgets that information, it is excised from their mind and exists only in the lizard. The lizard can be told to return in days, weeks, or years. It will then disappear into the wild and find the caster again, wherever they are, at a random time within the time frame given. Allows wizards to hide information that may be coerced or ensorcelled out of them. They can't even tell an enemy when the lizard will return because they aren't sure themselves.
Bloodgift Swarm
A swarm of insects is summoned to draw blood from the caster. The caster can decide how much or little (up to their HD -1 hp). The resulting engorged swarm must be kept somewhere dark and protected, under a hat or in an empty scroll tube are common places. A swarm can be kept thus indefinitely, but the donated life is slow to replenish (half hp regen). Then, when needed, the caster can command the swarm to give their blood to any target-- restoring that same amount of life to them.
Spell-Type Category Research
A wizard that knows 7 spells of a "type" can do research that, if successful, will improve all spells of that type. Types could be spells involving a particular substance, like fire, be a particular effect, like a bolt, or affect certain creatures like, insects. This is why the original wizards had so many spells in the same category-- Bigby's hand spells, for instance, because they specialized in them and became experts in that type of spell.
Rune of Recognition II
The caster draws this rune anywhere they wish, but usually in their spell book or in a forbidden area of their lair. And any person that looks upon the rune will be recognized as such later by the caster. Just by looking at their eyes, the caster will know they have looked upon the forbidden rune and been where they shouldn't have.
That's it for now. Hope you are staying cool and having fun gaming with friends.
Wound Map
Cast this spell on a bare back and fresh wounds will raise up (1d6 hp) rendering a map of the surrounding paths or passages.
Failed Spells
Trying to think up new spells, I kept coming up with crappy ones. Then I thought, what if a spell scroll might be some wizard's attempt at a spell they wanted, but they never quite worked it out. So, a scroll found in a dungeon might have a sort of abstract with a title and what the spell does, but when the player casts it, it does something less. Not horrible, more annoying and useless. For example, a scroll lists itself as "Astral Arm: a third, ghostly arm appears that can reach through walls. Lasts a day" But on casting it, it is more like "Arm Growth: A lumpy, flesh protuberance begins growing out of the casters back. It takes until that caster reaches the next level for it to fully grow into a crude arm with a thumb and 1d4 fingers. Not useful for much-- add 1/3 to encumbrance and an extra save when falling as it scrabbles to catch hold."
Chaos Blade
This one is pretty obvious, so you might have seen it before. This weapon is +2, but shifts form each time you go into battle
1. 1d6 darts
2. Bow and 1d6 arrows
3. 2-handed sword
4. club
5. glaive
6. dancing long sword
The bonus and the possibility of it dancing are good, but the fact you might end up with darts when you are fighting skeletons hopefully makes it less powerful as well as unpredictable.
Telecanter's Cold Camp
This blue fire casts barely any light and no heat at all unless the caster says "heat this"-- all other objects are unaffected. Allows for preparing food, lighting torches, or keeping warm even in a field of dry kindling.
Rune of Recognition I
Cast the spell, tell anyone you wish to know the shape of your secret rune, and then later, you can make the shape of the rune from stone or sticks, draw it in the sand etc., and anyone told of the shape before hand will see it but it will be completely invisible to others.
Fugitive Blood Ritual
This necromantic ritual of last resort allows the caster to cut their own throat and let their blood pour from their body and escape. The blood flows across the ground, through cracks, and hides until a later time to come back and re-invest the apparently dead body. If the casters body is destroyed in the mean time the blood can persist for years looking for a blood-drained body to inhabit.
Corpus Fungus Ritual
This necromantic ritual of last resort causes the caster to swell with fungal growths and explode into a shower of spores. Anyone breathing the spores (fail saves) will, over the next few weeks, slowly turn into the caster. Multiple versions of the caster can thus result (treat as clones).
Keepsafe Lizard
A wizard casts this spell and whispers something to any normal lizard. The wizard then completely forgets that information, it is excised from their mind and exists only in the lizard. The lizard can be told to return in days, weeks, or years. It will then disappear into the wild and find the caster again, wherever they are, at a random time within the time frame given. Allows wizards to hide information that may be coerced or ensorcelled out of them. They can't even tell an enemy when the lizard will return because they aren't sure themselves.
Bloodgift Swarm
A swarm of insects is summoned to draw blood from the caster. The caster can decide how much or little (up to their HD -1 hp). The resulting engorged swarm must be kept somewhere dark and protected, under a hat or in an empty scroll tube are common places. A swarm can be kept thus indefinitely, but the donated life is slow to replenish (half hp regen). Then, when needed, the caster can command the swarm to give their blood to any target-- restoring that same amount of life to them.
Spell-Type Category Research
A wizard that knows 7 spells of a "type" can do research that, if successful, will improve all spells of that type. Types could be spells involving a particular substance, like fire, be a particular effect, like a bolt, or affect certain creatures like, insects. This is why the original wizards had so many spells in the same category-- Bigby's hand spells, for instance, because they specialized in them and became experts in that type of spell.
Rune of Recognition II
The caster draws this rune anywhere they wish, but usually in their spell book or in a forbidden area of their lair. And any person that looks upon the rune will be recognized as such later by the caster. Just by looking at their eyes, the caster will know they have looked upon the forbidden rune and been where they shouldn't have.
That's it for now. Hope you are staying cool and having fun gaming with friends.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Ideas from the Mountains
I've had the privilege of getting to spend some time up in the mountains this summer (haven't really the last two summers). Being up in the cool, clean air and the quiet always gives me tons of ideas. Here are a few:
Class-based Maps for a Space Game
I've been interested in some non-D&D one-offs, or mini campaigns. One that I think would be fun would be a space ship crew investigating a derelict ship. In trying to figure out how to catch some of that genre flavor, I thought giving each player different maps of the ship being explored would work. The idea is the ship itself is a familiar entity, a federation ship, or one from their own corporation, but their individual knowledge of the ship is limited to their field of expertise. So the engineer knows where the maintenance access ducts are, the medic/science officer knows where life support air ducts are, ect. Then let loose some alien threat and only allow players to share their maps by verbally describing them to each other: "If we get to bulkhead B, there is an air duct there." "Yes there is a maintenance duct access near there too, I think we should head there."
Phoenix Balm
A magic item that you rub on and suffer great burning pain (1d6 hit points lost permanently) but allows you to come back after death-by-fire a whole level higher.
Spell Beetles
A rare beetle mages catch, whisper a spell to, and then send to a friend in need. The beetle travels at normal speed to where the friend is, and if eaten, grants that friend the ability to cast that spell once. Until they do, that spell slot is lost to the beetle-sending mage, though.
Yahtzee Mechanic
I've long been a proponent for using common parlor games in my D&D-- Jenga, cards, charades - both because if it is that common it is probably good at being amusing but also it is probably something players will have knowledge of, so reduces the amount I have to teach them. I don't think I've written about Yahtzee in this regard. I think it would be perfect for a gambling type situation where you can take small gains that you know, or risk them to push for bigger gains-- two situations that spring to mind are spell research and social maneuvering. Maybe getting to know the local politicians could be that player throwing Yahtzee dice and the higher the hand they end up with the better the relationship established. Or, I was just talking about wanting some type of shopping mini-game, maybe this mechanic could work for that.
Class-based Maps for a Space Game
I've been interested in some non-D&D one-offs, or mini campaigns. One that I think would be fun would be a space ship crew investigating a derelict ship. In trying to figure out how to catch some of that genre flavor, I thought giving each player different maps of the ship being explored would work. The idea is the ship itself is a familiar entity, a federation ship, or one from their own corporation, but their individual knowledge of the ship is limited to their field of expertise. So the engineer knows where the maintenance access ducts are, the medic/science officer knows where life support air ducts are, ect. Then let loose some alien threat and only allow players to share their maps by verbally describing them to each other: "If we get to bulkhead B, there is an air duct there." "Yes there is a maintenance duct access near there too, I think we should head there."
Phoenix Balm
A magic item that you rub on and suffer great burning pain (1d6 hit points lost permanently) but allows you to come back after death-by-fire a whole level higher.
Spell Beetles
A rare beetle mages catch, whisper a spell to, and then send to a friend in need. The beetle travels at normal speed to where the friend is, and if eaten, grants that friend the ability to cast that spell once. Until they do, that spell slot is lost to the beetle-sending mage, though.
Yahtzee Mechanic
I've long been a proponent for using common parlor games in my D&D-- Jenga, cards, charades - both because if it is that common it is probably good at being amusing but also it is probably something players will have knowledge of, so reduces the amount I have to teach them. I don't think I've written about Yahtzee in this regard. I think it would be perfect for a gambling type situation where you can take small gains that you know, or risk them to push for bigger gains-- two situations that spring to mind are spell research and social maneuvering. Maybe getting to know the local politicians could be that player throwing Yahtzee dice and the higher the hand they end up with the better the relationship established. Or, I was just talking about wanting some type of shopping mini-game, maybe this mechanic could work for that.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Under the Cathedral
The party's exploration of caves under the city's main cathedral continues. Oma's player was out of town, but the sometime-player of Toss had work off, so joined for the night.
Anonimo - Rogue
Aphrodisia - Cleric
G - Cleric
Toss - Fighter
and various hirelings
I cut off last write-up a little too soon. The party had actually explored a passage to the left that ended in a sturdy oak door with a steel lock. Anonimo tried to pick it but failed so they proceeded to break it off. One of them step on a pressure plate and darts started pouring from the walls-- not shooting, apparently that mechanism was broken-- but the pile around their legs was enough to knock out Aphrodisia, her dog and hireling Arpe.
While they were deciding what to do, Anonimo scouted past the now opened door to find the natural cavern passage ending in a downward sloping passage only high enough to belly-crawl down. He went far enough to see there was a room of some sort full of jumbled idols.
The party decided to go back up to the cathedral to rest. After everyone woke back up and refreshed, they headed back to the small room with the idols. They spent a lot of time rummaging through these. Anonimo especially looking for gems and valuable bits. I tried to give the impression that these were lots of different gods formerly worshipped in the city that have been pitched here.
As they were messing about the room they heard movement and a weird barking below them. Aphrodisia started to talk to it. The thing seemed to call itself a dark swimmer and it got excited with its simple language, when she mentioned humans, saying "feed!, feed!"
The party decided to go back up to talk to the two priests. The learned one recited a few lays about dark swimmers and humans turning into them. Then they went on an extended shopping and dragons spree, I think to buy materials to try and trap what they imagined was down there.
Then back below the cathedral. They decided, before committing to going deeper, that they wanted to explore the other direction more. So they proceeded to the right, found a filthy hair sack, and a room of quivering pigeons with little tentacles writhing from their breasts. They also heard a huffing/ roaring sound and it was now G's turn to try and talk to whatever was ahead in the darkness.
It seemed territorial, and angry at another of its kind. It eventually came into the light and they saw something like a muddy hippo body but a bear-like head with sharp teeth. It didn't attack them. So they decided to explore back the other way a bit.
Toss stripped of armor and explored forward a bit in the cold water. Finally, turning back when the water didn't open up before she started running out of breath. So then it was back to the idol room and down to where the dark swimmer had been.
Under the pile of idols they found a hole. They descended down into the darkness to find hallways covered in a pitch black substance and roughly shaped, almost as if they were burrowed out.
This hallway had a few side passages that led to locked doors. Anonimo got a chance to pick them. In the first two rooms were weird sensory experiences: shifting colors, smells. As they continued down the main hall, little hoof taps greeted them. Then this thing showed up out of the darkness.
It begged and pleaded with them to let it touch their forehead. G was ready with a club, wanting to brain it, but Aphrodisia allowed it to and her greatest regret melted out of her with a feeling of warmth. Then it clattered of in the darkness and we ended for the night.
Thoughts and notes
I gave all my players an index card at the beginning of the session that had the instruction to "Write your character's biggest regret" and when the thing touched Aphrodisia I asked for her card and dramatically tore it in half.
This was the first time I as a DM have ever played animals talking to players. It was fun. I made it less funny language and more the players understanding what the creatures were communicating in broad terms like "be alert, everyone hunting now", etc.
The players seemed to think the one creature they were talking to was referring to the barking "Dark swimmer", which was just a weird seal, but it wasn't. There is another even larger bear-hippo on the other side of the water cave. They got a lucky reaction roll on the first one, they might be in trouble if the keep messing with these big creatures.
The whole thing is a chaos area leaking out underneath the cathedral. I set up a Jenga tower and asked the clerics to pull when they cast a spell. If the tower fall bad chaos things will happen. I have another mechanic in mind for the next session (hopefully tonight). I have some colored stones of about the same shape. I'm going to let the players examine they as long as they wish, then put them in a sack and ask them to pull a stone they name before hand, by touch alone. I think it should be fun, and probably hard. I am trying to use it to convey the idea that Chaos is so strong hear that they are having a hard time communicating with their deities. So each time they try to cast a spell, they will have to successfully draw a stone for it to succeed.
The lockpicking minigame seems to be working well, when I introduced it a while back, Anonimo the rogue's player said something like "Finally something to do" Which made me fell a bit bad, but, I'm working on it. I need to give the fighters more to do. I'm thinking a magical chaos weapon down this hole might do just the trick.
Anonimo - Rogue
Aphrodisia - Cleric
G - Cleric
Toss - Fighter
and various hirelings
I cut off last write-up a little too soon. The party had actually explored a passage to the left that ended in a sturdy oak door with a steel lock. Anonimo tried to pick it but failed so they proceeded to break it off. One of them step on a pressure plate and darts started pouring from the walls-- not shooting, apparently that mechanism was broken-- but the pile around their legs was enough to knock out Aphrodisia, her dog and hireling Arpe.
While they were deciding what to do, Anonimo scouted past the now opened door to find the natural cavern passage ending in a downward sloping passage only high enough to belly-crawl down. He went far enough to see there was a room of some sort full of jumbled idols.
The party decided to go back up to the cathedral to rest. After everyone woke back up and refreshed, they headed back to the small room with the idols. They spent a lot of time rummaging through these. Anonimo especially looking for gems and valuable bits. I tried to give the impression that these were lots of different gods formerly worshipped in the city that have been pitched here.
As they were messing about the room they heard movement and a weird barking below them. Aphrodisia started to talk to it. The thing seemed to call itself a dark swimmer and it got excited with its simple language, when she mentioned humans, saying "feed!, feed!"
The party decided to go back up to talk to the two priests. The learned one recited a few lays about dark swimmers and humans turning into them. Then they went on an extended shopping and dragons spree, I think to buy materials to try and trap what they imagined was down there.
Then back below the cathedral. They decided, before committing to going deeper, that they wanted to explore the other direction more. So they proceeded to the right, found a filthy hair sack, and a room of quivering pigeons with little tentacles writhing from their breasts. They also heard a huffing/ roaring sound and it was now G's turn to try and talk to whatever was ahead in the darkness.
It seemed territorial, and angry at another of its kind. It eventually came into the light and they saw something like a muddy hippo body but a bear-like head with sharp teeth. It didn't attack them. So they decided to explore back the other way a bit.
Toss stripped of armor and explored forward a bit in the cold water. Finally, turning back when the water didn't open up before she started running out of breath. So then it was back to the idol room and down to where the dark swimmer had been.
Under the pile of idols they found a hole. They descended down into the darkness to find hallways covered in a pitch black substance and roughly shaped, almost as if they were burrowed out.
This hallway had a few side passages that led to locked doors. Anonimo got a chance to pick them. In the first two rooms were weird sensory experiences: shifting colors, smells. As they continued down the main hall, little hoof taps greeted them. Then this thing showed up out of the darkness.
It begged and pleaded with them to let it touch their forehead. G was ready with a club, wanting to brain it, but Aphrodisia allowed it to and her greatest regret melted out of her with a feeling of warmth. Then it clattered of in the darkness and we ended for the night.
Thoughts and notes
I gave all my players an index card at the beginning of the session that had the instruction to "Write your character's biggest regret" and when the thing touched Aphrodisia I asked for her card and dramatically tore it in half.
This was the first time I as a DM have ever played animals talking to players. It was fun. I made it less funny language and more the players understanding what the creatures were communicating in broad terms like "be alert, everyone hunting now", etc.
The players seemed to think the one creature they were talking to was referring to the barking "Dark swimmer", which was just a weird seal, but it wasn't. There is another even larger bear-hippo on the other side of the water cave. They got a lucky reaction roll on the first one, they might be in trouble if the keep messing with these big creatures.
The whole thing is a chaos area leaking out underneath the cathedral. I set up a Jenga tower and asked the clerics to pull when they cast a spell. If the tower fall bad chaos things will happen. I have another mechanic in mind for the next session (hopefully tonight). I have some colored stones of about the same shape. I'm going to let the players examine they as long as they wish, then put them in a sack and ask them to pull a stone they name before hand, by touch alone. I think it should be fun, and probably hard. I am trying to use it to convey the idea that Chaos is so strong hear that they are having a hard time communicating with their deities. So each time they try to cast a spell, they will have to successfully draw a stone for it to succeed.
The lockpicking minigame seems to be working well, when I introduced it a while back, Anonimo the rogue's player said something like "Finally something to do" Which made me fell a bit bad, but, I'm working on it. I need to give the fighters more to do. I'm thinking a magical chaos weapon down this hole might do just the trick.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Magic Item Through Tech
Heh, haptic shoes, ladies and gents.
They lead you by giving you signals to your feet not exactly the slight pull I mentioned with these magic shoes, but I figure close enough.
Hat tip to Boing Boing.
Hat tip to Boing Boing.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
After the Regatta
It's been a year since I DMed last. We previously left our party after one of them had one the Regatta Gloriosa. Now the adventures continue:
Anonimo - Rogue
Aphrodisia - Cleric
G - Cleric
Oma - Fighter
and various hirelings
We rolled on the Fad of the Day chart and negotiated the answer to mean bling was in season. Which is fitting because there would be a procession from the docks to the central cathedral. That is because in winning the regatta G secured the right to change the city's religion for a year.
So, Shopping & Dragons happened for a while as players tried to bling themselves up. I am horrible at estimating prices and may need to just buckle down and develop my own simplified price lists for the city as well as maybe develop a mini-game to make it more engaging for everyone.
After the blinged-out crew finished the procession there was a banquet attended by all the most important families in Ulminster. After many courses of some of the city's famous delicacies there was a toast. Suddenly one old priest lurch back and melted into a tarry substance. Chaos erupted, people running and screaming it was an ill omen.
The party investigated the body but there wasn't much left except his staff that had scratch marks around the tip. G asked the Captain, his diety, for the power to speak with the dead and was granted it. After asking a few questions they determined the old dude had no clue what happened to him, but he mentioned a strange word "sevreson." Asking around, the party ended up talking to Learned Henry who informed them that sevreson was a rare, rural digestif and proceeded to sing a song about it. Talking to another old priest Bonny Burleson who was the deceased roommate, they found he often snuck off to the cellar, for what they assumed was a snort of the stuff. On searching the cellar, though, they found nothing resembling the rare liqueur. G asked the Captain for gudiance and they were led to a rack in one corner of the cellar that could be swung out.
On the other side of this secret door they found a natural cavern with a keg. on top of the keg was some tarry substance that looked like a rat had died and its foul fluids were dripping down near the tap. They just began searching the caverns when we stopped for the night.
Oh, I forgot, Aphrodisia can see the future and had a dream of a scantily clad person clambering up a wall in the cathedral to steal a jeweled cross. and several times during the evening (procession, banquet) strange masked figure appeared.
Reflection
So, about the last two notes-- I'm trying to plant seed for a thriving Snake cult they can chose to investigate (the scantily clad thief) and also start escalating some craziness in the world related to people donning masks that will occur whether they get involved or not.
Backing up, while super simple, this is the first time I've ever ventured into something mystery-like. It seemed to go ok. I didn't even think about the cleric's ability to speak with the dead, though. So, next time I try something like this I should have weird clues for the dead person to give.
Also, I introduced Henry and Burleson specifically so that the players would have different avenues to find out about things. They are two of my three ideas for distinct knowledge npcs (the Veteran and the Storyteller). It was a bit of a rusty start, but hopefully it will become more fruitful.
In addition to thinking about pricelists I mentioned above I want to create my own version of Chris Hogan's Fad of the Day chart. I think the idea is brilliant, but I think I might be using it slightly differently than he intended, I mostly want something fresh and potentially funny to differentiate social interaction each session. So, I need less support from the chart for repercussion for not following the fad and more help with what the fad actually is. I'll share it if I make it. Hope you are all have fun gaming with friends. See you next post.
Anonimo - Rogue
Aphrodisia - Cleric
G - Cleric
Oma - Fighter
and various hirelings
We rolled on the Fad of the Day chart and negotiated the answer to mean bling was in season. Which is fitting because there would be a procession from the docks to the central cathedral. That is because in winning the regatta G secured the right to change the city's religion for a year.
So, Shopping & Dragons happened for a while as players tried to bling themselves up. I am horrible at estimating prices and may need to just buckle down and develop my own simplified price lists for the city as well as maybe develop a mini-game to make it more engaging for everyone.
After the blinged-out crew finished the procession there was a banquet attended by all the most important families in Ulminster. After many courses of some of the city's famous delicacies there was a toast. Suddenly one old priest lurch back and melted into a tarry substance. Chaos erupted, people running and screaming it was an ill omen.
The party investigated the body but there wasn't much left except his staff that had scratch marks around the tip. G asked the Captain, his diety, for the power to speak with the dead and was granted it. After asking a few questions they determined the old dude had no clue what happened to him, but he mentioned a strange word "sevreson." Asking around, the party ended up talking to Learned Henry who informed them that sevreson was a rare, rural digestif and proceeded to sing a song about it. Talking to another old priest Bonny Burleson who was the deceased roommate, they found he often snuck off to the cellar, for what they assumed was a snort of the stuff. On searching the cellar, though, they found nothing resembling the rare liqueur. G asked the Captain for gudiance and they were led to a rack in one corner of the cellar that could be swung out.
On the other side of this secret door they found a natural cavern with a keg. on top of the keg was some tarry substance that looked like a rat had died and its foul fluids were dripping down near the tap. They just began searching the caverns when we stopped for the night.
Oh, I forgot, Aphrodisia can see the future and had a dream of a scantily clad person clambering up a wall in the cathedral to steal a jeweled cross. and several times during the evening (procession, banquet) strange masked figure appeared.
Reflection
So, about the last two notes-- I'm trying to plant seed for a thriving Snake cult they can chose to investigate (the scantily clad thief) and also start escalating some craziness in the world related to people donning masks that will occur whether they get involved or not.
Backing up, while super simple, this is the first time I've ever ventured into something mystery-like. It seemed to go ok. I didn't even think about the cleric's ability to speak with the dead, though. So, next time I try something like this I should have weird clues for the dead person to give.
Also, I introduced Henry and Burleson specifically so that the players would have different avenues to find out about things. They are two of my three ideas for distinct knowledge npcs (the Veteran and the Storyteller). It was a bit of a rusty start, but hopefully it will become more fruitful.
In addition to thinking about pricelists I mentioned above I want to create my own version of Chris Hogan's Fad of the Day chart. I think the idea is brilliant, but I think I might be using it slightly differently than he intended, I mostly want something fresh and potentially funny to differentiate social interaction each session. So, I need less support from the chart for repercussion for not following the fad and more help with what the fad actually is. I'll share it if I make it. Hope you are all have fun gaming with friends. See you next post.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
New York Public Library public domain works
The New York Public Library recently started sharing public domain works in its collection online here. I read about it here. Looks like a possible new source for interesting game art. I worked this up in about an hour:
But the unfortunate thing is they charge you $50 to get the high definition files. Not a problem for me working with silhouettes, but I thought the colors on the original for this were nice and all you can get is a version with pretty bad jpeg artfacting:
Anyway, thought I would share. Hope your new year is starting nicely.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Masks
"The spirits that inhabit masks can be capricious, even savage creatures. There are reports of mask-wearers being led on chains to prevent them from attacking onlookers. Some mask-gods, such as the Egungun of the Yoruba, are thought to be able to kill an unmasked person with a single touch. One Tibetan mask was removed from its shrine only once a year in preparation for its ceremony. It was then kept overnight in a locked temple, while monks chanted prayers to prevent its malicious spirit from breaking free. Villagers for miles around barred their doors. Among the Ilahita Arapesh of Melanesia, ritual killings were carried out by a man in a state of possession by the appropriate mask."A quote from this essay that seemed pretty creepy and gameable.
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