Advice for Running Long-Term Campaigns Online

The other day, all-around likeable dude Chris Wilson sent me a message:

“I know you’ve been running a successful Google hangouts campaign for awhile now, and I was just wondering if you have any advice for me to get a similar campaign started?”

This isn’t something I’d ever really thought about. After two and a half years, On a Red World Alone definitely qualifies as a long running online campaign, but that’s not something I set out to accomplish. I have no program for keeping it going aside from simply responding to problems as they’ve arisen. None the less, Chris seems to have found the conversation useful. Perhaps the same advice can be helpful to others as well.

The most important thing is to Keep Showing Up. Everything else I have to say could be distilled down to this single point. Campaigns end when the referee gives up on them. If you surrender to your first bout of “setting fatigue,” your campaign will be lucky to last 6 months.

There have been times when ORWA bores me. Days when I just don’t feel like running very much. I push through those times because I enjoy hanging out with my players, and because I know my boredom is temporary. I know that in a month I’m going to come up with a cool new idea. When I do, I’ll be happy I still have my weekly ORWA session to inject it into.

On a Red World Alone will end someday, but it won’t end because I’m bored with it. It will end because I’m satisfied with it.

It’s also essential to understand that Your Players Won’t Keep Showing Up. That’s not a judgement on them, it’s just a fact of life. No group of adults will be able to consistently keep the same night of the week available for years at a time. People drop out. Presently, ORWA only has one and a half of its original players. I lost most of my starting group within the first 6 months, and since then there have been multiple “generations” of the party. Some of the later players have become more essential to my idea of what the game is than the people who were there with me at the beginning.

If I have more than a couple sessions of low, or no attendance, I go recruiting. I get out there on g+ and let folks know there’s room for them at my table. Sometimes it takes a couple weeks to find someone, but it’s worth the effort. I’ve had 16 different players in ORWA over the years: some dropped out after a few weeks; some are still new recruits themselves; some played for many years but have moved on to other things; some have returned to the game after long absences. Only one player has been part of the game consistently since its beginning.

To mitigate players dropping off, I do my best to Make The Game Part of Everyone’s Routine. In my experience the most common time to lose players is when the schedule is unpredictable. On a Red World Alone happens every Wednesday from 6pm to 9pm PST. That time has never changed, nor have I ever taken a hiatus away from it.

That isn’t to say we’ve never missed a session. In the 132 weeks since we started playing, we’ve only played 101 times. Sometimes Wednesday is a holiday, and we cancel the game so people can be with their families. Sometimes I can’t avoid needing to work during our normal game time, or I’m too sick to play. Sometimes I show up, but none of my players do.

These things happen, but it’s always handled on a week-to-week basis. The session is always assumed to be on until something disrupts it.

In terms of Organization, my games work pretty much the same way that everyone’s games do. I set lofty goals for myself and constantly fall short of them. Somehow the game hasn’t completely imploded yet, and is still a lot of fun, so I can’t be doing everything wrong.

The first step I take in any new campaign is to create a new community for it on Google+. A place where the players and I can talk about the game without any distractions. It is insanely useful, and is easily my #1 organization tip. Beyond that, I can divide my campaign documentation into three groups: the player’s guide, the public records, and my private notes.

The Player’s Guide is a document I throw together which contains all the house rules we will be using. I don’t have any of the ORWA guides available for easy sharing, but the guide I wrote for Fuck the King of Space is a good representative example. Don’t be intimidated by the 23 pages of writing I did for that game. I use a TON of house rules. The original ORWA player’s guide was much less impressive.

Public Records start with the play reports, where I note down everything important that happened during a session. I acknowledge that my style in this is wildly excessive, and creates a lot of useless documentation that nobody will ever use. Do not emulate the way I write play reports. A good play report can be much simpler than the ones I write.

Out of these play reports I copy some information into various threads. Some are more useful than others. For example: any time a new spell is created, I write it up in the play report, but I also copy it into the Spellbook thread. I do the same thing for any guns that are discovered. I have thread for recording the player’s activities during their Haven Turns, and threads for recording which sessions various NPCs have appeared in.

Finally there are The Referee Notes. Nothing too surprising here: it’s a document with all the tables I use, as well as a few notes about what certain NPCs are plotting, etc. Most of the details about the world just live in my head, same as any other referee. Occasionally I’ll need to stat up a monster or doodle a map. I have a pocket notebook where I write all that stuff.

Some issues are unique to running games online. I use Google Hangouts for a few reasons. Habit is the biggest one, but it’s also easily accessible to people I know through Google+, it’s good at supporting multi-user video chats, and is more-or-less reliable. That being said, Google has definitely been treating the service like an ugly stepchild, gradually making it less and less and less useful over time. I’m hopeful that Discord will be able to replace hangouts, but last time I tried it they still had way too many issues with multi-user video chats.

(Please: no one proselytize to me about Roll20. I do not care.)

In an online chat it’s important to realize that everyone’s voices are being pushed through the same set of speakers. Because of this, everyone gets flattened out to the same volume. It’s not possible for two people to lean over and have a side conversation, or for multiple people to talk at once and remain intelligible. The group needs to be good at giving one another space to speak. They also need to acknowledge that this puts increased pressure on people who are shy. If someone looks like they’re trying to say something, do what you can to give them the space to speak.

Don’t make a big deal about not being able to see people’s dice. Some folks get completely bent outta shape over this, as though it’s impossible to play unless there’s some shared dice roller application. It is pathetic. We’re playing D&D, not craps. There’s no money on the line. Who cares if someone fudges a roll? All they’re doing is damaging their own experience.

If someone showed up at my table saying they rolled an 18 in every stat and a 20 on every attack…so what? It’s not going to save them from making stupid decisions, and the only one who is gonna have any less fun because of it is them.

Audio issues happen. People are going to cause some echo or some static. It can be pretty dang frustrating, but you gotta be understanding. Take some time at the start of the session to let people know they’re causing an issue, and give them a chance to fix it. Often having them put on headphones is all that is required.

If it can’t be fixed and it’s a minor issue, try to live with it. Sometimes people live near the train tracks. It annoys them more than it annoys you, so try to be cool. If someone has a major technical issue which is disrupting play, it’s okay to ask them to leave until they can get their gear working.

People are absolutely going to get distracted. They’ll have you open in one tab while they’re looking at their g+ feed in another tab. It happens, just roll with it.

Finally there’s Mapping. At some point you’re going to need a way to communicate the environment to your players visually.

I’m fortunate to have a 25 square foot white board on my wall which I can easily direct my camera towards. It makes mapping a breeze. By far the simplest method I’ve ever seen in many years of online play. If you can set something like this up, I highly encourage you to do so.

If you can’t, some folks screen share their maps using an image editing program like GIMP. If you add a black layer on top of the map, you can slowly erase it as the players go along, revealing what they see. I’ve always found this method painstakingly difficult, because you can’t see the map any better than your players can. There’s always the risk of revealing something you don’t want.

There’s also Digital Whiteboards, such as RealTimeBoard. It’s a powerful tool. Not only can you draw on it, but you can also upload images & PDFs, place post-it-notes, etc. I’ve played in games that were run entirely through the RTB. John Bell has spent a lot more time with the service than I have, and has a few good posts describing the best ways to leverage it for your game.

The downsides to RTB is that everybody needs to create an account, and will need to be invited via email before they can access the board. Also, the company has been scaling back their free service gradually over the years in favor of a paid subscription. It’s not terribly expensive, but it may not be something you want to do just to play D&D online.

That’s all I can think of. I hope it is helpful.

Final Fantasy 7

When the idea that I might want to make tabletop games first wormed its way into my brain, I set myself two goals. I wanted to make an RPG based on Metal Gear Solid; and I wanted to make an RPG based on Final Fantasy 7. Neither of these projects ever went anywhere, as is typical with the wild aspirations of youth.

Recently, a thread Dan D posted on G+ set me to thinking about this for the first time in years. I’m surprised how many ideas I have. I want to let them pour into my keyboard. Let loose with an unmoderated stream of consciousness and see where things go. I make no promises about the quality of this post, or how many follow up posts there’s going to be. This might become The FF7 Fangame Blog, or I might never mention the thing again once I’m done here. Depends on where my heart goes.

The first question that needs to be answered is: what do I want out of an FF7 game? The PS1 original was a jumble of bland gameplay strung together to justify a poorly written melodrama. It’s not the sort of game I’d like to make, or run, or even play in. If I’m rejecting the core essence of the original game, what is left to play with?

Looking back on the game 20+ years after its release, there are a few elements that still speak to me:

The juxtaposition of high and low technologies.
The phenomenally underrated art of the backgrounds.
The music, obvs.
Exploring the destructive impact of capitalism not just on the environment, but on the very idea of what it means to be human.
The grand sense of scale. Starting out feeling insignificantly enveloped by the megacity of Midgar; then seeing Midgar disappear over the horizon as you set out into the wider world.
The feeling that these characters had real agency (even if I, the player, was on rails). They subverted my expectations. They changed their circumstances. They strove, and overcame.

That sense of being an agent of change in the world needs to be the core of the game. It doesn’t matter whether the players are a force for good, or for evil, or just for some obscure personal cause. What matters is that they strive to make their will manifest in the world.

Which leads nicely into the next question that needs to be asked: what rules need to be different from the way I normally play D&D? I have no intention of reinventing any wheels that can be avoided. Attacking by rolling a d20 against your foe’s armor rating works just fine. I see no reason to change it.

However, gaining experience points for treasure or for killing monsters makes no sense to me in this game. Seven isn’t a megadungeon, nor is it a hex crawl. It’s something different from what I’ve done in D&D before. The best term I can come up with for what I’m thinking is Political Sandbox. As in: it’s a world full of people and communities and systems, and the job of the player is to enact their will to power. I’m not 100% happy with the term, but it’ll do for now.

What I’m driving at is that players should get experience points as a reward for the change they create in the world. They might affect their change in any number of ways: they could employ persuasion, or trickery, or bribery, or brute force. So long as the world is altered to suit their will, the players get rewarded.

It’s not something I’m going to be able to figure out in this post, but I’d like to systematize this somehow. I don’t want the referee to be completely responsible for arbitrating what works and what doesn’t. Perhaps any change has a very low baseline chance to go the way the players want? The players then need to accomplish tasks and put assurances in place that will raise the chance that the player’s desires will be carried out?

That feels like it could be made at least as easy to manage for a referee as treasure is.

Regardless of the specifics, I think I ought to actually be able to use the Simple XP system I wrote way back in 2011. I wrote that thing in literally the first month that I took blogging seriously. It’s among the most popular posts I’ve ever written, and it’s kinda cool for it to be relevant again.

Okay, I wrote a lot about how experience gain will work. What else needs to change from how I normally run D&D?

There’s some irrelevant stuff we can get rid of to free up space for increased complexity elsewhere. This isn’t a game about managing diminishing resources, so most of the bookkeeping I normally insist on can be relaxed. Encumbrance can be a vague “whatever feels reasonable.” Nobody will need to worry about rations. Ammunition is inexhaustible.

It’s tempting to wildly inflate health and damage numbers to better emulate the feel of a Final Fantasy game. It’d only be fun for about 10 minutes, though. Eventually all the 4-digit calculations would get tiresome. I’ll stick with d6s for most stuff, I think.

Materia are a vital part of the setting. Bits of congealed souls which grant the character wielding them special abilities. Not only will this need to be the magic system, but in the original game it’s also how characters gained mundane abilities like “Steal.”

I’m thinking that materia should not only replace the magic system, but should replace character classes as well. The PCs are all 1hd shmucks without their materia. When the players earn experience points it doesn’t make them any inherently better. Instead, the players spend their experience points to decide which materia they want to advance.

I don’t know what will determine how many materia a character can equip simultaneously. I don’t like the idea of just slotting them into weapons and armor. Maybe characters have to swallow their materia? It’s inside your body, part of you. If you swallow too many of them you get sick and can’t function. If you want to swap one materia out for another, it takes a couple days to get everything sorted.

Materia would be used to cover even very basic advancements. Early in the game players would be able to acquire a Vitality materia, which they could level up to improve their health beyond its starting value. Other materia might grants common class abilities, like bonuses to attack, or sneak attack damage.

There’s no need for MP. Materia which allows their user to cast magic spells can be used a number of times per day according to their level. So, when you first get the Fire materia, you can cast Fire once. If you put experience points into it and get it up to level 2, you can cast Fire twice. There’s no need for more advanced fire spells (Fire 2, Fire 3), because we’re keeping everything limited in scope.

I realize there’s a lot of potential for exploitation in letting people mix-and-match class abilities, but it sounds fun, so I say try it.

I don’t think the game would need any kind of skill system, just a simple resolution mechanic for handling skill-based tasks. A baseline 2-in-6 or something. If the character wants to be really good at a skill, they’ll want to seek out an appropriate materia.

I am out of ideas for now. Thank you for indulging me.

A Second Look at Hacking, Clerics, & Socializing

Often, I write a post as a means of working through an idea for the first time. Forcing myself to explain the idea gets my thoughts in order. Later, the idea develops further through play, and within a few sessions the rules I’m using are markedly different from what I’ve got posted up on the blog.

This isn’t the worst thing. Blogs posts aren’t meant to be sourcebooks; they’re meant to be part of a community-wide conversation. None the less, it’s not ideal. I often want to post updates to older posts, which I don’t mind doing if there are a ton of changes to what I originally wrote, but seems like kind of a waste when the changes are less dramatic. As a middle ground, I figure I’ll address multiple old posts at a time.

Simple Socializing: The Give & Take System

(Originally posted April 5, 2017)

I’ve been tinkering with this approach to social encounters for half a decade now. As such, my changes here are quite small. The numbers have been tweaked by playtesting, and a few special cases are called out explicitly.

Attempting Parley

When a potentially hostile encounter occurs, the referee should first determine surprise. If one party surprises the other, attempting parley would require them to sacrifice that advantage.

Parley begins with the players making a social roll, which is 2d6 + any relevant modifiers (such as Charisma). This first roll determines 3 things:

1. The number of exchanges the NPCs will tolerate before they want to leave. The referee should write it down and tick off 1 for each back-and-forth that occurs. (“How are you?” “I’m doing well.” counts as a 1 exchange).

2. The disposition of the NPCs towards the party, determined by comparing the result to the first column of the table to the right.

3. The success or failure of whatever the party’s opening social action was.

Social actions fall into four basic categories: Banal, Give, Take, and Convince. Any time the players say something, consider which of these four it most closely fits in with. If it’s anything other than banal, it will require another social roll.

Banal actions are simple conversation: trivial questions, small talk, and other minutia. They have no chance to fail, and thus require no roll. That’s not to say they’re useless, it’s just not interesting for them to have a failure chance.

Giving actions are those where the party attempts to ingratiate themselves to the NPC. To make themselves more liked. It may take the form of telling a joke, offering compliments, giving gifts, or just listening attentively.

<8: The NPC is unimpressed.
8-10: The NPC enjoyed that. +1 to your next social action.
11+: The NPC likes you. +1 to their disposition.

Taking actions are attempts to get something out of the interaction. Specifically something the NPC may be hesitant to give. This roll covers things like negotiating an agreement, requesting aid, asking a sensitive question, intimidation, bribery, etc.

<4: You’ve upset the NPC. Disposition drops 1 category.
4-6: The NPC refuses you outright.
7-9: The NPC will meet you halfway.
10-11: The NPC agrees to what you want.
12+: The NPC agrees, and offers to do a little better than what was asked for.

Convincing actions are attempts to bring the NPC around to a viewpoint different than the one they currently hold. Used for making arguments or telling suspicious lies. These are difficult to succeed at, and risky to attempt. People don’t like it when you try to change them.

<5: Disposition drops by 1 category.
5-7: Disposition drops by 1.
8-9: The NPC is unconvinced, but not insulted.
10-13: The NPC is swayed, but needs some proof.
14+: The NPC accepts what you said wholeheartedly.

Social encounters are a many-faceted beast which defies being resolved by any simple chucking of dice. This system is not meant to dictate what a social encounter can be. Rather, it’s a baseline which can be adhered to or deviated from in whatever way serves the game best.

Just as they would with combat, the players should look for ways to gain advantage. The referee should imbue the NPCs with their own goals and desires. Penalties and bonuses should assessed where appropriate.

Basic Game Structure, & Hacking as an Involved Deviation

(Originally posted August 27, 2017)

I still like all the stuff I said about the Three Step Conversation and the difference between a Quick and an Involved Deviation. It’s just the hacking system itself that needs to be updated.

There are some minor tweaks to the numbers, and I’ve dropped a few elements that didn’t turn out to be useful at the table. The biggest change is to how failure is handled. The original alarms were too lenient, and assumed the party would always be afraid of their hacks being discovered, which often isn’t the case. If your’e hacking the computer in a long forgotten techno-dungeon, the idea that the hack will be discovered by the police a week from now is not anything to worry about.

Basic Computer Design

Computers have a security rating between 2 and 6 (inclusive) which indicates how difficult it is for a user to do something they’re not supposed to do. Optionally, the referee may want to prepare a list of what information or devices the computer has access to. Just as easily, this can be done using common sense fiat at the table.

When To Roll a Hacking Attempt

Unless players are using a personal computer or a public terminal, they’ll need to make a check just to log on. From here, they can access basic information about the computer’s systems, what it’s connected to, and what type of data is stored on it. Most of the really interesting stuff will require further hacking checks.

For example: reading someone’s personal files, downloading those files, altering the computer’s settings, activating a device connected to the computer, uploading a new program, erasing security footage. Each of these would require a new hacking check.

Making a Hacking Check

Untrained characters have a hacking skill of 2d6. Training adds additional dice to the pool up to a maximum of 5d6. When attempting a hack players roll their entire pool. Each die showing a face equal to or greater than the computer’s current security rating is a success.

Rolling no successes means the hack has failed, and the security rating is raised by 1.

Rolling a single success means the hack has succeed, but it was done sloppily, so the security rating is still raised by 1.

Rolling two or more successes means the hack has succeeded, and the security rating does not change.

If the security rating is raised to 7, the computer completely locks down and it becomes impossible to attempt any further hacking.

If the security rating was raised at all, it will eventually be noticed by whoever owns the computer. Depending on circumstances, they may be able to identify who the hacker was and seek retribution against them.

Special

Assistance: One player may assist the primary hacker by making their own hacking check against the computer’s security rating. If they get 2 or more successes, the primary hacker may add 1 success to their own pool.

Network Hacking: Attempting to access a computer over a local network increases its security rating by 1. Attempting to access it across the Internet increases its security rating by 2.

Lowering the Alarm Level: If the security level has been raised, the hacker may attempt to lower it by making a check against the current security rating + 1. Security cannot be reduced below its starting level.

Root Access: Hackers can attempt to gain root access on any system. Doing so requires four successes. Hackers with root access can perform any local action without making further checks.

New Class: The Cleric, as Anti-Magician

(Originally posted January 21, 2018)

Both my socialization system and my hacking system have undergone rigorous playtesting since I wrote them. I have a lot of hard data about how to make them better. Not so much with the Cleric variant I proposed early this year. As I write this I’ve only had a single player use the class during a single session, and it didn’t go well.

Even before that, I knew there were some issues. Nobody wants to play the thing because it was originally written to be almost completely reactive. I was worried about making the class overpowered, and in doing so I made something nobody wants to play. The classic issue with the Cleric.

I still believe in the core ideas I proposed here, I just think they need some tweaking.

There is a divine music to the universe. Before the fall of man, when we lived each day in the light of our creator, we heard this music always. After we were cast out from the sacred garden we lost the ability to hear. The music still rings out from every sphere in the heavens, but it is beyond us now.

Through diligent study of God’s word, and meditation on the divine, Clerics have trained themselves to hear the faintest echos of that music. Hearing it changes a person. They experience reality the way God always intended for his beloved children. Their only desire is to hear more, and to hear better. Sin disrupts the music, and becomes hateful to the cleric. There is no sin greater than magic.

Clerics have a d8 hit die. They advance and make saving throws as the default cleric class does. Clerics cannot cast any spells. If alignment is used in your game, clerics must be Lawful.

Clerics have the following abilities:

Miracle: Once per week, per level, clerics may call upon God to aid them. The almighty will momentarily intervene in material affairs to do one of the following things:

Reveal a hidden truth.
Alter the cleric’s environment.
Heal a living person’s un-healable ailment.
Create an impressive spectacle

Think of it as a wish with limited focus and potency. Remember, also, that God is an NPC. God does not appreciate being treated as a class ability. Clerics are warned not to be trivial in calling upon The Almighty. God is never obligated to answer. The referee is the final arbiter.

Turn: The cleric confronts their foes with a brief glimpse of God’s might. The player should indicate a single target and roll 2d6, comparing the result to the matrix below

(Note: this ability affects all foes, regardless of type)

If the cleric’s roll is equal to or greater than the result indicated for their target’s hit dice, that foe is awed by the terrible might of God. They will flee from the cleric if there is an easy escape, or cower meekly if there is not. This effect persists as long as the target is not attacked, and the cleric takes no action aside from looking imposing, or turning other foes.

The cleric may turn as many times as they wish, so long as they are successful. If a turn attempt fails, the cleric’s mystique is undone. They may not turn this group of foes again today.

On the table, a result of “-” means turning is impossible. A result of “T” means turning is automatic. A result of “T*” means that any of the target’s allies with the same or fewer hit dice are also turned. A result of “D” means the target is destroyed by the unbearable glory of God, and that the target’s allies with similar hit dice are automatically turned. A Result of “D*” means that the target, and their allies with similar HD, are destroyed.

Dispel Magic: Clerics may force chaos to bend itself back to order by an act of will. Simply roll a d6. On a result of 1, the attempt fails; otherwise it succeeds. The magic is undone; it fails to activate or its effect ends. If a permanent magic is targeted (such as the enchantments on a magic weapon), then it is only suppressed rather than destroyed. It will return when next the item is touched by moonlight.

Anytime a spell is cast in the cleric’s presence, they may attempt to interrupt its casting by dispelling it. Doing so consumes their next turn.

Keep track of how many times each day this ability fails. If it equals the cleric’s level, the music of God’s perfect creation has become warped in their ears. They won’t be able to dispel magic again until they’ve had 8 hours to rest, and to pray.

For every hit die a Magic User has above a cleric, the failure chance of this ability increases by 1. So a first level cleric suffers no penalty against a first level magic user; but when dispelling the casting of a second level magic user their failure chance would be 2-in-6. Against a third level magic user it would be 3-in-6, and so on.

Referees may also wish to assess penalties for other types of magic. Those which are fundamental to a creature’s being, such as fairy magic. Those which are deeply rooted, or ancient, or unusually potent. It is left to the judgement of the referee, but this is meant to be a powerful ability. It should not be undermined to excess.

Identify: Thoroughly shutting down magic the way Clerics do requires a profound understanding of it. Clerics can determine whether or not a thing is magical, what the effects of that magic are, and even some obscure details like how long ago the magic was cast, and whether the caster was right or left handed.

This is not something a Cleric can do passively. They can’t walk into a room, and immediately point out all the magic items within. However, if they handle an object, look at it closely, smell it, taste it, and listen to it, they will gain an understanding of any magics attached to it. Discovering the magical properties of a thing requires 10 minutes.

Spell Resistance: Clerics have a chance-in-twenty to resist magic, equal to their level. 1-in-20 at first level, 2-in-20 at second level, etc. Any time the Cleric would be the target of magic, before any saving throws or spell effects are rolled, roll a d20. If the result is equal to, or lower than the Cleric’s level, the spell passes harmlessly over them.

This ability reaches its maximum at an 18-in-20 chance.

LotFP Class: Possessor Spirit

You are dead.

All in all, being dead is not so bad. It’s less “The End,” and more a change in perspective. When you were alive you hated the world and all living things because you were trapped in a horrible little corner of human existence. Now your experience is unlimited. You can go anywhere, see anything. You have a myriad of more interesting reasons for hating the world and all living things. Eventually you’ll resolve whatever unfinished business binds you to this world so you can move on, and see if the afterlife lives up to the hype. For now, though, you’re putting that off so you can have some fun as a ghost.

Possessor Spirits advance as specialists, and share their hit points and saving throws with the Magic User. As ghosts they are completely incorporeal. They can neither be affected by the material world, nor can they affect it. This means they can pass through walls, and are immune to damage from non-magical weapons. However, they couldn’t make a grain of rice wobble if their afterlife depended on it.

When a Possessor Spirit is not attached to a physical body they appear as a monochromatic specter. During character creation the player should select the color of their translucent body: classic white, ghostly green, poltergeist pink; whatever tickles their fancy. They should also figure out what clothes they died in, since that’s what they’ll be wearing for the rest of eternity.

Despite their inability to affect the physical world, ghosts can still speak, as well as experience the world through their senses. They can feel the texture of an object, or taste a bit of food, but they cannot move the object or eat the food. Also, given how most people feel about ghosts, it may prove difficult for the character to socialize with outside their party. Some wizards or monsters might be comfortable having a chat, but most folks are very fleshist.

The best part of being a Possessor Spirit is the possessions. Just gettin’ on into people’s bodies and controlling them like puppets. It’s the best. Characters are able to possess one person, per day, per level. The target of the possession is entitled to a saving throw versus Magic to remain in control of their body. Their save is modified by the difference in hit dice between possessor and possessee. (For each HD the target has above the possessor, they get a +1 to their save. For each HD below, they take a -1 penalty.) If the save is successful, the Possessor Spirit is rebuffed. They take 1d6 damage, and cannot attempt to possess this target again until they level up. A failed possession attempt does not count against the spirit’s limit of possessions per day. If the target’s saving throw fails, the spirit takes control of their body.

While in command of a body, the possessor spirit gains full access to their host’s knowledge and abilities. Any skills, spells, secrets or powers belonging to the host are now at the disposal of the possessor. This open flow of information can be a double edged sword. The suppressed mind of the host gains equal access to the knowledge and secrets of the spirit which supplanted them. They may use what they learn to troublesome effect after the possession ends.

There are a few uncommon limits to a Possessor Spirit’s mastery over their host. Individuals with a heightened awareness of the spiritual world may recognize that a body has been possessed by a foreign spirit, and may even have means by which to cast the spirit out. Likewise, the host’s intimates may pick up on their friend/parent/lover’s peculiar behavior. Any conversation with such a person has a 1-in-6 chance to tip them off that something is wrong. The chance will increase if the possessor is not doing their best to act natural.

If a host dies while a Possessor Spirit is in control, both spirits (the possessor and their victim) are forced out. The victim’s spirit has a 4-in-6 chance of becoming an angry ghost which will return at a later time to seek vengeance for their demise. Otherwise, they pass on to the afterlife. In either case, their burning anger towards the possessor knocks the player character down to 1 hit point.

There is no limit to how long a host can be possessed. However, once a Possessor Spirit leaves a body, that victim will have a +2 to any save made against future possession attempts. This bonus stacks with each successful possession.

Questions to Ask Yourself After a Session

The most important preparations I make for my D&D games happen after the session. Making dungeons and monsters is fun and valuable work, but it’s important for the game to respond to the PC’s actions. Right after a session is when the events of play are fresh in your mind. It’s the best time to think about what consequences might arise in the future.

I think it might be a useful tool (for me, if not for anybody else) to put together a post-session questionnaire. Something to prompt the referee to examine the elements of the session most likely to bear interesting fruit in the future.

Who did the characters wrong during the session?

Do the wronged parties know the characters are responsible? If they don’t know, will they care enough to find out? How will they try to get back at the party? Will they try to hunt them down and take violent revenge? Will they attempt to pressure the party legally or socially? Will they concoct elaborate schemes, or take a more direct approach?

Don’t limit yourself to NPCs who’ve appeared in the game. If someone died, did they have a family who will want vengeance? If the characters won something, does that mean there’s someone else who lost it? Good deeds earn the ire of villains as easily as evil deeds earn the ire of goodly folk.

Did the characters do anything stealthily during the session?

Did they go anywhere they weren’t supposed to be? Did they leave behind any clues that might make someone want to find out what happened, or to improve their security? Just because nobody heard the characters prying open a door doesn’t mean the damaged door won’t be discovered later.

Is there anyone, aside from employers, who benefited from the character’s actions?

Do they regard the party as selfless and heroic, or do they take a more cynical view? Just how far does the party’s good reputation spread? Will they admire the party? Seek to aide them in the future? What is the most interesting way they could show their appreciation? Can they provide the party with information, services, material, or future jobs? Will the party inspire them to become adventurers in their own right? If so, will they attempt to join the party as hirelings, or will they pop up in some future adventure to aid the party?

If anyone died in the course of the party’s adventure, what sort of hole did they leave behind in their community? What effect did they have on their environment which will be lost now that they’re dead?

Did people depend on the person who was killed? Will they lose their jobs, or become vulnerable to attack, or have their legal system disrupted? Will someone rise to fill the vacuum they left, or will there be a period of chaos followed by a significant change in status quo?

The same questions might apply to any objects the party stole.

What information did the party spread around?

Did they make any new discoveries, or reveal any secrets? Will the people who know this new information keep it to themselves, or will it quickly become public knowledge? How can the information be exploited for personal gain and profit?

Did the characters do anything which the authorities, or the public at large, will have feelings about?

Did the characters engage in any public violence in a normally peaceful space? Did they flout local custom in some particularly egregious way? Did they rile up a mob? Did they make anyone afraid? Did they make shows of wealth in front of the poor, or shows of poverty in front of the rich?

Are the characters known to be the cause? If so, will there be legal consequences? If not, do people want to know who is responsible? In either case, will there be some change to the local laws or attitudes?

Did the players express any desires or interests you might use to engage / hook them in the future?

Did anyone mention a goal that they have? Perhaps an item or territory they wanted; a power or social status they wished to achieve? Did they particularly like an NPC who could reappear as a friendly face / be injured to make the players angry? Did they particularly hate an NPC who could develop into a bigger antagonist just to annoy them?

Fun Races That Are Not Classes

If you read this post without purchasing Faux Pas, you are stealing! That tactic works to get people to buy things, right? Fuck, I just…I really want you to buy it. I think it will make you happy. It’s only $4 and it comes with a free audio book. Please?

Race-as-class is heckin’ lame! Your species shouldn’t determine what you’re able to do, man. Ya know what else is heckin’ lame? : elves and dwarfs and ~~hobbits~~ halflings! Gnomes are tight, but they’ve been done before. Let’s do somethin’ newwwww!

BUBBLE BOI

“Boi” is a misnomer resulting from our patriarchal society’s ideology of gender essentialism and the male default. Bubble Bois are genderless.

Common folk are terrified by Bubble Bois because they look creepy. To mitigate this, BBs often wear baggy clothes and disguise their faces with flesh colored paint, googly eyes, and bushy mustaches that hide their lack of a mouth. This effort generally just makes them even creepier.

Since they are only slightly heavier than air, Bubble Bois are able to jump pretty much as high and as far as they want, though if they overreach they may be blown off course by a gentle breeze. They’re also pretty much immune to falling damage. Both of these benefits are lost if the BB is ever more than lightly encumbered, which is why many choose to be wizards rather than fighters.

Another reason for preferring the back lines of combat is that Bubble Bois have low manual dexterity. They can carry things just fine, and turn the pages of books well enough, but anything that requires expert use of fingers is going to incur a penalty. Also, if they’re ever struck by a piercing weapon, they must make a saving throw versus instant death. So that’s kind of a bummer.

On the upside, their anatomy has no resemblance whatsoever to humans, so they’re immune to most poisons. If anything, injecting a Bubble Boi with poison just gives them a poison touch ability for while.

SHOULDER CONSCIENCE

Not everyone has a shoulder conscience. Most people’s actions just aren’t cosmically important enough for the spirit world to care what they do one way or the other. So, if you’re playing a shoulder conscience, you’re attached to someone goddamned impressive.

The referee ultimately decides how impressive they are, but it should be pretty big. Maybe when they’re rolling ability scores they roll 5d6, take 3 highest, arrange to taste; while the other players have to roll 3d6 down the line. Maybe they get to level up as two different classes simultaneously. Maybe something else.

The player of the shoulder conscience must pick an extremist alignment. They may be absolutely good, absolutely evil, absolutely lawful, absolutely chaotic, or absolutely something else that seems appropriate. They are a cosmic embodiment of these ideals, there are no half measures here. If they ever stray from this alignment, they will lose 1 influence over their ward.

Whatever alignment the player picks for themselves will be directly opposed by another shoulder conscience. When the player wants their ward to do something, this other guy wants the exact opposite.

Much of the time the player of the shoulder conscience may control their ward directly, as though it were their character. The cosmic forces of right and wrong don’t care what you choose to have for breakfast. However, any time the ward might be conflicted about what to do, the referee should call for a roll. 50/50 chance that the ward does what the player wants, or the opposite of what the player wants.

If the player wins 5 decisions in a row, they gain 1 influence. Now, their ward has a 70% chance to do what they want. If they ever win 10 decisions in a row, their influence increases to 80%. This works the same way in reverse: if you lose 5 decisions in a row, your chance of success decreases to 30%. If you lose 10, it decreases to 20%. All influence resets to 50/50 at the start of a new session.

METAL GURL

To a human observer all Metal Gurls are, indeed, female. Our researchers haven’t been able to identify any anatomical or sociological variations. Yet among themselves, Metal Gurls are able to identify 7 entirely distinct sexes. We’ll just have to take their word for it.

The species is easily identified by their naturally colorful hair and markings. Adults will also have metal spikes growing out of their body somewhere. The particular combination of hair color, skin markings, and spike locations is unique to each individual. No two Metal Gurls are alike.

Any action which could be described as “totally metal” comes naturally to Metal Gurls, and they should receive a significant bonus to success. Note that any action which doesn’t result in significant injury to one’s self cannot be described as “totally metal.”

TWISTED METAL ABOMINATION UNTO GOD

Nobody likes these guys. If you play one, just be aware of that. There’s a lot of prejudice against your people, and all of it is entirely justified. The way you bounce around, twisting your body into different shapes and offering unsolicited advice? It’s gross, and you should be ashamed that you were born this way.

Because of their uncanny ability to manipulate their body’s shape, Twisted Metal Abominations Unto God grapple as though they were 4 levels higher than they are. They also cause any party they’re in to suffer a -6 penalty on initial reaction rolls, because people hate them just that much.

The real reason people hate T-MAUGs is their constant, condescending explanations. They have this primal need to hear themselves talk. It doesn’t matter how good you are at something, or how many times the T-MAUG has seen you do that thing: they will explain it to you anyway.

When a T-MAUG explains how to do something to a person who is already doing it, that person must make a saving throw. If they succeed, their anger inspires them to do a way better job than they normally would in an attempt to prove to the T-MAUG that they don’t need any help. (This never works, but the character still gets a significant bonus to whatever they were attempting).

If the saving throw fails, the target’s anger forces them to make an attack against the T-MAUG with the nearest available weapon.

Dan D’s Response to “Clerics as Anti-Magicians”

Way back in January I wrote Clerics as Anti-Magicians. It’s my (latest) attempt to rehabilitate the class; to turn it into something people will actually want to play. Personally, I think it’s one of my better posts, which is why it ended up in my hastily assembled list of “greatest hits” over on the sidebar.

Dan D, the blogger over at Throne of Salt apparently agrees. He’s taken it on himself to tinker with my version of the class to create a cleric for his own game. This is particularly interesting for me, because I’ve actually been working on my own update to that class. It’s nice to get another perspective just around the same time that I’ve decided to reevaluate.

There’s some parallel thinking, and some crossed wires between us. I don’t wanna dig into what I’m planning, but I think both Dan and I saw the problem with the cleric being too reactive. Dan’s cleric is generally more capable of taking assertive action than my original draft of the class.

I also like that Dan’s cleric has some social powers. That’s something I strongly considered doing myself, even in the first draft. “Priest” is an inherent persuasive occupation. The only reasons I didn’t do that myself are firstly that I’d already posted a couple social-focused classes; and secondly that I was aiming for broad appeal with that post. I didn’t want it to be limited to people who use a lot of social rolls in their games.

I will say Dan’s removal of all the anti-magic stuff doesn’t appeal to me. ~~I suspect he may have been trying to prevent the class from becoming overpowered, but I don’t think being overpowered was ever the issue with my cleric.~~ Also, it’s the mechanic that I literally named the class after, so obviously it’s near and dear to my heart.

(July 16th 2018 Edit: Dan has clarified the change was made for flavor reasons, rather than balance. )

I’m also not a fan of making players pick between nine different holy orders when they create their character. for reasons I’ve explained elsewhere. Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

So, my loyal minions, GO FORTH TO THIS PITIFUL BLOG THAT DARES TO UTTER MY NAME. DESTROY THE BLOGGER PEASANT. RETURN TO ME BATHED IN HIS BLOOD, AND I WILL BLESS YOU WITH A +2 TO YOUR NEXT SAVING THROW.

(Note: Please do not destroy Dan. Dan is a good dude. LS is joking about destroying people).

Faux Pas

I have a new book out. It costs a measly $4, and includes a free audio recording of me reading the adventure out loud. You should definitely buy it.

The first symptom is a popping sound from the belly. It can
happen at anytime, and the afflicted never feel it coming.
They’ll be having a friendly chat one moment, then pop, and
now they’re trying to kill people.

Thus begins Faux Pas, the first in a series of adventures from HOCUS publishing. It’s also the first piece of writing I’ve asked anyone to pay for after 7 years of making free tabletop resources.

In addition to my writing, Faux Pas features the art of Anxy P., and layout from no less a figure than Christian Kessler (of Fever Swamp fame). I also got a lot of help throughout the process from Jarrett Crader (editor of numerous LotFP publications), and OSR luminary Evey Lockhart.

What is Faux Pas?

A system neutral adventure. The players discover a town beset by a mysterious illness with symptoms worse than death. It breeds violence, madness, and mutation. It turns people into things that are no longer themselves.

The Inquisitor General has been warned. He’s on his way here. When he arrives he’ll burn every building to the ground and torture everyone living until they confess to the devil worship that obviously brought this evil into the world.

Will the players discover what’s really going on, and how to stop it, before the Inquisitor arrives? Or will they just loot the place and run away?

What’s the deal with this audio recording?

I imagine ya’ll are familiar with Blogs on Tape? It’s a podcast where I record myself reading OSR blog posts, audio-book style. It allows people to engage with the hobby while they’re exercising, cooking, commuting, or vision impaired.

For the release of Faux Pas, I produced a full-on 30+ minute recording of myself reading the module from start to finish. It’s provided to anyone who purchases the module at no extra cost. For real, we decided we were going to sell this thing for $4 before the idea of throwing in a free recording ever occurred to me.

I’m interested to see how people feel about this. I’d like to do it for future HOCUS releases as well. Which brings us to the next point…

What is HOCUS?

To be honest, we’ve spent the last six months arguing about what HOCUS is, and I don’t know if any of us really understand what we’re doing.

We know we want to focus on pushing out small adventures. Stuff that is as pleasurable to read as it is to run. Rules light role playing for everyone. We’re all OSR people looking to move past the limitations of what it means to be “OSR.”

To quote our founder: “Who the fuck is Gary Gygax?”

How many of these images are there?

A lot. It had been awhile since I goofed around with editing images, and I kinda went overboard.

Plus, it always annoys me when I’m scrolling around on Google+ and I see the same post 10 different times spread across multiple communities. I get that spamming communities is just the unfortunate reality of what it takes to get peoples attention when you’re trying to make a few dollars. But, when I did it myself I hoped it would be perceived as less annoying if each post had its own unique image.

What about those of us who backed the Patreon campaign?

As soon as I’m done writing up this post, I’m going to send a free download link to everyone who supported the Patreon campaign; regardless how much or how long they pledged for. I appreciate your support so much, and I’m glad that I’m finally able to give you a little something back, even the campaign is over now.

Have you written a review of Faux Pas?

This is so in my wheelhouse that I doubt Nick Whelan’s existence. This is clearly some form of tulpa who produces exactly what I always wanted: the kind of thing I’d write, but that I didn’t write and so is a complete surprise to me. I would use this to kick off a campaign. I could see this very efficiently ending a campaign. I would use this in a hex crawl or I would use this as a complication for something a player wants to accomplish.

–Daniel Dean

Short, pithy and punchy. Straight to the point. There is creepy weird shit happening and its about to get worse. No essays on the last century of local history, politics or religion – just stuff that is instantly interesting and fun.

–Michael Raston

Broke: boxed text
Woke: audiobook read by adventure’s writer

–Iacopo Maffi

All of this — the font size, the PDF bookmarks, the font styles — comes together to make possibly the most immediately readable RPG product I’ve seen in a long time. A single glance at a page can give you everything you need to run an entire encounter, no page-flipping or ctrl-f’ing required.

-David Shugars

Faux Pas is DOPE AF! I think my favorite niche-within-niche rpg stuff is like “weird art-house but table ready body horror and madness adventure zine” The writing and art provoke that quesy feeling that I fucking love. the addition of an audio track is gold.

–NMEAST

The townsfolk are colorful enough that I could picture myself using the village several times through the course of a campaign, and have the events of the module occur during a second or third visit.

–Spencer Kelty

Offhand mentions of the practices of the ancient cult and the Creature that Lurks on Mars are the right kind of flavor-that-probably-won’t-come-into-play: short and evocative. Same with God-most-Censorious.

–Dan D

Let me know, and I’ll link to it on this post. Same goes for any play reports using the module.

Anyway, that’s all the images I have, so stop reading my super cool blog and go buy my super cool book!

d100 Gobbobilities

With thanks to Justin Stewart of Dragons Gonna Drag for donating his time to proofread this post.

Even in rules-light D&D, players are expected to do a lot of bookkeeping. Tracking skills, spells, and other silly stuff can be tedious, which is why Gobbos exist. Gobbos have no use for books, or for keeping them. Gobbos have no levels, and thus gain no experience. Gobbos do not understand the value of money, and so collect no share of treasure. Think of Gobbos as hyperactive 6 year olds with a slightly greater capacity for murder.

The basic Gobbo has only two numbers to write down: their saving throw is 12. This works for every kind of save, and will never improve. Their armor rating is whatever your system’s base armor rating is. In LotFP, that’s also 12. Gobbos can’t wear any armor. If someone tries to put armor on them, they’ll complain about how heavy or itchy it is, and eventually squirm out of it when no one is looking, leaving bits and pieces of it everywhere.

When attacking, gobbos roll 1d20 without modification, and deal 1d6 damage regardless of the weapon they choose to wield. Exceptions might be made if the gobbos attempt to operate some kind of heavy artillery.

Gobbos have no hit points. Instead, when a gobbo gets hit, roll a d6. If the number rolled is greater than the amount of damage directed at them, they shrug the injury off. The damage is not recorded, it simply bounces off them. If they roll equal to or less than the incoming damage, their feelings are hurt. They will begin to cry, and are uselessly inconsolable until the next session.

If a gobbo falls into a bottomless pit, disintegrates, gets gobbled up by a monster, or is otherwise physically separated from the party, they’ll be gone until the next session. When they come back, they’ll have all sorts of stories about the adventures they went on.

Given their fragility and general ineffectiveness, players may play more than one gobbo simultaneously. Somewhere between 2 and 5 is probably the most fun. Given their general lack of combat effectiveness, there’s no need for every gobbo to act each round unless the player really wants them to. Just assume they’re in the background goofing off.

Each gobbo also has a single special ability, rolled on the table below.

Has a slightly fishy appearance. Able to breathe underwater, and swim like a mer-gobbo.
Every real-time hour, the gobbo may ask god one dumb question. God is listening, and will answer honestly. However, they answer through the gobbo’s own mouth, in the gobbo’s own voice, so it really just sounds like the gobbo is talking to themselves.
By expressing affection, the gobbo can cause a plant to grow and become healthy. By expressing hatred, the plant will wither and die. The process takes a few minutes. The gobbo cannot control the way in which the plant grows or dies, though other outside means may be employed.
Able to talk to plants. Plants are very honest, but also rude. The gobbo tends to get in a lot of angry shouting arguments with them.
Able to talk to animals. Animals have an animal understanding of the world around them. The gobbo frequently becomes frustrated at dealing with such stupid creatures.
Able to talk to rocks. Rocks have very limited perception of the world around them, and are sooooooo boring to talk to. Ugh!
Sneaky little bastard has the second best stealth skill possible in your game system. (5-in-6 for LotFP)
Attacks with a +8 to their roll, and deals 1d8 damage. That counts regardless of whether they’re using a real weapon or not.
Each night, while sleepwalking, they make grenades. The gobbo has no idea how to make grenades while they’re awake, but they carry around a sack of the things with a d6 exhaustion die. (Each time a grenade is pulled out, roll a d6. If a 1 is rolled, there’s only one grenade left). The grenades deal 2d6 damage in a 5′ radius. No attack roll needed, but targets may make a saving throw versus Breath for half damage.
When attacking from hiding, the gobbo gets a +10 to their attack roll, and multiplies their damage by 5.
Roll a first level clerical spell from the table of your choice, whether or not you allow clerics in your game. The gobbo gains that spell as a natural ability, usable at-will for non-healing spells, or once-per-day if the spell heals something.
Roll a first level magic user spell. The gobbo gains that spell as a natural ability.
When they bite someone, it’s damn near impossible to get them off until they want to be gotten off. No attack roll needed, however the victim may make a saving throw versus paralyzation to avoid. While latched on, the gobbo may hinder any action their victim wishes to take, so long as their victim isn’t super huge or anything. This won’t really work on a godzilla. If their victim is fleeing, the gobbo can remain attached as long as they want, then return next session to tell the party where the person got off to.
Instead of rolling a d6 when the gobbo is hit in combat, roll a d12 + 2.
Runs really fast. Like, heckin’ fast. 10 times as fast as normal characters. No joke.
Their feet are both buoyant, and covered in hardy callouses! They can walk on water, on lava, on acid, on basically any liquid no matter how harmful it would normally be.
Has flaps of skin which allow it to glide down from high places. Or, if there’s enough wind, to fly like a kite.
Cannot be bound. Any bond they are placed in, they can slip out of whenever they wish. It doesn’t matter how impossibly secure their prison is, they will break the laws of physics if need be.
Able to squeeze themselves through any opening, so long as a normal human could fit their pinky finger into it.
Has a seemingly infinite supply of rubber bands and paper airplanes, and is shockingly accurate aim with them.
A particular talent for throwing things. Anything this gobbo can heft, they can throw with nigh-perfect accuracy, up to 30′. (More if they can get up above their target and throw down at it.) To hit an unmoving, man-sized target, roll an attack roll against an armor rating of 5. Modify up or down for smaller or larger targets. Moving targets use whatever their normal armor rating would be, minus 2.
Completely immune to falling damage. Always land on their feet.
For whatever reason, their antics come off as charming. Anytime the party makes a social roll, the gobbo can do some goofy shit to lend them a bonus to that roll.
Instead of having a saving throw of 12, this gobbo has a saving throw of 5. Again, this is good no matter what saving throw is called for.
Completely immune to magic of any kind.
Has a weird knack for tripping people. Whoever they decide to trip must make a saving throw versus paralyzation or fall prone. If the gobbo comes up with something clever, they might even be able to attempt tripping multiple people at once this way.
Can teleport at will to anywhere within their light of sight, leaving a puff of smoke and a “BUMF!” sound behind them.
Can choose to emit any color of light they want from their eyes, at any intensity they desire. Good for creating spooky eyes in the dark, looking for hidden ink, illuminating a room, or even blinding foes.
Has corrosive drool, which quickly rotted away all of their teeth. By gumming on just about anything for a minute or so, they can reduce it to unrecognizable slag.
Able to transform themselves into a bat at will. They tell people their dad was a vampire.
They’re crazy good at eavesdropping. If they’re not supposed to hear something (such as some monsters plotting their doom behind a door), they’ll hear it from a mile away.
Kids are naturally drawn to them. Any kid this gobbo meets will become fast friends, with a whole series of weird games and inside jokes. This even extends to newborn babies, which the gobbo has an uncanny ability to understand.
Parents are naturally drawn to them. Anyone with a child will have their paternal instincts kicked into overdrive by the sight of this gobbo. They’ll want to make sure this lil’ guy is fed and clothed and feels happy and safe.
The gobbo has an uncanny knack for stupid stunts. The more terrible consequences will result from failure, the better. Once the stunt has been described (after a few “make it dumber!” demands from the referee), roll a d6. There’s a 4-in-6 chance the stunt succeeds. On failure, the gobbo injures themselves to the point of crying inconsolably until the next session.
Knows just what to say to turn two people against one another. Any lie told about a person who is not present has a 4-in-6 chance of being believed. If the lie fails, the Gobbo feels chagrined enough that the player must wait 1 real-time hour before they attempt this trick again.
The gobbo’s boogers are sticky. Like, aerospace-grade adhesive. Only the gobbo’s own skin oils are capable of touching one of its boogers without getting stuck.
A long mop of greasy hair grows from the gobbo’s scalp. By wringing the hair out, the gobbo can produce a pungent lubricant that is slippery as hell, and difficult to wash away.
With a twist and a backwards jump, the gobbo is able to instantaneously shed its skin, leaving a translucent statue of itself behind in whatever pose they desire. The skin quickly dries out and becomes rigid enough to support twice the gobbo’s body weight.
Skin is puckered with unnaturally large pores. At will, their body acts like a sponge, absorbing any liquid they’re immersed in. Later, this can be excreted by the gobbo in a single splash from all their pores at once, or in a stream from one of their body’s orifices. Careful not to absorb too much, or you won’t be able to move!
Able to climb any surface, like a spider.
Can burrow through the earth like a mole, with the same movement speed it would have moving on foot. Also works for excavating large spaces at a rate of 10′ cubed per turn.
Forgeries this gobbo makes will fool the first person who examines them, but never anyone else. They’re made with crayons and spit, so it’s a mystery why they fool anyone at all.
The nose of a bloodhound. They can parse smells better than any human, extracting a surprising amount of information just from sniffing the air.
Able to take magic into their body, and redirect it back out again. They have a 3-in-6 chance of success if they want to reflect it back towards the caster, 2-in-6 if they want to direct it elsewhere. On failure, they’re affected by it normally. Ability only works if they know they’re the target of a spell.
This gobbo is a bit of a blank slate. It just follows its companions around, going along with what the other gobbos want. If it is directed to bite someone, that person’s body will go limp, and their mind will be placed in this gobbo’s body. Only willing or immobilized characters can be bitten in this way. The player of the gobbo, and the player of whomever the gobbo bit, must work together to decide what that the new combined character does. The bit character can return to their own body at any time by biting it again.
Snot bubble hot air balloons allow this gobbo to float up into the air and fly around on the breeze.
Dead creatures will obey a single command given by this gobbo. To the gobbo, it seems totally natural and not creepy at all that dead people do favors for him. What is neh-kro-macy?
Has a mighty sneeze attack. On a successful attack, the targeted enemy within 15′ is pushed back 10′, and must make a saving throw versus poison to avoid getting sick. Sick characters spend a few minutes sneezing, a few minutes vomiting, and a few minutes shivering in the fetal position uncontrollably. The whole disease runs its course in about 10 minutes.
Has the stinkiest poops of all. There is no quicker way to clear a room than to put one of this gobbo’s poops in it. No one with a sense of smell can willingly be within smelling distance of this poop. The gobbo only poops once per game day, and after 24 hrs its poops dry out and lose all smelliness. Making jenkems with this gobbo’s poop will FUCK YOU UP.
Has phenomenal artistic talent. Painting, sculpture, music, film, as-yet uninvented media, they have an uncanny knack for just about everything.
A perfect catcher. They can catch anything, without fail. They can catch bullets, intercepting 1 projectile each round. Objects too large for the gobbo to reasonably hold may cause some issue, though they can still technically be caught.
Once per real-time hour, this gobbo can go rummaging in any heap of detritus nearby, and emerge with something useful. The referee is the final arbiter on what is discovered, but everyone at the table is encouraged to make suggestions. It will never be a unique item (such as the key to a door the players wish to bypass), or will it ever be a particularly valuable item. Just something that would help the party at this particular moment.
A weird, lucky, savant. This gobbo has a modest chance to succeed with every skill in the game. (Using LotFP, a modest chance would be 2-in-6).
Able to vomit up a yellowish cement-like substance on command. Enough to form a 2′ by 2′ square in 1 minute.
Has a completely encyclopedic knowledge of bugs. If it’s even vaguely bug related, this Gobbo will have some kind of useful info to share.
Has a completely encyclopedic knowledge of fungus and slime. If it’s even vaguely fungus or slime related, this Gobbo will have some kind of useful info to share.
Has a completely encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture. If it’s even vaguely related to pop culture, this Gobbo will have some kind of useful info to share.
Has an incredible ability to ride things. Any action which can reasonably be described as “riding,” or as an element of riding has a 5-in-6 chance of success.
They’re so good at playing pretend that they create minor illusions of whatever they’re imagining. They must be able to catch the attention of the people they wish to fool, but anything they describe happening will appear to happen: sight, sound, and smell.
Plays a scary version of peek-a-boo. The gobbo picks a person or thing to play with, then covers their eyes. Their target must make a saving throw versus magic. On a failed throw, it will cease to exist for as long as the gobbo keeps its eyes covered with both hands.
The gobbo has a bottomless belly pouch. Like a kangaroo, except they don’t keep babies in there. They keep their junk. The gobbo will only hold on to items which are their own personal property. They won’t carry things for the rest of the party.
Hard headed enough that a good bash can knock in just about any normal door. Heck, give the gobbo 3 minutes and they’ll smash a hole in a stone wall for you.
The gobbo has a superb sense of direction. They always know, even if it seems impossible, what the shortest route to the exit is. They’ll never lead down any dead ends, though they may get sidetracked and lead the party to something only they think would be fun.
When playing hide and seek, there is no better hider than this. One moment you’re looking right at them, then you blink, and suddenly they’re gone. The gobbo must specify where they’re hiding, and it must be within a the same room or at least nearby, but for all intents and purposes they are able to teleport themselves into hiding.
Has an enduring love for playing dress up. Give them a pile of junk and 10 minutes, and they’ll have everyone they know outfitted with a dapper new disguise fit to fool their own mothers.
A skilled whistler, to the point that they annoy everyone with their high-pitched tweeting. If they really try, they can actually perform a sonic attack with their whistling, shattering any glass, ceramic, or crystal within 30′ that they aim their lips at. May require a to-hit roll for particularly small, obscured, or moving targets.
Good at picking pockets, performing magic tricks, wrestling stuff out of people’s hands, and otherwise being digitally dexterous. In LotFP terms, they have a 6-in-6 for Sleight of Hand.
Has a knack for getting doors open or getting machines to work. Essentially a 6-in-6 for Tinkering.
Is absolutely delicious. Any creature with the intent to eat living meat will be instantly attracted to the succulent smells of this gobbo. Even those not normally inclined to such acts may be tempted. Once eaten, the imbiber must make a saving throw versus poison or get food poisoning. They’ll have no time to do anything other than poop their guts out for the next 24 hours. Miraculously, no matter how much they chewed, the gobbo will emerge fully re-formed within a few hours at the most.
Able to vomit voluminously on command. After they vomit, everyone who sees them must make a saving throw versus poison, or they will also barf.
Restorative drool, which can seal up wounds and mend broken limbs. Able to produce enough drool to restore 10 hit points each day.
Has a perfect memory. They’re able to quote anything they’ve heard, without error, in an exact imitation of the voices they heard it in. Moreover, they’re able to draw, with exquisite detail, anything they’ve ever seen. These skills only apply when recalling something. They have no particular talent for voices or for art otherwise.
Nobody throws a tantrum like this goblin. When something is taken from them, or they are denied something they want, they’re able to go absolutely BERSERK. 20 strength! 25 strength! 100 strength! Immune to damage! Punch for 3d12 damage! The state lasts for 1 minute, and can only occur once per session. Be warned: the gobbo’s rage will be directed towards whoever took from them / denied them, so don’t go activating their rage and hoping they’ll turn it against your foes.
Farts lightning bolts which deal 6d6 damage in a 60′ line straight out from their butt. Only has a 1-in-6 chance of being able to fart on command. 2 in 6 if they’ve consumed some bubbly beverage recently.
Has an intuitive understanding of modern technology, enabling them to use it with ease, even if they don’t know how to tie their shoe. Works with whatever technology is “modern” in your setting. Gobbo will refer to anyone who can’t keep up with their technical know-how as a “Grandpa.”
By concentrating and straining really super hard, this gobbo’s body becomes mysteriously heavier, and heavier, and heavier. After about 10 minutes they can get to a max weight of a few tons without any change in their size or shape. No complicated actions may be performed while heavy. Popping back to normal weight is instantaneous when the gobbo stops concentrating.
The gobbo’s farts make such hilarious sounds that everyone who can hear them must make a saving throw versus Magic or be consumed with laughter. -1 to their save if they’re close enough to smell it too. Victims may attempt a new save each round to regain control of themselves, with a cumulative +3 each round.
Anything that relies on pure dumb luck is double-weighted in this gobbo’s favor. For example, if the gobbo calls a coin flip in the air, it has a 75% chance of landing on the side they called. This works only for diegetic randomness like gambling, not for meta game randomness like attack rolls or skill checks.
Once per session this gobbo may declare that someone is lying, and it will be true. If necessary, the referee must bend reality to accommodate the fact of this lie. If they really, really, really want to, the referee may tell the gobbo that they are wrong, and that this person was not lying. However, the gobbo will now be able to use their ability twice this session.
By yelling stuff like “Stop being dumb!” and “Just do it!” the Gobbo has a mysterious ability to actually make people better at whatever they’re doing. Not enough to add any bonuses to rolls, but enough to make failure a little less bad than it would normally be. (None the less, if you fail, the gobbo will probably lambast you for not listening to them when they told you to do it right.) Giving this sort of “encouragement” precludes any other action being taken by the gobbo. (They cannot attack the same round, or “encourage” two people at once).
If the gobbo shouts “GO AWAY! I HATE YOU!” at someone, then that person must make a saving throw. On failure, they must go away, knowing they are hated. The gobbo may only emotionally manipulate one person at a time.
This gobbo carries around hand puppets of various styles. For whatever reason, these puppets are perceived to be real people by anyone who sees the gobbo manipulate them. Not specific real people, mind you. The gobbo cannot make someone believe the puppet is their mother. However, any words said by the puppets, or actions taken by them, will be perceived as the actions of a living individual.
By rubbing its grubby face on stuff, the gobbo can leave an imprint of its face. The gobbo is able to see, smell, hear, and speak through this face. Until a face is erased, the gobbo cannot stop receiving sensory information from it, which is annoying. Leaving more than a few faces out in the world will give the gobbo a serious headache.
Has a big ol’ horn. It’s a foot long, rigid, with a needle-sharp tip and one knife-like edge. At will, the gobbo can retract the horn into its body, and cause it to pop back out anywhere it likes. It can have a horn sprouting from its forehead, or its stomach, its left butt cheek, or from in between two of its toes.
Able to collapse into a puddle of slime, oozing around, moving only across level surfaces or downhill. It takes about 10 minutes to reform.
With innocent-sounding questions and doe eyed looks, this gobbo can force a target to make a saving throw against shame. On failure, the victim must reconsider their behavior, or at least work much harder to hide it. Works only if the target is doing something the average person wouldn’t want a child to know about.
Whenever they want, the gobbo can grow big big BIG! Fifteen feet tall, with speed and power to match! For every minute the gobbo spends being big, they must spend an hour sleeping immediately after to recover their energy.
Through the use of the mighty Double Dog Dare, this gobbo can force people to make a save versus Magic, or obey the gobbo’s command. If they make their save, they may dare the gobbo to do something, which the gobbo must do. No save.
Is a very good goalie. Crazy good. If this gobbo decides they don’t want someone to get past them, they basically function as a 10′ by 10′ invisible wall. Nobody will expect them to be as capable a blocker as they are.
With a parting of their hands, the gobbo can part just about anything as if they were Moses or some junk. Water, bushes, crowds, walls, etc. Every 30 seconds, the gobbo must roll a saving throw to avoid getting distracted. If they get distracted, whatever they parted will collapse.
An endless supply of teeth. Each one yanked out will be replaced by another within a half hour. Teeth can be spit out like bullets, left on the ground like caltrops, and probably used in all sorts of other horrible ways.
When the gobbo yawns, the response is more than contagious. Everyone nearby (including friends) must make a saving throw or fall asleep. The yawning gobbo themselves doesn’t get a save. They always fall asleep, and they’re a heavy gosh dang sleeper.
This gobbo is a tattle tale. They have a sort of divination which allows them to know one bad thing that a person has done. This works only once per person, PC or NPC alike.
Any part of their body can be detached. Though separate from the body, it will communicate sensation, and act according to the gobbo’s thoughts as normal. Detached bits must be recovered and snapped back into place, they cannot grow back.
This gobbo is a picky eater. If they can fit an object in their mouth, they’ll instantly know everything that is wrong with it. Whether it’s cursed, poisoned, whether some evil dude had it once, or wants to claim it, everything. This ability cannot be used to divine any nice information.
Through relentless teasing, this gobbo can force an enemy to focus entirely on them during combat. There is no save against this unless the foe has a strong reason to ignore the gobbo’s taunts, such as a commander shouting at them.
Any trick the player describes which can feasibly be performed without hands has a 4-in-6 chance of success. The gobbo will probably shout at members of the party to look at them while they do whatever they’re doing, and will always boast that they’re not using their hands. Note that picking locks or wielding weapons with one’s feet is not considered “feasible” for the purposes of this ability.
By climbing on top of something, the gobbo instantly makes the floor around whatever they’re standing on as hot as lava. The effect moves along with the gobbo as they climb across chairs and tables to avoid falling in, so that they’re always at risk of falling in. If the gobbo intentionally jumps down, the effect ends.
A gosh danged savant when it comes to setting up practical jokes and home-alone style traps. So long as they have the most important elements, they can set up even the most complex of Rube-Goldbergian contraptions in the space of a minute. Minor elements, like pulleys and bits of string, have a way of simply being around when this gobbo has need of them.
Of all gobbos, this one is the undisputed master of “I’m not touching you.” This gobbo never touches anything it doesn’t wanna touch. Pressure plates? Not happening. Complicated laser grid? No problem. If they want to, they can even walk with their feet an inch off the floor, or swim with a thin layer of air between the water and their skin. They still gotta breathe and be warm, though, so they gotta touch the air.

Example of Play for Running Traps Without a Search Check

My ORWA players recently invaded the sanctum of a villain known for their love of elaborate traps. I figured I’d share a transcription of their interactions with those traps. Hopefully it will be a useful tool for folks who aren’t clear on how this sort of play is done.

Trap #1: Acid Bucket

“You enter the building through the hole you blew in the wall. You’re in a T-shaped hallway with an elevator to your right, and a number of doors straight ahead. The blast is obviously going to draw attention, but there is no one in sight for the moment.”

“We make a beeline for the closest door. What does it look like?”

“Solid wood, lever-style knob, opens into the hallway.”

“I stand to the side of the door, and push down on knob with the Inanimate Carbon Rod.”

“It turns downwards, as you would expect a normal knob to do.”

“I pull the door open just slightly. Only enough so I can peek through the gap with one eye.”

“You see a cord crossing the gap. It’s attached to the door, and goes up somewhere ought of sight.”

“Can I tell what part of the door it is attached to.”

“It seems to be attached just above the knob.”

“You said the door opens out into the hallway, right? So the hinges are on this side?”

“Yes.”

“I remove the hinges.”

“Easily done, though at this point your examinations and tinkering has taken some time. Roll an encounter check.”

“Got a five”

“It seems that, despite the explosion, no one is rushing to see what happened. At least, no one you’ve detected. So, you’ve got the hinges off the door, what do you do now?”

“I’d like to open the door just slightly on the hinge side. Enough to stick my spear through the gap and cut the string.”

“The string is cut. Now what?”

“I’ll open the door enough for us to walk through.”

“Alright–“

“But I’m standing off to the side!!!”

“Hah, okay. You get the door open. Nothing happens.”

“Let’s get everybody out of the open first. C’mon guys, through the door! Can I see what the string was attached to?”

“There’s a steel bucket mounted on a pivot above the door. The string was attached to a latch holding the bucket upright.”

[Later, the players would use this acid bucket to defeat the first wave of enemies who came after them.]

[The bucket had an extendable sluice grate on it, which ensured maximum acid coverage on anyone standing near the door.]

Trap #2: Don’t Touch My Documents

“The room is full of office-style filing cabinets, 5 drawers tall, each standing a few feet apart from the others.”

“I open one to see what sort of documents are kept here.”

“When you pull on the handle, instead of opening the drawer, it simply slides out like a pull switch. You, the cabinet, and a 3′ by 3′ section of floor all drop down six feet, and bars snap into place above your head. Additionally, you hear five clicking sounds as each of the filing cabinet’s drawers lock.”

“Oh…it’s that kinda dungeon.”

[To get the drawers open, the handle would first need to be turned so it was vertical. In fairness, the players were warned that this dude was almost fetishistic about trapping everything.]

[The player later escaped when another character literally sold their soul for a wish to get them out. Kinda drastic I think, but I like the moxie.]

Trap #3: Missing the Heavy Key

“You’ve reached the area where the slaves you want to rescue are being held. They’re divided between two rooms behind barred doors.”

“Barred how?”

“The doors themselves are like others you’ve seen: wooden, lever handle, open out into the hallway. On either side of these doors, though, are metal hooks built into the wall. There’s a metal beam resting on the hooks, blocking the door from being opened.”

“I ask the guard we took prisoner how they got into these rooms.”

“He says that whenever he was sent into one of these rooms, he was given two heavy metal blocks, and instructed to slid them in place as he removed the bar from across the door. He was told that it was very important the hooks always have a consistent amount of weight on them.”

“What happens if they don’t?”

“He doesn’t know. Remember, he’s only been working here 2 months. They only told him what he needed to do his job.”

“Ugh, fine. Ya know what? We don’t have time for this. I cast Cone of Cold on the door. Would that freeze the mechanism?”

“Assuming the trap works mechanically, yes. The mechanism would be frozen.”

“I remove the bar.”

“How are you going to do that? It’s stuck to the hooks by the same ice that’s freezing the mechanism.”

“Can I yank it off?”

“You probably could, though doing so would also have a chance to activate the mechanism you were trying to freeze.”

“Uhm…oh, ya know what? I still have my old blowtorch with me. I’ll use the heat from that to melt the ice on the beam, then remove it.”

“Alright, you do that. The beam is removed, the door is unblocked, and no trap is activated. This won’t last forever, though. The ice in the gears is already starting to melt with the heat from your blowtorch, so I’ll be rolling every so often to see if the trap activates.”

“Okay, I open the door. Is the baby Lamataur in here?”

“No, but the 12 other slaves in here are super happy about being rescued.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. Now we need to get the other door open, it’s the same, right?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have another Cone of Cold, though, so we can’t do that again. Ummm…what sort of building is this?”

“It seems like it was probably an office building before the apocalypse.”
“What are the walls made of?”

“Sheetrock, covered with torn wallpaper.”

“Oh, sweet, I take my knife and hack open the wall next to the hooks on that second door.”

“Okay, but that’s going to take a little while unless you have a better tool than a knife. You okay with an encounter check?”

“Umm…yeah, okay. Gotta do it. I’ll roll the check….a 3.”

“Fortunately for you, that’s no longer an encounter after you defeated that previous group of guards. You manage to saw open the wall.”

“Can someone else do the same thing on the other side while I do this?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, so what do we see?”

“It’s hard to get a good look. The hook is definitely attached to a lever, which holds a wheel in place, which is attached to a chain that goes down further into the wall than you can see.”

“I’ll try to jam my knife in to keep the chain from moving, can I do that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, let’s do it on both sides, then pull the bar off the door and open it.”

“You hear some squeaking as the chains strain against your knives, but the jam holds. Nothing happens. Inside the room you immediately spot the baby Lamataur.”

“Sweet! Time to get out of here.”

[Incidentally, had they activated the trap, a small trap door would have opened in the floor, and a crystal ball would have been launched out by a spring. Everyone would have to make a saving throw versus Magic to avoid becoming mesmerized by the thing, which would issue a command to “go into the cell and sit quietly until someone comes to get you.”]