Breaking the Basics

For the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the most basic rules. The fundamental stuff, which forms the building blocks of most OSR games. How could they be changed to better serve the type of game I want to run? So I’ve been tinkering, and talking with folks on Google+, and I’ve got some ideas for what I’m going to do in my next campaign.

Or, put another way, I’ve decided that the OSR isn’t an obscure enough niche for me. I want to push myself further and further away from what anyone else is doing, until I’m the only one who likes anything that I do.

Saving Throws

Saving throws have two basic functions within the game. First, they serve as a kind of safety net. If the players make a mistake which should result in some dire consequence, a saving throw may allow them to get off easy. Second, saves are a good way to handle attacks which bypass armor or hit points. They’re a defense against the indefensible.

For both of these functions, the game works best when a saving throw is more likely to fail than to succeed. Players should be afraid of making mistakes, or of attacks which bypass their normal defenses. Yet by level 7, about half the saves in LotFP are in the single digits.

I don’t actually see why saves should improve at all as a character levels up. Why not give each class a set of saves, which just never change from what they are at 1st level?

Not only would this better maintain the sense of danger that should come with a saving throw, but it creates an interesting opportunity. Saving throws have always been a fairly static thing, tied strictly to a character’s class, and typically improving only as they level up. Because of this, the difference between them communicates a lot about what each class is.

For example, fighters traditionally have a very good poison save, and a very bad magic save. From that you can infer that fighters are hardy, but weak minded. And, if saving throws never improve from their level 1 values, then we don’t need to give them any room to grow, and we can make the differences between them more dramatic.

All of that being said, I could see myself allowing saving throws to improve once at level 10 or so. I think it could be fun to have something to look forward to that is so far down the line.

Armor Rating

I’ve said it many times before: rolling dice is not inherently fun. We should roll dice only when all potential results of the roll will produce interesting gameplay.

The hit roll, in combat, is a good example of this. There are two results: a hit, or a miss. Hits are interesting because something gets closer to being dead. Misses are interesting because they create an opportunity for the tables to be turned. If two foes are racing to see who can deplete the other’s hit points the fastest, the winner will probably be whoever misses the least.

So the potential for any attack to miss is interesting…but it’s not that interesting. Slugging matches where two sides roll attacks back and forth are probably the most boring situation in D&D. So when both sides repeatedly miss over and over again? That’s just excruciatingly dull.

Worse yet, it’s actually pretty common. Most OSR D&D variants make it fairly easy to get a character’s armor rating up so high that only one or two results on an unmodified d20 roll will be a successful hit.

To fight this, I’ve dropped the base armor class in my game down from 12, to 8. This means the target number for a hit roll will be between 8-15, rather than the 12-19 it is in RAW.

Of all the changes I’ve been considering recently, this is the only one I’ve already implemented in my game. It would be cruel to ask my players to raise their saving throws back up, after they’ve worked so hard to get them down. This change, however, is just a flat 20% increase in the number of hits across the board. So far, everyone seems to like it.

I could even see myself pushing a little further, to a base armor rating of 6. For now, though, 8 is working out pretty well, so I’m going to stick with it.

Speaking of Armor Rating…

I have made one other modification to armor, shamelessly pilfered from a game I played with Brendan of Necropraxis.

Players may wear up to 3 pieces of armor. Each piece counts as a single encumbering item, and can be pretty much anything. A character wearing a cape, a helmet, and a codpiece would count as fully armored, even if they were otherwise naked. Of course, improvised armor (“I put the pot on my head !”) is going to come with complications. (“Okay, but you’ll need to use one hand to hold it up high enough that it doesn’t cover your eyes.”)

Armors available in the early part of the game all provide +1 to the wearer’s armor rating. This means the best you can get for awhile is +3. +4 if you use a shield.

Eventually, players may be able to afford masterwork pieces of armor, or they may find them in dungeons. Each of these grants a +2 bonus. So, once you’ve got 3 of those, you’ll have a bonus to your armor rating of +6, which is equivalent to plate armor in LotFP.

Functionally, this isn’t all that different from the way the system works in RAW. Mostly I like it because it makes encumbrance easier, and encourages more whimsy in your character’s armor.

It does have the slight drawback of making it easier to be a caster in full armor. However, I’m not terribly worried about that, because I intend to make magic users more fragile in other ways.

Hit points & Damage

Nobody loves random character generation more than I do. It’s a great way to give the player a set of tools, which they then have to learn how to use on the fly. But what if we did the opposite of that? What if hit points were not random at all?

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve rolled up my fair share of 1hp fighters, and I’ve liked it. But if you throw too many random numbers together, it starts to feel meaningless. If I roll 1d6 for my hit points, and you roll 1d6 for your damage, that’s just a straight-up 50/50 chance that I’ll live or die. A coin flip with extra steps.

What I’m thinking is that Fighters start at 8 hit points, and gain 3 each level. Specialists start at 6 hit points, and gain 2 per level. Magic Users start at 4 hit points, and gain 1 per level. And, lastly, all damage is rolled using a single d6.

Now, I’m a pretty dumb guy, but the math on this seems pretty interesting to me. In the first combat of the day, the fighter has literally 0 chance of being taken out by a single hit. They can afford to be a little bold. Specialists could be killed by a single hit, by the chance is low. So they can flirt with combat, but they shouldn’t over commit themselves. Magic users, with their measly 4 hit points, have that 50/50 chance of dying, and so will stay back out of the way.

The way hit points progress reinforces that first level experience. For every 2 levels the fighter gains, they can survive a single max damage hit. The specialist needs 3 levels to get the same. The magic user gets a little more survivability over time, but will always be in serious danger around combat. They need to get to level 4 before they can reliably survive even a single hit, and to level 10 before they could survive a second.

For the record, the cap on damage at 1d6 extends to spells as well. I had originally thought I might eliminate all damaging spells entirely from my next campaign, pushing the MU into a support role. However, I think it could be interesting to allow the MU to learn damage spells, so long as those spells obey the same damage limitation as everything else.

Ability Scores

And now for the real blasphemy: no more ability scores.

I’ve been feeling for a long while that nobody really knows what they want to do with this hallowed old mechanic. Every system seems to run them slightly differently, but in the end it always boils down to the same basic thing. They add small bonuses and penalties to a variety of actions. The only difference is in what actions those bonuses and penalties are applied to, but whatever they are, it’s always underwhelming. Unworthy of the pride of place Ability Scores have in the character creation process.

I understand the appeal of keeping them. It’s the first step in creating any new character, and so ostensibly fundamental to the game that the first words in the LotFP core book are instructions for rolling Ability Scores. For many “roll 3d6 down the line” has become a sort of secret OSR handshake. It’s emblematic of the difference between modern and OSR D&D: no fluff, no hand holding, it just is what it is.

But despite all that emotional significance, I just don’t think they earn their keep. They take time and space which could be put to better use, either with a more interesting replacement, or simply by speeding the whole character creation process up by their absence.

Of course, if you use roll under checks, you’re probably thinking I’m fuggin crazy right now. Roll under checks _do_ make ability scores work. They are an elegant little mechanic with a lot of merit to them, but I don’t use them.

As to what I’ll replace ability scores with, I haven’t got it entirely worked out yet. My thought is to make a little table of bonuses the player can have to specific tasks. Basically doing the same thing ability scores did, but with more focus, and less unused fluff.

Cointoss, a 200 Word RPG

So there’s this contest. In the contest you’re supposed to write a whole RPG in 200 words or less. This struck my fancy because I thought “That wouldn’t take too much effort to attempt!” That attitude is probably why I didn’t win the contest, but whatever.

Cointoss RPG

You are you. You’re in a restaurant waiting for food to arrive. You stand up.

Cointoss can be played anywhere, for any length of time, without any preparation. At the start of a game, you are who you are, where you are, when you are. Then, the imaginary you deviates, and goes off to have some adventure you could never attempt in real life.

You can do anything you could normally do without question. The referee describes the world around you, and determines which actions have a chance of failure. Such actions require a coin toss: heads is success, tails is failure. Some actions may require two successes to work, others may only require a single success out of two tosses. Thus any action may have a 75%, 50%, or 25% chance of success.

Anything is within the purview of these flips. You can check to see if you’ve spontaneously developed superpowers, or if you can get yourself elected president. It doesn’t matter, because no game of Cointoss will ever last long. Eventually the food comes, and the game ends. So get moving.

This is actually an idea I’ve had in the back of my head for awhile now. There was a brief time where I carried a set of dice in my pocket because I liked the idea that I might find some empty moment to fill with D&D. There’s a group of folks sitting around waiting for something, or just being bored together, and I could pull out my dice and say “Ya guys wanna run a quick dungeon?”

But dice are a pain to carry around. They made my pants lumpy, and I was always worried about losing one. And those brief D&D-able moments were never as common as I thought they might be. I gave up on carrying dice around, but the idea stuck with me that I’d like the option of proposing some kind of role playing game in the spur of the moment. It would just require no prep, and no tools that wouldn’t be readily available wherever I go.

I came up with a flip of the coin, the universally available randomizer, very early, but never pursued the idea further than that. This contest was a nice excuse to get it done.

A Use for Excess Experience Points

In games which grant experience as a reward for recovering treasure, there is usually a rule that a character can’t level up more than once in a single session. So if you’re level 1, and you find a diamond worth 10,000 money, (which would normally translate to 10,000 experience), you don’t get to jump straight to level 3. You’ll reach level 2, and then stop. Usually the rules allow for a character to gain enough experience to be 1xp short of gaining 2 levels, but that’s it. After a big treasure haul you might see large amounts of your experience evaporate because of this rule. Possibly even the majority of it.

This is good and proper for any one of a dozen reasons. It maintains the pacing of the game. It cuts down on complications. It prevents players who may have missed a session from being left in the dust. It allows the referee to place large hoards of treasure without worrying that it will wreck the game’s progression. There are tons of reasons to recommend it. It’s a good rule.

But, from a player perspective, it’s always kind of a bummer losing out on those excess experience points. Sure gaining one level was nice, and you’re nearly guaranteed to level next session. That’s nice too. But gosh dang it, you could have leaped all the way to level 6 if not for that dumb rule! It’s enough to leave you weeping into your massive pile of money. #SuccessfulAdventurerProblems.

What if those spare experience points could be used for something? Not leveling, but something. Preferably something simple, since this issue only arises rarely. It would be too complex even to make the benefits proportional to the amount of excess experience the player earned. I think it should be treated as a binary thing: did you earn more experience points than your character could absorb? If yes, you get a cookie.

So what’s a good cookie?

Free training. This is kind of the obvious one, right? Experience points are usually used to train a character in their class, so if it can’t do that, it may as well be used to teach the character something else. Excess experience could allow a character to select any training they qualify for, and instantaneously and freely gain it. Alternatively, if that’s a little too much, you might consider waiving only one of the two requirements: either the training is free, or it’s instantaneous.
A skill point. If you’re not using any kind of in-game training, then most characters will never improve any of their skills. Giving a skill point to characters who earn excess experience flows from the same logic that training does. To the Fighter, having a 2-in-6 Tinker chance would be a pretty significant ability, since it’s not something they’re ever supposed to be able to get. But overall, it does little to impact the fabric of the game.
A character’s total XP doesn’t only model their wealth of experience as an adventurer, it also models their social cachet. An excess of experience points could be taken to indicate a sudden surge in renown for the character. Perhaps word of their great deeds is only now starting to reach the upper echelons of society, or maybe their recent success was so explosively impressive that nobody can really ignore them anymore. For whatever the reason, the players should see some benefit from this. People of higher status should take notice! Land grants or titles should be offered. Or, on a smaller scale, better jobs should come the players way. Perhaps they’re able to recruit hirelings more effectively. And on that note…
Hireling loyalty improves. There aren’t a lot of explicit ways to improve hireling loyalty. Knowing that you’re working for a winner can be a real ego boost. All hirelings get a +1 bump in their loyalty. Or maybe just one hireling, if the referee is stingy.
The player may Auto-Best a single roll, after it is rolled. It’s a small reward. Simple. But turning an attack roll of 1 into a 20 feels pretty durn good.
Temporary hit points. This is the one time I think the reward should be proportional to the excess XP. The character gains 10 temporary hit points for each level which they could have gained, but didn’t. So if they started at level 1, and could have made it all the way to level 6, then they get 40 temporary hit points. (Because they level up to 2, then get 10 each for levels 3-6). The temporary hit points cannot be healed, they last until the character takes enough damage to exhaust them.

This post was in no way inspired by the diamond worth 100,000gp that my 1st level character found in Courtney Campbell‘s Perdition campaign.

Bringing PCs Back as Cyborgs

The ORWA campaign recently had its first character death. Umquat, of blessed memory, had her neck melted through by the Righteous Gaze of the Children of God. She fell to the ground a mere 15′ from the rest of the party. Even if there had been hope that she might be saved, there was no way for Umquat’s fellows to step out from their cover without sharing her fate. The dice foretold that she would gurgle and cough for 4 rounds before she was able to die, and all the party could do was watch. It was a death beautiful in its tragedy.

However, beautiful as it was, it occurred to me that there’s no reason for death to be the end of Umquat. After all, ORWA has long since moved beyond the technological limitations of its medieval beginnings. The setting has a very “Saturday Morning Sci-Fi” vibe, and characters already have the option of cybernetically enhancing themselves. Why not allow dead characters to be ‘resurrected’ through cybernetics? If fits the themes of the game perfectly.

Requirements

The body of the character to be cybernetically resurrected must first be recovered. Your friends need to get your corpse back to the safety of a haven with Internet access. (By which I mean, a haven where the party can make contact with agents of the shadowy organization known as “The Internet.”) If the majority of your body is unrecoverable for whatever reason, then there is no hope for you.

Cybernetic resurrection is also expensive. It costs all the money of the person being reincarnated. All of it. They’re able to hold on to any material goods they might own, but any liquid wealth is confiscated by The Internet to pay for the procedure. If you didn’t have very much money, or no money at all, well then you lucked out. The Internet is feeling generous that day.

The Consequences

Cybernetics are great for enhancing the natural function of your body, but they’re shit at actually replacing those functions whole cloth. And unfortunately, you’re dead, which means some part of your body is so damaged that it could no longer function at all. That part of your body had to be completely replaced with cybernetics, and those cybernetics are gonna be a whole lot worse than your original home-grown human parts were.

I use Courtney Campbell’s Table for Avoiding Death. It is a very good table. One of its many benefits is that when a character dies, the table describes precisely what their means of death was. In Umquat’s case, her neck was melted through. Other deaths include a bone shard puncturing your femoral artery, the front of your face becoming frozen enough to shatter, and dozens upon dozens more. Like I said, it’s a very good table.

When a dead character is cybernetically resurrected, the part of their body that was destroyed during the death process must be replaced by a mechanical facsimile. The drawbacks of this are entirely at the discretion of the referee. They should be significant, but not so debilitating that the player wants to retire the character. For example, this is what Umquat will have to deal with:

Umquat’s new neck is good at allowing her to breathe, speak, and control her body with electrical impulses from her brain. However, it can’t handle food or drink. Umquat must now feed herself through a tube in her stomach, using special liquid rations which cost 3x the normal rate for rations. Even in dire circumstances, she cannot eat normal food.

Also, she has to talk in a robot voice from now on.

As a corollary to this first point: since vital life functions are now managed by machines, the cyborg is vulnerable to EMP attacks. If all electronics would be shut down for any reason, then the cyborg is immediately reduced to 0 hit points until the effect is ended. (If they already were at 0 hit points, they gain 2 pain, as per the Table for Avoiding Death).

The second major drawback to being a cyborg is the consequences of brain death. In the real world, resuscitation has to occur within minutes of death, lest the patient’s brain be irreparably damaged. In the game, even ignoring the time it takes to recover, the actual process of being cybernetically reanimated takes nearly a month to complete. It is hardly surprising that cyborgs suffer from a variety of mental derangement. Roll on the table below to determine the way in which the cyborg’s brain is damaged.

The cyborg is sexually attracted to spherical objects. They are a sphere-sexual.
One of the many technicians who worked on resuscitating the cyborg has added secret instructions into their brain. The referee should write these down on a piece of paper, and place that piece of paper in an envelope. When the instructions become relevant, the player should be allowed to open and read the instructions.
The cyborg becomes obsessed with a religion–either one that they already professed, or a new one determined by whatever means seem most expedient. The cyborg follows an arcane set of rules based on their extremist interpretation of the religion, and will find some way to bring every single conversation back to their faith.
The cyborg is utterly disgusted by children. Any human that has not yet gone through puberty is profoundly offensive to the cyborg.
The cyborg loses impulse control. Any time that the player mentions a possible course of action, jokes about something ludicrous that their character does, or even expresses a desire for something, the cyborg will do that thing.
The cyborg becomes an absolute coward. Roll 3d6 to determine a morale score using the same chart hireling loyalty is generated with. Any time a hireling’s loyalty would need to be checked, the cyborg’s morale must be checked. On failure, they have to flee for their lives.
The cyborg just doesn’t see why they would ever pass up a good time. If some pleasurable activity is available, they must agree to participate. There’s no way to keep the cyborg on task during a party, or in a red light district.
The pleasure center of the cyborg’s brain has withered, and they are incapable of having a good time. Worldly pleasures just hold no draw for the cyborg, and they look down on any pursuit of pleasure they witness in others.
The mood of the cyborg is completely disassociated from the events occurring around them. Rather, it’s a randomly determined fact established at the start of a game session. Roll: 1. Angry, 2. Cheerful, 3. Morose, 4. Silly, 5. Lethargic, 6. Anxious
The cyborg becomes incredibly miserly, and will never spend more than 10% of their total net worth in a single game session or haven turn.
The cyborg finds clothing incredibly uncomfortable against their skin, and refuses ever to wear it. They must be completely naked at all time, with the exception of jewelry. Jewelry is nice.
Only one hand is ever available, because the other is constantly masturbating. Constantly.
The cyborg develops a kind of narcolepsy. This usually isn’t too much of a problem, as companions are around to nudge them awake. If the cyborg is ever alone, however, then one of the results on the encounter die should indicate that they have fallen asleep, and will remain asleep for 1d4 turns or until awakened. Due to the adrenaline kick, the cyborg will never fall asleep in combat.
The cyborg is given to passionate, flighty affections. Anytime a new NPC is encountered and engaged in discussion, the cyborg must make a 2d6 reaction roll for themselves. If they roll a 12, then they fall desperately in love, completely forgetting whoever they were in love with previously.
The cyborg believes that they are more cybernetic than they actually are. Despite any evidence to the contrary, they do not believe anything remains of their human selves. As far as they’re concerned, they don’t have anything but circuits and disks in their heads. They will often attempt to “interface” with machines, which of course never works.
The cyborg’s reality is almost entirely different than our own. Everything they see appears more colorful and simplistic than it actually is. Instead of people they see anthropomorphic animals, instead of blood and death they see silly slapstick comedy.
The cyborg believes they are trapped at a certain age. They have all of the adult faculties and experience of their true age, but will act as though they’re doing an impression of a person of a different age. Roll to determine what age they think they are: 1. Four, 2. Nine, 3. Sixteen, 4. Ninety
The cyborg becomes a serial doodler of graphic vulgarities. Any time the cyborg has a few free minutes, they scrawl dicks and tits and profanities on the walls. If they ever spend any length of time waiting somewhere, it will be clear to everyone that someone was there.
The cyborg suffers from a literally paralyzing fear of the dark. If they ever find themselves in an area where they cannot see their surroundings, then they freeze in place. They are completely trapped until something illuminates their surroundings.
The cyborg’s internal balance is messed up. They can usually walk okay (though they do stumble more often than most people). However, any time their balance would be in question, they fail automatically.
The cyborg can’t quite control their eating, and they become immensely fat as a result. The added pudge requires that any armor be specially fitted for them. Their own fat takes up a full encumbrance worth of inventory space.
The cyborg develops a depraved sexual fetish that even the most tolerant individuals are disgusted by. The cyborg must make a saving throw versus Poison during each haven turn. On a failure, they spend 1d6 x 100 money pursuing their strange fetish with a wild abandon, and they lose out on any opportunity to use their haven turn more productively. They will become well known in their community for their depravity, which will affect their reputation accordingly. (If the cyborg was in the middle of training, this does not interrupt that training. The training is merely delayed).
The cyborg feels disassociated from their own flesh, and begins self-mutilating as a nervous habit. Any time that is not actively spent in some task requires a save versus Paralyzation. On a failure, the cyborg deals 1 point of damage to themselves.
The cyborg becomes unbearably prudish about sex. Even something as simple as casual flirtation happening within earshot will prompt the cyborg to launch into a lecture about sexual morality. The cyborg is even uncomfortable around anyone who is a parent, because they know that such a person must have had sex at some point.
The cyborg loves animals, and lacks impulse control. Anytime they see an animal they will run over to pet it and coo at it, without thought to their safety or any task they were previously performing.
The cyborg refuses to ever bathe again. Their stench will make parley difficult, at least with any creature that has a human sense of smell.
A new skill is created for the cyborg. It doesn’t matter what, so long as it is pretty much useless. Something like whittling, guitar hero, or macramé. The cyborg becomes obsessed with this new hobby, and cannot spend their haven turns doing anything other than training in this hobby until they reach the max level of skill.
The cyborg refuses to acknowledge that they are affected by weather. Heat, cold, rain, or hail, it doesn’t matter. They will not make any attempt to protect or prepare themselves for dealing with environmental conditions. This will certainly end badly anytime they have to deal with these factors.
Loud noises cause the cyborg to soil themselves.
The cyborg is completely incapable of ‘negative’ emotions, such as anger, sadness, resentment, jealousy, suspicion, etcetera. They are dangerously naive because of this, and are absolutely convinced that everyone and everything they meet is a good friend to them.

The Moral of the Story, a subsystem proposal for Masters of Carcosa

Ramanan Sivaranjan of Save vs. Total Party Kill runs a game called Masters of Carcosa, and I play in it. As you might guess from the name of the game, it uses the Carcosa setting. With a lot of emphasis on the He-Man elements of that game world, rather than the meat grinder elements. It has so far been a pretty fun game to play in.

After yesterday’s game session, we got to talking about He Man, and how every episode ended with a shoehorned “moral of the story,” which really only existed to dissuade parents from writing angry letters about what a terrible influence the show was on children. Ram decided it would be fun if he started appending a moral to the end of each play report. I’d like to suggest an alternative to him, inspired by Arnold K‘s Poet class.

See, in this particular game, the party is a troupe of traveling actors called The Rainbow Connection. And we’ve decided our goal is to try and forge some kind of civilization in the wastelands of Carcosa.

So, anytime the party ends their adventure in a town, they can put on a show about their most recent adventure. The show ends with a moral derived from the subject material. Morals should flow naturally from the story, and should be general in nature. A moral can’t be “give all your money to The Rainbow Connection.” But it could be “Give your money to people stronger than you.” All morals are subject to the approval of the referee.

Each new moral is added to “The Code of Carcosa.” Players are responsible for tracking the contents of the code. If the players forget to write down one of their morals, then it doesn’t exist. The Code of Carcosa will form the basis for civilized culture and morality in Carcosa.

Anytime a settlement is acting contrary to the code, the players may point this out to the settlement. They then roll a 1d10, aiming to roll under or equal to the settlement’s civilization score. On a success, the settlement is embarrassed about their uncivilized behavior.

The base civilization score for a settlement is 0. Each time a show with a moral at the end of it is performed in the settlement, that settlement gains 1 civilization point. This seems to me like a pretty good rate of adaptation. The fastest possible amount of time it would take to fully civilize a new settlement is 10 sessions.

Of course, this is still Carcosa. The Code of Carcosa is open to interpretation. Settlements will only feel bound to obey the letter of the law. Not its spirit. A sloppily composed moral like “Don’t kill people just because they’re a different color than you” might lead to claims that “We’re not killing the Jale men because they’re Jale. We’re killing them because they engage in despicable Jale culture.”

An interesting way of creating characters above first level.

Generally I don’t like making characters above first level. There’s really no reason a 1st level character can’t play alongside higher level characters and feel useful. Particularly in OSR style games, where power levels don’t range quite as wildly as they do in other games.

That said, when the whole party is level 6+ and I die, I sometimes get grumpy about needing to start back at level 1. And today in the shower I came up with a neat option.

The referee sets a limit for how high the character can level using this system. A good limit would either be one level lower than the level of the player’s recently deceased character, or the average level of the party as a whole. The character levels up one at a time until they either reach this limit, or decide to stop wherever they are and introduce their new character at the level they stopped at.

Each time the character levels up, they roll 1d20 against 10 + their new level. (So leveling from 1 to 2 would require a roll against 12. Leveling from 2 to 3 would require a roll against 13. And so on.)

Pass or fail, the character levels up either way. But if they roll above the target, then they get to roll 2d6 on the boon table. If they roll below the target, then they have to roll 2d6 on the mishap table.

Boons

2. The character has made some excellent investments in shipping ventures! They gain gold equal to 200% of the XP that would normally be required to reach their new level from their previous one.

3. The character has been afflicted by some beneficial mutation. I recommend rolling on The Metamorphica, and re rolling anything that player seems too upset about. Alternatively, the referee could just fiat something cool. An extra arm that can hold a second shield, a fungus growing in the character’s stomach that means they almost never have to eat, a 3′ prehensile dick that can spit acid for 1d6 damage. That sort of thing.

4. The character has carefully saved their money. They gain gold equal to 100% of the XP normally required to reach their new level from their previous one.

5. The character has somehow acquired some official title or authority for themselves. It ought to be appropriate for the level it was rolled for. A lower level character may have earned a commission as captain of the duke’s guard, with some authority that can be exercised within the duke’s territory. A higher level character may have simply earned the title of duke.

6. The character saved somebody’s life. They’re more interesting than a simple peasant, but they’re really not that important in the grand scheme. Maybe a city guard, or a village priest or something. They consider the character a very good friend, and may even have decided to join the character as a hireling. If not, then their home will always be open to the character to crash in. They’ll happily offer interest free loans, and gifts on special occasions.

7. The character has been wise with their money. They gain gold equal to 25% of the XP required to reach your current level from the previous one.

8. The character managed to save up enough cash to purchase some expensive piece of commonly available adventuring equipment. This is probably a suit of plate armor, or perhaps a faithful steed. The player might have bought a small shack or cottage somewhere.

9. Through rigorous time taken off to train, the character has improved themselves. Roll 1d6 to randomly select an ability score. The character gains +1 in that ability.

10. By hook or by crook, the character managed to convince someone big and important that they’re a pretty neat dude. Some character, like a general, a wizard, a duke, or a wealthy merchant will treat you well and be disposed to you over others. They won’t load you up with cash. Think about the best friend you’ve ever had in the workplace, but never really made that leap into hanging out with outside of work.

11. The character has managed to get their hands on a minor magic item. The referee will need to figure out what is appropriate for their campaign. I’m thinking a healing potion in a game where healing potions aren’t for sale. Or maybe a hat that gives you +2 to lying, or something.

12. The character managed to get their hands on a magic item of top notch coolness. The referee will need to figure out what is appropriate for their campaign. I’m thinking a sword that summons lightning bolts on a natural 20, or gloves that allow you to cast Charm Person on anyone you shake the hand of.

Mishaps

2. One of the chartacter’s hands was crushed into a pulp and had to be amputated. Randomly determine which.

3. A cannonball or ballista tore through one of the character’s legs, removing it just below the knee. Randomly determine which.

4. The character was stricken by a horrific disease which brought them to the very brink of death. They recovered, but were forever weakened. Roll 1d6 to determine a random ability score. Reduce that score by 1d4.

5. The character has been afflicted by some horrible mutation. I recommend using The Metamorphica, and rerolling anything the player looks too happy about. Otherwise the referee can simply fiat something icky: a craterous formation that oozes pungent mucus, a blind eye stalk growing from the character’s ear, a second mouth that lisps insults at everyone the character meets. Stuff like that.

6. Some minor villain has declared a blood oath of vengeance against the character. Whether a petty thief, or proud warrior, or a single monster with a taste for the character’s particular flavor of flesh, this foe will hunt the character and attack them until one or the other is dead.

7. After a bad night of gambling, the character accrued a debt. The debt is equal to 25% of the XP normally required to reach the character’s new level from the previous one.

8. The player suffered a period of extreme hardship. Either stuck out in the elements, trapped without food or water, or tortured by a sadistic foe. Regardless, they’ve never been quite the same. Roll 1d6 to randomly determine an ability score. That score is reduced by 1.

9. Deserved or not, the character has made themselves a dangerous enemy. A character with significant resources (a wizard, a baron, a wealthy merchant) has decided that they cannot sleep soundly until the character is dead.

10. After a really bad night of gambling, the character has accrued a significant debt to some dangerous people. The debt is equal to 100% of the XP normally required to reach the character’s newest level from the previous one.

11. A stray sword struck the character’s hand in battle, chopping off a finger. There is no necessary mechanical penalty for this.

12. Whatever the character has endured, the scars cannot be hidden. They criss-cross his body, deeply discolored. Chunks of meat are noticeably missing. There’s splotchy bubbling, and perhaps even puss. The character suffers a -1 to charisma in any situation where they want to appear friendly or attractive. But a +1 to charisma in any situation where they want their martial prowess taken seriously.

In retrospect this is kind of a ripoff of Traveller. But meh. At least you can’t die. =P

A Better Use for Bookshelves

Two years ago I wrote “A Use for Bookshelves.” It’s one of my favorite game ideas that I’ve ever come up with.

But it’s a clunky system. I’ve been using it in pretty much every dungeon I’ve designed in the last two years, and it’s always a hassle. Preparing a table of interesting information is a lot of work. It’s tiring, and I end up resorting to options that feel cheap. Like hollow books with a few gold coins in them, or completely random information that has nothing to do with the ‘theme’ of the bookshelf.

When I wrote the bookshelf system, I believed in front-loading game content. I wanted to create a huge game environment with mountains of detail. A fleshed out sandbox where the players could pick any direction to move, and there would be something for them to find there. But attempting to put that philosophy in practice has meant a lot more work for very little apparent benefit. Now, I think player interest should drive the referee’s worldbuilding. The sandbox still needs to be structured in advance, but the details don’t need to be at the referee’s fingertips before play begins. Take, for example, bookshelves.

Each bookshelf has a subject, and a number. That’s the only thing prepared in advance.

All the books on the bookshelf fall within its subject. So a bookshelf about fishing might have books about types of fish, methods of fishing, history of fishing, ways of cooking fish, etc. The actual books don’t need to be enumerated or titled. The shelf’s theme just gives you a range of possibilities.

The number has two functions. First, it is the number of encumbrance points (not encumbering items) required to haul the books off. So “Bookcase: Fishing 12” will require the party to use 12 encumbrance points to get the books out of the dungeon. If they like, they can break the library up, taking as few as 1 encumbrance point worth of books with them. But if you only take 1 encumbrance point worth of books, then you only have Fishing 1 at your disposal, rather than Fishing 12.

The number is also the amount of questions that can be answered by the books before they’ve absorbed all of the knowledge the shelf has to give them. The question must be reasonably within the bookshelves’ subject, but other than that any question is fair game. Answering a single question requires 12 hours of game time book studying. If the referee doesn’t already know the answer, they’ll figure it out by the start of the next game session.

So, for example, the players find bookshelf: Religion 8. Between everyone, the party only has 6 available encumbrance points, so they haul Religion 6 back to the surface. The cleric wants to know if there are any holy relics of his deity within 100 miles that he could recover for the glory of his god. The referee happens to have included such an item in a nearby dungeon, so after the character takes 12 hours to study the books, the referee tells the players about the dungeon, and that there should be a relic there. The fighter, meanwhile, wants to know if there’s any god badass enough for her to want to worship. The referee doesn’t really have a good answer, so after the session ends he comes up with a heavenly dog who has swords for legs and eagles instead of eyes. He presents the fighter with that info at the start of the next session.

Not only does this dramatically reduce the amount of work that the referee has to do, but it also gives the players a unique tool that they’ll be interested to use. The old system was a means of dispensing clues and quest hooks that would spark the player’s interest. This system is a tool to satiate an interest the players already have.

I’m eager to test this out.