One (single magic item) to rule them all
10 hours ago
Sunday, 4 September 2016
Sorcery World
Five more to go in a highly irregular series of 36 d20-based encounter tables. Roll d20, read straight across, or roll 2 d20's and connect the two columns as best you can using the verbs for inspiration.The bold, italic entries are things that can be left behind in a site with currently other inhabitants. This one's about wizards and their doings. For more of these look under the GENRES tag.
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Victor Hugo's Les Misérables: A Review For RPG.Net
Les MisérablesAuthor: Victor Hugo, 1862 (tr. Norman Denny)
Publisher: Penguin Classics
System: System-neutral/free-form
Setting: French social realism/pre-steampunk
Let me just start with the elephant in the room: If you like GM-PC characters; if for you the whole point of Forgotten Realms is to rub elbows with Elminster, and you would willingly mount a campaign in the world of Conan even though it means the characters are either going to be Conan or someone who isn't Conan, then "Les Mis" is your bag.
The pachyderm in question is Gary ValStu -- sorry, I meant Jean Valjean. He strides through this sourcebook, soaking up attention in every scene he's in. And make no mistake, in spite of the system-neutral descriptions, he's clearly 18 Strength:
"In physical strength Jean Valjean far surpassed any other inmate of the prison. On fatigue duties, or hauling an anchor-chain or turning a capstan, he was worth four men. He could lift and carry enormous weights ..." (p. 99)
But the stat carnival continues:
"His dexterity was even greater than his strength" (p. 100)
So, 19? Book learning-as-dump stat aside, he's a super-high level rogue who climbs walls like a staircase, bowls people over with force of personality, and survives death plunges. His disad's are many but they're of the kind that only add to his cachet: some kind of helpless dependent or other, false identity, wanted, hunted, and above all a nitpicking adherence to Chaotic Good alignment.
But is alignment really a disadvantage when the book lays out ways and means to weaponize it? Yes, if you stick to your Good behavior even when it would do you great harm - even when your beneficiary is a scoundrel - even when they are actively trying to rob you - even when doing the right thing would ruin thousands of people - Hugo describes benefits ranging from forced alignment change in the target, to confusing and paralyzing adversaries, even to the point of suicide.
Valjean, then, works best as a benefactor for hard times, striding in, doling handouts and plot coupons - but you can't escape the temptation to put him in the hands of a player, if only for the fun of seeing them play him "sensibly" and never attain the full potential that's sitting under their noses.
Then we have the arch-villain NPC, Inspector Javert, Lawful Neutral over into Evil. Say one thing about this guy, he's the absolute right way for the GM to handle a persistent adversary. As much as he's unbelievably skilled and lucky at hunting down his prey - he finds Valjean twice from a cold trail in completely different cities of France - he also will make that little fudgey mistake that lets the players get away, assuming they haven't made any serious mistakes themselves and don't actually (like Valjean) want to get caught.
There actually aren't that many other NPCs for a 1200 page book. This is due to Hugo's habit of having coincidental meetings pop up routinely, so this new person is "none other than" someone we met 200 pages before. Paris and indeed all of France thus behave in Hugo's hands like a village of a couple hundred. Corny as it may seem, at the table this is actually a great way for both GM and players to stay emotionally invested in the developments. Frankly, too, it's easier to remember a plot with six or so recurring names than with thirty-six of them. Those that are described, in more or less detail, are very good - the Patron-Minette gang, with its varied characters and capabilities, almost begs to come to life as a player character party.
Fortunately, the characters, their doings, and other things "storyline" take up only about half of Les Misérables. The rest is great sourcebook material: minute descriptions of buildings, neighborhoods, and historical adventure sites like the Battle of Waterloo, the 1830 barricades, and of course the sewers of Paris; long essays about politics, necessary if you're going to understand 19th century France with its parade of monarchies, empires and republics; and quirky sidebar material like the analysis of convents in France, or the description of Parisian thieves' cant.
Pretty much all the locations are gameable, whether as sites to loot, PC hideaways, or places of intrigue (the scenario where PCs have to help a convent carry out an illicit burial and at the same time help Valjean escape is a tense masterpiece.) Infuriating, though, to see a complete lack of maps and illustrations - the GM will have to dig up historical ones or rely on the "theater of the mind's eye" to fill in. Fan material online can't quite compensate for this crucial flaw.
 |
| More of this, please. |
Style: 2
Substance: 4
Saturday, 20 August 2016
Waiting Out Sleep (etc.) Non-Boringly
A good game-runner, tester, designer, stays alert to the signs of boredom around the table. Like the rules that everyone forgets, the experiences that don't lead to fun or meaning need to be identified, diagnosed and dropped.
One non-fun experience in D&D and its ilk is the use of enemy powers that take a player's character effectively out of the game. Who has not succumbed to the touch of a ghoul, the tentacles of a carrion crawler, or the icy grip of a hold person spell?
All these paralytic effects, however, last longer than the typical combat does. (Actually, AD&D never gave durations for monster paralysis, but 2nd edition has ghoul touch lasting 3-8 rounds and carrion crawler paralysis lasting at least 2 turns.) This mean the affected character is warming the bench until the combat ends. Visible boredom results.
Taking paralyzation effects out of the game is not an option for me. They're an important part of the monster arsenal, much more forgiving than save-or-die, but still scary and threatening. One of my players who was concerned that his combat-machine character might be unbalanced received a healthy reminder to the contrary, when in the midst of pitched battle a hold person spell overcame his puny save against mind magic. A relentless press turned into a chaotic retreat, with the other characters having to manhandle the stiff body of the hapless warrior. The stuff of legends!
Why wait ten, twenty, thirty game minutes for the stiff to wake up can be turned into a procedure, a very simple game.
During combat, the player rolls a new saving throw against paralyzation each combat round, keeping track of successes, and also keeping track of rolls of a natural 5 or less.
Taking the character out of danger (by ending or successfully fleeing the combat) means the character is no longer *trying* to wake up, and takes the full 10 minutes. Also, you can rule that each roll to wake up costs the character 1 hit point. This is not terribly unfair; usually attacks that paralyze don't do a lot of damage.
This rule give s a character the potential - if very lucky - to get back into the fight almost immediately. More importantly, it gives hope and something to do in what is otherwise a deadly boring situation.
One non-fun experience in D&D and its ilk is the use of enemy powers that take a player's character effectively out of the game. Who has not succumbed to the touch of a ghoul, the tentacles of a carrion crawler, or the icy grip of a hold person spell?
All these paralytic effects, however, last longer than the typical combat does. (Actually, AD&D never gave durations for monster paralysis, but 2nd edition has ghoul touch lasting 3-8 rounds and carrion crawler paralysis lasting at least 2 turns.) This mean the affected character is warming the bench until the combat ends. Visible boredom results.
Taking paralyzation effects out of the game is not an option for me. They're an important part of the monster arsenal, much more forgiving than save-or-die, but still scary and threatening. One of my players who was concerned that his combat-machine character might be unbalanced received a healthy reminder to the contrary, when in the midst of pitched battle a hold person spell overcame his puny save against mind magic. A relentless press turned into a chaotic retreat, with the other characters having to manhandle the stiff body of the hapless warrior. The stuff of legends!
Why wait ten, twenty, thirty game minutes for the stiff to wake up can be turned into a procedure, a very simple game.
During combat, the player rolls a new saving throw against paralyzation each combat round, keeping track of successes, and also keeping track of rolls of a natural 5 or less.
- A natural 20 means they roll again, keeping only success.
- A natural 1 means they roll again, keeping only failure.
- After three successes, the paralyzation ends.
- After three 5-or-less rolls, the paralyzation sets in and lasts for 10 minutes.
Taking the character out of danger (by ending or successfully fleeing the combat) means the character is no longer *trying* to wake up, and takes the full 10 minutes. Also, you can rule that each roll to wake up costs the character 1 hit point. This is not terribly unfair; usually attacks that paralyze don't do a lot of damage.
This rule give s a character the potential - if very lucky - to get back into the fight almost immediately. More importantly, it gives hope and something to do in what is otherwise a deadly boring situation.
Monday, 4 July 2016
Flying Monsters
In a recent session in the Castle of the Mad Archmage, the Muleteers went to retrieve the bodies, dead or alive, of a couple of rival party members who had gone missing, sent running by a fear gas trap in the middle of a series of rooms full of bats. This meant fighting giant bats, lots of bats. It was actually my first time dealing with lots of flying attackers and I improvised, inconsistently, a number of rules solutions to represent their menace.
After thinking things through I created this one-page rules sheet for the 52 Pages system. It covers where and how flyers can move, and what happens when they attack. Their ability to charge and overfly, surround and disorient, add to the tactical challenge.
One other things: a critical hit that wounds a flying creature in "arm"or "leg" brings it down for good, showing up the greater vulnerability of wings.
Release the bats!
After thinking things through I created this one-page rules sheet for the 52 Pages system. It covers where and how flyers can move, and what happens when they attack. Their ability to charge and overfly, surround and disorient, add to the tactical challenge.
One other things: a critical hit that wounds a flying creature in "arm"or "leg" brings it down for good, showing up the greater vulnerability of wings.
Tuesday, 21 June 2016
Tekumel: The P'raka
(The scenario on the home island of my Tekumel party comes here for general use; next, a short report of how they handled it.)
To while away time until Captain Tarshar's arrival, the elders have taken the unusual step of adding to the dwindling food supply by hunting the p'raka, a low-slung six-legged beast like a wild boar, covered in porcupine-like quills. Which happen to be saturated with a flammable oil.
The plan is for the more useful members of the tribe to circle the p'raka grazing ground in the waist-high, dry whipgrass, and for the vocally talented hunter, Kemune, to imitate the attack cry of the flying serpent Ben'gega (known on the continent as Vringalu). Ben'gega is the only thing the p'raka fears more than fire. In panic, at least one beast is expected to bolt across a low ridge, to where the soon-to-be-exiled PCs are tasked with catching and killing it.
The elders figure that if the PCs fail to catch the beast, it is a bad omen and ample pretext to send them off in shame and oblivion. But if the PCs succeed, this is proof that She Who Hides Behind the Sun smiles on them.. Their quest to find the Greater Eye of Shaping the Earth will be praised and feted, and the elders will give the Keeper twenty well-knapped red-flecked obsidian stones to take along, each the size of a fist.
A warm wind blows steadily from the southwest. The party has about an hour to prepare their ground. If the chasers are successful, the p'raka will burst out of the tall grass between a great red sandstone rock and a stand of thorny-leaved kema bushes. In front of it will lie a 200' wide by 400' deep flat expanse of ground mostly covered with dense, short, dry clawgrass.
The savanna is dotted with 5-8' tall um'hehue trees, about one per 20' area, unclimbable by p'raka but easy climbing for people, with boughs of thorn-edged disk-shaped fireproof, glossy, green-black leaves. At the same frequency are bare patches of stony red sand, tangles of twiggy bushes that can be broken off and woven into fencing, and jutting rocks that block a 5' area or 5' side. Somewhere in the area is a patch of a dozen or so oil-melons, whose slimy internal tissues are very flammable if inedible. The PCs should be encouraged to improvise traps and ambushes, under time pressure (figure one person, in 10 minutes, can alter one 10' x 10' area, dig a 3' cube, or do twice that if skill succeeds.)
The p'raka (3 HD, AC 13 spines, MV 12 with 3 round bursts of 18, attack tusks d6+1) will run out of the grass on the second round of one of its speed bursts, covering 60', then 180', then slowing to 120', then off the map. It will only stop for fire unless restrained, breaking out of cages or nets on a 5-6 on d6. Even faced with fire it makes a morale check on 2d6: 9+ it runs right through, being set on fire, taking half a d6 damage for 3 rounds and doing a full d6 extra if it overruns someone; 5- it turns around and runs in circles looking for someone to gore; other results it seeks a way around the fire.
Complications on d6, 1: The wind changes direction suddenly and blows blustery, fanning and blowing any fire unpredictably; 2: The p'raka emerges from an unexpected area on the map edge; 3: Two p'raka! 4: If someone is up in a tree, there is a blood snake there, 1 HD, attack 1 damage + poison, AC 12 (speed) 5. Unexpectedly, Kemune's call is echoed from behind you - a real Ben'gega is out there hunting! 6: Roll twice, ignoring further 6'es - except if you roll 5/5, 5/6 or 6/6, the Ben'gega arrives on the scene in d6 rounds...
To while away time until Captain Tarshar's arrival, the elders have taken the unusual step of adding to the dwindling food supply by hunting the p'raka, a low-slung six-legged beast like a wild boar, covered in porcupine-like quills. Which happen to be saturated with a flammable oil.
The plan is for the more useful members of the tribe to circle the p'raka grazing ground in the waist-high, dry whipgrass, and for the vocally talented hunter, Kemune, to imitate the attack cry of the flying serpent Ben'gega (known on the continent as Vringalu). Ben'gega is the only thing the p'raka fears more than fire. In panic, at least one beast is expected to bolt across a low ridge, to where the soon-to-be-exiled PCs are tasked with catching and killing it.
The elders figure that if the PCs fail to catch the beast, it is a bad omen and ample pretext to send them off in shame and oblivion. But if the PCs succeed, this is proof that She Who Hides Behind the Sun smiles on them.. Their quest to find the Greater Eye of Shaping the Earth will be praised and feted, and the elders will give the Keeper twenty well-knapped red-flecked obsidian stones to take along, each the size of a fist.
A warm wind blows steadily from the southwest. The party has about an hour to prepare their ground. If the chasers are successful, the p'raka will burst out of the tall grass between a great red sandstone rock and a stand of thorny-leaved kema bushes. In front of it will lie a 200' wide by 400' deep flat expanse of ground mostly covered with dense, short, dry clawgrass.
The savanna is dotted with 5-8' tall um'hehue trees, about one per 20' area, unclimbable by p'raka but easy climbing for people, with boughs of thorn-edged disk-shaped fireproof, glossy, green-black leaves. At the same frequency are bare patches of stony red sand, tangles of twiggy bushes that can be broken off and woven into fencing, and jutting rocks that block a 5' area or 5' side. Somewhere in the area is a patch of a dozen or so oil-melons, whose slimy internal tissues are very flammable if inedible. The PCs should be encouraged to improvise traps and ambushes, under time pressure (figure one person, in 10 minutes, can alter one 10' x 10' area, dig a 3' cube, or do twice that if skill succeeds.)
 |
| HELLO |
Complications on d6, 1: The wind changes direction suddenly and blows blustery, fanning and blowing any fire unpredictably; 2: The p'raka emerges from an unexpected area on the map edge; 3: Two p'raka! 4: If someone is up in a tree, there is a blood snake there, 1 HD, attack 1 damage + poison, AC 12 (speed) 5. Unexpectedly, Kemune's call is echoed from behind you - a real Ben'gega is out there hunting! 6: Roll twice, ignoring further 6'es - except if you roll 5/5, 5/6 or 6/6, the Ben'gega arrives on the scene in d6 rounds...
Sunday, 19 June 2016
Tekumel: The Island
Yesterday a group of four players started my Tekumel campaign. In the great tradition of "barbarians coming to the big city and learning the setting" they created characters, members of an island tribe. They each took party roles.
The Speaker (caller in social situations) was a necromantic shaman with a blow-gun, who contributed that the tribal totem was the Wild Dog. He follows He Who Sets the Night In Order, lord of the moons and planets, ordainer of bad fortune, and casts fortunes by scattering bones in moonlight.
The Rememberer (note taker and mapper) was a not particularly competent hunter. He decreed that the rival groups on the island were the Wild Cat tribe and a group of Hlutrgu frog-men, all separated by mountain ranges and a dormant volcano.
The Keeper of the group's resources was a blind healing shaman ("Can I be blind like Daredevil?" "No, you're just blind"). He determined that what the tribe trades with one Captain Tarshar, boss of that big canoe with wings, is red-flecked volcanic obsidian in return for trinkets, hatchets, cloth and food. He became blind by staring too long in search of She Who Hides Behind The Sun, ordainer of good fortune.
The Defender, lord of military strategy and the initiative die, was a strong and resilient barbarian warrior whose weapon of choice is a big rock on a rope. To him fell the invention of why the PCs, their zero-level followers and about 20 other tribespeople had to leave the island. Famine, due to increasing heat and decreasing water, was the answer. The other three were among the least necessary members of the tribe. The other twenty also had less desirable qualities -- lazy, complainer, drunk, quarrelsome -- and somehow got the short end of the "random" selection by lots conducted by the Wild Dogs' elder shaman. The Defender took pity on them and decided to accompany them. The tribal legend says that across the sea, in a place where people build mountains and live in them, is the Greater Eye of Shaping the Earth, relic of the dawn age, which can bring prosperity to the most ravaged land.
The elders decide that Captain Tarshar, whose seasonal visit comes any day now, must be convinced to take the surplus tribespeople to this built-mountain-place. The quest of the Eye seems like a good use of these exiles. How big, after all, can the world be?
Next: The Hunt
The Speaker (caller in social situations) was a necromantic shaman with a blow-gun, who contributed that the tribal totem was the Wild Dog. He follows He Who Sets the Night In Order, lord of the moons and planets, ordainer of bad fortune, and casts fortunes by scattering bones in moonlight.
The Rememberer (note taker and mapper) was a not particularly competent hunter. He decreed that the rival groups on the island were the Wild Cat tribe and a group of Hlutrgu frog-men, all separated by mountain ranges and a dormant volcano.The Keeper of the group's resources was a blind healing shaman ("Can I be blind like Daredevil?" "No, you're just blind"). He determined that what the tribe trades with one Captain Tarshar, boss of that big canoe with wings, is red-flecked volcanic obsidian in return for trinkets, hatchets, cloth and food. He became blind by staring too long in search of She Who Hides Behind The Sun, ordainer of good fortune.
The Defender, lord of military strategy and the initiative die, was a strong and resilient barbarian warrior whose weapon of choice is a big rock on a rope. To him fell the invention of why the PCs, their zero-level followers and about 20 other tribespeople had to leave the island. Famine, due to increasing heat and decreasing water, was the answer. The other three were among the least necessary members of the tribe. The other twenty also had less desirable qualities -- lazy, complainer, drunk, quarrelsome -- and somehow got the short end of the "random" selection by lots conducted by the Wild Dogs' elder shaman. The Defender took pity on them and decided to accompany them. The tribal legend says that across the sea, in a place where people build mountains and live in them, is the Greater Eye of Shaping the Earth, relic of the dawn age, which can bring prosperity to the most ravaged land.
The elders decide that Captain Tarshar, whose seasonal visit comes any day now, must be convinced to take the surplus tribespeople to this built-mountain-place. The quest of the Eye seems like a good use of these exiles. How big, after all, can the world be?
Next: The Hunt
Sunday, 29 May 2016
Kill Six Billion Demons
The webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons (K6BD) starts absurdly: a bulky masked figure from nowhere crashes Allison's first nervous sexual tryst in her college bedroom, pursued by spiny fiends who decapitate him and bear away her boyfriend of three weeks -- but not before the masked one can implant a regulation-issue Power Macguffin of the Chosen One in Alli's forehead and tumble her across dimensions into a sordid hub-city of the multiverse.
If you haven't read the comic but are intending to, it might be best to stop now with this review and head on over, if you've got a few hours to spare. The setting that ensues is probably best appreciated through the revelations of the story itself. Spoiler warnings apply more to the details of this world than the "hero's journey" chassis of the plot. If that doesn't faze you, read on.
Gradually, through art dark and luminous, punctuated by enormous teeming panoramas, we see the many orders of angels, devils, humans, demigods and stranger sorts in this universe of 777,777 worlds. Through exquisitely stylized dialogue and accompanying didactic texts, we learn the rules, stories and power relations that our heroine must navigate - at first as a screaming, near-catatonic wreck, but gradually gaining confidence in the role she is to play. Currently the series is finishing up its second book and, if the schematics of the plot tell true, there is a great deal of ground left to cover yet.
The setting calls to mind a Planescape built on Empire of the Petal Throne instead of D&D. A wholly original mythos nonetheless mingles recognizable names and themes from Buddhism (Mahayana and Zen alike) and Near Eastern mythology. Deftly balanced with the cosmic ponderousness of angels, gods and worlds in the balance we find sardonic and self-aware touches. These mainly come from Allison's foothold in the mundane, and from a wisecracking blue-masked imp she acquires, Cio, who fancies herself a writer of fanfiction, Allison her Mary Sue.
The comic's creator, "Abaddon" (Patreon), has a strong eye for systems of magic and metaphysics, expressed in vigorous visual metaphors. Cio works magic by way of paper: a business card that marks an unwilling pact onto the recipient, a wall of giant paper dolls, an origami flying mount. The system of binding demons involves a hierarchy of colored masks and human-added names: the fewer names a demon is bound by, the more powerful. Landscapes are more often than not dotted with the towering, frozen or ambulatory, bodies and husks of expired gods and angels. This is a fallen cosmos where God is dead, and lowlife and oppression are everywhere. Perhaps not by coincidence given our heroine's sexual jitters, her first otherworldly destination is a lurid bordello district where desires worse than carnal lust are evidently slaked.
As far as gameable content, an official RPG for the setting is in development. In the meantime, I've worked up an old-school compatible set of spell adaptations for paper magic, adding a few effects not shown in the comic.
Paper beings are AC as unarmored, take double damage from fire and cutting weapons, none from blunt, cold or piercing. Spells are cast with appropriate paper materials and a rhymed couplet containing the numbers five and two.
Caster level
1: Paper servant. Paper doll becomes "seen" servant with 1 HD that acts as unseen servant, can become invisble from a particular vantage by turning sideways.
2: Paper planes: Fold (1 round) and throw a paper plane dart up to 30', never missing, doing d6+1 damage. Can repeat once n a row per caster level above 2.
3: Calling card: Caster always knows the location of a card engraved with his/her name, 1 day/caster level.
4: Paper wall: Dolls multiply and grow forming a whirling wall of 20 2 HD 5-foot paper soldiers up to 10' across or 30' long.
5: Origami mount: has 5 HD, up to 3 human sized persons can ride, flies at 18"
6: 52 card pickup: Sharpens and scatters a pack of cards through a 30' x 30' area, doing 4d6 damage, minus one d6 for every 2 points of armor protection.
7: Paper oracle: Pose a question with up to 4 answers, folded finger oracle over 1 round chooses the most correct one.
If you haven't read the comic but are intending to, it might be best to stop now with this review and head on over, if you've got a few hours to spare. The setting that ensues is probably best appreciated through the revelations of the story itself. Spoiler warnings apply more to the details of this world than the "hero's journey" chassis of the plot. If that doesn't faze you, read on.
Gradually, through art dark and luminous, punctuated by enormous teeming panoramas, we see the many orders of angels, devils, humans, demigods and stranger sorts in this universe of 777,777 worlds. Through exquisitely stylized dialogue and accompanying didactic texts, we learn the rules, stories and power relations that our heroine must navigate - at first as a screaming, near-catatonic wreck, but gradually gaining confidence in the role she is to play. Currently the series is finishing up its second book and, if the schematics of the plot tell true, there is a great deal of ground left to cover yet.
The setting calls to mind a Planescape built on Empire of the Petal Throne instead of D&D. A wholly original mythos nonetheless mingles recognizable names and themes from Buddhism (Mahayana and Zen alike) and Near Eastern mythology. Deftly balanced with the cosmic ponderousness of angels, gods and worlds in the balance we find sardonic and self-aware touches. These mainly come from Allison's foothold in the mundane, and from a wisecracking blue-masked imp she acquires, Cio, who fancies herself a writer of fanfiction, Allison her Mary Sue.
 |
| Rhombicubooctahedra make the best angels |
As far as gameable content, an official RPG for the setting is in development. In the meantime, I've worked up an old-school compatible set of spell adaptations for paper magic, adding a few effects not shown in the comic.
Caster level
1: Paper servant. Paper doll becomes "seen" servant with 1 HD that acts as unseen servant, can become invisble from a particular vantage by turning sideways.
2: Paper planes: Fold (1 round) and throw a paper plane dart up to 30', never missing, doing d6+1 damage. Can repeat once n a row per caster level above 2.
3: Calling card: Caster always knows the location of a card engraved with his/her name, 1 day/caster level.
4: Paper wall: Dolls multiply and grow forming a whirling wall of 20 2 HD 5-foot paper soldiers up to 10' across or 30' long.
5: Origami mount: has 5 HD, up to 3 human sized persons can ride, flies at 18"
6: 52 card pickup: Sharpens and scatters a pack of cards through a 30' x 30' area, doing 4d6 damage, minus one d6 for every 2 points of armor protection.
7: Paper oracle: Pose a question with up to 4 answers, folded finger oracle over 1 round chooses the most correct one.
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