Bridge of Sorrows 3D

I might just have to put together a Swords and Wizardry scenario based upon this.  It remains an amazing picture.  :)

A Cool Little Encounter

In the game, Dungeon Boss, you have a boss fight against this guy -- he's a goblin wizard and he has three shrieker mininons.  They screech at the heroes and drain their powers.  Pretty cool idea for a "low level" boss fight in your dungeons.  

Schrodinger's Dungeon as Sandbox Planning Tool

When I’m on the interwebs, I read about GMs and DMs that are constantly planning “story arcs” for their games.  They have this group of “important heroes” and then these heroes go out and do “important things” and that’s the big important story!  

If you like playing that way, that’s cool.  I’m not going to bash it.  I used to play that way -- but I’ve stopped.  

I’ve stopped for a few of reasons --

1. The prep was KILLING ME!  The amount of time it takes to put a “story” together is daunting.  I am an adult with a full time job now.  I want to spend my gaming time playing, crafting or painting minis.  I don’t want to plot out a story.  Personal preference.
2. If one of the players bails, you have a hole in your story that you have to fix.  The more important that PC, the bigger the hole.  The harder it is to plug.  This leads to massive re-writes of the plot and that goes back to #1 above.  HUGE TIME SUCK!  No thank you.
3. The railroad tracks must be strong and narrow.  If the PCs get off the path, the story suffers.  You have to make changes, re-writes, modifications, etc.  In one campaign, to keep “the story” on track, I had to resort to time travel for the PCs to wrap some things up…  Ack.  Too many ret-cons, to much re-writing.  Nope.

So that leaves sandbox play.  

If you run a sandbox, you have to be good at improvising.  Random tables are your friend.  You have to be good at tying disparate elements together on the fly or after the fact.  You have to weave some kind of world together from the bits you put out there.  You need to keep some good notes so that the random bits from three months ago mean something -- after all, that thing you made up about the blue fairy queen might just be the thing the adventurers want to follow up on!

So I had this initial idea -- why not create a set/series of random tables -- in advance -- that define the parameters of the sandbox?  These tables are all the prep you’ll need.  You keep going back to them, time and again, to determine what is going on in your game.

Yes, yes.  I know, there are literally an infinite number of random things out there (Abulafia, Wizardawn, Chaotic Shiny to name a few) plus all the dead-tree and/or PDF versions you can find (Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets, Dungeon Alphabet, Wilderness Alphabet, Toolbox, Ultimate Toolbox, etc.)

I’m talking about something else.  A template or structure that you fill in to represent the structure of your world (or parts of your world.)  The template -- how you roll against it -- sets the dynamics of what appears, when it appears, where it appears.  

You could approximate this by using the resources available -- random wandering monster charts, random treasure tables, etc.  That might work out just fine.  How you apply those random rolls to your world would determine the flavor and structure of the place.  If your whole world looks and feels the same, you could keep using the same tables everywhere.

Of course, if the City of Ghouls is different than the Ankaar, city of Thieves, you might need some different tables.

If The Tomb of Sarkos is different than the Crypt of Worms, you might need some different tables.

Of course, of course you could just randomly roll up some more tables.  Fine.  That’ll work.  

What I’m proposing instead is a fixed structure, that always “works” the same, that you fill in with bits and bobs to make each place different.  You’d fill this out initially, you can add to it and/or modify it as you go.  Make changes.  Deletions.  Additions.  But the “structure” for a given site is fixed at the beginning.

This leads me to another part of my idea, what I’m calling a Schrodinger’s Dungeon.  Nothing is fixed until it is observed.  Everything is in flux, until you roll for it.  

This is different than the Quantum Ogre principle, which states it doesn’t matter which way you go -- you’ll always encounter the ogre.  That messes up player agency.

In a Schrodinger’s Dungeon, you don’t know what’s there until you roll for it.  James Maz came up with this idea too, way back in 2009.  Perhaps it’s been rattling around my head all this time?  Who knows.  I’m still planning to “build it” which I don’t think has been done yet!

Now that I’ve Googled it, The Angry DM has an article about it too.  His idea looks like too much work for me (too many stat blocks) so I’m citing it here out of fairness, but I’ll likely not read much more of it.  :)

“Go left?  Go right?  OK, right it is (dice rattle, DM notes what is there) What do you do now?”

As new information becomes available, “You smell the strong odor of brimstone…” the players are free to act on that -- “OK, so you’d prefer to go left?  OK, (rattle, rattle)...”

The map itself can be randomly generated on the fly or just the contents.  The DM can randomly determine in advance or at the table.  I’d probably do a bit of both…

So what does this structure look like?  How does the prep go?  What’s next?

Well, I’m not quite sure.  I have some ideas, but, well, that’s another post.  :)

RPG Leveling - Experience Points and Evos

I play a game on my phone called "Dungeon Boss."  It's just a fun little hack and slash app where you get in fights with your heroes, kill the monsters and you take their stuff.

There are a lot of little subtleties to this game, but I'm going to focus on one idea (broadly,) so here goes...

You earn experience points from the battles (not sure about treasure) and you need those to level up.  To ascend (get new powers for) your adventurers, you need to collect various sets of "evos."  (I believe this is shorthand for "evolution.")

The quantity and the type of "evos" that you need to ascend each hero varies by the hero.

I would imagine that some are common, some are rare and that after each ascension, the quantity and rarity of the evos for the next ascension will be more difficult to obtain. See below --

So, here's my idea --

What if rpg characters had to earn EVOs and XP to level up?

XP would progress in the normal fashion.

For each level, or milestone level, the character would need to achieve certain objectives (Touchstones in my model) IN ADDITION TO gaining the requisite amount of XP before they can level up. 

Here's an example --

FIGHTERS

Level	Experience	Touchstones
3	4,000	[][] Max Damage with Melee Weapon; [][] Critical Hit with Melee Weapon
5	16,000	[] Defeat 4+ HD Monster in single combat
7	64,000	[] Participate in Warrior's Tournament; [] Defeat negative energy undead creature; [] Fight a Giant
9	256,000	[] Defeat 7+ HD Monster in single combat; [] Fight creature with breath weapon
11	450,000	[] Defeat a 9+ HD dragon; [] Defeat a spellcaster
13	650,000	[] Defeat 10+ HD giant in single combat

Created with the HTML Table Generator

Another idea would be to have players roll on a chart after every relevant encounter (relevant to each character class) and if the dice are kind, they would earn a Touchstone for their character.  Perhaps different types and quantities of Touchstones would be necessary to advance to each level. 

More on that later (when I get a chance to work up the chart...)

[Petty Gods] Mico

I just got around to downloading the new revised and updated "Petty Gods" book.  I must say that it is AWESOME!  Richard LeBlanc, Jr. at New Big Dragon Games has done an incredible job.  Thank you.

Upon downloading, I looked up my contribution, Mico, the petty god of flaming oil.  I discovered that Mico got a new picture courtesy of Mr. LeBlanc (thanks!) and my writing was spruced up a bit also (another thanks!)

If you haven't downloaded this book -- do so immediately!  If you haven't visited New Big Dragon Games and bought all their stuff, do that too!  You won't be disappointed!

[Kickstarter] OSR Summer Camp

So, I had this crazy idea.  I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have a "summer camp" for kids and teach them how to play some "old school" games?

Well, I gave it a try.  I built a Kickstarter and we'll see if the community would like to sponsor me this summer to hold five one-week camps, for a total of 60 kids.

Here's the link!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1969334799/old-school-rpg-summer-camp-osr-camp

Thanks for taking a look!

Help TheDMG restore his YouTube fans!

[Mystery Men] Prelude to Adventure

Tomorrow night, I will run my first adventure as a Mystery Men Mastermind (MMM).

I'm excited and a little intimidated.  I know that I can run a fun game, but I'm a little afraid that the system might break.

This is my point of worry -- Speed

You see, in MM, how often you act/attack/move is coupled to how far/fast you move.  One stat raises them both.

In the book, most example characters are Speed 2 (maybe 3) but I think the system might break at speeds above 4ish.

Seriously, what is the point of using a battle map if the character can move 4 million yards in 1 round?  (Speed 10)

I'll see how it goes, but I'm thinking that I may need to de-couple movement from speed (a la Champions)

We shall see!

[Mystery Men] Combined Attack Powers

One of my players reached out to me and asked about combining attack powers into a single power.  Sounds cool.

First thought - it shouldn't be free to do.

Second thought - it should only be two powers.

Thirdly - those powers shouldn't be incompatible, abusive or redundant.  (No 2x Energy Bolt...)

My "house rule" (at least for now) will be add the costs of the two powers together and add 50%.

The most restrictive conditions of both powers will be enforced for both.  This means if you merge a ranged and a melee power, the combination is now melee.  If one affects a single target and the other has an area, the combined power only affects a single target.

Here are some examples and their costs:

Chilling Curse -A creature you touch takes 1d6 points of hit point damage, 1d4 points of strength damage and either a -6 penalty to one ability score or a -4 penalty on attacks and feats, your choice. The curse lasts until removed with the Remove Curse power or Break Enchantment power.  [16,500]

Poisonous Wounds - Your poisonous touch causes deals 3d8 points of damage to a living creature plus 1d10 points of damage per round until neutralized or until a successful feat of constitution is made.  [24,000]

Chilling Energy Blade of Frost - You create a blade of ice or frost that inflicts 1d8+1/level damage and ignores armor bonuses to DC. You do not add your strength bonus to attack or damage rolls. Metal equipment of the target becomes freezing cold. In the second round after you use this power, the dealing 1d6 points of damage per round for five rounds.  [9,000]

Strike Deaf and Blind - One target within 100 feet is struck blind and deaf.  [9,000]

Stater's Mystery Men: Can someone help me out?

Well we've wrapped up our "Hulks and Horrors" game for now and we're looking to play Champions.  Problem is, I don't think I'm cut out to *run* Champions anymore.  :(

Too complicated.  Too slow.  To fiddly.  

I was thinking about checking out John Stater's "Mystery Men" but it's gone from his site.  I'd ask him for a copy, but it appears that he can't share it right now due to licensing.  I understand that.

Does anyone else have a copy of the free Mystery Men PDF that they'd be willing to share?  This could be the system I'm looking for.

If you do, please send me a copy -- wilmanric AT gee-mail DOTCOM. 

Many thanks in advance!

[Hulks & Horrors] Energy Packs

Here's an idea that will work equally well for Fantasy as for Sci-Fi, albeit for arrows or charges or whatever...

In my Hulks and Horrors game, the spacefarers need energy packs and/or clips of ammo for their blasters, lasers, phasers, etc.

I decided that in the H&H universe, much like our own, there are different types of batteries --

Red - weapons
Blue - heavy tools like laser cutters, sonic welders, etc.
Green - science equipment like tricorders, portable medi-bots, etc.
Yellow - toys like audio track players, GameDudes, etc.

Further, the types are all the same size, so they can be exchanged, but there are tradeoffs.  They all have 20 charges of their "color" and they cannot be recharged normally.  When they are used up, they must be replaced.

Cell Color used	in Red device	in Blue device	in Green device	in Yellow device
Red	Uses 1 charge	Uses 1/2 charge. May damage the device†	Burns device out; smoke, flames, nasty smells!  Depends upon number of charges in cell	Device explodes violently after brief delay! Depends upon number of charges in cell
Blue	Uses 2 charges	Uses 1 charge	Uses 1/2 charge. May damage the device†	Device whines with awful sounds,  growing more and more painful with every round until the device self-destructs! Depends upon number of charges in cell
Depends upon number of charges in cellGreen	Uses 10 charges	Uses 5 charges	Uses 1 charge	Uses 1/2 charge. May damage the device†
Yellow	Uses 20 charges	Uses 10 charges	Uses 5 charges	Uses 1 charge

Created with the HTML Table Generator

† If, when using the device, a critical failure is rolled, the device will be damaged in some way.

I hand out cards to the players when energy packs are found.  To facilitate the production of these cards, one of my players DB, made me a stamp.  It's great, but it isn't working well with the gel stamp pad I bought.  It doesn't seem to pick up the ink well.  I'm going to buy a more standard "inky" stamp pad -- that may work better.

In the interim, I had some small bits of cork lying around, so I made a quick 9x9 stamp of my own.  The idea is that once all 9 boxes are filled in, you cross off the whole "Hollywood Squares" thing for the 10th charge.  :)

Here's a pic.  DB's stamp is the larger one.  The blue cards are "blue" energy clips, the pink are "red."  I have other colors too...