Three Word NPCs

This table is based upon the excellent work of Telecanter, (which you will find here) and Paul Gorman (here) and the posters at Telecanter's page...  Enjoy!

d6	d10	mental	physical	archetype
1	1	artless	acrobatic	academic
1	2	bitter	albino	ambassador
1	3	bloviating	balancing	bandit
1	4	braggart	be-gilled	barber
1	5	cannibal	blazing	bather
1	6	careless	bloated	beggar
1	7	charitable	blotchy	bishop
1	8	corrupt	cadaverous	bugbear
1	9	cryptic	caged	butcher
1	10	cunning	charmed	child
2	1	daydreaming	clockwork	cleric
2	2	deceitful	clumsy	crofter
2	3	decorous	crippled	dreamreader
2	4	delusional	cursed	druid
2	5	dense	deaf	dwarves
2	6	depressed	demonic	emperor
2	7	distraught	drunken	fence
2	8	effete	dying	friar
2	9	excitable	emaciated	gambler
2	10	frail	ensorcelled	gemcutter
3	1	gibbering	epileptic	gladiator
3	2	gossipy	flatulent	gossip
3	3	grasping	gaunt	inquisitor
3	4	greedy	giant	king
3	5	honest	gilded	knight
3	6	honorable	glass	lacemaker
3	7	humble	gnarled	lampwright
3	8	impatient	hirsute	lich
3	9	incompetent	hunchbacked	limner
3	10	jolly	hungover	maiden
4	1	jovial	incontinent	maidservant
4	2	lecherous	lanky	mathemagician
4	3	listless	leprous	merchant
4	4	lovelorn	levitating	midwife
4	5	mad	mastermind	ninja
4	6	manic	muscular	nun
4	7	meticulous	mutated	oarsman
4	8	morose	mute	ogre
4	9	myopic	narcoleptic	oil merchant
4	10	naive	one-armed	philosopher
5	1	obsessive-compulsive	palsied	phrenologist
5	2	obstinate	paunchy	pimp
5	3	pouting	polyglot	poacher
5	4	prophetic	professional	poet
5	5	prosaic	scaly	preacher
5	6	prudish	scarred	publican
5	7	pyromaniacal	stuttering	ratcatcher
5	8	quizzical	swarthy	saint
5	9	ruthless	sweaty	sawbones
5	10	sadistic	tattooed	shepherd
6	1	salacious	terrifying	sperviter
6	2	senile	thumb-sized	stevedore
6	3	shiftless	tongue-tied	surveyor
6	4	shy	two-headed	swineherd
6	5	sniveling	undead	tallyman
6	6	thrill-seeking	ursine	tollkeeper
6	7	troubled	warty	veterinarian
6	8	welching	wereboar	watchman
6	9	wistful	wooden	wellsinker
6	10	xenophobic	youthful	wizard

Artifacts for Jeff Reints

Hi all,

I'm not telling you what these are or what they do, but these are the pics I created for the artifacts I created for Jeff.  Check out his call for artifacts here!

Widmoor's Fantastical Puzzle Box

The Crab Arm of Sondor Lawbender

The Sarcophagus of Dureth Ra

If you want to learn more, you'll just have to get Jeff's book when it comes out!

Death, Dismemberment and Dangerous Damage Table

Long ago, I found this link over at Trollsmyth and then I discovered that Norman Harman had done some tweaking of his own here.

Of course, both of these tables are based on this one by Robert Fisher.

Well, on Wednesday night I unveiled Trollsmyth's table to my players and I proposed that we start using it in our CotMA game.  The players seemed to like the idea of making dying a little more interesting.  :)  I liked the riskiness and suspense of rolling when the character hits 0 HPs.

During our very first foray into its use, Xavier the Spiritual had his right let "bit clean off" by a giant beetle!  Exciting!

Last night, it occurred to me that there's more than one way to die, so I thought, "heck, I can add some columns to that table and contribute to the community!"

So, here it is, my Death, Dismemberment and Dangerous Damage table.  Please investigate the blogs above for a lot of great ideas on how to implement the table.  I owe a lot of inspiration to them.

I hope you enjoy this -- it's a new staple of my OSR games!  You can download it here!

Wil Wheaton on Gaming at Gen Con (Part 1, 2 and 3)

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing makes appearance on "Adventure Time"

Here are some pics!

1, 2, 3 Hit Mooks

A question and a suggestion --

Does everyone keep track of HPs individually for "Orc #1" or do you sometimes use a shorthand system?

For years now I've used a system of "hits".

I define a hit as "5 points of damage".  I track "half hits" which is less than 5 points, but not equal to 1.  

A "one hit mook" then will fall when it takes one hit of 5+ points or when it takes two "half hits".  Usually a "one hit mook" is a 1 HD creature, but not always.  A tough orc leader might require two or even three hits to down.  The HD is just a yardstick that helps me think about how many hits a critter aught to take before being defeated.

I usually use "X's" as the hits and "/" as half hits in my notes.  Sometimes I'll mark monsters like so, using circles to represent the hits.  Then I just mark through them with slashes or X's as the monster takes damage.

Orc 1 O, 2 O, 3 O, 4 O, 5 O, 6 O;  Orc Leader OO 

Does anyone do anything similar to this when running your games?

I've got mine done -- have you done yours yet?

A few days ago, Jeff Reints posted this challenge!

I've now written up three artifacts and I've sent them off to Jeff for inclusion (hopefully) in his book.

I'll keep them secret (for now) so that you will have something to look forward to if you buy his book!

Blood Relatives

I saw this post over at "Letters of Note".  Warren Ellis brought it to my attention at his blog.

Anyway, its a letter that Kurt Vonnegut sent to an aspiring author who had mailed him a book.  What a great guy Vonnegut was in this regard.  It is my understanding that he replied to a lot of the letters he was sent.

Here's the quote that hit me --

The fact that you have completed a work of fiction of which you are proud, which you made as good as you could, makes you as close a blood relative as my brother Bernard. The best thing about our family, our profession, is that its members are not envious or competitive.

It occurred to me that the OSR embodies this sentiment in large part.  There are a lot of folks out there who are creating their own stuff and putting it out for the community's benefit.

In that way, we are all brothers.

B/X Blackrazor closed???

I've just tried to slip on over to JB's blog, B/X Blackrazor, and it says that it's only open to invited readers... When did that happen?

Seems like bad timing to close things down when you are trying to sell a product!

Anyone else having this problem? Appreciate the help or if this is a SNAFU, would someone let JB know? I don't have an email for him and (of course) I can't get into his blog!

Lucky Number 13

Thanks to all thirteen of you who purchased a paperback or electronic copy of my book. I enjoyed writing it and I hope you all enjoy reading and using it. I hope that you find some interesting, random ideas on the pages therein.

UpWords to add dimensionality to the tabletop

I'm always thinking about new, cheap and easy ways to add spice to my games.  I almost always use minis either using a battlemat (usually one I made myself) or my 3D game board.

Over the past few months, I've been scouring the local thrift shops for Scrabble pieces.  I like using them as mooks and hordes of monsters (I attack orc "J" for and hit for 3 points of damage).

Along the way I purchased several sets of "UpWords".  It's like Scrabble, but the tiles stack and interlock.  They are also about 1" square.  Well, for $2 each, I bought three sets.

Two sets were the standard 8x8 game board and one set was the "new" 10x10 game board.  Turns out that these two sets HAVE DIFFERENT SIZE TILES!  So, if you start down this road, make sure you only buy one size set!

Don't buy this one -- the tiles are SMALLER than the others AND it's harder to find. 

Anyway, I used my Dremel to chop the boards up into two 2x8 and four 4x4 sections (for easy storage and use).

Here are some pictures of how I will use them in my game:

  

The boards come in different colors -- I cut my grey one into 4 pieces

I cut my brown one into 2 pieces

Originally, I set one whole alphabet aside because I thought I would glue stacks of tiles together.  I didn't do it, but you might want to.  I think stacks of 3, 5 and 7 work GREAT for use with minis.

Here's a small setup.  The wall in the back is 5 high.  The orc is climbing steps up.

Here's a wall that's 7 tiles tall.  The steps are on the left.  

You could use stacks of these things for pillars too. (I don't have a pic of that)

What is the safe path for the elf to take across the trapped dungeon floor?

Two full sets of UpWords tiles AND the two cut up boards (two 2x8 and four 4x4) fit in this one zipper bag.  Got it at Wal-mart for $1.88.

Hope this is helpful and useful in your game!