Traps!

Here's my take on a trap chart in the Roger the GS style.  If you read straight across you get a standard trap that should be easy to work with even at the last moment in play.  If you mix and match the columns you get weird stuff you need to interpret a bit and is intended more for pre-play prep.

A few notes.  If you are rolling to get something weird you can still get the straight-across result.  Rather than re-roll I put in to add insects or animals to get some Indiana Jones style snake pits or bug filled rooms.  The trigger column was the last thing I added and the fact that some are nouns and some verbs bugs me, but it should work.  For the chute being "revealed" I was thinking of staircases that flatten out, the chute was always there built into the feature itself.

Let's roll some and see how we might interpret them:

4, 3, 5, 4
shim, gas, swings, block
Whew, that's a tough one on the first go.  Okay, let's say a section of a hallway is a big pendulum.  Knocking out a wooden shim will cause it to swing, replacing the current section of hall.  It contains a gas that is heavier than air and makes anything in it float to the ceiling and get stuck.

 2, 7, 10, 9
latch, noose, (shoot out, open), channel
Hmm, okay, a chamber with four doors.  Opening the "wrong" door causes a noose to shoot out and land around the opener's neck and start, slowly, constricting.  Opening the door the designer wants you to go through causes the noose to go slack.

7, 1, 6, 1
touch, darts, jut out, wound
This one seems pretty straight forward.  The walls of an area are lined with tiny, sharp points.  Brushing up against them causes them to jut out and inflict damage.  I would say battles in the area would be at a negative because the battlers are being careful not to touch the walls.  Or maybe roll a save every time you miss to see if you've bumped into a wall.

Well, you get the picture.  Let me know if you have any suggestions or questions.  Hope this helps in designing your dungeons.

Potion Traits

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the fabulous potion shop. Step right up, roll all your dice, and find out what the marvelous concoction you're about to partake of is like.

Potion Traits pdf

I had a heck of a time fitting enough colors, features, and flavors to satisfy me into this chart. Because of this I eventually decided to add a d30 to the mix. I hope this doesn't reduce the number of people that will find this useful.

If you don't have a d30 you could delete the current d10 (side effects), move colors down into its spot, and then decide whether you want to cut features down to d12 or flavors down to d20.

Another difference with this chart is that the font is smaller to accommodate the 30 flavor entries. It may be fine to use at it's current size, but if you want to shrink it down to digest size or something similar it becomes an issue.

Because of that and the new problem that you might not want players generating flavor and side effects (how would they know if they're just looking and swirling the liquid in its bottle?) I pulled those two categories onto a separate page and made everything a little easier to read. If you prefer this format you can have your players roll up potions using chart A with no worries, and then when they taste/drink the potion roll the results on chart B.

P0tion Traits - 2 Page pdf

Use

I've blogged a lot about giving players information with which they they can make decisions. And traditionally potions were the same way, you sip the potion of levitation and you suddenly feel lighter. Otherwise, you would have to identify every potion to make them useful. So how do we use a random potion generator in game?

I can think of five ways:

• Don't. Give your potions hints that are logically related to their function. Aww, but I just made this cool chart!
• Roll away and make every potion as random as Zagyg's heart. Potions might be less useful in your campaign.
• Roll for every potion type as DM. Do this ahead of play and then be consistent. That way players know the fishy-smelling, black syrup is actually a greater potion of healing.
• Roll randomly on the first encounter of any potion type. I like the idea of players rolling these (if there aren't too many in a batch), they're fun. So, the first time any potion type is encountered let them roll and after that be consistent in the qualities - "Well, there's one fishy-smelling, black syrup and 2 potions you need to roll for."
• You could roll ahead of time and trump one of the qualities with one more logically related to its function.
  

Enough blathering, shall we try it?

2, 2, 8, 7, 10, 16, 26

Translucent, thin, full to the brim, no side effects, silver, sparkling, pepper.

Okay, it's thin, which is the consistency of water and the most common result. It's full to the brim, which doubles the potion, and has no side effects. Both of these qualities impinge on the potion in play the way a color doesn't, you could always ignore them. Sparkling in the features category is literal, it twinkles or sparkles in light. So, basically we have a watery, silver potion that sparkles and tastes of pepper.

4, 1, 8, 7, 11, 16, 1

Opaque, evaporative, full to the brim, no side effects, gold, sparkling, putrid

By evaporative I was thinking a volatile fluid like alcohol that, well, evaporates off of your tongue. Putrid may take some interpretation it's basically foul, but you might roll again on the flavor chart if you want to know if the foulness is specifically staleness, rottenness, cloying, or whatever.

1, 2, 7, 5, 5, 17, 15

Transparent, thin, full, belching/flatulence, green, iridescent, anise.

Pretty straight forward, a thin greenish potion that tastes of black licorice and gives you gas.

There you have it. Of course all the categories can be edited to your taste. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I hope you and your players get some enjoyment out of this.

Revised Player Handouts

My brain is all afroth with ideas to post about and I'm trying to limit it to two posts a day, but I've been working on some revisions on my houseruled player handouts and wanted to post them in order to share.

I use Open Office and save to pdf, but I'm happy to post .docs, or .odfs if anyone is interested, the idea is to share something useful.

First, I mentioned going back over my fastpack-- the starting equipment I just give players in order to get play rolling. Because it added up to a lot of weight I trimmed amounts back and actually listed the weights. It should be much less likely for a normal strength human to start play partially encumbered after utilizing this list.

Get the pdf here. And, you'll need the weapon list for players to choose from . I've got all the blunts arranged together for easy cleric weapon choice and weapons listed in order of damage. Its pdf is here.

The other thing I finally accepted is that my hireling traits spur was difficult for people new to using it to read. I was seduced by symmetry. I loved having the progression from the smallest die to the largest in a nice triangle.


But you have to read the d4 with the d20 which are opposite ends of the chart, and without knowing that the chart can quickly confuse. So I've revised it. I moved dice that work together beside each other, I labeled what the rolls were for, and touched up a few other things.

I hope that will be clearer even if it looks a little more cluttered. Get it here.

I think the "remarkable" entry for physical features should probably be something else-- its too similar to "odd" and most of the other adjectives are remarkable anyway.

If you have any ideas for replacing that or how to make any of these handouts more legible or useful please feel free to share. Thanks.

Spell-Like Effect Spur

This is another of my Spurs. It uses the wonderful Grim's Roll All the Dice Method. It takes more work than a chart to use, but it is infinitely reusable and unique to the person using it at the same time.

This is a revision of my failed Magic Item spur. I've basically yanked out everything but the magical effects. Because of that I called it the Magical Effect Spur at first, but realized this doesn't include things that might happen to unlucky adventurers like getting shrunk or having their faces break out; it is more accurately a Spell-Like Effect Spur.

Because of its abstract nature it may take a little work to figure out what the effect actually is. But that's okay, its meant to be generative. So, you can either roll these up plenty of time before play and try to figure out how you might interpret the inscrutable results, or--and this is the option that is more fun and exciting to me--enlist your players to help you come up with a suitable effect.

So, to make it a little less abstract, let's use an artifact as an example:

The Crown of Cedifer the Sullen

As for that of most powerful artifacts, little is known of the history of the Crown of Cedifer.

It is known he ruled several centuries ago, that his reign seemed set upon by misery; first his heir died in battle, then a daughter died to plague. He must have called for the creation of the crown because its craft is unmatched and only the best in the land could have made such an item. Some speculate he meant it as a penance to save his remaining children, some think he meant it as a cruel illustration of the stray hands of fate.

Sometimes called the Fickle Crown, or the 999 Laments of Cedifer, this iron band is set with pale, clear stones. Stories say, the power of the crown is invoked if set upon a persons head and they speak a phrase with a number. For example: "This is my first lament," or "Fate is fickle in 77 ways." The exact phrasing is lost to history, but when spoken a spell-like effect will occur. Sometimes these effects are of great power, sometimes a fatal curse.

Demarth of Karthon is said to have carved an empire for himself just with the power of the crown, only to be turned on by his own guard one day. He attempted to invoke the 665th lament of Cedifer and disappeared forever along with the Crown.

Few are wise who dare to wear this crown.
__________________________________________

Some notes: the Crown is just an example. I don't know how it might work in play. You might let it have 999 unique powers that can each be called once per day, or just have the crown itself be used once per day. 999 magical effects a day may seem very powerful, but the player would have to discover ever single one, they are often quite specific, and sometimes detrimental to the player.

Okay folks, lets see what powers might result at the table:

First roll:

4, 6, 1, 2, 4, 3

area of effect, attack/transport, range 10', for 1 round, conjure mineral

Okay, I'm seeing something like a meteor storm. It rains down earth in an area within 10'. The transport aspect I'll say is that the meteorites are permanent and can be used to fill pits and form bridges across ravines.

1, 3, 5, 7, 1, 17

wielder, utility, range of 50', lasts 1-6 days, alter, demi-humans

My first reaction: WTF! But, okay, we can work with this. This power lets the user alter their appearance-- actually alter, not just an illusion--to that of a demi-human for up to 6 days. Very useful for infiltrating the mines of the rabid half-gnomes.

Here's a little problem: what to do with the range category when you roll wielder or touch? Maybe that could be some kind of power level; a 1 would be harder to save versus/ cause more damage than an 8.

3, 6, 4, 0, 9, 14

Distance effect, attack/defense/utility, 40' rng, permanent, evoke, time

Hmm, this is hard work isn't it, but the pay off is worth it, don't falter on me: Within 40' the user can cause one target to age incredibly; living creatures, doors, and locks will all crumble to dust.

One last try:

2, 1, 8, 3, 4, 3

Touch, attack, utmost power, 1-6 rounds duration, conjure, minerals.

The user touches a target, petrifying them and most likely killing them in the process. In 1-6 rounds their bodies return to flesh.

__________________

There you have it. Have fun.

Telecanter's DM Spurs - Magic Items

A post on the Swords & Wizardry forums asks for a random magic item generator. Now, I have been thinking about a random treasure item generator. Magic item is different, it implies the PCs will be using it, you need to think about things like rods, wands, orbs etc and deal with the various powers. Where the item generator I was going for would generate any kind of interesting valuable items you might find.

Anyway, I tried to oblige. Consider it a draft because the "items" familiar and uncommon are too vague to be useful to me as a DM, I think. But this is the constraint of the Roll all the Dice method, I needed the d12 and d20s to describe the magical effects.

• Telecanter's Magic Item Spur

I'd like to do better, or at least implement a second roll all the dice item generator that you could use in tandem with this.

Telecanter's DM Spurs - Hireling Traits

I don't have a lot of experience with hirelings. In our 1e campaigns of the past we had parties consisting solely of player characters and, if needed, players controlled two characters. But it wasn't often needed because death seemed to be a mythical event that happened off-stage to peasants.

Fast forward to today and Swords & Wizardry and I've got four players taking 13 people into a deserted convent in a brash and incautious way. The ants and stirge are feasting well. But how do I as a DM differentiate these damn hirelings. I'd used Steven Cook's Quick NPC Checklist to give me names physical features and traits all at once. But that list was finite and I apparently need an infinite way to come up with the barest characterization details for these hirelings on the fly. And so, I crafted:

• Telecanter's Hireling Trait Spur

To do this I consulted a lot of sources starting with Grim's Roll All the Dice Npc Generator, Robert Lionheart's Random Hireling Generator from Knockspell #1, Fitz' cool NPC Personality Profile Generator, and the beloved 1e DMG.

To be clear this will not tell you what armor, weapons, or experience your hireling will have. To determine that you should check out Kilgore's Labyrinth Minions, or Bulette's Hireling Generator. (Please post a comment if you have other recommendations)

What this is meant to do is give a spur to your imagination to come up with some broad and brief traits so your hirelings will have some distinguishing features. Some notes:

• Read the d4 with the d20 for a single personality trait.
• The d6 is a rough age range, I tried to allow for young linkboys and old cooks and such.
• Read the d8 with the d12 for a single distinguishing feature.
• The d10 is meant to indicate the distance the hireling has travelled from their birthplace. I left this as the barest suggestion because it seems scale would depend heavily on your particular campaign, but I suggest 1 is a local, and 10 is the farthest away your campaign has room for, perhaps from over the Sea or from deep Under-mountain.

Let's try it:
3, 5, 3, 1, 2, 1

abundance, 50s, marked, 1, ears, pride

Okay, this local boy in his fifties has cauliflower ears and an abundance of pride. Maybe he was a champion wrestler and is haughty because of it, but he's past his prime and reduced to working as a porter or sell-sword.

One more time:
2, 2, 5, 1, 9, 3

lack, 20s, habit, local, feet, bravery

This local in his twenties is not a coward, but he won't be charging into battle any time soon and he has an annoying habit of shuffling his feet.

Some last suggestions: I use different color/style of dice when throwing these to try to speed up reading the results. I'd probably try to throw them in some contained area so you're not having to track down the 12-sider under the table. Most importantly and the coolest idea, though, comes from Jeff Rients' comment on Bulette's hireling generator: think about letting your players roll this.

I've mentioned the fun my players had rolling up their hirelings, I think this would work the same way and fits right in with Delta's post about games within games. I think you should be ready to help, the whole table should, in interpreting the Spur's results, but I think taking an active part in determining these traits will fix in the players mind which hireling is which and why they should care that the stirge is currently pumping out his lifeblood :)

Have fun with this. I hope it is helpful.

More Thoughts on "Roll All the Dice"

I've been working on a Spur for Hireling Traits and in doing so noticing some features about designing for Roll All the Dice charts.

First, the d4 and d20 are useful bookends; whichever category has the most options needs to fit within 20 and the d4 helps you think of the overall theme in the most abstract way: what four chunks can it be broken down into?

Second, the middle dice are all nicely within 2 of each other. What this meant for me is that I would often have to bump a category up a die and then rack my brain for two more listings. It could work the other way too; if you have to bump down a die, really strain your brain to consolidate two of the entries. Here the format becomes a generating tool.

Finally and most interesting to me, some features of the dice can really aid the DM in reading the results quickly. I noticed this when I changed the distance category in my Encounters spur away from a simple die result x 100 feet. So, I consciously tried to keep this in mind with the Hirelings Traits spur-- for example the d6 is age in decades, and, in general, lower numbers mean less, higher more.

Telecanter's DM Spurs - Encounters

I have praised the Roll all the Dice method previously and mentioned I was working on a treasure item generator. I have also been struggling with the idea of detail in design and how much of it a DM really needs.

So as I thought about my treasure item generator, I thought I might actually make two distinct generators, one specific, one more abstract. The second would be a kind of spur, so to speak for the DM's imagination. Well, the exigencies of a real campaign got in the way and what I needed as my players were about to strike off into the unknown with a treasure map was something to help me with random wilderness encounters.

Now keep in mind when I say encounters I mean more than wandering monsters. I wanted to have interesting features and landmarks to bring the countryside alive as my players moved through it. Some of these could be dangerous, but scenic and wondrous things would be cool too.

So I funneled my thoughts on the abstract treasure item generator into this:

• Telecanter's Encounter Spur

I'm excited by this, because while, if you follow the OSR blogosphere you know you can get fascinating ideas for spells, monsters, items and curses-- I think the really useful tool for grognards would be to tap into that marvelous computer you have atop your neck. So, while I think it would be a useful tool to use ahead of play in creating encounters, I'm most excited by the possibility for its use to aid in the heat of play, to aid in improvisation, to help you think at a slant and come up with your own cool idea right when you need it.

I think there is room for other spurs: the aforementioned treasure items, story hooks, etc.

But enough of that, how does it work? Well, I would have a normal wandering monster table for a region with a place on it for "Encounter Spur." When that came up I would read the results and try to shape them into something cool. Some notes:

• Artifact is in the sense of something made by intelligent actors, not a magical item
  
• Element includes fire, water, air, earth, & nature
• the 1d6 is how characters become aware of the encounter
• 1d8 is direction
• 1d12 is encounter distance (this could be revised any way you feel comfortable)
• 1d10 & 1d20 are the meat of the spur with adjectives and nouns that work together to, hopefully, embrace infinite possibilities

Let's try it:
4, 5, 6, 10, 8, 18

terrain, touch, south west, hidden, 600, solidity

Interesting, I might interpret this as, the players feel rumbling under their feet which, if they follow it carefully, leads 600 ft to the south west, where the ground appears to be hollow. Warren? Secret Cavern?

One more time:
1, 3, 8, 9, 3, 2

artifact, smell, south east, wondrous / weird, 100ft, shape

A little harder. Is an egg an artifact? I'll say it is. So, the smell of rot leads characters to look to the south east and there, 100ft away is an egg the size of a cottage. Roc egg? If characters can smell it, shouldn't monsters too? Lots of possibilities.

Reading all the dice for this is actually like looking up six charts in quick succession. I don't know of any way to make it more elegant though, barring the creation of a paper computer or a little computer program. I hope with practice I'll be able to speed up it's use, to know for example that 4 on the four sider means terrain. We'll see. And I hope you will try this an let me know if it works for you.

Update: I've realized a revision I made was actually a regression. I had the 1d12 x 100 for distance of the encounter, which didn't even need a look at the chart. I changed it to include something closer than 100ft but think that was a mistake now. I reverted the change.