Occupy Abulafia

So here's an adventure:

The Forsaken Keep

The dungeon was originally a vast city of snake-people but has been forgotten by most civilized races for eons. It was rediscovered due to the recent death of the medusa responsible for the statues from which the surrounding stone was quarried. Near the North entrance, a werejaguar of unusual intelligence suspects it may contain a female druid (-Lvl 5-) named Nixie Gott, possessor of an important book & rumored to possess a whetstone of unusual properties--one of particular interest--and so has dispatched hyena-like humanoids into the complex. They communicate via burning things.

Meanwhile, a group of tiny hyena-like humanoids who entered through a secret door to the North suspects it may contain a jade that they value. Their leader is said to be strangely cloned and is also a hulking bruiser with dangerous pets--a swarm of bats that appear to obey his/her every whim. They roams the halls looking for sustenance. They're also far faster than the typical members of their species. This group uses a powerful but barely-mobile psionic medium to spy on the other group of intruders.

(In recent weeks, the two factions have begun to notice each other in the halls.)

Unbeknownst to either side, a giant mantis--a superevolved, hyperintelligent, one--lives deep within, inside a network of tunnels leading eventually to a crown which it prizes beyond all things.

It has constructed traps around its lair--for example, magical sensors connected up to rotary saw blades --but also four stranger traps, informed by its bizarre alien intelligence, which cause intruders to be destroyed by their own depravity. It can avoid the traps easily because of its unique abilities.

The other factions have made about four traps each as well, but they are cruder, since they've been recently and hastily thrown together.

In addition, there are many hazards that are the legacy of the dungeon's original inhabitants. No-one has yet discovered the secret passage within the garbage pile on the fourth level.

Due to the subtle influence of a magic egg (below the fireplace on level two) with a powerful curse on it, nearly all of the inhabitants have become increasingly delusional and some have gained additional bizarre physical and mental deformities. Some have become obsessed with earthquakes for reasons unknown.

Perhaps the most disturbing room in the dungeon is the so-called "panic chamber" which the intelligent creatures in the dungeon fear above all else. However, beyond it there is a male author who hails from the homeland of one of your PCs and may aid him/her, though s/he covets the PCs' (whatever they have that's unusual) and is repulsed by the sight of every stairway s/he sees in the dungeon (sheesh, artists are so sensitive).

The dungeon's architecture resembles an overgrown prison, however every mirror in it is made of electrum and obsidian.

In addition to these things, it is said by some that, hidden deep within the complex, where no mortal has been in eons is the Crown of The Long Cold and a last enclave of Ancient Men, sleeping in suspended animation for thousands of years, ready to be awakened.
__________

Sick of dungeons? Here's another adventure...

The Emerald Canyon

The PCs have heard that if they safely transport--A female warrior (-Lvl 7-) (named Galiana)--soon to be wed to a powerful saboteur & rumored to be the lover of a powerful jester--they will become rich. The bride-to-be must be moved from an inn: The Mug and King, (famous for its bacon-wrapped halibut) to a brutal temple of a primordial faith based on the worship of a god associated with daggers.

The perilous road will take our heroes through the site of an ancient battle where a group of chain-wielding jackal-headed warriors headquartered in a monastery rule. They are slaves of a bioengineered upper caste lead by one called The Lord of Despair.

The vast battleground also includes a treant fed on the blood of the ancient dead and a man-headed centipede.
_____________________

Anyway as you maybe figured out I've been fucking around with Abulafia some more.

This post's purpose is threefold:

1-to tell you it's neat

2-to recommend you make some generators or add some depth or content to existing ones,

3-to be like 'I smear liquid plastic on paper and put my dick in people for money and even I figured out how to do this so it can't be that hard'

Here are the generators I've made so far and some things you could do to/with them:

Dungeon Overview: This is probably the slickest and most complete. And, for me at least, it produces stuff pretty useful right outta the box. If I was you and I liked dungeons, I'd clone it and modify it into a version that fit the kind of stuff in your world.

Fantasy Assignment: This is like rumors and jobs basically. It's very uneven. It basically goes Verb Objective Location. The objectives are fairly decent since Abulafia already had a huge library of objects and monsters and NPCs to draw on and the verbs are ok but hardly cover every possible assignment or kind of assignment yet. The locations are the most uneven part--they come from...

...this Fantasy Adventure Location generator: there are like 50 kinds of locations, some with lots of detail for the DM (like the fortresses), some with a little--like the cities--"a cosmopolitan city, known for its ancient ruling caste as well as its monstrous buildings", some have none "a mountain". This is a place where I feel like people could really help out--What are some things you'd put in a swamp? A temple? A desert?

Today At Sea As described before, it's a slightly modified version of the wavecrawl kit from this blog. It's pretty good, thinks me. But more options would never go amiss--particularly for the sea creatures subtable.

Random Humanoid Horde Pretty decent version of the one from this blog. Includes options for the basic races (goblin, gnoll etc.) plus a less likely option for (random animal)man.

Fortress Generator From this blog: does its job, I think.

Hex Map Key Generates 100 hexes at once. Most are dull on purpose. It's perfectly functional for a lot of things (cut it, paste it, give it numbers matching your hexgrid) but you could easily add more detail at every level if you were so inclined. Also: there are no climate-specific versions of it and the monsters are as yet totally random rather than segregated to make sense (Encounter: a pack of hyenas (two, actually) killing a swarm of bats). In addition, many of the possible locations from the other tables (mansion, etc.) are not integrated into this table.

Dungeon Room Ok as a springboard but could use some work: generates 2-5 exits, a room type (mess hall, stable, etc.), an encounter (possibilities: trap, monster, trap+monster, 2 monsters interacting) and the possibility of one other random object ("a grape""a sword").

Every room has an encounter of some kind--unlike the hex generator this is just meant to generate a room that's interesting, not a whole map full of exciting and boring rooms.

This could be improved in a lotta ways if one was so inclined. The monsters, again, are spectacularly random (" a mold (actually several) chasing a quaggoth").

Creepy Fantasy Villain Generates 10 results which sound like the kind of "spooky occult phrases" the FBI's COINTELPRO used to include in anonymous letters to Alan Ginsberg and Bob Dylan-- of which about 8 are generally dumb ("The Huntsman of The Wolves " "The Knight of The Infinite Night ") and 2 are awesome ("The Merchant of Failure" "The Oracle of One Thousand Lunacies "). Not terribly complex at this point but probably not a priority.

Arabian Nights-Ish Scenario Generator A less complicated prototype of the Fantasy Assignment one I made for Mandy's Al Qadim game. If you're inclined to tinker with this, its main virtue is it draws on abulafia's pretty decent middle-eastern-setting occupation generator.

These are more like utility generators, mostly just providing sub-libraries for other generators to draw on:

Exotic Landscape: Cut and pasted straight from this blog ('Cobalt Reach'). Very simple. Could use more options.

Fantasy Mansion Domestic Security Generator Cut and pasted straight from this blog. Very simple. Could use more options.

Fantasy NPC (Basic) Race, job, gender. This one's pretty thorough, though it'd also be a good place to start if you wanted to make a new version of the generator weighted toward fighting or adventurign NPCs. Right now there as likely to be a barkeep as an archer.

Fantasy Person Of Interest A simple, described NPC (race, job, gender) with one or two random things about them. If you want to fuck with this one you could add a few more options for the kinds of details. Like there's no option for, say "Wants to be ruler of ____" or "Despises ____" etc.

Fantasy Town (Simpler) this is just a stripped-down version of one that was already on Abulafia. It provided a little too many unconnected details for my taste.

Weird Fantasy Monster this includes every monster I personally would wanna use (including, now, all the monsters in the Folio, since I did all those posts dedicated to making those monsters usable to me). There are several other bestiaries on abulafia you could use instead if you want a more general list. Or make your own by cutting and pasting from mine and theirs and any other list you have.

Also there are no monster-by-environment tables yet. Could be very useful.

I also added a ".Weirdsymbol" directory to the "animal" generator which includes all the real-life animals I could think of that were creepy or vicious or symbolic. i.e. no squirrels, but it's got maggots and squids and lions and tigers.

Also of interest:

The Traps generator is ok, but could use a lot more options if you were so inclined and there's no way to generate a specific kind of trap only (magic, rustic, etc.) . Since it can be used to feed so many other generators it'd be neat to add more options, like "touching (randomobject) opens bars freeing (randommonster)" etc.

_________

Tips to make new thingies:

I don't know how you're supposed to make a new table, but I just do a search like "Mermaid Tail Types" then it tells me there aren't any tables named that but I can make one if I want and there's a link and I hit it. then I hit "Edit"...

A bunch of crap goes at the top which I can't type here because blogger automatically turns it into format code but you can swipe the stuff you need from an existing generator--just set "iterations" to "1" if you're new at this.

Then type...

;main
1,[Thenyouwritethenameofatablehere]
_____________
Then you write a word in those brackets that describes your table--Tailtypes or whatever.

then you go below and go:

;Tailtypes
1,Big
1,Scary
1,Funny
1,Hilarious
1,Gigantic
_______

Then write a bunch of crap at the bottom of the table after a break you can swipe from another table...

...and then you're done. You can make it more complicated in lots of ways but if you take a look at some pre-existing tables you can probably figure out how it's done. If you want your table to draw on an existing one you put [Fantasy NPC (Basic).Main] for example in there. If you want to draw on a subtable of one of the existing tables you'd do like [ Fantasy NPC (Basic).Classes] and it should work. Be aware that hitting "enter" to make a new paragraph int he output doesn't work and just ends the thingy--you have to put in line break code--"
".

Here's what a finished one looks like:

(some code)

;main
1,[Gender] [Race] [Job]

;Gender
1,male
1,female

;Race
60, there's nothing here because this result is just "implied human"
10,elven
5,dwarven
5,halfling
5,half-orc
5,half-elf
1,possibly doppelganger
1,possibly not-entirely human
the numbers aren't all 1's because I've weighted this table

;Job
1,metalsmith
1,milliner
1,silversmith
1,tanner
1,tinsmith
1,trapsmith
1,weaponsmith
1,architect
1,artisan
1,bricklayer
1,carpenter
1,cartwright
(etc.)
(some more code)

That'd produce a thing saying "Male cartwright" or "Female elven cartwright". If you want it to spit out lots of results you make the "iterations" number higher.

______

If you make anything, let us know here in the comments....

ThroneCrypt of The Afflicted Lord

Collage on paper 6"x9" or so. Click to enlarge. Here's a version of it labeled using the Vornheim font Andreas made for me...
I figure the Afflicted Lord (M) has been trapped down there for centuries on account of his own wickedness, cursed and slowly mutating yadda yadda, and the guy in location Q is some equally afflicted servant. I also figure following the (hard to see) dotted line from F down to G and H leads to the family crypt.

Also: the pale yellow squares are ordinary doors and the blue squares are secret doors.

If you've got any ideas what else is going on in there, please let us know...

Gygaxian Democracy #13: The Hornersberg

Pick a part and give us some notes on it...

Goals? What Goals?

Ok, this really sucks. I go all the way to an alternate dimension just to get a module and I can't even find a decent copy.

Does anybody have this page intact? What's it supposed to say? Whose goals are they? All the goddamn nouns are missing.

(click to enlarge)

What In God's Name Is Going On In Chamber K?

So, as regular readers may remember, yesterday I picked up this imaginary D&D module.

Well I've been flipping through it and taking notes and I got into the "Chambers" section (p. 6-15, after the interlocking NPC-motivation tables) and, fuck me, pages 7 and 8 are missing. So I have no idea what the fuck the diagram in this 2-page spread is supposed to mean.

Does anybody have this module? (Yeah yeah, I checked all the file-sharing sites--it's hard to find scans of it since it only exists in an alternate universe.) Can anybody fill me in on what's supposed to be going on here?

(And, incidentally, so far, even leaving out Chamber K, this module has me completely baffled, so if you ran it successfully and have any tips, I'll take 'em.)

Challenge!!! Review This Non-Existent Module

I traveled to an alternate universe and, naturally, the first thing I did was hit up some used game stores. Disappointingly, there were only 2 differences between this alternate universe and our own:

1-There was a D&D module there that doesn't exist in this reality.

2-Instead of being used for the cover of a well-known classic metal album, the illustration above was used for the cover of that D&D module. (And, having perused it, I'll say the choice was both appropriate and eloquent.)


Your turn: Tell us the name of this module and tell us what it was like running it and/or reading it.

100 Dungeon Encounters And Why They're Happening

(help finish this table and contribute to the just-get-me-through-that-first-room random dungeon generator explained yesterday)

1-No encounter per-se but the entrance the PCs came in through becomes unusable. Because the inhabitant is a crazy sadist.
2-No encounter per-se but the entrance the PCs came in through becomes unusable. Because of natural cave-in or decay.
3-No encounter per-se but the entrance the PCs came in through becomes unusable. Because ____
4-No encounter per-se but the entrance the PCs came in through becomes unusable. Because_____
5-No encounter per-se but the entrance the PCs came in through becomes unusable. Because________
6-A complex device (not necessarily dangerous). Because this is where they store it.
7-A complex device (not necessarily dangerous). Because it is important to the workings of the dungeon.
8-A complex device (not necessarily dangerous). Because this room has been forgotten.
9-A complex device (not necessarily dangerous). Because_____
10-d4 soldier-type monsters. Because they're performing a routine security sweep of this room.
11-d4 soldier-type monsters. Because they're undead and you've awakened them by entering this place.
12-d4 soldier-type monsters. Because ______
13-d4 soldier-type monsters. Because _____
14-d4 soldier-type monsters. Because _______
15-d4+1 soldier-type monsters. Because they're guarding what's past this room.
16-d4+1 soldier-type monsters. Because ____
17-d4+1 soldier-type monsters. Because _______
18-d4+1 soldier-type monsters. Because ________
19-3d6 soldier-type monsters. Because they live in this room.
20-3d6 soldier-type monsters. Because ________
21-A brute-type monster. Because it wandered in here looking for food.
22-A brute-type monster. Because the inhabitants keep it here as a "guard dog".
23-A brute-type monster. Because_____
24-A brute-type monster. Because _____
25-A brute-type monster. Because_____
26-A brute-type monster. Because_____
27-A brute-type monster. Because _______
28-A brute-type monster. Because ______
29-A brute-type monster. Because______
30-A brute-type monster. Because ________
31-A schemer-type monster. Because it heard the PCs come in and is investigating.
32-A schemer-type monster. Because it has an offer for the PCs.
33-A schemer-type monster. Because ______
34-A schemer-type monster. Because ______
35-A schemer-type monster. Because _______
36-A schemer-type monster. Because ______
37-A wizard. Because s/he's lost.
38-A wizard. Because of a magical accident.
39-A wizard. Because she wants to steal something from the PCs an use it as a spell component.
40-A wizard. Because _________
41-A wizard. Because ________
42-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because this area is gross and forgotten.
43-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because this area is a garbage dump.
44-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because this is a high-traffic area but the inhabitants aren't very clean.
45-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because ________
46-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because ________
47-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because _______
48-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because_________
49-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because _______
50-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because ______
51-d6 vermin-type monsters (or a swarm). Because ______
52-A weird-type monster. Because the inhabitants keep it here as a guard.
53-A weird-type monster. Because it smells food.
54-A weird-type monster. Because it was accidentally summoned and escaped.
55-A weird-type monster. Because ______
56-A weird-type monster. Because _______
57-A weird-type monster. Because ______
58-A weird-type monster. Because _______
59-A weird-type monster. Because ________
60-d4 automatic guardian-type monsters. Because there is something of value here.
61-d4 automatic guardian-type monsters. Because there was once something of value here.
62-d4 automatic guardian-type monsters. Because _______
63-d4 automatic guardian-type monsters. Because ________
64-A party not unlike the PCs. Because they are trying to loot this dungeon.
65-A party not unlike the PCs. Because they were prisoners and are escaping.
66-A party not unlike the PCs. Because ________
67-A party not unlike the PCs. Because _______
68-A party not unlike the PCs. Because _________
69-An apparently harmless NPC. Because s/he's lost.
70-An apparently harmless NPC. Because s/he is secretly a dangerous doppleganger/thief/demon.
71-An apparently harmless NPC. Because __________
72-An apparently harmless NPC. Because ________
73-An apparently harmless NPC. Because ______
*74-An injured creature. Because one of the nearby traps hurt it.
*75-An injured creature. Because it was just in a fight with something fearsome in a nearby room.
*76-An injured creature. Because _________
*77-An injured creature. Because ________
*78-An injured creature. Because _________
79-The whole room is a trap. Because the architect was a crazy sadist.
80-The whole room is a trap. Because the inhabitant is a crazy sadist.
81-The whole room is a trap. Because it was the only way the inhabitants could think of to guard against large numbers of foes invading simultaneously.
82-The whole room is a trap. Because _________
83-The whole room is a trap. Because ________
84-The whole room is a puzzle. Because the architects were trying to allow only certain kinds of people/creatures in.
85-The whole room is a puzzle. Because the architects were, by human standards, insane.
86-The whole room is a puzzle. Because the the behavior of the room play some role in a bizarre religious ritual.
87-The whole room is a puzzle. Because _________
88-The whole room is a puzzle. Because _________
*89-A confrontation between two creatures or kinds of creatures. Because there is a war going on down here.
*90-A confrontation between two creatures or kinds of creatures. Because one party was trying to steal from the other.
*91-A confrontation between two creatures or kinds of creatures. Because these two factions both live down here and their truce is uneasy.
*92-A confrontation between two creatures or kinds of creatures. Because _______
*93-A confrontation between two creatures or kinds of creatures. Because _______
*94-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because of a recent natural or magical disaster.
*95-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because the inhabitants here are weird and like it that way.
*96-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because the architect was possessed of an intelligence unimaginable to humans.
*97-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because________
*98-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because______
*99-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because______
*00-Creature(s) in a room which has a bizarre physical layout. Because________

*For these results, roll a result from 10-69 on this table to determine creature type: 1d6 for the first digit, 1d10 for the second digit.

In the end, there will, of course, be separate tables for "random brute type monsters", "random weird-type monsters" "random puzzle rooms" etc. supplementing this table.

The rest of this table is to be filled in by Gygaxian democracy. Please do chip in and leave a comment with a rationale for an encounter or two or three in the comments.

100 Dungeon Doors And Why They're There

(Preamble you can skip)

You're DMing. The PCs go down into a dungeon. But you don't have one...

So...Random dungeon generators. Some basic principles (using the categories I made up here):

Fast, easy-to-use, complete random dungeon generators do exist. Mostly on-line. However: these dungeons are either totally random (Room 1: Gnolls! Room 2: Ghosts!) or have elements taken from a list of thematically similar elements (Room 1: Ghosts! Room 2: Spectres!).

Fast, easy-to-use, complete random dungeon generators for dungeons that make some sense and are kinda original do not.

(Randomly picking from a list of pre-existing dungeons is not usually an acceptable solution because:
1-it takes just as long to prep a pre-existing scenario as think up one, and
2-if you liked a module enough to have prepped it, you'd probably have put it somewhere on the map by now)

Slow, easy-to-use, incomplete/inspirational random dungeon generators do exist. These are essential DM-prep aids and are not designed to be reliably and repeatedly used to improvise during a game.

Fast, easy-to-use, complete random dungeon generators for dungeons that make sense and are kinda original (that is: fast breeding generators for dungeons) are probably, in the abstract, impossible to make, since making a whole dungeon fast would require a computer, doing it so it makes sense would require literary creativity beyond the power of a computer, and doing it with random rationales instead of derived ones would essentially make it incomplete since the DM would still have to make the pegs fit the holes and figure out how A led to B in order to make the dungeon make sense.

Therefore:

The best we can probably do, to give the DM a during-the-game random dungeon generator for dungeons that make some sense is a sort of half-measure.
__________

Here's my idea for such a half-measure:

A dungeon generator that functions as a simple, complete generator for all the elements of a single dungeon room (the first one the party enters) but also gives reasons for everything in that room being the way it is. These different reasons can then be used by the DM to understand what's going on in the rest of the dungeon and populate its rooms accordingly, at least until the session's over and the DM has time to prep again.

The principle here is that giving a DM an incomplete generator for a whole dungeon in the middle of a session doesn't help, but sort of giving him/her a "Drip-feed" of information one piece at a time,w hen needed, will help him/her slowly improvise a dungeon.

The generators do not have to cover all possibilities for what could happen in a dungeon room, just a wide enough range for that first room. Assume the real creative heavy-lifting will still have to be done by the DM some point down the line. This generator is just that first dose of morning caffeine.

If this seems a little vague, hod on, because I get real specific soon...
_______

There are basically four parts to a dungeon room:

-Encounter: The major thing that is in the room. A monster, a puzzle, a device, whatever. Some rooms don't have these, obviously.

-Exits: usually doors or doorways, these are things you have to deal with to get in or out of the room.

-Decor: What it looks like and incidental furnishings, including light sources, etc.

-Layout: Physical size and shape of the room.

I am gonna assume that if we can generate Encounters and Exits and reasons for them, then the Decor and Layout have a good chance of being strongly implied by one of the reasons we got for the Encounters and Exits. (Like: if we figure out the room has a cursed altar, then we know we've probably got candles and maybe pews, etc. and the room's kinda big.)

So: Encounters, Exits, and reasons for them and nothing else. To make things easier we're going to assume this first room:

1) Has an encounter (it'll give the DM time and fuel to start imagining the rest of the dungeon)

and

2) Has exits in the form of doors (i.e. this first room will not be one of those "apparent dead ends but actually the exit is through the yellowish puddle on the floor" rooms)

Exits are easier so we'll do that first, we'll do encounters another day:

In the rationales for these results, I'm going to use the following terms...

Architects: whatever culture or individual built the place in the first place
Inhabitants: whatever cultures or individuals live there now
Intruders: individuals (like the PCs) who just came down into the dungeon recently to loot it or whatever

Assume each room has whatever portal the PCs came in through plus d4 others. Since this is just the first dungeon room, I'm going to assume the exits are all just doors (i.e. the possibility of a dead end). Roll once for each door or once, period, and apply the result to all the doors.



So, 100 Dungeon Doors And Why They're There:

1-Trap, primitive/simple. Because intruders are looking for something in here and rigged it up because they don't want to be disturbed.
2-Trap, primitive/simple. Because the inhabitant culture is primitive/simple.
3-Trap, primitive/simple. Because the mechanism is old and no longer works as well as it used to.
4-Trap, primitive/simple. Because ____________
5-Trap, primitive/simple. Because____________
6-Trap, primitive but magical. Because intruders who have a magic-user with them are in here and don't want to be disturbed.
7-Trap, primitive but magical. Because the inhabitant culture is primitive but has shamen/priests.
8-Trap, primitive but magical. Because it was designed to keep out vermin or children, not tough guys like the PCs.
9-Trap, primitive but magical. Because _________
10-Trap, primitive but magical. Because_________
11-Trap, sophisticated (mechanical). Because the architect culture was sophisticated and was protecting something of value.
12-Trap, sophisticated (mechanical). Because the architect culture was of a species that would not need to use the door the way a human would.
13-Trap, sophisticated (mechanical). Because the inhabitants hide something of value behind the door.
14-Trap, sophisticated (mechanical). Because ________
15-Trap, sophisticated (mechanical). Because __________
16-Trap, sophisticated and magical. Because the architect culture was protecting something of value.
17-Trap, sophisticated and magical. Because an inhabitant is a crazy wizard.
18-Trap, sophisticated and magical. Because the architecture is alive.
19-Trap, sophisticated and magical. Because __________
20-Trap, sophisticated and magical. Because _________
21-Locked, ordinary lock. Because the inhabitants didn't think anyone would ever come down here.
22-Locked, ordinary lock. Because the inhabitants are too primitive to do any better.
23-Locked, ordinary lock. Because, to the inhabitants, this is an ordinary place with nothing terribly valuable in it.
24-Locked, ordinary lock. Because the real heavy locks are later down the line.
25-Locked, ordinary lock. Because__________________
26-Locked, serious lock. Because the inhabitants are protecting something of value.
27-Locked, serious lock. Because the inhabitants are xenophobes and this place is forbidden to outsiders
28-Locked, serious lock. Because the inhabitants are sophisticated and this is just normal for them.
29-Locked, serious lock. Because ___________
30-Locked, serious lock. Because ___________
31-Locked, magically. Because the inhabitant includes a wizard.
32-Locked, magically. Because this room contains something of special value.
33-Locked, magically. Because a recent emergency int he dungeon has caused an inhabitant to go around and magically lock as many doors as possible.
34-Locked, magically. Because _______
35-Locked, magically. Because _______
36-Locked, puzzle lock. Because the architects designed this place only to admit certain types of individuals.
37-Locked, puzzle lock. Because one inhabitant is crazy.
38-Locked, puzzle lock. Because it wasn't designed as a puzzle lock but the original mechanism
has sort of fallen apart over the years and now is tricky to deal with.
39-Locked, puzzle lock. Because_____
40-Locked, puzzle lock. Because ____
41-False door. Because the architect(s) was(were) eccentric.
42-False door. Because the inhabitants have some ritual reason for needing them
43-False door. Because a spell was recently unleashed in the dungeon that multiplies the facades of things.
44-False door. Because ______
45-False door. Because ______
46-Doorless archway. Because there used to be a door here but it rotted away.
47-Doorless archway. Because this was a residence.
48-Doorless archway. Because the inhabitants removed the door in order to make it into a residence.
49-Doorless archway. Because this was designed as a temple.
50-Doorless archway. Because ____
51-Ornate but unprotected. Because this used to be a temple.
52-Ornate but unprotected. Because this area is dangerous and has been abandoned by most of the inhabitants.
53-Ornate but unprotected. Because ______
54-Ornate but unprotected. Because _____
55-Ornate but unprotected. Because_______
56-Ordinary unlocked door. Because to the inhabitants, this is an ordinary place.
57-Ordinary unlocked door. Because the lock has been broken by recent intruders.
58-Ordinary unlocked door. Because inhabitants have abandoned this place.
59-Ordinary unlocked door. Because the front entrance was someplace the PCs already somehow passed and nobody expected intruders to get this far.
60-Ordinary unlocked door. Because __________
61-Secret door, mechanically hidden. Because the architects hid something of value here.
62-Secret door, mechanically hidden. Because the inhabitants hid something of value here.
63-Secret door, mechanically hidden. Because this room was a prison.
64-Secret door, mechanically hidden. Because _______
65-Secret door, mechanically hidden. Because ______
66-Secret door, magically hidden. Because the architects were magical and hid something behind it.
67-Secret door, magically hidden. Because the inhabitants hid something behind it.
68-Secret door, magically hidden. Because an intruder has magical abilities and is behind it somewhere and does not want to be disturbed.
69-Secret door, magically hidden. Because _______
70-Secret door, magically hidden. Because _____
71-Door concealed behind stuff. Because intruders are behind it and don't want to be disturbed/discovered.
72-Door concealed behind stuff. Because inhabitants forgot about the room and have piled stuff up in this room in front of the door.
73-Door concealed behind stuff. Because this room is semi-abandoned and full of crap.
74-Door concealed behind stuff. Because _____
75-Door concealed behind stuff. Because _____
76-Accidentally/organically "trapped"--the architecture falls apart in a dangerous way when you attempt to open this door. Because it's old.
77-Accidentally/organically "trapped"--the architecture falls apart in a dangerous way when you attempt to open this door. Because the inhabitants know never to use this door and so use it as a sort of intruder alarm.
78-Accidentally/organically "trapped"--the architecture falls apart in a dangerous way when you attempt to open this door. Because recent fighting int he complex has fucked it up.
79-Accidentally/organically "trapped"--the architecture falls apart in a dangerous way when you attempt to open this door. Because __________
80-Accidentally/organically "trapped"--the architecture falls apart in a dangerous way when you attempt to open this door. Because ______
81-Locked but key is in this room. Because the next room is a prison cell.
82-Locked but key is in this room. Because an inhabitant dropped it.
83-Locked but key is in this room. Because only an intruder would be dumb enough to enter the next room and it's a sort of trap.
84-Locked but key is in this room. Because___________
85-Locked but key is in this room. Because_________
86-Door is alarmed or alerts nearby inhabitants/intruders. Because they are tough but not great at making locks and traps.
87-Door is alarmed or alerts nearby inhabitants/intruders. Because it was hastily thrown together by intruders.
88-Door is alarmed or alerts nearby inhabitants/intruders. Because intruders want to shadow the PCs and take their stuff.
89-Door is alarmed or alerts nearby inhabitants/intruders. Because the inhabitants want intruder to come in for some reason,but also want to know when they're in here.
90-Door is alarmed or alerts nearby inhabitants/intruders. Because_________
91-Door has a broken trap. Because it's old.
92-Door has a broken trap. Because it was poorly made by primitive inhabitants.
93-Door has a broken trap. Because it was recently sprung by intruders.
94-Door has a broken trap. Because ________
95-Door has a broken trap. Because ________
96-Door has a broken lock. Because the architects once kept something of value here but the inhabitants took it long ago.
97-Door has a broken lock. Because intruders just picked it.
98-Door has a broken lock. Because a beast just destroyed it.
99-Door has a broken lock. Because the inhabitants are primitive and suck at making locks.
00-Door has a broken lock. Because _________

I leave the remaining results up to Gygaxian Democracy. Write the number of your rationale in the comments and I will add it to the final table.




_______
Naturally, the final generator will also include separate tables for "12 sophisticated mechanical traps", "12 puzzle locks", etc. etc. as well as some examples of possible "architect cultures" and "inhabitants" etc.

The final version of these tables should probably be done as cards or Vornheim-style drop-die charts so that you can get several results fast.

Gygaxian Democracy #12: Starship Crash

Ok, so you just crash-landed on the probably-hostile planetoid.

You are going to have to roll on the table below.

Let's assume:

• your craft is definitely damaged and will require at least one mcguffin, um, I mean, spare part in order to get off this planet again
  
• your craft may or may not be armed so any results talking about weapons will also have to include a non-weapon result
• damage to people is classic D&D-scaled. i.e. d4 isn't a lot, 3d6 is.
• this table will be used if the upcoming Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy Starcrawl Mandy wants to play this week actually happens and if those involved fail to remember what happened in pilot school. We have characters rolled up and everything. However this table should be made usable for any sci fi game.
• To keep this table flexible, don't tell the GM stuff about what planet this is. It's their game--don't tell them: "Oh, you landed on a planet full of green cheese". Just tell them what the crash did and, if necessary, throw in some local color about what was crashed into.
  

1-Rummmmble....thupthupthup whoa, you all get thrown around but not too bad--take d4 damage and make a con roll to not throw up

2-As 1 plus you lost a tailfin. Minus 10% to all control rolls.

3...(Your turn...)

Gygaxian Democracy #11: Ruined City of Rem

I have randomly generated this ruined city. The map itself is stolen from a diagram of the Hermitage by Rem Koolhaas, the font is stolen from the Planet of the Apes, and what's in each area has been generated using only the "weirdness" tables from d100 rolls on the random stock-the-hexmap tables in the Lesserton & Mor supplement.

The background white/green is open ground, the red is buildings, the pink is thorny black vegetation, and the gray is rubble. Height of each building is d20 stories.

A Hunting ground for a senile mimic
B 25' deep pit 10' diameter
C Peach orchard
D Unstable ruin
E Clan: 80 Orcs 20 male 20 female 36 young
F Clan: 140 Orcs 35 male 35 female 63 young
G Pitfall
H Infestation of giant rats
I 11 Dead magic zone--70' radius and an ancient exposed basement 5' long, 5' wide, 10' deep
J Greenish trickling stream with insect swarm
K Hunting ground for a giant black widow spider
L 2 open pits: one is 30' deep pit 20' diameter , the other is 25' deep and 5' diameter
M Pretty flowers that, if picked, act as shriekers
N Ancient exposed basement full of rainwater--if you drink it then save vs poison or contract a disease 20' long 10' wide 10' deep
O Good spot for an ambush (but currently unoccupied)
P Active excavation--a bunch of organized people from nearby digging
Q Ditto, but it's also currently an empty zombie lair
R Giant rat infestation
S Clear pool 8' diameter where a boar and a giant weasel are drinking
T Pitfall
U Unstable ruin
V Ancient well
W Good spot for an ambush (but currently unoccupied)
X Ancient excavation with a black pudding lurking in it
Y 3o' mushroom w/40' cap smelling of cinnamon. Poisonous. No save.
Z Ancient well

Anyway, your assignment: Make Rem more interesting.

Add a comment adding something, or expanding on the relationship between things that are already there. Don't try to build Rem in a day, just add one detail that makes this place a wee bit more fun.

Read the comments before yours first--there may be something there you can build on...and feel free to stop by again later after some details have built up.

Also, feel free to end your comment with an incomplete sentence for the next participant to add something, like "the coffin is full of rusty...".

Open Call: Gigacrawler

I'm thinking we could make a whole RPG via Gygaxian Democracy...

Here's how it'll work: I provide the basic setting idea and the basic mechanics--all explained below on this page. That leaves you to worry about the fun stuff:

Setting details (monsters, villains, races, cities)
Spells
Devices
"Alterations" (mutations, adaptations, etc.)
and
Martial arts

Any time you like, you may post a comment adding another spell, mutation, kung fu move, etc. to the game on the appropriate page. These become part of the options available during character creation.

The mechanics are pretty much done but if anybody thinks of any good ideas for changes in the mechanics, I'll definitely consider them. I made no attempt to be original with them, just efficient and solid enough that something totally insane could be built on top of them. Short story: Str, Con, and hit points are one stat, willpower instead of wisdom, agility instead of dexterity.

After a few weeks or months or a year, all this will be collated and put out, probably as a free pdf or just a series of organized webpages. However, it may simply just continue as an ever-evolving, growing RPG where each character created will have been made with a slightly different set of options.

(If, for some reason, the game ever gets turned into a commercial venture--doubtful, but it's a strange world--or makes any money, half of any money I get will be divided among whoever's ideas I decide to keep for the published version, judged according to the proportion of the total non-me-contributor lines of text that they've written that are accepted. Like: if you wrote 30% of the material that I didn't, you'll get 30% of half any revenue.)

Here are the basics, I will post"targeted" pages over the next week where you can post your spells, devices, etc in the comments...

_________
Gigacrawler, a free, crowdsourced sci-fi dungeon-crawl RPG
The big idea of Gigacrawler is that the entire universe is a dungeon. The universe was once like our own, but hyper urbanization and eons of alchemical warfare utilizing chaotech, crystal math and logic mines has, over centuries, filled up almost all known space. The space between planets is now filled with tunnels of stone, glass, metal, and stranger materials.

Every sci-fi and fantasy idea is in the Gigastructure somewhere--parallel universes, time travel, plasma grenades, magic, alchemy, etc. It's all just jammed cheek-by jowl horror-vacuously in with everything else. Resources are always limited. You might find a ruined starship, you might find a dinosaur, you might find a copy of National Geographic.

Or, to put it the way they would in a bloated $25.00 hardcover...
Earth's cities grow.

Imagine they do not stop growing. Imagine an urbanized Earth, building by building building upon building built on mountaintops, K2, Everest, urbanized, with traffic, the frozen antarctic dense with paneled bunkers, canyons filled and then so filled and all around filled so full that the canyon is only a vaguely-understood concept about what is underneath what we know--like the planet's mantle, crust and core, underneath the buildings is rock--what is rock? No-one remembers.

The rusting spires with a geology of their own--forgotten conduits leading to forgotten fuse boxes feeding old bulbs. The fields of architecture and archaelology mesh. Skyscrapers marching over cliffs like tin soldiers, down into the sea under perspex domes and stainless walls and then growing there, and then up and out of it again. 80% of the vast city-planet has quaint, polluted venetian canals connecting the lowest levels, sixty storeys beneath where most people live. It grew.

The Gigastructure became the only place. An extending great place that took up all of space, almost all of space, all of space except where there were planets, or suns, or class-12 Massive Supraplantary Organisms.

Like this: There is a planet, then cities on it, then the cities grow larger and they do not stop. The whole planet is urbanized. Then the planet's nearest moon is urbanized, then the buildings on the planet and the moon grow taller and mesh upward and more labyrinthine until they connect in a woven spire of exotic steels and nation-sized gravity-mollifying mechanisms, the moon no longer in orbit, merely fixed to its mother by an inhabited corridor.

Then again with each nearby planet, moon, space station, to the Dyson shell of energy-absorbing machines smothering the sun, then all these spaces connected, and then all of the space in between, too, in every direction into a solid block the size and shape of the universe with all astronomical bodies entombed within it and all animals, monsters, cultures, phenomena linked into a monolithic skyless maze-city of panelled chambers, tubes, hallways, transoms, shafts, glass-walled terraces looking out into dark, long vertical gaps between barely-inhabited sideways, opposing cities, each forming the roof of the other, the spires interlocking like sharp teeth, wells, fusion engine-trams, endless escalators lined with concession stands, crawlspaces, staircases, niches, branching zero-gravity capillary tunnels, and with all known architectures represented somewhere and integrated into the dizzying entirety.

Character generation:
Agility: 3-18
Charisma: 3-18
Intelligence: 3-18
Willpower: 3-18
Physique (Functions as strength, constitution, and hit points): 3-18
(Physique is split into "current physique" and "base physique".)

Now, you have a number of points equal to your Intelligence to divide between the following stats:
Tech Level: (minimum is 3)
Magic level:
These two terms are explained in more detail below. The basic idea is the higher your tech level or magic level, the easier it is to use technology or magic without annihilating yourself.

After tech level and magic level, you get to choose extras--skills, martial arts, spells, alterations, and equipment.

How many of each of these extras you have access to depends on your class:

Philosophers get 8 magic spell formulas (each spell can be used only once), 5 other extras and you can opt to receive 1 new spell or magic skill in lieu of an ordinary experience reward.
Scrapper - 6 martial arts moves, 5 other extras and you can opt to gain a new (randomly determined) Martial Arts move or acquire a new weapon skill in lieu of an ordinary experience reward. (Any number of martial arts moves may be known but only 5 may be used per day.)
Crawler - 8 skills, 5 other extras, and you can opt to receive 1 new skill in lieu of an ordinary experience reward.
Tinkerer-8 pieces of equipment, 5 other extras, and you can opt to receive a new device in lieu of an ordinary experience reward.
Hybrid-(these are characters from cultures where magic and technology are mixed) Hybrids have both their tech level and magic level equal to their intelligence (the max starting magic level for PCs is still 15). They receive 8 extras, can opt to receive devices in lieu of experience rewards and can understand alchemical devices at +2.
Unstable-(psychic) These characters can attempt to use d10 randomly determined magic spells at will (these powers can be re-used but the player must roll d10 and determine spells again every 24 hours) and get 5 other extras. Use of magic slowly drives them insane.
Robot-5 pieces of equipment (generally built in) or skills, 5 others, Magic Level must be 1. Automatically receives the logical benefits of being a robot (immune to suffocation, mind control, etc.), however, when damaged, they are not always easily repaired. Add d6 to physique or tech level.

Here are the extras:

Skills add +1 to a stat for attempting to do a thing. Like Dance skill would add +1 to your agility roll vs. the audience GM-determined jadedness level of the audience to dance well. Skill bonuses stack if and only if the second skill "stacked" is a narrower version of the first skill. i.e. if you were trying to figure out information about a shark, you couldn't use biology and oceanography, to get a combined +2, but you could use biology and marine biology to get a +2. You could even use biology, marine biology, and marine biology-sharks to get a +3.

This system is self-balancing: narrow skills are less widely applicable, but they give you stackable bonuses.

Some sample skills are listed at the bottom of this document, though feel free to make up narrower ones.

Note also that melee combat skills are handled under "martial arts".

Martial arts are "special moves" that you can pull out during combat. Each has a unique effect. Martial arts practitioners can use each move they know once per day, up to a maximum of 5. New characters are assigned martial arts techniques randomly.

Spells are magic effects that can be used once. Spells have levels, usually 12 and up. Anyone can use any spell they find (once), but whenever you use a spell you have to make a magic level check against the spell's difficulty level. Failure means things go grotesquely wrong and there are dire results. Unstables are crazy psychics who can use magic-type effects at will, but each time they have a chance of going more insane. New characters are assigned spells randomly.

Alterations are anything that make your character more than human if that's your bag--tough skin, claws, superhuman strength etc. They're called adaptations if these differences are due to simply being another species, they're called mutations if they are due to exposure to mutagens, and they're called modifications if they are properties of your character being a robot or cyborg. New character can pick alterations or choose them randomly. Either way, the cosmetic meaning of these alterations is entirely up to the player.

Equipment: Unlike most other games, you can't just buy equipment to start out--the Gigastructure is chaotic and communication is difficult. Finding a piece of useful equipment (a cigarette, a crossbow, a pistol, a plasma capacitor) is as rare as finding a magic spell. Each device has a tech level. If a device is above your tech level, you must roll a tech level check vs. the device's tech level. Failure means something terrible has happened. New characters are assigned devices randomly.
_____

Tech Levels

Example of someone at that tech level (example of something they would not have to roll to use/operate/exploit)

1 Weasel (pile of food)
2 Smart Monkey (stick)
3 Primitive human (knife)
4 Medieval human (crossbow)
5 Renaissance to Age of Reason-era human (clock)
6 Steam-era human (film camera)
7 Contemporary Earth Child (Nintendo)
8 Contemporary Earth Adult (car)
9 Contemporary Earth Adult Techie (sound-mixing board)
10 Cyberpunk Era Child (cyber-implant)
11 Cyberpunk Era Adult (cyber-reactive vehicle)
12 Cyberpunk Era Techie (combat robot)
13 Blade Runner/Alien/Cyborg Era Child (android pet)
14 Blade Runner/Alien/Cyborg Era Adult (hovercar)
15 Blade Runner/Alien/Cyborg Era Techie (starship)
16 Nanotech/Genetic alteration is common/No space-warships or FTL drives Era Child (low-grav shoes)
17 Nanotech/Genetic alteration is common/No space-warships or FTL drives Era Adult (custom mutation injector)
18 Nanotech/Genetic alteration is common/No space-warships or FTL drives Era Techie (gene resequencing vat)
19-21 Star Wars (tractor beam)
22-24 Star Trek Federation (replicator, transporter)
25-27 Technology so advanced human nature/existence becomes fundamentally different in most ways
28-30 Technology and lifeforms merge imperceptibly
31-33 Godlike

Magic levels
Magic levels below 12 indicates a creature comes from a culture with only a grasp of relatively mundane phenomena, luck charms, minor fairy tale/superstition magics "put a locket in your shoe and in three days you'll catch a fish" etc. Slow, minor effects.
12 is shaman, priest, Aleister Crowley-level magic. Slow effects requiring ceremonies, a pain in the ass to prepare, but major effects are possible, if unlikely.
13 is authentically understood ritual magic. Pain-in-the-ass rituals still required, but they're more-or-less effective and somewhat understood. Think John Constantine.

Spells that are instantly usable are all products of level 14 magic or above:
14 Initiate wizard-level magic. Reliable instant minor effects. (Cantrips, stage magic.)
15 (maximum starting level) Wizard magic. Reliable instant effects capable of killing a weak creature or temporarily altering reality over a small area in noticeable ways. (1st-2nd level FRPG wizard spells)
16 The lowest kind of truly serious magic from times and places where wizards dominate ordinary humans. Fireballs, lightning, etc. (3rd level FRPG wizard spells)
22 Highest forms of magic known to mortals.
23 and above represents the powers of the gods and demiurges.
_________
THE SYSTEM:

Combat:

The party rolls vs. the GM for initiative on a d6. Situational modifiers may be applied. The side rolling highest goes first.

Each character can: move 15 feet and attack, move twice that and do nothing else, or attack and do some minor thing like check what time it is. Look to other games for crunchy details here.

To hit is dex (+ any bonuses for situation or martial arts or other weapon skill) + d10 vs. armor + dex (+any bonuses) +d10

-if the attacker hits-

roll weapon strength (+any bonuses) +d10 vs. defender's current physique (+any bonuses) +d10.

If the difference is positive on the attacker's side, that's how many points of damage to current physique the attack does.

In unarmed combat, the "weapon strength" is a little annoying: it's equal to the difference between the attacker and defender's current physique scores. If the attacker is weaker than the defender treat the "weapon strength" as 1. Because physique represents both physical strength and "life" points, if the attacker is injured (i.e. s/he's lost current physique points) the effectiveness of his or her attacks is reduced.

If the armor is not integral to the creature being attacked (that is, not their skin) the attacker has the option to just attack the armor rather than the character, in which case it's just dex (+any bonuses) v. armor and if the armor (or forcefield) is hit then it takes damage like a person.

Once a creature's current physique reaches zero she's unconscious. 2 things can happen:

-The foe can take an action and kill the character.
-If that doesn't happen, the character tries to roll under his/her base (not current) physique stat on a d20 once per hour. If s/he fails, s/he takes d6 physique points of damage. This continues once per hour until the character is healed or dies.

Medicine works like this: the doctoring character makes an intelligence check against an opposing rank of 30 minus the patient's base (not current) physique, and, if successful, after an hour the PC will be back on his/her feet with a number of current physique points equal to the number of points of success the doctor had. Obviously having medicine skills will help the doctor.

Defenders: You have the option to do extra dodges which means you get to roll twice and pick the best roll when you dodge. Declare when the other guy is about to roll. This costs you all your actions for that round.

Other combat effects (getting knocked down, etc.) are adjudicated by GM rulings.

Parrying and all that is gong to be the province of the martial arts moves page.
______

Non-Combat Actions
________
These are usually handled as stat (+any bonuses) +d10 vs. opposing stat (or difficulty level of the task , if nobody is opposing it) (+any bonuses) +d10.

If the player rolls high, s/he gets that thing done.

The bigger the numerical difference in the results, the bigger the success or failure, if that's relevant.

If one person rolls a 1 and the other rolls a 10, that's always a success for whoever rolled a 10, no matter what the comparative ranks are.

If there's a question of how, numerically, an effect works in a game--how long does your sleeping gas last? What's the range of your hypno-eyes?-- and the game doesn't provide an immediate guide, the PC says what they think it should be, the GM picks the lowest possible number that fits the idea of the power as it was originally described, the roll dice to decide where in the range the effect falls.

Experience rewards are granted in the form of re-rolls (fortune is smiling on the character) or skills learned (generally these will be narrow skills that have to do with what PCs did during the adventure). Generally 1-4 per session. Discovering devices and spells is its own reward.

____
Sample Skills

I figured listing skills was pretty boring, so I did the work myself rather than turning it over to contributors, however, if you can think of a skill that might be good in the game, go ahead and leave a comment, here are skills so far. Players and GMs are free to think up narrower skills during character generation (like: Veterinary Medicine--Lizard/weasel hybrids) and use them. Remember: narrow skills aren't always useful but they stack with broader skills.

Any PC may attempt any task "unskilled". i.e. if a PC wants to roll on his/her intelligence vs. a GM-determined difficulty class to try to perform brain surgery, they should feel free. Gigacrawler PCs are presumed to be rugged survivalists capable of dealing with all kinds of things. If a GM feels a certain task could likely only be performed with special training, s/he should simply assign a high target number.

Skills have been chosen that don't substitute for player skill in social interaction or problem solving. Pilot skills are mostly useless since the universe is all dungeon.

Note that no skills broader than the broadest ones listed here are allowed (i.e. "science" or "weapons" or "magic").

Skills allowing the manufacture of items out of whole cloth are generally excluded from the system. However, at some point we may add rules describing conditions whereby Philosophers and Tinkerers can choose (rather than roll) the spell formulae and devices they receive as experience rewards. In this case, the PC can be said to have "invented" the item in question.

"Alien" and "xeno" in this case simply mean "originating from a species not native to the same planet as the PC". If the PC is from Planet Examant, then if s/he had "alien languages" s/he'd get a +1 to understanding English, French, Venusian and any other language not from Examant.

Sample Social skills: (add to charisma rolls, usually)
Alien etiquette
Etiquette of creatures of quadrant B-94 (for example)
Trade etiquette
Etiquette of creatures from Zorlithrax-9.

Sample Language skills:
(in general, any PC may make an intelligence roll vs. the difficulty level of an alien language to see if s/he knows it--most gigacrawlers are familiar with a few languages--the first time--and only the first time--they encounter it. Language skills add bonuses to this roll. If a PC learns a new language skill that might cover the language in question after failing a roll, s/he may roll again.)
Linguistics
Alien languages
Ancient languages
(you could use linguistics and alien languages to get a +2 to understand an ancient alien text or languages and ancient languages to get a +2, but not all 3 for a +3 bonus since "alien" is not a subset of "ancient" languages and vice versa, they overlap but neither belongs entirely inside the other)
Ancient alien languages (you could use that, though)
Alien Languages of Quadrant: Kroskulus

Sample Engineering skills: (usually add to intelligence rolls)
Surveillance systems
Alien surveillance systems
Surveillance systems of Quadrant Mega
Surveillance systems designed by energy beings (etc.)
Engineering
Elevator repair
Armor repair
Weapons repair
Cybernetics
Cybernetic implantation
Cybernetic repair
Computer operation
Computer programming
Computer repair
Communications systems
Propulsion systems
Pilot Spacecraft

Sample Surivival skills: (usually add to intelligence or agility rolls)
Cooking
Edibility of alien creatures
Sewing
Stealth
Underwater stealth
Disguise
Escape artist
Pick locks (mechanical)
Pick locks (computerized)

Sample Scientific skills: (add to intelligence rolls)
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Botany
Biology
Neurobiology
Psionic neurobiology
Xenobiology
Mathematics
Extradimensional mathematics

Sample Weapon skills: (the broader weapon skills help with most things having to do with the weapons in question: repair, appraisal, etc., in combat they apply to hit rolls but not to damage)
Firearms
Projectile (non-energy) firearms
20th century projectile firearms
2oth century projectile firearms from France
Melee weapons
Edged melee weapons
Medieval melee weapons
Japanese melee weapons
Energy weapons
Energy weapons repair
Energy weapons of the Vor-Gork Mercenaries
Anti-logic weapons
Anti-logic weapons repair (etc.)
Plasma weapons
Demolitions
Grenades

Sample Medical Skills: (add to intelligence rolls, see combat section for details on medicine)
Medicine
First Aid
Cybernetic first aid (for example)
Pathology
Xenopathology
Veterinary medicine

Sample Magic skills (Add bonuses to intelligence rolls to understand magical effects, to magic level rolls to use spells, and to Unstables' attempts to utilize spell effects. These skills cannot be gained after character creation until that kind of spell has been successfully cast by the character. i.e If someone who does not have the Xenodemonology skill wants it, s/he will have to successfully summon an alien demon first.)
Demonology
Xenodemonology
Elemental control magic
Particle magic
Nullification magic
Divination magic
Alchemical magic
Healing magic
Illusion magic
Necromancy
Transmutation and transformation magic
Chaotic effect magic
Megadimensional magic
____________

Addendum:
Hunger/thirst rules.

Food and water are scarce and valuable in the Gigastructure. PCs do not necessarily start with either when created.

These rules will serve until such time as someone gets it into their head to design more gruesome ones:

After a day without food, characters lose 1 physique per day.
Humanlike creatures require physique x 100 calories per day to survive.

After a day without water, creatures with a humanlike physiognomy lose 3 physique per day.
Humanlike creatures require a gallon of water a day.

If a creature receives part of their requirement, they only take part of the damage.

__________

Addendum: Simplicity Guidelines

There will be three sections in the final product:

-These basic rules
-Widgets (Setting features, spells, equipment, etc.)
-Rulings--A never-ending series of edicts on ways to adjudicate situations not foreseen in the basic rules, usually in response to queries. (Optional.)

When there is any confusion about the rules, there are only 2 possible resources that can give you an "official" answer: The basic rules and the specific rules described in the section about the widget in question. You are not obliged to look anywhere else. There is no higher authority. The "tournament rules" are just suggestions.

If a rule is not made clear in these basic rules or in the widget descripton(s) involved in the situation being ruled upon, the GM must make a ruling. Listening to the players' opinions first is recommended. Either the GM or player must write the ruling down if they expect it to be followed consistently thereafter, but if either does, it will be followed from then on.

If an argument concerning the rules is going on (2 players, a player arguing in the face of a GM ruling, etc.) and it begins to bore any person at the table or watching the game, that party may call Shenanigans.

When Shenanigans is called, a stopwatch or timer is started. Parties involved in the dispute have 3 minutes to state their case and come to a mutual agreement. After that, the decision is made randomly. The decision of the dice must be obeyed, even if someone believes it directly contradicts the official rules.

If a party is painfully aggrieved by a decision made during the game, s/he will receive a "playing in protest" coupon for a metagame reward after the game at the expense of the other players--usually in the form of beer, ice cream or shots of Jager in whatever quantities will get him/her to shut up and roll. However, thereafter the other players are entitled to mock the player during the next session (only), though the rate must be no higher than a single one-liner per player.

Gygaxian Democracy #10: The Vidrageist

Let's crowdsource a sea monster...

Vidrageist
FREQUENCY:Very rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 6"//12"
HIT DICE: 6+4
% IN LAIR: 50%
TREASURE TYPE: Special
NO.OFATTACKS: 2
DAMAGE/ATTACKS:
1-8/1-8
SPECIAL ATTACKS:See below
SPECIAL DEFENSES:See below
MAGIC RESISTANCE:Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Animal
ALIGNMENT Neutral
SIZE: L (20' long)
PSlONlC ABILITY: Nil
attack/Defense Modes: Nil/nil
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: VI/475 + 6/hp

Despite the name--and many legends to the contrary--this bizarre amphibious creature is not undead. They are often found basking in the moonlight atop the ruins of flooded cities, and it is said that the moon grants them their strange abilities.

Upon first encountering any creature, the Vidrageist will...

(your turn)

Gygaxian Democracy #8: Gygaxian Social Interaction (Final Version)

Here is the optional eccentric-NPC interaction table generated via Gygaxian Democracy reformatted to be usable. Contributors are named but not hotlinked. To follow contributors back to their lairs, consult the original post. Redundant responses and ones that did not fit the original remit (the challenges had to be things which the player could conceivably fail to do) have been edited out and I've added a few at the end to make up the numbers.

Gygaxian Social Interaction Table

(roll below one time+once per point of charisma over 15 and pick the one the player likes best, if PC charisma is under under 6, roll one time + once per point of charisma under 6 and the DM picks)
(in most cases, these 'challenges' won't be secret, the player will know this is whats/he has to do...)
(roll d100 and divide by 2)

1-NPC talks fast and interrupts people. If the player can say what s/he wants in less than d12+6 words s/he gets it.

2-NPC talks fast and interrupts people. If the player can say what s/he wants in less than 2d4 seconds s/he gets it.

3-Conversation reveals NPC is obsessed with (conquest/unity/weasels, etc.). If player can work the word "weasel" (or "conquest" or "unity", or etc.) into every sentence of his/her request, s/he gets it.

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...
4-The NPC has an obsessive antipathy toward an unlikely thing (I.E, mountains/trees/rivers, etc.). If the player can manage to fit some way that his/her request harms mountains (or trees, or rivers, etc.) into it, they get the desired result. Otherwise, roll 1d20. If the result is 15 or above, they get the desired result. Otherwise the fog of the NPC's obsession overrules their self-interest (or whatever the players were appealing to), and they are: (Roll 1d4)

1-Forcibly ejected from his/her presence.

2-Accused of a crime that they may or may not have committed [to prevent the DM being restricted to using only things they haven't done yet]. Their sentence will be directly related to the antipathy of the NPC; if they hate mountains the players must do a significant amount of damage to one, if trees they must clear cut a forest, if rivers the must construct a dam, etc. 
3-Threatened with death or other dire consequences unless they agree to kill and/or disgrace someone who has been blocking their efforts to destroy/harm the object of their antipathy

4...(I hereby turn the remaining results on this table over to Gygaxian Democracy)

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...


5-NPC values obfuscation. Any request that is immediately clear, or takes less than 6d10 words, or 4d10 seconds, will be ignored.



6-NPC is completely apathetic. Only requests that allow him or her to do less will be accepted. 



7-NPC is a hedonist. Only those requests that will provide a new experience will be accepted.

Brian Moon said...


8- NPC will agree with player requests if they can state it while stacking dice d20 high, one on top of the other, before the stack falls. Subtract one from dice-tower-height roll for each 3 points of PC Charisma.

Eric said...
9. The man is slow in the head. You must talk with words of just one sound or he will not trust you.

Roger the GS said...
10 Words are beside the point. The interlocutor is fixated on the most obvious and special object carried by the adventurers. He/she tries to conceal interest in it but will eventually bring conversation around to it in a nonchalant way. Only giving that thing will convince.


11. the NPC is mad/bored/cruel (Zak: victim of a goblin curse) and will only talk to people speaking backwards. He himself will respond normally though.Additionally, he won't tolerate any grammar mistakes from his interlocutors. Misspelling a word will end up with the NPC going into a fit, insulting the speaker and refusing to respond to that person for d6 days.


12- Player must speak in rhyme, for at least 2d10 rhyming pairs, in order to gain the NPCs favor. Player may subtract 1 for each point of PC Int or Cha (player chooses which stat to apply) above 15; likewise must add 1 for each point of Int or Cha below 6 (use lowest score). No reduction can reduce the number of rhyming pairs below 2; no additions can raise the number required above 20. Player's speech must be on topic (DM's decision). Failure to rhyme results in NPCs disfavor, whatever that means: anger, fear, disappointment, whatever fits the circumstance.

Eric said...
13) Lover of low art: Phrase the request either as a limerick or with a double entendre in every sentence.



14) Lover of high art: Request must be a haiku or in at least 2 lines of iambic pentameter (like Shakespeare: 

daDAH daDAH daDAH daDAH daDAH/
daDAH daDAH daDAH daDAH daDAH (must rhyme)

Either way, player has 2 minutes+ 1 minute for either an Int or Cha 15 and up (4 minutes total if both)

Chris Weller said...
15) Deaf. Players must ask using charades, without modern references.

Josh said...
16) Coward - NPC is a huge dick. He insults the PCs and actively hinders them. Physically he appears like he could take the PCs with on hand behind his back. The NPC will not do what the PCs want until there is a show of force, drawing a sword, grabbing his shirt, etc., after which the NPC will immediately start whimpering. 



Zak:
17) NPC has huge, prominent, impressive tattoo in an unlikely place and is really sick of talking to strangers about it. Any request will be granted so long as the PC does not try to ingratiate himself/herself by talking about the tattoo.

Josh...:

18)Obvious Fraud - NPC claims to be a highly educated noble and uses overly long and complicated words often, poorly, and with mispronunciations. As long as the PCs don't call him out, make fun of him (though extra points for sarcastic witty flattery) or make him feel stupid, they will be on the NPC's good side.



19) Battle of Wits - NPC starts making puns, the PCs must reply with a pun 5 times in a row.

Pturtle said...
20) Conversational Drifter - has a hard time staying on topic, will frequently trail off in mid-sentence. PCs must finish sentences quickly and succinctly in order to steer the conversation in the direction they desire. NPC can be manipulated in this way, but PCs' suggestions and arguments must still follow logical thread. (Zak note: nice one)



21) Ornery Conversational Drifter - has a hard time staying on topic, will frequently trail off in mid-sentence. PCs must finish sentences quickly and succinctly in order to steer the conversation in the direction they desire. Unfortunately, NPC is also a natural contrarian. For each PC suggestion, roll 1d6. On 1 or 2, NPC accepts PC suggestion; on 3 through 6, NPC rejects PC suggestion no matter how logical or sensible.

biopunk said...
22) NPC is looking for an understanding. 

If the player physically nods or shakes their head in response to the NPC's question, the NPC will deem them worthy of [some benefit]. 

Failure to do so will result in the PC's opinions being ignored by the NPC until the PC asks a direct question of the NPC. The NPC will then reply with another question to the character, again looking for a physical response.

Failure to do this three times results in the character being completely ignored by the NPC. (Zak note: don't tel the players how it works.)


23) NPC entertained by circus acts. Player can try juggling 3 items while phrasing request.



24) NPC doesn't like to drink alone. Player can opt to begin & end request with a shot of whiskey.



25) NPC impressed by arcane knowledge. DM picks random 2-3 word phrase from spell descriptions. Player tries to identify the spell it comes from & dictate full sentence context (use of physical rulebooks is allowed; no digital sources; time limit 2 minutes).

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...
26-It is customary for the NPC (A noble) and those he negotiates with to drink something flavored with vanilla, probably milk. It comes in quart sized glasses, each of which is automatically re-filled when empty. Vanilla extract (what this is flavored with, rather than the beans themselves) has alcohol in it. Each of these glasses has a whole bottle of vanilla extract in them. After d6 glasses you will inform the players that "You notice that you are starting to feel odd, as though (insert non-obvious description of the early stages of being drunk here)." in whatever way you wish. Once they've had about d4 more glasses of this stuff one of the characters will begin to feel most definitely drunk and/or pass out depending on previously established tolerance for alcohol. At this point the players must play as though their characters are drunk. This was done purposely by the NPC (Who's been drinking plain milk the whole time, and, as such, is still completely sober) in the hopes of getting the party to agree to 


1-Marry one of his cousin's adopted daughters, a witch from the northern mountains. 

2-Steal a harpy egg from one of his rivals, who is blackmailing him with the threat of opening it in one of his subject lands. Roll again: 
1-2-The egg will be opened if the players get too near to discovering who is keeping it, or reveal that the noble sent them. 3-4-The noble they are working for will accidentally break the egg. 
5-A vassal of their employer will accidentally break the egg, or will do so on purpose. In accidentally roll for the city. If intentionally roll for city, but restrict the results to those that are under the control of rivals, especially those that are held by the person you stole the egg from in the first place. 6-The egg hatches on the way back to the city. The NPC is enraged, having wished to use the egg for his or her own purposes.

3-Kill one of his rivals.

4-Burn down the home of a specific NPC, at a certain time. He or she will insist that this is because the person will not be there at that time, but it is actually because they will be there, but not in an obvious fashion; the NPC having a desire for revenge and a cruel streak, wishes to burn them alive. The party will hear screams from within if they stick around, and/or hear rumors that a house burned to the ground, killing its occupant.
5-Eradicate a group of: 
1-Gnolls 
2-Goblins 
3-Savage Humans 
4-Bestial Elves 
5-Bugbies (Bugbear-Brownies. They have the: 
1-Head 
2-Arms 
3-Legs 
4-Torso 
of a Bugbear. All else is as a Brownie. At the DM's discretion they may be Brownbugs, which are as above, save that they are as bugbears overall. Both sorts are chaotic good.)6-Jackal-men. These will be running a "Lottery of Babylon", but are not the main group. As such not all of the choices apply.

6-Kill a hobgoblin thief, and his band of lycanthropic kobolds.


If they agree to do so, in character, roleplaying as drunk, then the NPC will accept their request. (Zak: they don't have to do it). If they fail to roleplay convincingly he will become suspicious, and believe that they mean to double-cross him.

27) Right Here in River City - NPC is a bit thick between the ears; PCs need to make their point or request three times in order for it to land. Unfortunately, NPC is also easily bored/distracted; PCs need to make their three attempts distinctly different, and need to complete all three within 3d8 seconds. For each failure, subtract 1d8 for the rest of the conversation.

Menace 3 Society said...

NPC is a poet/bard/freestyle battler/wannabe or fan of any of the above and insists the player/PC...


28 n+1) speak alliteratively.



29. n+2) talk in terms of allusion to epics or fairy tales, a la ST:TNG episode "Darmok".



30. n+3) use player's choice of any other figure of rhetoric, preferably obscure, e.g. pleonasm, anaphora, synecdoche, etc.



31. n+4) speak in (d4: 1 iambic, 2 trochaic, 3 dactylic, 4 anapestic) (d4+2)ameter.

32. n+7) sing a song for at least d4 x 10 seconds.



33. n+8) accept a challenge to a sonnet/rap contest, and will have no further interaction until the player/PC furnishes a sonnet/rap. Will concede contest as long as sonnet/rap is formally correct.



34. n+9) tell an epic tale of heroism before entertaining any requests or discussion.


35 NPC is vain and requires PC to pay an elaborate compliment referring to 2d4 different things about NPC.


Chris Lowrance said...
36) NPC is a troll. Not the fun kind either. The DM and player in question must engage in a staring contest - if the player loses this is interpreted as the NPC successfully pissing off the PC without giving them what they want. If the player wins, the NPC couldn't crack them and gives in. (if the player is blind or has dry-eye syndrome or something, pick some other simple contest. Or just let them win, for Christ's sake. What's wrong with you.)



37) NPC is a survivor of some horribly traumatic event, and will be seized by a panic attack if triggered by the mention of it. The player does not know what that event was, but knows due to vague allusions that they mustn't mention it. Furthermore, the event involved *something* related to what the DM knows the PCs want. If they can form their request in a way that doesn't mention it, they get what they want.

For instance: The PCs want to know where the gnome is so they get steal it's ruby. The NPC once watched her father eaten alive by an insane gnome. The PCs musn't mention gnomes or she begins sobbing and curls up in a ball on the floor.



38) NPC interupts player to tell a shitty joke. If the player laughs, they get what they want. If they don't (the DM should pick a really bad joke) the NPC says "Well, if you think you can do better, let's hear it then!" The player must then tell a joke. If the DM laughs, they get what they want.

39) NPC has an incredibly thick accent. The DM tells them what they want, but only with a mouth full of something, and will not repeat themselves.



40) NPC will mishear a key word of the DM's choosing and give an accurate response based on it. So "Where is the gnome with the ruby" may become "where is the home with the ruby" or "where is the gnome with the boobies." The player must guess which word was misheard - a correct guess and they get a corrected answer, a missed guess and they get a new false answer ("What did that lad want?" "The home with the boobies?" "Must of meant Mistress Montague's House of Pain." "That's where I sent 'em.")



41) NPC is elderly, of same gender as player, and thinks everyone younger is an idiot. Tell them they must now multiply the results of two 20d without a calculator in 30 seconds. This represents the tedium and stress of listening to a lecture while being called "boy," "girl," "son," or "little missy." If the math problem is solved in time the player gets what they want.



42) NPC insists on talking about something divisive. The NPC agrees completely with the player - and yet they continue to argue. A player not involved must then write down the name of a famous work of art without consulting the player in the argument. This is shown to the player in the argument, and they have 10 seconds to draw it. The DM must then guess what it is. If the DM can, the NPC realizes the player agrees with them and they get what they want.

Substitutes for works of art could be: D&D monsters, album covers, superheroes, etc.
James C. said...

So...



43) roll d20 and determine the corresponding consonant in the alphabet not counting "y" (i.e. 1 would equal "b", 10 would equal "m", 19 would equal "x"). You have one minute to formulate your request using only words that do not contain this letter.



44) roll d20 and determine the corresponding consonant in the alphabet not counting "y" (i.e. 1 would equal "b", 10 would equal "m", 19 would equal "x"). You have one minute to formulate your request using only words that do contain this letter. 



45) roll d6. As 43 above, but for vowels plus y.



46) roll d6. As 44 above, but for vowels plus y.


47) Formulate your request so that the last letter of the last word of a preceding sentence is the first letter of the first word of the next sentence. You have one minute.

In all of the above cases, the request so formulated needs to be complete enough that the NPC in question could reasonably understand it and comply.

Zak:
48 NPC seizes on insignificant details and rambles on about his/her thoughts/feelings/experiences about them. S/he will eventually stop, though. If the PC can endure this without interrupting the NPC s/he gets what s/he wants.

49: NPC is obsessed with outdoing another local NPC, if PC can frame request in terms of doing that, s/he gets what s/he wants.

50: NPC is an asshole who only respects other assholes. S/he will begin by cursing the most obvious trait of the PC, only a PC who insults him/her back with equal fervor will get a fair hearing. (Don't tell the PC this is the case.)