Imagine A GM, Rolling On An Orange Chart. Forever.

If you click it, it will be bigger.

So, as I pointed out to back in that long Sandboxes And The Roguish Work Ethic post back in whenever I wrote it, one way to make a hero-centric sandbox is to have the heroes acting as revolutionaries in an oppressive 1984/WH40k/RIFTS-coalition/Handmaid's Tale/Animal-Farm-In-Gamma-World/Vecnacracy/Age-of-Apocalypse/Legion-of-Superheroes-Vol-4/Occupied France/Pretty Much Anywhere When The Mafia's After You/Ballardian Distopia horrible suckworld or otherwise metaphorical badplace.

Conveniently enough, there is an old module--Nightmares of Future Past--for Marvel Super-Heroes/FASERIP by Steve Winter, which has that exact concept as a premise. And, more importantly for me here today--it has a fun chart!

The chart is about the villains finding the party's hideout. They roll once a day.

It works in the following way:

Your baddies start in the middle column where I put some blue numbers.

The idea is the players have some sort of scrambly device protecting them from being found by the Mutant Detectors. The device can be good or crappy or great or whatever--the central column goes from "no mask" (that is, no protection device) all the way up thru Marvel's rank system Feeble, Poor, Typical.....up to Unearthly.

Side note: naturally you can sub in the rank system for whatever system you're using and sub in the antidetection device for whatever the PCs are using to conceal themselves. I have put in the d20 numbers. We can say they represent the Intelligence of the party member who designed the camouflage for the PCs base, or the stealth number of the party's thief, or the DC of the protection spells the wizard is using to hide everybody or...whatever. Just basically know that the best possible thing the PCs could pull off would get them up at the top and if they're like fuck it we don't give a fuck they're down in the No Mask box.

So you start each day with the fascists looking for our heroes. They roll on the appropriate middle-column box matching the level of the heroes' concealment on the first day. If they fail their roll, then that's a white result. If they get even (like they need to roll 6 or above and they roll 6) then that's a green result (I know, there's no green on the chart, chill--all shall be explained), if they succeed unequivocally that's a yellow result, and if they succeed like whoa that's a red result.

So you tick off the box where the villains are. If you get a white result, you follow the white arrow and tick over to that box. If you get a green result, you stay where you are. If you get a yellow result or a red, you follow those.

So you just moved to a new box. Rock on. That was fun.

The new box is interpreted as follows:

-Base Located means the villains bust in to the heroes' base.

-Start Over means you go back to the middle and start over. I know, you are indeed shocked and so glad I told you.

-Other Base means the villains have found some other revolutionary cell, not you. There'll be news of it that'll get back to the heroes.

-Tip-off means the Man has gone and done something which makes it obvious they're on the heroes' trail and so the party knows.

-Miss Target means the villains have just raided...an umbrella factory? A House of Pies? WTF? They hit the wrong place. It's funny.

-Event means--in the original--a whole list of various thingamavents that are interesting that could happen on Fascist Mutanthunt Earth. In the original it's like "Oh there's a mutant just escaped and being chased by Sentinels--do you help or not?" or "A bunch of Boy Scouts accidentally stumble on your base" et cetera. This is the place where you write a chart of events that are specific to your setting.

-All The Blank Boxes And All The Results Above 'Base Located' In the Central Column just mean nothing happened that day and the heroes are left to make their own trouble that day or you just go "Ok, Wednesday's quiet" and you tick over there and roll again the next day.

At any rate, after you resolve a box, the villains start there and roll again the next day from there.

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In addition to this chart, Future Past suggests the brilliant and traumautizing idea of using the players home town as the hellworld sandbox in question.

Now, on account of Google maps and streetview this is an even better idea than it was when the module is written. Hell, set it anywhere you want.

Ahhhh, Bushwick, I miss you. If you ever end up on this corner, run do not walk to Las Islas and get some chicken and rice and 2 of the orange ball things. Unless it's taken over by robot logiceater bad domination machines.

Now the only part left is to pick some local landmarks to serve as possible targets for your PCs' cell. Which of course they have to walk to while you click "forward" on Google street view. If there aren't like 9 zombie games on the market which suggest exactly this method I'll eat...I'll eat like some pasta.

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BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

So I'm also thinking you could use this for a war. Basically, instead of the middle column representing just how well-concealed the party is, it could, in general, represent how close the party is to their target--Confederate Richmond or The Gates of Mordor or The Death Star or any other target. Instead of "Base Located" the box is "Your unit attacked".

Or just otherwise how conspicuous the PCs are, on a scale.

Like if you imagine the Shire-To-Mordor hexmap plus The 9 and the Orcs rolling on this chart every day, then you can pretty much model everything that happens in LOTR.

In effect, the Orange Fascist Chart functions as a kind of counterforce to a hexmap. The heroes explore or seek and the villains roam around the orange chart, making stuff happen.

Unlike just a straight d100 chart of events to roll on each day, it models the heroes attempts to hide themselves a little better plus the villains attempts to find them is dependent on how well they did the day before without a lotta math. Plus you don't have to think up all your events for the table at once, just having one event locked and loaded if you roll "event" is good enough. The rest takes care of itself.

That said, there's probably a way to model it pretty closely where you roll on a chart which has more results on it then the die has sides--add numbers if the PCs are well-hidden, subtract if they're not, add if the last roll was successful, subtract if it wasn't. etc. But hey, this chart's already here, might as well use it.

Bacon and Eggs: A Chill of Cthulhu Production

So I ran a Call of Cthulhu game. Chill style. Meaning just I did Cthulhu modern but everybody had a psychic power (no S.A.V.E.).

But it's Cthulhu, therefore using your psychic power drives you slowly (or quickly) insane.

Simple and effective Chill of Cthulhu paranormal ability mechanic:

1. Dream up an Abnormal Psych Textbook style psychic power ( Scrap Princess took Pyrokinesis, Migellito took Psychic Being Convincingness, Cole took Tactile Postcognition, and Ian took Heat Metal)

2. When you want to use it, decide the percentage chance you want to try to succeed at. Roll under and you get to do it.

3. Then roll the same percentage you chose again to see if you lose d6 SAN on account of you just opened your mind to Forces From Some Fucked Place Your Head Goes When You Do That.

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This is the second time I've run this adventure--it's part of a 3-legged campaign my home group runs when the requisites are all in the same city at the same time. That version is non-psychic and 1920's. One of the players in that game is playing occultist, writer, cannibal William Seabrook.

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Each version starts with the investigators on their way to (in the 20's) London, Paris or Berlin or (in the present-day) London, Berlin, or Tokyo.

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The problem is the Poison Idea. If three people have the idea at any one time--Ragnarok comes. (Two people had it at once one time--that started WWII).

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So after their dying uncle or psychic yoga master tells them to stop the idea from erupting the PCs pick a city from the 3 where it is feared the idea may manifest and go. They get on a ship or a plane, depending on time period and look at one of these 2 pictures.

Of these NPCs, some have information. William Seabrook got it outta them by asking around if there was a shipboard poker game. Cole got it by touching guy #7s chair and postcogging the vile presence within him.

Now Cole is, as anyone who has rolled with him will tell you, a great player. He is both irresponsible and proactive. Which is what you want.

Can I vomit on guy #7?

Ok, fail a Con check.

I succeed.

You just open your mouth for a second and hang there with your mouth open like this.

Meanwhile, in the restroom, Scrap Princess rolls a Maximum Impale to disarm the smoke detector and she then has the most relaxing possible smoke break.

Ian charms a stewardess and then--to create a distraction--decides to use his mind to melt, well, whatever instruments he could see when the cockpit door opened.

Is this group God's Gift To The Horror Game GM or what?

And Migellito tried and failed to keep everyone calm. He did however talk a little boy reading Lord of the Flies (#3) through Ian's post Sanity-loss screaming fit, so that was nice.

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I like these psychic power rules--not a single monster, cultist or freak has appeared and already we have 2 insane players and are a luck roll away from a plane crash.

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In the 1920's the London segment of the adventure involved kidnapping a patient of the Doctor With No Face, an ambulance race, and taking him back to the hotel to chop off his ear.

In twentytwelve it involved wearing fake moustaches, failing to pick a lock, and--most disturbingly--leaving Scrap alone in a hotel room.

So Scrap has a dream about an egg which her character doesn't realize is a dream (until Scrap reads this AP report). And decides to burn the hotel down.

Did I mention Cole thought guy #7 had eggs for eyes on the plane? Cole thought guy #7 had eggs for eyes on the plane, anyway....

Meanwhile the boys are at the hospital doing exactly what the girls were doing in the hospital around the same time in the 1920a--being in the basement of the hospital in The Terrible Revelation Room fighting a faceless nurse trying to inject them with Unknown Chemicals and thereafter a Doctor whose fragile eggshell face cracks open to reveal some fucked up horror movie stuffs inside and failing SAN checks and being around broken glass. The main difference was the girls brought shotguns.

Meanwhile Scrap decides to go to a bar a block away from the room he just signed into using his real (convict) name and then promptly arsoned.

Things progress on both fronts. We get to hear the following exchanges:

"I grab it by the tentacles and hit the guy in the face with the doctor's decapitated head."

"So you lose d6 SAN for using your pyrokinesis and then d6 more for using it to harm a human being"

"It's not a human being, it's a cop!"

We finish with a lone PC rolling initiative against everyone else in the back of an ambulance taking him away from two buildings he set on fire and toward one that his friends just did, from which unfortunate edifice two of our heroes are fleeing (one in terror, one because it is the absolutely entirely tactically correct and commonsensical thing to do) while our fourth hero staggers through the flames humming "I am the egg man, koo koo kchoo" and asking where the cafeteria is.

A fine, fine game is Chill of Cthulhu.

Called Shot Mechanic

Problem: in most kinds of D&D, the cooler the stunt you made up, the less practical it is to try to do it.

At least playing by the book.

Like:

"I want to cut the chain in mid-air so the morningstar ball goes flying"

"Ok, that's minus 2 for a called shot..ok, roll..."

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Solution:

Naturally if you roll a natural 20 you do whatever awesome extra cool thing you were thinking you'd do, so...

Here's the deal: if you want to do something real specific--like hit the orc's torch and knock it on the floor, you can if you roll a crit. You can also extend your crit range as much as your heart desires: natural 19-20, 18-20, 16-20, all the way up to 11-20. Your choice.

The only catch is you then have to extend your fumble range from one by the same amount.

So you really want to knock the Necronomicon out of the cultist's hand? No problem, you want it on a 15-20? Ok. But on a 1-6 you trip and accidentally stab the baby he was about to sacrifice. Or yourself. Or your dad. Or whatever your DM's cruel little heart devises.

Does. Not. Com. Pute.

Bart: Only geeks sit in the front seat. From now on you sit in the back row. And that's not just on the bus. It goes for school and church, too.

Martin Prince: Why?

Bart: So no one can see what you're doing.

Martin Prince: Oooh. I think I understand. The potential for mischief varies inversely to one's proximity to the authority figure. (He shows a note where he has written: MOC 1/PA)

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Bart has something Martin does not. Social intelligence. Or what we might call, in this here D&Dish context, Charisma.

Bart intuitively grasps how to handle other human beings in such a way that he can accomplish his goal of fucking around on the bus.

Martin does not. Martin needs the rule written down.

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People say "RPGing is a social activity" (by which they usually mean "Hey man, fuck you, I have a social life"). (And which is usually missing the point because they are arguing with someone who is not saying "you never talk to people" they're saying "you never meet new people".)(But that's a tangent.)

Yet, ironically, it is an often-overlooked fact that RPGing is a social activity as in, if you drew a big giant Venn Diagram circle called "social activities", pen-and-paper RPG GMing would be a circle entirely inside that circle (excluding maybe prep, but you get my point).

RPGing is a subset of social activities.

RPGing is a subset of social activities where people sit around talking to each other.

RPGing is a subset of social activities where people sit around talking to each other for like 2 hours or more.

Other activities in this category include: sitting at a big table at a wedding, going to a bar, having lunch with people, Thanksgiving dinner, Superbowl Sunday.

Which means: if you are with people who you wouldn't want to do any of these things with, there's no reason to assume it will be fun.

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Counter example: Soccer.

I've played a lot of pickup soccer with a lot of people I don't know.

Me and 5 people pick up a ball. We go to a green field.

We meet total strangers, also five of them.

We play soccer together.

Soccer gets played. Easy.

There are few sources of potential conflict: if somebody fouls the other team, there could be trouble--we now have to start rolling charisma. If one team is more serious and competitive overall than the other, then we might have to resort to charisma rolls. But, in general, (19 times out of 20) the fun-ness of the game is not entirely dependent on how well we get on with the other team, since soccer isn't all about talking.

Usually it works fine.

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An edge-case example:

Pac Man

It's just you and the electronic ghosts. You don't have to talk to them at all. Your fun is completely unrelated to how well you get on with people. However, as soon as you and the other person at the laundromat decide you are having a Pac Man Tournament and whoever gets furthest wins, part of your fun will depend on the chemistry between the two of you.

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First point is: a huge part of what you do in an RPG is social interaction. If you get on with people and like them it can be a blast. If you don't, it can be ok, too--you can just concentrate on you versus the "ghosts"--but a part that could be fun is less so.

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So alright, moving on:

A few days ago I have this conversation. This is with someone of a GameForgey/4e-fan bent who thinks D&D doesn't have enough rules:

(We are discussing the issue of Clever Plans That Fall Outside The Rules)

Forgey Guy:

It's really great when my coin idea works and it warns us of the tree elf's approach, but that relies on the DM (1) noticing the flag we're sending and (2) responding to it properly. That's a skill that takes years and years to develop, and even for a DM who has those skills, they still have off nights. So that approach means that the experience is unreliable. With an experienced DM at his best, it's a great game. With an inexperienced DM, or even an experienced DM who's tired or off his game, it's an exercise in frustration...

SomeForgeygame is a good example of how you can do this, actually. You don't need years of experience to play the ___ well. Even if you're inexperienced or having an off-night, the game's rules make sure that the game is reliably fun

Z:

It seems again like you're trying to insulate from bad GMing. This always makes a more restrictive game that attracts dumber people.

Someone Else Forgey:

He's not talking about bad DMing, he's talking about a difference of expectation between two players of a game. Neither one is being unreasonable.

Forgey Guy:

I'm asking for a reliably fun game experience. My experience with D&D prior to 4E was showing up each week hoping that this would be the week that it was good, and usually being disappointed. When it was good, it was so good I'd even put up with the 90% of the time that it was just frustrating. There are games that provide a reliably fun experience.

Z:

A good gm manages expectations. A good group thinks up adult ways to negotiate them

FG:

You said: a good gm manages expectations. a good group thinks up adult ways to negotiate them Why does it take so much skill to have fun playing this game that we need a good GM and a good group? Isn't that kind of the sign of a poorly designed game? Surely a good group and a good GM could turn even the worst game into a fun experience. The real test of a good game is whether or not it can deliver a fun experience, reliably, even with new players or poor players....

I'm saying that having to accept that a game might or might not be fun, depending on who shows up to play it, is an unnecessary evil.

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Ok, Martin.

Do the math. Take people out of the equation. It can be done. Soccer is soccer even if I have no possible brand of communication with the other team.

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And yes, there are very focused indie games (and, arguably, versions of D&D) which reduce the RPG experience down to "This game is About (huge word in dissatisfied-with-D&D circles) you being yellow and eating dots while ghosts try in turn to eat you. The other players may not jostle you while you eat ghosts, they may not place their quarters on the rim of the screen to indicate their turn is next, they may not hum The Bear Went Over The Mountain in your ear while you play though they may hum Row Your Boat, they may not declare they are 'going for fruits and not boards'."

In other words, they carve the social element of the game down to a reasonable little chunk and tell everyone what it's About so that nobody who doesn't know exactly what they are in for shows up at this party.

Which is fine. Which makes sense. I guess. If you're Martin.

The rest of us can play a wide open game where nobody at the table is sure what it will be about and just follow the Don't Be A Dick rule until you all decide what you want it to be about.

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Ron Edwards calls this "Ouija board play". And disdains it. (Or did when he wrote whatever essay I'm remembering) He claims (and I believe him) to know a lot of folks--in real life--who regularly play D&D and don't have fun. I don't know any.

His old theory that each kind of player has one of a number of Goals and these determine what kind of games they can play seems to fly in the face of everything anyone who isn't Martin has noticed about people. They change what they wanna do all the time.

Some players show up ready to hit things--this is their to-themself justification for why they play this socially crippling game. But any player, given the smack and wobble of human interaction, can decide s/he wants to just sit and listen to someone else do a funny voice--or suddenly become intrigued by a puzzle, or suddenly decide they want to build a castle, or become enamored of the sound of their own silly voice.

Porn star tip!

Did you know?: People in social situations often do things they didn't come in intending to do and like it.

People who throw parties all the time know this. They have to clean up after it every 2nd friday.

This is because there has never been an illusion in anyone's mind about whether parties are a social activity.

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I think, essentially, this social dimension terrifies a lot of people.

So there are all these games designed to route around the social dimension.

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People who actually have a decent social circuit between them don't need a focused ruleset to tell them what to do:

When Kimberly Kane has realized that the group's Exploration of Setting is maybe interfering with her Metagame Goal of Exploring Goblin Guts you go:

"Well left or right, KK?"

"Uh..."(vague hand wave, eye roll)

..and everyone knows where KK is at.

Whereas Craigie T, experiencing the same frustration, might say

"Hurry up with the Harry Potter business, McCormick, I wanna kill shit!"

And we laugh and the players Ouija the game around and it works fine and everybody plays whenever they're off work and have 2 spare hours forever and we are happy.

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That is the key here: Successful DIY D&D requires that internal conflict be resolved--or avoided--by at least a few people at the table being able to organically divide their attention between What they wanna do right now and What their friends want. This may sound exhausting, but it is also the basis of almost all successful human social interactions up to and including all the most fun ones, like going to the zoo or bowling or banging mad crazy hot sluts.

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So, Martin, yes, you can chop down an RPG until it is like a pick-up soccer game and nobody has anything they have to do but get the ball in the box and nobody has to deal with anybody not being exactly into their kind of fun because if they weren't they would not have showed up to play Bianco: The Game About Being A Llama Who Attempts To Nuzzle Mice Using An Innovative Social Combat Mechanic Based On Wicker in the first place.

And it will be as reliably fun as darts or checkers. You play with your eye on the board and not ever worry about what the other human being wants.

When it is over, it will have been about what you expected it was going to be about and everyone will have been creative in the direction they were expecting to be creative and the game will totally have been satisfyingly About the desired Theme.

Or you can open the game up a little into the realm of WTF Will Happen Tonight that people have been profitably enjoying for 40 years--but then--I'm warning you now--the game becomes more of a social activity.

Will it be fun?

If you are good with your peoples, yes.

Will it be fun with strangers?

Well would you engage in any social activity requiring 2 hours of sustained conversation with strangers and assume it'll be fun?

It's a crapshoot:

Like those tables full of weirdoes at weddings, the first day of school, the first day at work, the bar on the corner and like going outside in general. Scary, I know.

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(OFFENDED INDIE GAMERS AND 4Eers PLEASE READ THIS HERE NOTE WHICH I HAVE ALREADY GOTTEN AN EMAIL INDICATING AN ANGRY INDIE GAMER DID NOT READ SO I AM ADDING THIS SPECIAL GIANT TYPE BRIGHT COLORED ALL-CAPS REMINDER TO READ HERE FOR YOUR SAKE).

Rereading this before posting it, it seems like I might be suggesting the only reason people play Forgey games is out of fear of social negotiation. Obviously that isn't true. A lot of people like just playing a different kind of game. All the stuff in this could be said of 4E as well--it is a focused design made to simplify the social interaction--but people who want to play it don't necessarily want to just because they are socially inept. I myself have played and enjoyed 4e on occasion, as I repeatedly remind very stupid people. (I see you linking to this page, dude, I see you pretending it says something it does not say.)

The point is just: any critique (from any party) of Old School games on the score that they don't have enough rules (for social combat, for DM adjudication of outside-the-box contingencies, for regular combat) is bullshit. They may not have enough rules for you. But you're you. We aren't.

Secrets Of The Chill Master Revealed!

So where was that mystery passage from?

Guesses have included: Roberto Bolano, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Castaneda, and Thomas Pynchon pastiching one the above.

Actually it was from Terevaldo Roberto Flechero L'unares' second novel.

Now Terevaldo Roberto Flechero L'unares is not merely an author of fiction, but (Borgesially enough) a fiction himself: an imaginary author whose work appears in the Vampires supplement for 2nd Edition of the horror RPG Chill.

Which is to say that passage was actually written by either Gali Sanchez or Drake Mallard, the authors of said sourcebook.

More to my point today, this passage pretty much encapsulates 2nd ed Chill.

On the one hand: it's kinda good, isn't it? Like it isn't maybe mad genius, but the ideas and execution are not just at "frustrated novelist" (which is like what you're called at 0-level if your class is Game Designer) but actually maybe even buzzing hummingbirdally up near "actual novelist".

I mean, it could give you genuine nightmares. And I love the bit about the transistor radios.

On the other hand: What the fuck does all this humid glitterball poetry have to do with a game, Chill Vampire Sourcebook?

And therein lies the glossy black vein of pre-White Wolf retropretension that is Chill 2e. Copyright 1990 and looking every inch of it. If, in looking through it, we can undeniably ascertain that it is not only Retro (now as it was not then) and Pretentious (as anything subtitled "A Scary Game For Scary People" could not hope to not be), but also Stupid, then we will know that Chill is perfect.

-Cover: Color pencil drawing of threatening version of masky Montreal opera clown in blue and orange instead of the traditional purple and pastel. Beneath ransom note.

-I like the layout of the table of contents: it reminds me of the menu for an upscale Washington DC restaurant where they have wrought-iron chairs out on the patio and an awning in racing green and all the drinks have olives in them.

I mean, fuck off if you want to know which of the 43 pages under "character generation" contains the 'taxi driver' career, but it looks nice.

-Quote from some made-up author named "Robert Davidson" who is not HP Lovecraft about the nature of fear. (Not-being-Call-of-Cthulhu is a major theme of Chill. As is Vampire The Maskthingy not existing yet.)

-Another aspect of Chill: artists who are almost Bill Sienkiewicz but not. More than one. Though one of them has a side of not-exactly-that-Hollywood-caricature-guy-who-works-his-daughter's-name-into-everybody's-face next to his Sienkiewiczwich.

-Beginning of the book: "If you've never played a roleplaying game, or if you haven't read the 32 page Introductory Insert in the back pocket of this book, you'd better stop reading now." (emphasis fucking mine). 32 pages is half of Vornheim. 32 pages is longer than Vault of the Drow. 32 pages could get you introduced to most of Western philosophy and all of Greek cuisine and still have room for house ads. Anyway fuck me because this pdf doesn't have it. But boldly I soldier anyhow...

-"Now that you’re ready to begin, you’ll probably want to know what’s in this CHILL book. Well, hang on to your. .. dice! We’ve got brain worms. We’ve got gorillas. We’ve got scientists, yetis, and monkeys. Thieves, mystics, and reporters. Gazelles, bears, and alligators. And, of course, flies, rats, mummies,werewolves,vampires...you name it!"

First: "hang on to your...dice!" Hah, we fooled you! You thought we were going to say "hat"!

??

Second: Isn't this suddenly sounding like a Hellboy RPG?

-"The second section of this book contains the mechanics of the game: both the players and Chill Master (CM) should read up on..."

Yes, that's right, if you're running this game, your players have to call you The Chill Master. Which is ok by me because that's what everyone calls me anyway.

This guy is totally The Chill Master.

-Like Cthulhu, skills are on an easy-to-grasp 0-100 scale. (Knowing you have photography at 45% tells you a lot more than having photography at +3. +3? Is that good? Is it like Lois Lane good or William Eggleston good?) Unlike CoC and its Chaosium Basic Roleplaying ilk it also has ability scores (strength, health...) on the 0-100 scale. While this has a pleasing surface simplicity and many a CoC or Runequest player mayhap has wondered why their system didn't do the same thing, the gears grind a bit when you do it this way, as we shall soon perceive...

-The basic abilities chosen seem pretty well picked for a horror RPG--Dexterity is like fingeriness and Agility is like jumpiosity and then Luck, Perception, Personality, Stamina and Willpower. You can instantly think of situations in horror movies where any of these things matters. No "intelligence", which I do hope is a nod to "player-skill-not-character-skill"

-Willpower is a depletable stat, like hit points. This is not quite as nice as Sanity Loss in CoC but the idea has legs.

-Some dipshit named 'Rax' who is, I believe, never identified is periodically quoted talking like Eddie from Iron Maiden and going on about lickspittle and mantasting and generally failing to scare me.

-The crippling late-Silver-Ageness of the system comes into play with skills: first of all, the base number for each skill is often some derived crunch nightmare of mixed ability scores (Climb is the average of your agility, perception, stamina and strength f'rinstance), second of all the system doesn't have just pass/fail, with fumble and impale for rolling really high or low, it also has a degrees of success system: Low Medium High Colossal.

Dig the madness--"T#" stands for "target number" (usually like 45 if the skill is at 45):

The following chart summarizes results of Specific Checks:

L result =T#through (T#-tens digit) +I
M result = tens digit through (T# t 2) + 1
H result = T#t 2 through tens digit + I
C result = I through tens digit

And on top of that, the target numbers are variable to begin with. So you don't just go "you have to pass a check at minus 20", but "you have to pass a check at minus 20 and then get higher than an 8th of the tens digit plus a 4th of the twelves digit and fuck is this math really easier than just going HEY THE BETTER YOU ROLL THE MORE INFORMATION YOU GET OUT OF LITTLE SALLY ABOUT THE BAD DOLL THAT TRIED TO STEAL HER HAIR, JUST GM IT YOU FUCK"

Maybe.

-Oh and why is it bad to have the ability scores on the same 0-100 scale as the skills in this here modern skillheavy system?

"Using The Skill List:

The CM must be familiar with the following list of (like 80) skills to prevent players from using simple Ability Checks to allow their characters to perform actions that require skills"

So while yes, it is as crunchily satisfactory as a Snickers to have your Martial Arts score actually related to your Strength and Stamina scores (unlike in CoC)--actually getting all that math to work together is harder than it might seem. Either character generation is long and mathy (Runequest), skills are always higher than associated ability scores and quickly reach superhuman (any "+1" system), or some other weirdness. Skill-based systems claw at the soul.

-The lack of a straight-up Intelligence stat makes the ability-derived skill system a little wonky, too, like your Art Criticism skill is derived from Perception and Willpower. Though, honestly, having done a bit of it I can see that: must...look at..terrible...Felix...Gonzalez...Torres...sculpture before..deadli...zzzzzzzz.

-Almost every skill has a special spell-like mechanic attached to it. The bowfire rates are under the bow skill, f'rinstance. Explosives have an even-odd result on top of the degrees-of-success result. Okay, I like that one.

-So anyway point is clunky.

-The scariness advice in the GM section is excellent, though. Every Halloween somebody asks me how to write a scary adventure, it's all here: Isolation. Mystery. Reversal. Tease. Fuck with sensory information. Unexpected sound effects.

-(Well almost all, here's another tip: Find an emotion adjacent to fear--dislike, anxiety, disgust, confusion, etc.--and worm your way in from there.)

-Interesting/surprising highlights in the (basically unarguably classy and extraordinarily tasteful and loaded with stuff like Dracula and Rosemary's Baby) recommended reading/viewing section include:

WILLIAM GIBSON (?)

ANY UNIVERSITY ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY TEXT

BLUE VELVET

ERASERHEAD

THE HUNGER

Brazil

Doom Patrol (and the rest of the DC Vertigo line--so maybe this was just because Mayfair was also publishing the DC Heroes RPG)

Grendel (the comic book)

Blood (Epic Comocs)

Creatures on the Loose (Marvel Comics)(notable to me because I have never heard of this comic. You know how I often I go "I have never heard of this comic?" Not often.)

Not Present for Predictable But Still Kinda Funny Reasons:

H.P. Lovecraft

-But are the monsters good? Yes, here's the Mean Old Neighbor Lady:

If the child escapes and returns home, he finds to his terror that his parents do not recognize him and return him gladly to the neighbor lady who comes asking about her “nephew who’s visiting from out of town.” “I’ve been worried about the little tyke,” the creature explains, “because of that wild imagination.”

The creature keeps the child in the darkness of the cellar, taunting him with playthings that “you can’t play with because you’re bad,” starving the child, and threatening to send the dog down into the cellar if the child cries or makes any noise. The child’s Willpower sinks from fear and hunger, until at the equinox (mid-March or mid-September), the neighbor ladv completes it wicked act by using the Minion Discipline: the child becomes a gamin, and is released to wander into nearby homes, where it begins its evil game of “murder.”

AaaaaaH!!

-..1)Although the creature does not suffer normal

physical damage, it does take wounds from eggs
used as thrown missiles.

Nice.

-And then there's Puppet People: made of wood, with a thin covering of flesh and they always hunt in pairs "The origin of these perverse creatures remains a mystery; all that is known for sure is that they are nasty and incredibly ignorant."

-And, of course Werejaguars. What a wonderful word. Werejaguar.

-CoC is a horror game and Chill is a horror game and any game can be played in any way but the basic form of conflict suggested in both the rules and modules for purist Cthulhu is: investigate investigate be confused investigate MEETTERRORYOU'REINSIGNIFCANTGoINSANeDIE. Whereas Chill 2e--while not as Universal Horror as the first edition, is much more cinematic than Cthulhu. It is about the PCs. They can win. They are interesting and maybe psychic. But then so are the monsters. It's a dance. It's more of Silence of the Lambs thing, more of a back-and-forth...

When I think about making a D&D character I think about a bundle of stats who will one day turn into guy I am going to have to learn to like, when I think about making a CoC character I think of someone who would be fun to see go crazy, when I think about making a Chill PC I think about how this guy is my fucking vampire hunter in my vampire hunter movie.

-(One could posit that the White Wolf products push even further in the DC-to-Marvel scale into it's-all-about-you-and-how-very-interesting-you-are-and-the-world-is-dull.)

-If I was going to play a Chilly game today here is what I would do: use the CoC system, throw in The Art (Chill's psionic-PC powers) (just let people pick or roll randomly for 1-2 powers) and call it done. The rest is just writing the scenarios. "Your car breaks down on an abandoned stretch of road"

How To Keep Keep Simple Combat Interesting

Oddysey does a great job here of explaining how just because D&D has a lot of rules for combat it doesn't mean it's about combat.

She touches on something which you hear a lot from newies raised on WOTC D&D which is: well isn't combat without all the feats and ninjitsu dull?

Initiative. Roll to hit. Damage. Roll to hit. Damage. Initiative.

No it is not. But, and this caveat goes for all Old School D&D: you have to have a good DM. Oh well.

Let us say you would like to be one of those good DMs? How do you make simple combat interesting?

Get yourself a simple combat-moves system.

Want to trick the catpegasus into charging the wall? I use d10 + stat vs. d10 + target stat. High roll wins. Other people might just use chances on a d6. If you trust your DM to come up with fair chances, these systems are nice and easy and fast. If you do not, do not play role playing games and make gingerbread cookies instead and then mail them to me so that I can eat them while I GM well.

Monsters love grabbing people.

Monsters are the grabbiest!

Roll to hit. Target number is as if for a touch attack or dex-as-(ascending)-ac. Success means target is grabbed. Less damage is done than usual but the target is still grabbed and can be hurt at will next round unless they do something about it.

Or their friends do--which isn't that hard, since their friends should get a +1 or +2 for trying to hit the monster while it is busy trying to rip their paladin in half. Unless it has like 20 arms...

Monsters Love Throwing People

Especially at other people.

Monsters Are Smart

Do your PCs use hit-and-run tactics, heal a lot and shoot from cover? Well so do the goblins.

They also hate your party's cleric above all other foes.

Monsters Are Dumb

Monsters (like players) often don't just sit back, look at their ability scores and go "Hmmmm...what't the most effective attack I could make?" they go "Gah! Shiny man hit Gorg! Gorg mad!"

Just saying, in a combat, "Well since Caroline keeps whaling on him, he's definitely going after her" both adds a little texture to the encounter and reminds the PCs they are acting in a cause-and-effect world.

Try To Use Your Half Of The Combat To Change The Tactical Situation Every Round

There are lots of things you can do that are mechanically identical to roll-to-hit-AC, roll-damage that nevertheless move people around and mix things up. If the bear hits the thief, see if the thief tumbles back and knocks a torch off the wall. Then roll to see if leather armor is flammable. Then roll to see if bears like the smell of cooking thief more than they fear fire.

Make The Tactical Set Up Interesting To Begin With

Pool of water, fireplace, ledge, multiple exits...if you are making a dungeon, put the monsters next to something they or the PCs can use to their advantage.

Use The Die Rolls

Take fumbles and crits and use them to complicate the situation:

If someone rolls a 20 you are totally allowed to go "Ok, hold it, lemme think..." and take a second to imagine that if the vampire was about to bite the ranger and the wizard rolled a 20 to throw the holy water than that probably means the vial of holy water went right into the vampire's mouth and so the vampire has a throat full of holy-water-covered-broken glass going on.

If someone rolls a 1 while charging the lizard man this means s/he's charged right past one, tripped over a lizard tail and landed in the pile of lizard eggs. Oh they are terribly upset now--but they don't want to break the eggs either...

Monsters Make Noises

A strangled gargling sound can go a long way, I find.

If you ever feel like breaking your players' hearts--have Orc A suddenly say Orc B's name as Orc B is dying. The effort-to-effect ratio is staggering.

Fear of Death Is The Mother Of Invention

This is standard OSR cant but it's true: a scared player is a thinking player.

If You Have To Say "No", Explain Why

Sometimes a player has an awesome plan and it should work. Sometimes a player has an awesome plan that is not going to work and why this is so would be clear to their PC.

Explain why it won't work in enough mechanical detail that the parameters of the problem are clear. "We need something stronger than silk, hmmmm...."

Recap Continuously

"Ok, you're grappling the plover, you have one leg in its mouth and you are in the lava" Players are easily confused in the hurly burly of the speedy exchange of blows.

Everybody knows a good DM narrates combat, but remember sometimes you just have to say it all again so that everybody is always in it.

Is It Easier Than Backstabbing?

This is standard: A thief gets +4 to backstab an opponent who doesn't know s/he's there. Basically any bonus that you give players or foes in combat should use this as a baseline: is this easier or harder than backstabbing some goggle-eyed cluelacker?

If You Can Remember It, You Can Have It!

You want to keep things moving.

"Is it d6 or d8, can't remember...."

"Well I'm telling you it's d6 since you didn't write it down"

Next time they'll write it down. In big red letters.

Relax, You Can't Do It All

(DM Energy + DM Attention) Divided By (# Of PCs + # Of foes) is a limiting factor here. Sometimes you just have to go "12? You miss. Next!" and move on to something you can do a little more with.

___________

P.S. Answer to yesterday's Latin American literary mystery is coming, be patient.

The "I Call On My Years Of Training" System

Once per day a PC may say "I call upon my years of training!" and thereby add his/her level to any ability check involving a task characteristic of his or her class or race.

This can only be done once per day no matter how many different kinds of class-appropriate challenges come up that day.

The maximum is + 1o. (10 total including ability score bonuses, if you're using a DC system). After 10 you get to do it twice a day and split the bonus numbers however you want.

___________________

Example:

Scruffy The Bandit and Muppet the Sorceress want to try to interpret the hieroglyphs in a dusty old codex. Scruffy has to roll an Int check (at -8 or at a DC of 18, because the DM says so). Muppet also has to roll an int check (also at -8 or at a DC of 18, because the DM says so) however, Muppet may choose to call on her vast sorceressy training to do this and thus can add +5 since she is level 5.

If, later that day, they come upon an obscure alchemical substance, Muppet is out of luck and has to roll like everybody else, as she's used up her training bonus for the day.

If she was level 13, she could add 5 and bank 8 for later that day or add 10 and bank 3, or whatever, up to 10.

___________________

Optional extras:

-If you are including thief functions in this, thieves do it all the time--not just once per day--up to +10 total (including any ability score bonuses, if you're using the DC system). Edit: In an old-school system, this means the standard array of thief abilities tops out at +10, so this requires a further hack--maybe at this point the thief starts being able to dip his or hands into other classes' skill pools. Like how they can start to read magic or whatever at a certain point...

-If you want to use it with a whole skill system, then just modify the rule so it says "Once per day a PC may add his/her level to any single ability check involving a skill s/he has"

...and otherwise skills don't do anything.

-This whole system probably doesn't apply to saving throws. But consult your GM

___________________

Um, Dude, Why Bother?

I like this system because it creates a situation where tasks that challenge a high-skill PC do not have to be completely out of the range of possibility for low-skill PCs.

It compresses the difficulty scale, essentially.

The high-level adventure does not have to be full of tasks that only one possible class (ranger, thief, druid) could possibly do right.

So you can make a wall at, say, climb check= dex - 4. A fighter might have trouble climbing that wall, but they could make it. A thief of any level could also have trouble climbing that wall, but their level would still matter if they wanted it to.

Or you could make tracking a foe through a marsh check at simply -1 int. The ranger does not have to have a high int to successfully follow the tracks and be better than other people at it, but anybody else still has a shot to follow them. Because, hey, it's tracks in the mud.

Just Add Pie

So Nine-And-Thirty Kingdoms (always worth a look) posted this method for procedurally generating landscape instantly using what he calls over there "dice-maps" and what I call over here "die-drop tables" for reasons lost to time.

Basically his idea is, you drop a handful of d6s on the piece of paper and it gives you a map of nearby stuff plus distances to it.

This first thing I thought is, for any given landscape, you could go to Google Docs, quickly make a pie chart, and stick it in the center so that you could make custom "collapsed" maps for any given continent or area. So you not only know the distance to places but their character as well. Jsut extend the pie lines out and features in that sector is that kind of thing. This took 3 minutes:Then I figured you could do this for buildings, too--though in a slightly different way. Basically you write a "destination" (i.e. interesting-stuff-having location--the kinds of things where you start drawing and think "I know I want a lich riding a wereworg in here and a pile of old tapestries but that's about it...") in each part of the pie, then the dropped dice indicate how many rooms away in each direction said feature is. The numbers that actually come up on the dice can then be your wandering monster rolls for each direction. A little ball-and-stick flowchart connecting-the dots and bam--instant dungeon. Good for when the PCs reach levels you haven't finished yet...

In other news, the second one came out as an inverted peace sign for some reason.

Tense Moments

Thinking about this--this isn't so much a skill system as an alternate way to use the systems D&D (and games like it) already have to adjudicate situations when you want to add tension.

So:

Skills (or "Noncombat tasks that a PC might reasonably specialize in").

Simple skill is like: there's a task and a number you have to roll, roll over, roll under.

Sometimes, though, you want to make the execution of a skill as dramatic and tense as combat.

Quick review: Why is combat drawn out in most RPG rules?

1. The stakes are generally high (life or death)
2. A partial success or failure is meaningful (injured foe or friend--this injury matters even after the combat's over)
3. The task and subtasks it consists of are fun events in-themselves, even outside of any context. At least if the DM is doing it right. (You dodge, you swerve, you slash and lose a finger and all that.)

In contrast to fighting, D&D skills in the basic rules tend to be simple--pass/fail.

Type IV introduced skill challenges, of which I know little, but which, as a player, I have experienced and not really noticed having an effect much--though I assume the idea is to create just such high-tension skill moments. Crossing the tightrope, ooo, nope, whoa, ok.. etc. the general scuttlebutt on them seems to be: the quality of them is highly dependent on GM skill.

Anyway here's my idea:

Each test either has a difficulty class (DC) like in Type III D&D (this is just like an ascending AC. A number you have to roll w/modifiers to do the thing) or if you are using a roll-under-attribute system it has a bonus or penalty associated with it (make a dex check at -2 or +3 etc.). Both are ability score based--int for making stuff, dex for tricky physical tasks, str for swimming, etc.

Like a hard task could be DC20 or it could be -5 to attribute check.

(This is all old news. This is how people already do stuff in versions of D&D.)

If you don't have the skill, it's just pass/fail. You succeed, good, you have made a tea kettle or climbed a wall. You fail, the bad thing happens, the lock seizes up, the knot uncurls, the trap fails to spring, etc.

IF you DO have the skill and you succeed, well, good. You succeeded just like everybody else.

(Still, all this is old news. Here's the new bit...)

If you DO have the skill and you fail, the DM rolls d6. If the die is over your current level, you fail. If it's equal to or below, the DM narrates some mayyyybe-it's-working type situation ("the lock is rusty but a tumbler is beginning to come loose...""you slip suddenly, but catch hold of a badger-shaped rock at the last minute..") and you have two options:

1. You can try again.

2. If the task is the kind where you can start doing it and give up half-way without catastrophic disaster (i.e. you make it half-way across the chasm and then turn back rather than just falling) you have the option to "chicken out" and stop rolling now and have things go back to more-or-less how they were before the failed roll.

If you try again:

If you succeed, good.

If you fail, the DM rolls another d6, if this d6 plus the previous d6 is over your level, you fail. If it's still under, you can try again.

etc. etc. until you run out of levels or succeed.

This means by 6th level you will obviously automatically get one reroll. By 12th level you automatically get 2 rerolls. (No need to keep track of this, the dice will make it obvious.)

Why a d6?

I figure 6th level represents the point at which you obviously are definitely reliably always a little better at your specialty than the average PC. (This is going by thief PCs in AD&D--until about 6th level you still kind of suck much of the time and using your abilities is often a bad idea.)

____

In addition to the tension factor, I also think this system will scale better at high levels than simply giving skilled PCs one-re-roll per level or +1 to the roll per level--After 4thish level everything is way easy unless the basic task has such a high DC or negative modifier that nobody unskilled could ever try it. In other words, doing it that way means you have to have a lot of walls that only a skilled person could climb, and even then you keep having to scale up the difficulty as the PC gains in power.

This system means that (since the basic roll is still just vs. unmodified attribute) a skilled PC is measurably better at doing things than an unskilled one, but does not live in a world where s/he'll start automatically succeeding and need more and more difficult tasks just for the game to justify having the PC have the skill in the first place.

(I mean--if there's a wall in a 10th level dungeon only a thief with a skill can climb then that means either the party has to have a thief or the players know on the metagame level that there must be another way in. Plus I also just find degrees of awesomeness beyond, say +6 difficult to really appreciate on a visceral level. If you get to a point on a d20 system where some PCs are at +4 and some are at +9 and anybody below +5 is actually kind of crap, relatively, I find it hard to imagine what that's like in real-world analogues. What's a +9 guy look like compared to a +15 guy? +15 vs +20? It gets kind of abstract and numerical.)

Plus no skill points to keep track of in this system. Though I like the LOTFP 6-point system, it's not compatible with the have-it-or-don't skill system already in my campaign.

____

So, anyway, this seems like a decent bolt-on for any have-it-or-don't skill class-and-level system. It requires no new things on a PC's character sheet.

And again, I wouldn't use it for every test, just when I wanted to add suspense when the consequences are a big deal.

Split-Column Assignment Generator

Dear Exploring Infinity,
I have no idea how I found your blog, or this nifty situation generator that you made for Firefly. I also don't know anything about Firefly other than that it happens in space and has something to do with that Buffy guy people like.

Anyway, since it seemed pretty much useful for any game, I reformatted your table in split-column format. That way, if you have to roll a new situation fast (as you often do in sandbox D&D) you can roll once and read across, or, if you have a few more seconds, re-roll again for any result you don't like. I don't know if this kind of speedy flexible table is useful in the kind of games you play (we have no followed blogs in common and your categories are all games I don't run) but it is for me, so thanks! Your table is appreciated and has been added to the archive.

Rock.

Anatomy Of A Good Houserule

Jeff's Carousing Mishaps table. It's a classic. Tons of people use it. Jeff has many tables on his blog--why does this one work so well for so many people?

Let's pull this bitch apart:

-It deals with something that's already in the game but isn't usually dramatized in the game. Your PCs don't have to do some new thing or behave in a different way to use this table. It's assumed that characters are always drinking and wenching when they're not punching giant rats. It's also usually assumed that the game is about when they're punching giant rats and not about when they're drinking and wenching.

-It gives the players a toy. Let's face it: DMs have a million toys to choose from. What Color Is The Slugvomit? I have a table for that... Sometimes the game's moving at a pace where you'll use it, sometimes it isn't. This table is part of a subsystem that the players get to decide to trigger--that's slightly unusual. Give the players a wheel and generally one of them will spin it.

-It's something that comes up a lot. If you run the game like Jeff does, where each session is one delve, it can potentially come up every session. If you don't, it can still come up any time the PCs end a session in a town or city.

-The subsystem is simple. It's all over in one roll. Or two. Or maybe three. Not only are the new rules in the system simple, but unlike my plot-seed version of it, it doesn't make any demands on the game that it doesn't wrap up quickly. That hangover? That just means -2 to saves the next day--it doesn't suddenly change the whole game.

-The rules don't overlap with other rules This table doesn't have to replace or displace any other system in most other games.

-It's fun to read None of the entries stop at "functional". There's always some pithy description and some subrule or result tagged onto it. This is useful on account of:
1-Nobody's gonna decide to keep a table unless they read it, and...
2-You don't have to transfer it into game terms mentally to explain it to your players--they're written in such a way that you could just read them off the table to the group if you felt like it.

-You know why you're rolling on it Unlike this equally awesome table, the Carousing Mishaps provides color but is subtly more directed: you are rolling to see what horrible thing happened when you got drunk and how it will affect your next adventure. Story color is converted into mechanics in an interesting way. There will be a result and you, the DM, know roughly the scale of that result, so you know how much "design space" to let it have in your game--and you know it will mean something to your players.

-It doesn't make you do any work. It isn't one of those "Here's some ideas, make something up" tables. It's all right there.

-They're funny but don't force your game to be You do not necessarily have to shift over to Planet Gonzo to use these rules--partially because they compartmentalize the action into one small thing that happens at the end of a game.

_____

I'm sure there are other reasons and I'm sure I'll see them in the comments. But there you go: that's one way to write some genuinely useful rules.

Now, in the words of Jeff:

"Now somebody please go and post something twelve times cooler than my chart."

Experimental Samurai Battle

Testing yesterday's table-based mass combat system. I borrowed the two samurai armies that Noisms made up using his generator for my example because completely statted armies with disaggregated units complete with levels, weapons, and armor classes don't grow on trees.

Some additions/clarifications to the rules I've made:

Because they are extra mobile and can often run through other troops, cavalry appears more often on the chart than their numbers would indicate--heavy cavalry appears 3 times as much as a normal unit of their size, medium appears 4 times, light cavalry appears 5 times. i.e. if the enemy sees you slicing through them they can more easily send cavalry to intercept you than a foot unit.

Assume the archers are backing up some other unit (so it's essentially a 2-on-1 fight) and that the archer automatically gets to take a shot before the units close. Once the melee units have rolled initiative, archers may fire if they want, but a miss will hit their own guy (speeds things up). The attacking unit does not have to close with the archers to win that stage of the fight if the battle isn't mapped out in enough detail for that to be clear how that works, s/he just has to take out the other melee soldier. However, the archer gets one more shot on the enemy after the melee opponent goes down.

(If there were horse archers I would just run them as a normal fight.)

I assume spells capable of affecting large groups of people count as part of the battle, but I attached them to specific units unless they usually cause damage on their own.

For this particular battle, since the smallest units have 39 members, I used that as the base unit of measurement--i.e. for every 39 foot troops = one result on the table, for every 39 light cav = 5 results on the table, 39 med cav = 4 results, etc.

Lord Bakayaro's cavalry units each had 49 soldiers so I just added one more result to the table for each of his cavalry units.

For this engagement, I chose the simple, head-to-head option. That is: the 2 army lists are short, the "active" player is whichever side gets initiative (until s/he loses a fight, in which case the other player becomes active), and the winner of the last fight before the winning side burns through the other side's table is the winner of the whole thing.

Here is the line-up for the two sides

Lord Bakayaro_________

1 light infantry
2 lt inf
3 lt inf
4 lt inf
5 lt inf
8 heavy inf
9 heavy inf w/archers 0-lvl
10 heavy inf w/archers 0-lvl
11 light cav 0-level
12 lt cav
13 lt cav
14 lt cav
15 lt cav
16 lt cav
17 med cav
18 md cav
19 md cav
20 md cav
21 md cav

Lord Do-Aho

1 Light infantry
2 lt inf
3 lt inf
4 lt inf
7 light cav
8 lt cav
9 lt cav
10 lt cav
11 Heavy cavalry
12 Heavy cav
13 Heavy cavalry (hasted)
14 lt cav (attack from rear after "wall of stone")
15 lt cav (attack from rear after "wall of ice")
16 Heavy infantry w/ archers o-lvl (massmorphed and hidden)
17 Light infantry (w/3 sleep spells)
18 2-handed sword samurai (w/3 web spells)
19 Fireball (40' diameter sphere)

Clearly Bakayaro is the underdog here.

Let's roll initiative.

B: 4 DA: 6

Since Bakayaro's most powerful forces are fairly weak, DA is going to go for a shock and awe strategy, but is still going to keep his most powerful units in reserve. So: Unsupported heavy cavalry leads.

Fight 1:

Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, naginata, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 3

vs....roll a d4, add 3 for the horse's HD and 1 for fighter level, giving us...8! DA's men have penetrated deep into Bakayaro's lines and are now facing heavy infantry...

Foot Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, long spear, longsword (katana), heavy splint mail, AC 3

DA's mounted samurai win initiative. DM rules that since they're in the middle of a huge melee the samurai can either go for a trample or a regular attack on any given opponent, not both. The samurai graciously allows the horse to attack since it has a better chance and 3 attacks. It hits twice for...7 and then 3.

That's that for Bakayaro's heavy infantry, they suffer 10% casualties and are no longer a factor.

Since DA won, he keeps the initiative and rolls d4 + 4 again and adds it to 8 (since he was already at result 8 on the table) where he already was...16! Lord Overkill is on fire today.

Fight 2:

Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 10 hp, naginata, longsword (katana), heavy banded mail, AC 3

vs.

Mounted Samurai - 1-Level Fighters, 8 hp, naginata, short bow, longsword (katana), brigandine armour, AC 5

Initiative to DA again...DM rules the samurai can either have the horse bite for d3 or attack normally. Attacker swings his katana and...miss, his opponent also misses (due to BA's superior armor--that banded mail was a good investment), he hits for 5, opponent misses, he hits again for 7. The unit lasted 3 rounds, thus taking 30% casualties.

DA is kicking ass, if he rolls over a 1, he's gone off the chart and it's all over...

...3.

DA wins after 2 fights and 4 rounds of combat.

DA's heavy cavalry unit got in 2 fights, thus 20% casualties.

DA's other units take d% casualties per unit--no modifiers since they didn't lose any "spotlight" battles. Lord B's other units take d% +10% casualties since they lost 2 fights.

________

Advantages: it's fast and gives us the outline of a story about about how the battle went.

Disadvantages: if the players are playing one (or both) of the sides and the battle is this small (only 20 results on the table)--and they had some investment in building the tables--I can see them being disappointed that they didn't get to see their more interesting units fight. This might be somewhat remedied by running the PCs-are-always-active version, but a quick-resolution system is a quick-resolution system and there still seems (if you don't have the patience for such things that all DMs do) like there's an imbalance between building the army and seeing it play out.

Mass Battle Ideas From A Pendragon Hack

From The Great Pendragon Campaign, (5th ed I believe):

Battle of Camlann

The unique nature of this battle warrants this special table for the Gamemaster...

To start, roll 1d6 to find the foe for the first round. Each round thereafter, roll 1d6 and go that many points down the list to find the next foe.

When at the bottom of the list, go back to the top, counting each number. Since many of the troops are unique, scratch them off if they were devastated and go on to the next one.

Example: First round, the Gamemaster rolls a 4. The knights fight against Castle Guards. Next round, the Gamemaster rolls a 2, so the player knights fight against British Peasants.

Camlann Random Enemy Table

1 Arab Saracens (use Arab warrior stats)
2 Atecotti savages* (use Saxon chieftain stats)
3 British bandits (use bandit stats)...

and 45 more results after that, roughly growing in strength--"Personal Enemy" appears near the end there.

Possible hacks for this format of mass battle table:

-First, the obvious: Add more results--100 or more

-Need to pad out the chart? Several results could just be "goblin with 4 hp + number just rolled on die" or "# of goblins = # just rolled on die"

-Some results could just be: "enemy wizard casts Earthquake or Nassim's Skull Ocean, deal".

-Some results could just be "now you're fighting uphill, -1 to hit and damage for a number of fights = d4 minus your dex mod"

-Battle ends when PCs die or get to end of the table

-PCs fight enemy leader or other strategic objective once they battle through the whole table (like get past those orcs to knock down the multi-tusk elephant)

-Rather than rolling d6 to move up the table, PCs roll d4 and add either their worst dex modifier or highest fighter level to the result. If they are mounted, add the weakest mount's HD.

-Any single PC may make a wisdom check or fighter level check (roll under level on a d20) to re-roll an undesired result
_______

These tables can also be hacked so they don't just apply to PCs trying to make their way through a big battle, but for running a whole battle, with the PCs acting as generals.

-For a short mass battle, use shorter tables (10-30 results). PCs pick a kind of troop they'd like to "lead" with. That troop type (represented by one guy of that type) starts rolling on the enemy table and fighting until s/he dies. At that point, the PCs pick another unit. Whoever has the most victories by the end of the table wins. Or, whoever wins the last battle wins (this is tactically complex: if you lead with your strongest unit, they might get worn out before the end of the table--where the enemies' strongest troops lie. But if you lead with your weaker troops, they might roll high and end up facing a foe that outmatches them.) To get real complicated, it's whoever wins the most fights plus the last battle is worth 4 fights.

Casualty figures of losing units = % casualties of losing unit = 10% x # of rounds they lasted x.
So like if they lasted 4 rounds, they took 40% casualties.

Casualty figures of winning units = 10% x number of total fights they got in before losing.

Casualty figures of units not "zoomed in" on during the battle: the winner rolling d100% -5 per "leading" fight won and the loser rolling d100% +5 per lost fight.

-If both armies are equally detailed, you could do head to head tables: two sides each have a table. Winner of each fight rolls on enemy table, first one to end of other side's table wins. When you lose, you cross that troop type off the list and your table just shrank.

-Campaign idea: by running around the sandbox and making deals with local bigwigs, fancies, and muckamucks, make your table as long as you can in preparation for upcoming mass battle. When the battle comes, PCs get to play themselves running thru the enemy table PLUS all the foes the enemy rolls as s/he attempts to slog thru the PCs' table. (For this one, the two tables could be shorter than d100, so there's time for both sides.)

-You could "recruit" terrain results onto your side's table (like the 4th result above) by choosing terrain carefully.

-A PC casting a spell with a large area of effect or large # of foes affected could turn a number of results in the enemy's next coming roll into "deal with this spell" effects according to some scaling rule like for every 20 square feet or 20 troops affected that's 1 result on the enemy's next roll. If they survive, they re-rolling on the table from where they left off.

So if you cast a rock-to-mud and it affected a 40 square foot area that'd mean the enemy rolling a 1 or a 2 would result in the unit they're leading with having to deal with how the ground is now made of mud.

-(This is kinda like building a Magic:TG deck isn't it?)

-Recruitment scaling rules for the campaign idea: every 100 troops = 1 result so a 100-result table ( would require recruiting 10,000 troops. Which seems reasonable to me, assuming the PC fighters'll be pretty high level by the time they get to the battle. Special troops (centipedetaurs, giant landsquids) could be presumed to be recruited at a level of like 1 unit of whatever size (4 giant eagles? ok) is just worth 1 result due to how mobile or powerful they are. Cavalry could be like 5-to-1, so 25 cavalry are worth one result.

-Alternate scheme: attacker is always the one rolling, defender is the one who builds the table. Depends on whether you want the game to be about building the army and choosing the terrain, etc. or PCs' experience during the battle.

Attempt To List & Employ All The Random Tables I Like

Random tables I use (New ones will be added to this post as they come up. ).

-This guy does a new d12 table every day, I'm not going to list them all but I am going to call him awesome

-Random busted goblin machine
-Assignment Generator
-Secret Santicore (incl. mutations, secret doors, traps, bandits, merchants, etc.)
-Dead humanoid's pockets
-Weird city encounters
-Creepy witch spells
-Dungeon origins
-Bizarre urban locations
-Wizard obsessions
-10 potions
-Potion mishaps
-Men at arms
-d30 Scrap Princess Mutations
-100 More of those
-Random islands
-Hex dressing
-Random Castle Shenanigans
-What are the wandering monsters up to?
-What are the goblins up to?
-Carcosa situations
-Magic Candles
-Magic Ropes
-Peddlers of the Deep Dark
-Chaos Patrons
-Creepy combat commentary
-Dungeon Motivation
-The D30 tables
-There are several we gave Gary Gygax for his birthday
-Elf village traits
-Original Warhammer Realms of Chaos Mutation Table
-Hack Vornheim Contest Winners: including Random Tavern Entertainment, What's in That Grave, Random Criminals , Rival Adventuring Parties, Creepy Idol, The Theater Amphisbaena and Rural Inn Tavern
-The Too-Many-Too-List-Here Fruits of My Own Unfortunate Addiction Now Handily Grouped Under One Tag
-C's awesome Tricks, Empty Rooms and Basic Trap Design
-100 Reasons PCs are together
-Mutant Future Gear
-Random level 1 gear
New:
-Random nonmagic scrolls
-Telecanter's 20 Random potions w/identifying details
______
So my PCs are sailing south toward the Goblin Empire. I am going to try to use as many of the random tables here as I can to figure out what will happen once they arrive there.

What I actually roll for my PCs next session will be in white so they don't espy upon it. Highlight it to see what I'm planning...

-Random islands
This'll be..roll roll...on an island with an old mine. I hate mines (in games--in real life I knew miners so I got to play in them as a kid and actually loved them. Whole other story.). But hey:
-gotta start somewhere, and
-it is, I'm told, dark as a dungeon down in the mine. Which is a start.

-Hex dressing
...in an area marked by a boulder with a face carved or naturally in it.


-Random Castle Shenanigans
...the castle has a strong ally--another house? a creature? wizard?
More to the point: there's a castle.

-What are the wandering monsters up to?
When the PCs arrive, monsters are returning to their lair with treasure

-What are the goblins up to?
This is the Goblin Empire after all...they arrrrre...
"Playing tenpins with a skull and some legbones."
So: oblivious to the goings-on of the wandering monsters.

-Carcosa situations
"At least half of the village is ill to some degree or another. Rumours abound that someone has been poisoning the well." This would be the goblins worrying.
-Magic Candles
Glory Glow (30'R, 4 turns)- each of these candles is tied to an alignment. All within the radius of the candle light of the same alignment are +2 to saving throws and attack rolls.

This treasure will show up. I'm gonna say allegiance to the same cause or god since I don't use alignment...

-Magic Ropes
More treasure:
"Weightless Rope: this rope simply has no weight of note (1 coins worth), a man could manage 500 feet of it before the volume of the rope becomes too unwieldy."

-Peddlers of the Deep Dark
This guy's down in the mine...oh a pair of peddlers: gnome(reroll fuck that) human (what are humans doing here?). The haulers of the stuff are albino cave-bronts, they have a magic candle (oh, that's where that came from) and glow grubs

-Chaos Patrons
This'll be for the owner of the castle. And the patron is the powerful ally...
follows Mabelode the Faceless (ah, thus the disturbing faceless face carved into the rock), Chaos gift: "Rise, my servant!" - The next time the character is reduced to 10% of his hit point total, all his hit points are immediately restored. Albino -4 con. Ok, so we have to figure out a way this isn't Elric.

-Creepy combat commentary
During combat this chaos-worshipping albino is....
A self-cheerleader: says "you can do it, there a lot of them but your poison will take care of that" and things like that. "Worry not, The Lord Who Has No Face will smite them all in the end!"

-Dungeon Motivation
"Family member of PC afflicted with disease that can only be cured with the waters from a sacred subterranean spring."
Which makes sense, as the PCs are delivering a family member to the goblins.

-The D30 tables...
This is from the city events table:
"The army/navy needs soldiers/sailors. Pressed into short term duty." Basically: the goblins are assaulting the chaos-worshipping albino. They need help.

-There are several we gave Gary Gygax for his birthday

This is one for finding the origin of wizards...
Created using fire and the bodies of d20 children who were sacrificed explicitly for the purpose. Found magic item of clothing via sheer luck.

And one for elementals, so the villain has a pal...
oversized ice/water elemental--intelligent and curious

-Elf village traits
Assume goblin civilization is built on the ruins of an elf civilization:
"Bomb shelter type bunker, actual village destroyed by orcs forty or fifty years ago, new village blueprint still under review by planning committee"

In the mean time, goblins moved in. The albino elf came above ground (from the mine) and instead of telling the other elves their home had been stolen, just established some kinda Chaos-worshipping tyranny over the goblins.

-Original Warhammer Realms of Chaos Mutation Table

Half brain-leaf plant. Ok a brain-leaf plant is a plant that makes you a zombie. In D&D that ecological niche is filled by the Yellow Musk Creeper zombie, and here in my campaign it is filled by the Violet Leopard Orchid Zombie. Which explains why our albino elf abandoned his or her fellows: s/he's half zombie creeping vine monster and probably turned them all into orchid zombies by now.

Now according to the table above they are returning to their lair with treasure. What treasure?

-Hack Vornheim Contest Winners: including Random Tavern Entertainment, What's in That Grave, Random Criminals , Rival Adventuring Parties, Creepy Idol, The Theater Amphisbaena and Rural Inn Tavern

So, in the plague-blighted goblin town beneath Faceless Rock...

A bard troupe retells PCs previous exploits, in...

The inn of the Yellow Dog (not "Hound"--I renamed it after a German grindcore label). The food is amazingly good, due to the fact that the cook is a captured fae creature. It will plead for rescue (removal of iron horseshoe over kitchen door) through messages in marbled fat on meat, steam rising from stew, etc.

PCs (especially Elves/Magic Users) are attacked by vicious bedbugs in their sleep. These will inflict 1 damage every third round, ignoring armor & clothing. Observant PCs will note a trail of them leading to the innkeeper’s room. If they force the door, they will discover the innkeeper lying in bed, his eyes glazed over, a stream of bedbugs scuttling in & out of his mouth.

A group of travelling players are putting on a performance in the village square, costumed as the PCs. They are performing an episode from their adventures, though misrepresented. If the deed was noble and valorous, it is depicted as treacherous , cowardly, and bloodthirsty, and vice-versa.

(This makes sense, the PCs fended some goblin pirates on the way here, no doubt the pirates have been sailing home claiming to have been attacked by hideous human witches.)

We have, Tuan The Forsaken whose brain's in a glass case, who is an extorter.

(His racket today is actually more just blackmail: he knows who the PCs are and will tell the fellow goblins if they don't pay up.)

A coffin is filled with blood and puss. Spills out onto players and starts to burn. (ummm...chaos magic, I guess)

There is a competing adventuring party in the form of: The Progeny of Lorbis Vul. Core members consist of 4-6 vat-grown male and female humanoids, with skin dyed in a range of colors from sky blue to Vermillion, and marked on their foreheads with a seemingly random number from III – XXV. They are physically perfect, athletic specimens except for one glaring, disturbing flaw on their respective arms. Not readily apparent. They are seeking the whereabouts of Lorbis Vul, a notorious sorcerer. For now, they pay their way by adventuring. in possession of an enchanted object or talisman, not readily apparent as such.

Other events in the Yellow Dog:
Satireveritas escapes.
Satirevertias is "a giant amphisbaena greets guests from a gilded cage, twin heads bantering suavely sibilant evil with a voice like wasp stings in honey. Their palindromic name is Satireveritas and they adore gossip and scandal – learning it, spreading it, instigating it. The serpent’s other priorities are general mischief and the seduction of beautiful women. Its not unpleasant musk pervades the room."
Daytime: auditions (for future goblin entertainments)
Nightime: "The Wise Man’s Journey To Hell"
Random NPC there: Mullen Poag, Stagehand/Roustabout
Agent of rival theatre here to spy and sabotage. (Of course PCs will think he's an agent of The Faceless Lord.)

Creepy idol (worshipped by our villain): limbless female torso w/severed phalluses giving birth to monsters. it gives birth to monsters once every 20 days, contains evil genie 2 wishes remain.

-The Too-Many-Too-List-Here Fruits of My Own Unfortunate Addiction Now Handily Grouped Under One Tag

Also:

d4 Othuagg baboons (drugged, dyed, crazed babboons used as shock troops by goblins) (+1d6 goblins) eating tiger fly scouts

Intercepted letter: To my most clever and unfortunate friend, Lord Vortullak of Spine, I send greetings from both myself and from your hilarious mother. This past season has been no doubt, a black joke perpetrated on this family by the omnipotent author of all things. I trust you received the map I sent earlier, for otherwise you would be entirely unable to read the words I now set down. Though I am indeed made weary by the strain of maintaining this deception, I see the necessity in it, as, I am certain, do you. You must destroy the four lunatics in Orgus Waarg. To do otherwise is to risk what little you have left. Your most humble servant, Natasha

P.S. Before this is over, I will have what's rightfully mine, no matter what you've been told.

(Question: is the villain this "Natasha" or is it "Lord Vortullak"? Let's assume the lunatics are the PCs and Orgus Waarg is the name of the town. This means Lord Vortullak is the villain and this mysterious Natasha is either off-screen or the name of the limbless idol he worships.)

No security measure per se, but the only valuables in the house appear to be in the bedroom along with a young and attractive NPC who's tied up and gagged. Sophisticated PCs may realize that s/he's not necessarily a prisoner.

(um..ok, Zak, whatever you say)

Villain characteristics: Aura of silence, Murders mice and eats them.

Ok, so Lord Vortullak sits there eating mice all day. And he--and all his orchid zombies--project an aura of silence. I really like that--the pale undead straggle forward and crack your bones and eat your brains all without making a sound. That's obviously how leopard orchid zombies work I guess.

Hex describing table tells me:
Weird landscape, damaged city, intelligent monsters, light rain, humans want help from PCs, anarchy, goblins, they speak in iambic triameter. "When I insult the king, The frogs erupt in song"

Random treasure: Level 8 spell scroll (Drunk reversal--no save). Small carved figurine or chess piece of one of the PCs, precise in every detail, 25-28mm tall. Purpose unknown. Actually the figurine is a spell scroll and it is the artifact the rival adventuring party carries.

A corpse:
Major local importer. Trade is all screwy until the power struggle to replace him/her is over--everything costs 3 times as much locally. (this is the blood and pus filled coffin. Obviously this death was not natural.)

An npc:
helpful frightened likes fried food --an herbalist. Probably the sneaky stage hand spy.

So, altogether: sick goblin village and PC's relative, plagued by silent undead revenge elves and chaos magic sent by a mouse-eating albino elf villain while beneath the faceless rock a tavern below boils over with escaped snakes and friendly spies.