I just filled out the online survey about the first playtest materials I got for D&D Next. I manage an office that conducts market research, so I have a lot of experience with surveys. This one was nicely executed, not too long, and with enough open ended questions to allow me to feel like I had communicated everything I wanted to about my reactions to the materials.
One thing the D&D Next material has done is make me want to get out the materials from my long defunct 3e campaign and maybe run a one off session or two in the orcish lowlands with the characters from the playtest. I always statted up my 3e creatures in a stripped down format basically identical to the monster format in the playtest. I have a ton of low level material that would be perfect to throw against the pregen party. Maybe this will even inspire me to finally get on the Google+ gaming wagon.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
D&D Next - direction?
First off let me say that I hate the name of the next edition of D&D. It really makes you wonder what the next next edition of D&D will be called. It also gives one the sense, and not in a good way, that this is probably the last "official" version of D&D. Maybe they should just call it D&D Last.
One of the critiques of D&D Next that I have heard from many sources is its apparent lack of direction. It is pretty obviously a stripped down version of 3e with a couple of new ideas sprinkled in. To me, that is a direction. D&D Last would actually be an appropriate name because it is definitely a step back down the family tree away from 4e and closer to the roots of the game. It is closer to the last edition than the next. But in my opinion that is a good thing. I think a stripped down version of 3e with most of the skill system thrown out is not a bad edition of D&D. I will reserve final judgement until I see how complexity is added. If WOTC succeeds in giving options to the gamers that want to create really complex (mechanically) characters and still keeps the basic game this stripped down and light feeling, I personally will love it.
One of the critiques of D&D Next that I have heard from many sources is its apparent lack of direction. It is pretty obviously a stripped down version of 3e with a couple of new ideas sprinkled in. To me, that is a direction. D&D Last would actually be an appropriate name because it is definitely a step back down the family tree away from 4e and closer to the roots of the game. It is closer to the last edition than the next. But in my opinion that is a good thing. I think a stripped down version of 3e with most of the skill system thrown out is not a bad edition of D&D. I will reserve final judgement until I see how complexity is added. If WOTC succeeds in giving options to the gamers that want to create really complex (mechanically) characters and still keeps the basic game this stripped down and light feeling, I personally will love it.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
D&D Next
I signed up for the playtest a while back and downloaded the docs today. So far I have skimmed some of the play rules, looked at a couple of the pre-gen characters and spent some time looking through the bestiary.
Very brief first impressions: I like what I have seen so far a lot. "Old School" is a hard thing to put in a bottle but this feels a helluva lot closer to old school than 4e or even 3e ever did. If you doubt me just look at the bestiary for a while. I am pretty sure you could use the monsters as written with AD&D characters (or Labyrinth Lord) for that matter and have no problems. Of course the AC is ascending, but that is a cosmetic matter in my opinion. The monster abilities are very evocative and I got some good adventure ideas just reading through the bestiary. I cannot tell you how glad I was to see a "save or turn instantly and permanently into stone" after DMing 4e for a few years. I also like a lot about the character sheet. That cleric looks fun to play.
Even after less than an hour with the playtest I have an itch to both play and DM this thing.
I will definitely be spending some more time with this soon, perhaps a more thorough review will follow.
Very brief first impressions: I like what I have seen so far a lot. "Old School" is a hard thing to put in a bottle but this feels a helluva lot closer to old school than 4e or even 3e ever did. If you doubt me just look at the bestiary for a while. I am pretty sure you could use the monsters as written with AD&D characters (or Labyrinth Lord) for that matter and have no problems. Of course the AC is ascending, but that is a cosmetic matter in my opinion. The monster abilities are very evocative and I got some good adventure ideas just reading through the bestiary. I cannot tell you how glad I was to see a "save or turn instantly and permanently into stone" after DMing 4e for a few years. I also like a lot about the character sheet. That cleric looks fun to play.
Even after less than an hour with the playtest I have an itch to both play and DM this thing.
I will definitely be spending some more time with this soon, perhaps a more thorough review will follow.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Opal Island
This is a relic from the fall of 1998, my first semester at college (Tulane University). I was not actively gaming at the time but I still created game material as if I was. I recently found a notepad from back then that had a two page write up of the Opal House, and I think it is a pretty cool little locale. I have transcribed the text below, but I have also included the original two pages at the end of this post for shits and giggles. I left the text unedited with the exception of fixing a "they're - their" goof.
West Riverside, Opal House
Built on the muddy banks of the Chala River, dozens of ramshackle huts are home to Chala's poorer residents. Severe storms sometimes push the muddy river water up into this tangle of humanity, but there are always desperate people more than willing to throw up new shacks and call Chala home. The Opal House is the most infamous of the areas many bars / brothels / smokehouses. Built on the only permanent island among the myriad shifting sandbars of the Chala River, it is a three story structure built on a massive rock that juts out of the water. There are ferries that run on a cable between the isle and the mainland - the cost is 1 GP to go over to the island, but that fee includes free drinks and a bunk in one of the small bunkhouses if so desired.
[2012 Annotation: I am pretty sure the "small bunkhouses" I refer to are the 5 large one story buildings with a single door. There must have been a disconnect between the map drawing and the writing. One can only imagine the conditions inside those flop houses.]
The first floor of the Opal House is a bar with seating and tables. The air is smokey and music drifts in circles around the naked women dancing on platforms around the walls. Up one flight of stairs is a cushioned room. Silver hookahs snake their arms through a haze of sharta smoke to the mouths of the semi-conscious lying on the couches. Access to this upper level - another two gold coins paid to the slim, dark men standing in front of the stairway. Ten private rooms adjoin the main smoke room - tapestried and curtained off for privacy, more than a few deals and murders have occurred in their confines. One more flight of stairs leads to the brothel - drugged out men and women stumble up the velvet covered stairs and emerge into a blue dream. Rustling blue silk lines the floors, ceiling, and walls. An unseen and unfelt force moves the silk in gentle swaying motions, and blue-green light flickers out of silver balls that float in mid air. Passing out in this maze of hallucinations can be deadly - people have disappeared, and there is always a demand for drugged human bodies.Three gold at the door, and you can have a night of delirium on the third floor of the Opal House. Ferries back to the mainland leave every half hour - 12 person capacity, 1 SP each.
Opal Island is riddled with caves formed when limestone intrusions in the granite rock dissolved in the river water. Several of these caves have been linked together by Sama Shadow and serve as store rooms and secret meeting halls for the mysterious man. These caves and store rooms are usually empty - occasionally, hired hands will be loading or unloading boxes of wine, black lotus, sharta and lak. These boxes are marked with Sama Shadows emblem, a black orb in front of crossed silver scimitars. The northern store room has a wooden shield bearing Sama's standard - the orb and scimitars over a field of gold. It hangs on the east wall, and pressing on the orb opens the sliding panel. The lower levels are very damp and seldom used for anything other than holding drugged bodies.
The lowest levels are home to Sama Shadows "servants". In the first cave a horrific snake demon coils and flexes in the dark devouring virgin sacrifices and waiting for Sama Shadow to summon its services. The lower cave swarms with larva, twisted yellow worms with human faces. Sam Shadow uses these monstrosities as currency in many of his dealings.
Sam Shadow keeps beautiful women in the upper cells - their noses are plugged and a pipe inserted into their mouths. With every breath in and out they inhale a blend of sharta and black lotus. After weeks of this, they are beautiful compliant puppets. In the large cage, men and women who ended up in Shadow's care huddle terrified in their own feces awaiting their fate - there is always a market for deaf and dumb slaves, their will broken by Sama Khadoum... Two skeletons guard the long hall, terrifyingly resilient and resistant to damage. A ladder in the corner of the first room leads up to a small cave with a submerged tunnel leading into the river, close to the main dock.
West Riverside, Opal House
Built on the muddy banks of the Chala River, dozens of ramshackle huts are home to Chala's poorer residents. Severe storms sometimes push the muddy river water up into this tangle of humanity, but there are always desperate people more than willing to throw up new shacks and call Chala home. The Opal House is the most infamous of the areas many bars / brothels / smokehouses. Built on the only permanent island among the myriad shifting sandbars of the Chala River, it is a three story structure built on a massive rock that juts out of the water. There are ferries that run on a cable between the isle and the mainland - the cost is 1 GP to go over to the island, but that fee includes free drinks and a bunk in one of the small bunkhouses if so desired.
[2012 Annotation: I am pretty sure the "small bunkhouses" I refer to are the 5 large one story buildings with a single door. There must have been a disconnect between the map drawing and the writing. One can only imagine the conditions inside those flop houses.]
The first floor of the Opal House is a bar with seating and tables. The air is smokey and music drifts in circles around the naked women dancing on platforms around the walls. Up one flight of stairs is a cushioned room. Silver hookahs snake their arms through a haze of sharta smoke to the mouths of the semi-conscious lying on the couches. Access to this upper level - another two gold coins paid to the slim, dark men standing in front of the stairway. Ten private rooms adjoin the main smoke room - tapestried and curtained off for privacy, more than a few deals and murders have occurred in their confines. One more flight of stairs leads to the brothel - drugged out men and women stumble up the velvet covered stairs and emerge into a blue dream. Rustling blue silk lines the floors, ceiling, and walls. An unseen and unfelt force moves the silk in gentle swaying motions, and blue-green light flickers out of silver balls that float in mid air. Passing out in this maze of hallucinations can be deadly - people have disappeared, and there is always a demand for drugged human bodies.Three gold at the door, and you can have a night of delirium on the third floor of the Opal House. Ferries back to the mainland leave every half hour - 12 person capacity, 1 SP each.
Opal Island is riddled with caves formed when limestone intrusions in the granite rock dissolved in the river water. Several of these caves have been linked together by Sama Shadow and serve as store rooms and secret meeting halls for the mysterious man. These caves and store rooms are usually empty - occasionally, hired hands will be loading or unloading boxes of wine, black lotus, sharta and lak. These boxes are marked with Sama Shadows emblem, a black orb in front of crossed silver scimitars. The northern store room has a wooden shield bearing Sama's standard - the orb and scimitars over a field of gold. It hangs on the east wall, and pressing on the orb opens the sliding panel. The lower levels are very damp and seldom used for anything other than holding drugged bodies.
Sam Shadow keeps beautiful women in the upper cells - their noses are plugged and a pipe inserted into their mouths. With every breath in and out they inhale a blend of sharta and black lotus. After weeks of this, they are beautiful compliant puppets. In the large cage, men and women who ended up in Shadow's care huddle terrified in their own feces awaiting their fate - there is always a market for deaf and dumb slaves, their will broken by Sama Khadoum... Two skeletons guard the long hall, terrifyingly resilient and resistant to damage. A ladder in the corner of the first room leads up to a small cave with a submerged tunnel leading into the river, close to the main dock.
Alien Insects - Tube Sucker
Tube Sucker
Number Encountered: 1d6: 1-5: solo tube sucker, 6: encounter 2d6 tube suckers
Move: Jump 6 Initiative: +15 Perception: +25
HP:150
AC: 25 (35 in full retracted mode)
REF: 26 (20 in full retracted mode)
FORT: 24 (40 in full retracted mode)
WILL:22
Minor: Full Retracted Mode: The tube sucker pulls all extremities inside the central body and turtles up.
Minor: Tractor Beam: ranged 15 +20 vs.FORT, pull target 1d4+1 squares
Standard: Stomach Tube: melee reach 1, +22 vs AC, 3d12+12 acid dmg, ongoing 12 acid save ends, pull target 1d4+1 squares.
Recharge 4,5,6: Claw Pounce: Jump 6 and make 3 x Claw attacks vs target, this move does not provoke attacks of opportunity, if all 3 Claw attacks land make a Stomach Tube attack at +26 vs. AC.
The ubiquitous tube sucker is the aquarium cleaner of the alien planet's surface. Three metal plated tentacles ending in wicked claws emerge from the 5' spherical body, itself a metal plated ball of muscle. A charged gas cloud inside the body serves as a simple brain, and three organs floating in the gas detect electro-magnetic radiation and minute vibrations. A 10' long flexible tube containing an acid-filled stomach exerts a telekinetic pull on living organisms.
The tube sucker reproduces asexually, a new organism forming like a corm on the outside of the parent's body. Even the youngest, newly separated tube sucker has the claw and stomach attacks described above, and they typically grow to full size in very short order feeding on the detritus left by the winter storms. Their ability to quickly assume a fully retracted spherical form allows them to survive even the harshest of winter storms. Their gas cloud brain is not affected by the constant jarring as the metal plated sphere of muscle surrounding it bounces across the landscape.
Tube suckers usually drift around alone, but occasionally groups are encountered. Often the group has its origin at a large food source nearby, such as a downed red layer giant gas body. Hundreds of tube suckers might be found at a fresh collision site, sucking up the thick layer of organic debris.
Tube suckers seem to be constantly hungry no matter how much material they dissolve in their tube stomachs. The particular kind of acid found in the tube stomach has a connection to shadow in its molecular structure. It has a constant supply of hungry ions that stream into existence from beyond. A shadow organ at the base of the tube sends the byproducts of the digestive process through shadow to re-incorporate as energy elsewhere in trans-dimensional space time. It is possible that every living tube sucker is part of a single larger entity elsewhere, the functional mouths of a multi-dimensional being.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Alien Spore Thrasher
The Alien Spore Thrasher is a parasitic organism that propagates with special spores that drift around looking for a suitable, moist, living environment to start growing in. A tiny intermediary form is assumed by the thrasher, barely anything more than several sacks that produce a mixture of venomous secretions and a set of mouthlike tubes that connect to the host organism. The spore thrasher kills its host in short order and consumes its body to grow the thrashing fruiting body depicted above. The stats below are for the fruiting bodies of large spore thrashers that grow in the metal arm forest ecosystem from the body of fallen metal arm trees.
HP: 1d4 x 100 HP
AC:20 FORT:22 REF:25 WILL:18
Basic Attack: melee reach 1 Thrash +12 vs. REF, 5d12 dmg
Minor Recharge 4,5,6: Release Poison Spore Cloud Close Burst 1d6(6's explode on the radius of the burst roll- roll an extra 1d6, all subsequent 6's also explode) (choose 1 spore type)
Spores:
Redirecting Cloud : Until the end of the Alien Spore Thrasher's next turn, if any enemy rolls a natural 1-4 on a melee attack roll, the thrasher chooses a new target for the attack and the enemy must reroll against the new target.
Stupifying Cloud: Persists for 1d6 rounds. Any creature beginning its turn in the cloud or entering the cloud must immediately make a save or become dazed, save ends.
Blinding Cloud: Persists for 1d8 rounds. Any creature beginning its turn in the cloud or entering the cloud must immediately make a save or become blinded, save ends at -2.
Infecting Spores: +20 vs. FORT vs. all in burst. Those hit are infected. The tiny growing organism rolls Stealth +30 to hide its presence (and avoid future heal checks). 1d4 days incubation period. -3d12 HP from Max HP total. Save at -2 each extended rest or the infection progresses, -1d12 additional HP from Max HP total. Three consecutive saves ends the infection, as does magical healing specifically targeted at the infecting organism.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Alien Insects
I have been on a really productive streak lately in my 4e game as far as generating new material. Most of the time I spend doing DM prep work is in creating new individuals or species for the party to encounter and detailing environments and locations for those encounters to happen in.
Twists and turns in the game have led the party to leave the jungle that they have been adventuring in for a couple dozen sessions and explore an alien planet in another dimension. Different dimensions in my game have different rules for how energy and matter behave. This planet has a solid metallic core that slowly cooled, forming well separated bands of different metals at different depths. Some of these metals can take a gaseous form if subjected to an intense energy charge, and some take a crystalline form when the gaseous form is cooled. Some of the metals have natural connections through shadow to other dimensions, giving them wondrous properties such as 10 x elasticity or compounding energy storage.
During the planet's summer, when it is closest to the sun in its very elliptical orbit, the heavy gasses of the atmosphere stay a few thousand feet above the surface of the planet, but during the long winter the planet grows cold and the gasses blanket the surface. Most of the planet's biomass lives in the atmosphere; the bottom of the food chain are tiny chemosynthetic organisms with bouyant gas bladders which produce a strong bioluminescence as a by-product of digesting metallic gasses. The light visible on the planet's surface is entirely the result of these glowing zooclouds.
During the winter storms, cold winds send tons of atmospheric life smashing into the planet's surface. An entire ecosystem that mostly hibernates during the summer and comes to life in the winter specializes in cleaning up the detritus, eating the cleaner-uppers, eating the eaters, etc.
I have made up dozens of alien species, many blurring the line between plant, animal and insect. And luckily I can now post about them even before they are discovered by the party! Last session Tilia and a giant elder dragonfly creature shared a mind meld (Tilia has a nature spirit living inside of her which facilitates such things). The ancient creature imparted thousands of years of encounters with the planet's denizens to Tilia, nearly killing her in the process with an overload of energy to the brain. I gave Tilia a bonus to knowledge and nature checks conducted on this planet as a result, but I also thought it would be fun to post some creatures here so Mike (Tilia's player) can actually gain some real game knowledge that might be very useful... starting with the creatures that were swooping in to engage Tilia in combat when we paused at the end of last session!
Ice Fly (adult form) Initiative: +50 (superconductive nervous system) Stealth: +25 Perception: +25
HP: 30 Movement: 15 Flight Hover
AC: 40 Shift 5 Fly as a minor action
FORT: 30
REF: 50
WILL: 30 (an incoming attack must hit the WILL defense twice to connect - superconductive nervous system)
Aura 1: Stinger Spine Aura: Any creature that starts its turn in, moves into, or has the aura move past it suffers the following attack: Im. Reaction, melee +30 vs. Reflex, 5 dmg, ongoing 5 (stackable) save ends. All damage done by the stinger spines also deals stackable ongoing damage because shadow connections are made that enable the ice fly to keep pumping a very effective cocktail of anticoagulents and uppers into the victim until a successful save is made. Any creature taking 20+ points of ongoing damage from this gains an extra minor action, taking 30+ gains an extra move action, taking 40+ gains an extra standard action due to the stimulant effect.
Basic Attacks: Stinger Spines (melee +35 vs REF, 3d6+5, ongoing 5 [stackable] save ends);
or Pincer Mouth (melee +35 vs REF, 2d12+8 and slowed save ends. The target is also marked.)
Standard Attacks: 2 x Tail Stinger Spines OR Tail Stinger Spine/Pincer Mouth combo
Recharge 4,5,6: Blinding Dance: Close Burst 10, +25 vs Will against all enemies in burst, Dazed and Blinded, save ends at -2, and the ice fly can teleport to any point within the burst.
Recharge 6: Swarming Flies: Remove ice fly from play. Place 4 ice fly tokens at the corners of a 5 x 5 close burst 2. Each token has Aura 1 Tail Spine Aura and cannot be targeted by melee attacks. Each token shifts 10 squares. Remove ice fly tokens from map and place ice fly at any point in the original burst. The ice fly gains 40 temporary HP.
Encounter: Ice Fly Arrow: move 30 fly (must move at least 10) and make the following attack at any point during the move: +40 vs. REF, 5d12 dmg +Blinded +Slowed, save ends at -2, and the target is marked.
Mark: If marked enemy takes a move action, the ice fly shifts 10
The ice fly is a feared predator of the boundary between the red layer and the uppermost blue layer of the atmosphere. Its exoskeleton is metallic crystal, and its nervous system is entirely made up of a superconductive metal that actually transmits signals many times faster than the speed of light.
Nymph Form: Ice Fly Nymphs live in liquid gas lakes that pool on the upper surface of the floating living islands in the red layer of the atmosphere. They are also feared predators.
Twists and turns in the game have led the party to leave the jungle that they have been adventuring in for a couple dozen sessions and explore an alien planet in another dimension. Different dimensions in my game have different rules for how energy and matter behave. This planet has a solid metallic core that slowly cooled, forming well separated bands of different metals at different depths. Some of these metals can take a gaseous form if subjected to an intense energy charge, and some take a crystalline form when the gaseous form is cooled. Some of the metals have natural connections through shadow to other dimensions, giving them wondrous properties such as 10 x elasticity or compounding energy storage.
During the planet's summer, when it is closest to the sun in its very elliptical orbit, the heavy gasses of the atmosphere stay a few thousand feet above the surface of the planet, but during the long winter the planet grows cold and the gasses blanket the surface. Most of the planet's biomass lives in the atmosphere; the bottom of the food chain are tiny chemosynthetic organisms with bouyant gas bladders which produce a strong bioluminescence as a by-product of digesting metallic gasses. The light visible on the planet's surface is entirely the result of these glowing zooclouds.
During the winter storms, cold winds send tons of atmospheric life smashing into the planet's surface. An entire ecosystem that mostly hibernates during the summer and comes to life in the winter specializes in cleaning up the detritus, eating the cleaner-uppers, eating the eaters, etc.
I have made up dozens of alien species, many blurring the line between plant, animal and insect. And luckily I can now post about them even before they are discovered by the party! Last session Tilia and a giant elder dragonfly creature shared a mind meld (Tilia has a nature spirit living inside of her which facilitates such things). The ancient creature imparted thousands of years of encounters with the planet's denizens to Tilia, nearly killing her in the process with an overload of energy to the brain. I gave Tilia a bonus to knowledge and nature checks conducted on this planet as a result, but I also thought it would be fun to post some creatures here so Mike (Tilia's player) can actually gain some real game knowledge that might be very useful... starting with the creatures that were swooping in to engage Tilia in combat when we paused at the end of last session!
Ice Fly (adult form) Initiative: +50 (superconductive nervous system) Stealth: +25 Perception: +25
HP: 30 Movement: 15 Flight Hover
AC: 40 Shift 5 Fly as a minor action
FORT: 30
REF: 50
WILL: 30 (an incoming attack must hit the WILL defense twice to connect - superconductive nervous system)
Aura 1: Stinger Spine Aura: Any creature that starts its turn in, moves into, or has the aura move past it suffers the following attack: Im. Reaction, melee +30 vs. Reflex, 5 dmg, ongoing 5 (stackable) save ends. All damage done by the stinger spines also deals stackable ongoing damage because shadow connections are made that enable the ice fly to keep pumping a very effective cocktail of anticoagulents and uppers into the victim until a successful save is made. Any creature taking 20+ points of ongoing damage from this gains an extra minor action, taking 30+ gains an extra move action, taking 40+ gains an extra standard action due to the stimulant effect.
Basic Attacks: Stinger Spines (melee +35 vs REF, 3d6+5, ongoing 5 [stackable] save ends);
or Pincer Mouth (melee +35 vs REF, 2d12+8 and slowed save ends. The target is also marked.)
Standard Attacks: 2 x Tail Stinger Spines OR Tail Stinger Spine/Pincer Mouth combo
Recharge 4,5,6: Blinding Dance: Close Burst 10, +25 vs Will against all enemies in burst, Dazed and Blinded, save ends at -2, and the ice fly can teleport to any point within the burst.
Recharge 6: Swarming Flies: Remove ice fly from play. Place 4 ice fly tokens at the corners of a 5 x 5 close burst 2. Each token has Aura 1 Tail Spine Aura and cannot be targeted by melee attacks. Each token shifts 10 squares. Remove ice fly tokens from map and place ice fly at any point in the original burst. The ice fly gains 40 temporary HP.
Encounter: Ice Fly Arrow: move 30 fly (must move at least 10) and make the following attack at any point during the move: +40 vs. REF, 5d12 dmg +Blinded +Slowed, save ends at -2, and the target is marked.
Mark: If marked enemy takes a move action, the ice fly shifts 10
The ice fly is a feared predator of the boundary between the red layer and the uppermost blue layer of the atmosphere. Its exoskeleton is metallic crystal, and its nervous system is entirely made up of a superconductive metal that actually transmits signals many times faster than the speed of light.
Nymph Form: Ice Fly Nymphs live in liquid gas lakes that pool on the upper surface of the floating living islands in the red layer of the atmosphere. They are also feared predators.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Beautiful Bob Blew Up the Hovercraft
Every other Friday I preside over a 4e campaign. Calling it "4e" is more than a bit of a stretch, as I add new magic and new rules every single session and it ends up being "D&D - Carl's (gonzo/sci-fi/morally relativistic) Flavor" whether we are playing Mutant Future or Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition.
I have gotten in trouble before claiming that 4e and Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and B/X et al are all functionally the same thing in the moment of true immersion in game play. I still stand by that point, but I will content myself with noting that no matter for what edition I play Dungeon Master, the players will always surprise me.
A couple of weeks back, I was totally flabbergasted when Beautiful Bob activated the overload circuit that he had built into the ship at its creation (the entire hovercraft is a magical item created by the party, indestructible by normal means) and let loose all the magical energy stored in its battery in a tremendous explosion to prevent it from being towed to an unknown location. Maybe even more surprising, the other players did not protest at all.
A tiny bit of back story: the party was exploring a completely alien planet in another dimension, having left the hovercraft behind well hidden in the canopy of the jungle, guarded by the brothers Beobob and Beebul of the fierce people. The hovercraft was the destination of the matched teleporter coins each party member held as a get-a-way option. The hovercraft held Hammer's alternate mechanical/magical bodies (a Warforged Barbarian at character creation, Hammer has subsequently bound his soul and intelligence into a magical crystal that can be mounted in different bodies, allowing him different builds and classes as long as he keeps the same base INT, WIS and CHA scores). The hovercraft held the largest piece of meteorite metal the party had found, an amazing natural battery capable of storing tremendous amounts of power... which the party had charged completely full by draining a giant whirlpool portal to another dimension. The hovercraft had 20 rail guns constructed of Brood X leg blasters linked to the central battery with focusing lenses harvested from the eyes of the brood of Kariki Kalos.
And Beautiful Bob blew it all up without a second thought. Honestly, the hovercraft was the one thing that had made travelling around in the jungle during the wet season feasible, and its firepower when fully manned by native gunners was a powerful deterrent to the devil bounty hunters and everyone else that the party has pissed off so far.
Of course, the party already has plans for how to make an even better hovercraft...
I have gotten in trouble before claiming that 4e and Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and B/X et al are all functionally the same thing in the moment of true immersion in game play. I still stand by that point, but I will content myself with noting that no matter for what edition I play Dungeon Master, the players will always surprise me.
A couple of weeks back, I was totally flabbergasted when Beautiful Bob activated the overload circuit that he had built into the ship at its creation (the entire hovercraft is a magical item created by the party, indestructible by normal means) and let loose all the magical energy stored in its battery in a tremendous explosion to prevent it from being towed to an unknown location. Maybe even more surprising, the other players did not protest at all.
A tiny bit of back story: the party was exploring a completely alien planet in another dimension, having left the hovercraft behind well hidden in the canopy of the jungle, guarded by the brothers Beobob and Beebul of the fierce people. The hovercraft was the destination of the matched teleporter coins each party member held as a get-a-way option. The hovercraft held Hammer's alternate mechanical/magical bodies (a Warforged Barbarian at character creation, Hammer has subsequently bound his soul and intelligence into a magical crystal that can be mounted in different bodies, allowing him different builds and classes as long as he keeps the same base INT, WIS and CHA scores). The hovercraft held the largest piece of meteorite metal the party had found, an amazing natural battery capable of storing tremendous amounts of power... which the party had charged completely full by draining a giant whirlpool portal to another dimension. The hovercraft had 20 rail guns constructed of Brood X leg blasters linked to the central battery with focusing lenses harvested from the eyes of the brood of Kariki Kalos.
And Beautiful Bob blew it all up without a second thought. Honestly, the hovercraft was the one thing that had made travelling around in the jungle during the wet season feasible, and its firepower when fully manned by native gunners was a powerful deterrent to the devil bounty hunters and everyone else that the party has pissed off so far.
Of course, the party already has plans for how to make an even better hovercraft...
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Better partial and late than never...
So Mike Monaco's awesome Iron Chef adventure challenge has long since come and gone, but I am still planning on finishing up my "entry" one of these days. I took a new job that involved getting trained and then starting an office up that had been closed due to widespread corruption for several months. I literally did not have a day off except for Thanksgiving and Christmas for several months. Real life once again intrudes on an awesome hobby!
Of course, I kept up on my DMing duties and (mostly) on my player's duties in my buddy Carter's campaign, so it is not like I totally left D&D behind for a few months. I just haven't kept up on my bloggerly duties.
I am going to try to dust off what I had started for the challenge and present it here, starting with some (incomplete) random encounter tables. This first post does not really have anything to do with the cards I got, directly. These are incomplete random encounter tables for road travel through the abandoned vineyards and farmlands outside of the last frontier town. The wilderness setting I came up with was directly influenced by the cards, but no cards show up in these charts. If I had finished the Hex Special Chart the cards would have been more directly involved.
Obviously I never started the "Animal Encounter", "Civilized Encounter", "Rare Animal", "Rare Person" and "Hex Special Chart" sub charts. The hex special chart was going to be a big 2d20 chart of special encounters and unique places that would not get put on the map until rolled randomly. Groups of hexes could share a Hex Special Chart, but a result could only be placed in one hex, subsequent rolls of that result calling for a reroll. Some hexes might have a unique Hex Special Chart, while other large tracts (of similar farmland type, for instance) might all share one Hex Special Chart.
I was going to do a similar type of encounter chart for offroad farmland travel, town outskirts and town, the hot springs area, forest edge/ mixed forest, deep forest, forest swamp, and mountains.
Of course that would have been a crazy amount of work! The next time I start a "traditional", more western / Tolkien / pseudo-medieval game I would like to do something like this, however. I have never been satisfied by traditional random encounter tables. Encounter or No Encounter does not seem like a good initial result; using my charts, every hex will have some kind of randomly generated feature to spur the imagination of DMs and players, and that does not necessarily just mean the potential for combat. An unattended herd of cattle is an extremely unlikely result to roll, but it is also essentially a big pile of loot just sitting there in the middle of the road. But if the party succumbs to temptation, whose cattle were they? Who will come looking for them?
I like the highly varied results of the basic structure of two bell bell shaped 2d6 charts multiplying and then multiplying by at least a 1d6 with three results to get the final outcome. For instance, you would have to travel through 3888 hexes on average to encounter a large enough wildfire to block your path while travelling on a farmland road (1 in 18 chance of getting a result of "Physical Obstacle" on the original 2d6 throw, 1 in 36 chance of getting a "Fire" result on the second 2d6 throw, and a 1 in 6 chance of getting a large fire result on the final throw).
The probabilities get too complicated for me to figure out quickly in my head when you start talking about a 1 in 36 chance of rolling on the Special Hex Chart multiplied by a bell shaped 2d20 chart. At its simplest, a result of 2 or 40 on the 2d20 chart would only happen once every 14,400 times! Outlier rolls on the Special Hex Charts were going to call for extra planar activity, including a chance for a roll on the gate to random plane opening and things coming across chart.
What I was trying to accomplish was to change the basic dynamic of the random encounter roll. As usually played in D&D a single roll (often a 1 or a 6 on 1d6) determines if there is an encounter; if there is an encounter, a second roll on the encounter chart determines what the encounter is. This leads to frustrating results occasionally (three straight "random" encounters with black dragons on a road trip by wagon in Carter's campaign come to mind) and it is usually fairly obvious to the players if the result of the initial throw was "no encounter" so the basic mechanic does not build excitement well. The first throw on my charts is not a chance to see if there is or is not an encounter, it is a check to see what kind of encounter occurs when the hex is traveled through. It can and should be rolled each time the hex is traveled through! It is an acknowledgement that if you spent time in any chunk of land on the map, you would keep finding "things of interest". No DM will have these detailed out beforehand, but there is no reason that the random charts cannot combine "encounters" and "physical features" and even blur the lines between the two. For instance, rolling a possibly dangerous encounter is an outlier result on the initial throw, snake eyes. 1 in 36 chance to even get to roll on what would be the only chart in a standard D&D random encounter system. Rolling a physical obstacle to encounter while travelling through the hex is twice as likely, but still something of an outlier result. But if the "Thorn Bushes choke the road" result is thrown on the Physical Obstacle chart, itself a 1 in 18 result like the first throw, there is a slim chance that a possibly very dangerous encounter will be rolled in the form of a witch living in the middle of a large briar patch, armed with both wizardly and clerical spells, potions, and poisons.
I probably won't finish the planned charts for the challenge, but I will still put the main gist of my ideas out there in the next few posts. My cards inspired a creative twist on the traditional frontier sandbox, and I can't wait to show how a Moon Dragon, a Sun Dragon, and an Astral Dragon all fit into it!
Of course, I kept up on my DMing duties and (mostly) on my player's duties in my buddy Carter's campaign, so it is not like I totally left D&D behind for a few months. I just haven't kept up on my bloggerly duties.
I am going to try to dust off what I had started for the challenge and present it here, starting with some (incomplete) random encounter tables. This first post does not really have anything to do with the cards I got, directly. These are incomplete random encounter tables for road travel through the abandoned vineyards and farmlands outside of the last frontier town. The wilderness setting I came up with was directly influenced by the cards, but no cards show up in these charts. If I had finished the Hex Special Chart the cards would have been more directly involved.
Farmland (road travel): (2d6 - roll once per hex traveled across)
2: Possibly Dangerous Encounter
3: Physical Obstacle
4-5: Physical Feature
6-7: Animal Encounter
8-9: Civilized Encounter
10: Rare Animal
11: Rare Person
12: Roll on the Special Chart for this hex
2: Possibly Dangerous Encounter
3: Physical Obstacle
4-5: Physical Feature
6-7: Animal Encounter
8-9: Civilized Encounter
10: Rare Animal
11: Rare Person
12: Roll on the Special Chart for this hex
2: Possibly Dangerous Encounter (Farmland Road) (2d6)
2:Aggressive Wild Boars at the edge of the road roll 1d6: 1-3: 1d4 3 HD boars and 1d4 2 HD sows, 4-5: 1d4 3 HD boars and 2d4 2 HD sows, 6: 1 5 HD boar, 1d6 3 HD boars and 2d6 2 HD sows
3: Biting Fly Swarm persists for 1d6 turns (Save vs. Poison every turn if no precautions taken - minor fever persists for 2d6 days, unless double sixes are rolled for duration; then Save vs. Poison again or drop into a potentially fatal fever coma)
4:Ground Wasp Nest (roll for surprise; if surprised, swarm targets random PC, attacking each round like a 5 HD monster, 2d4 damage, pursuing for 2d6 rounds. Other PCs that remain in the area or attempt to help must Save vs. Spells or find themselves targeted as well using the same rules.
5-6: Aggressive Dog on the road roll 1d6: 1-3: 1d6 1 HD stray dogs, 4-5: 2+1 HD Guard Dog, 6: 1d4 2+1 HD Guard Dogs
7-8: Local Drunks (Thugs) in a foul mood roll 1d6: 1-3: two 0-level thugs, 4: 1d4 0-level thugs; 5: 1d4 1st level thugs; 6: 1d4 2nd level thugs and 1 3rd level thug)
9:Fracas in the Field roll 1d6: 1-3: 2d6 1 HD Hired Hands quarrelling, 4-5: 1d4 2 HD Hunters pursuing game, 6: Predator attacking a calf (1d6, 1-3: 2d6 wolves,4-5: mountain lion, 6: one mountain lion attacks, one mountain lion is hidden)
10: Aggressive Bull on the road roll 1d6: 1-3: 5 HD, 1d8 charge, 1d6 trample 4-5: 6 HD, 2d6 charge, 1d8 trample; 6: 7 HD, 2d6 charge, 2d6 trample
11: Travelling Sellswords approach roll 1d6: 1-3: 1d4 2nd level fighters; 4: 1d4 3rd level fighters on horseback; 5: two 5th level fighters on horseback with 1d6 extra horses and 2d4 1st level fighters; 6: 1 8th level fighter in wagon, 2d4 3rd level fighters on horseback and 2d6 1st level fighters
12: Poisonous Critter roll 1d6: 1-3: Snake, random PC or horse is attacked (1 HD, 1 damage, Save vs. Poison if not wearing boots or take 3d6 damage), 4-5: Large Snake, random target is attacked (3 HD, 1d6 damage, Save vs. Poison or take 5d6 damage), 6: Scorpion (1 HD) attacks random party member or horse, Save vs. Poison or Death
3: Physical Obstacle (Farmland Road) (2d6)
2-3: Fallen Tree
4-5: Herd of Sheep (4d8 sheep) roll 1d6: 1-5: herded by 1d4 1HD sheep dog (1 HD shepherd within earshot), 6: unattended
6-7: Herd of Cows (4d6 cows: if number of cows is 4-8: roll 1d10, 9-12: roll 2d6, 13-15: roll 1d12, 16-20: roll 3d6, 21-24: roll 1d20) : 1-10: herded by 1 1HD mounted farmhand and two 1 HD dogs, 11: herded by 2 1 HD mounted farmhands, 12: herded by 2 2HD mounted farmhands and 1d4 1 HD dogs, 13-15: herded by 1d4 mounted 1 HD farmhands and 1d6 1 HD dogs, 16-17: herded by 1d6 mounted 1 HD farmhands and 1d6 1 HD dogs, 18-19: 20: unattended
8-9: Washed Out Section (1d6 turns of travel, 10% chance per turn of a wheel breaking or horse turning an ankle unless speed is reduced)
10: Broken Down Wagon roll 1d6: 1-3: abandoned full of produce, 4-5: 1d4 children waiting for pa to return, 6: full of beer kegs, being pulled by two brothers, runaway horse
11: Large Boulder (2d6 hundred pounds)
12: Fire roll 1d6 1-3: small field fire, 4-5: large field fire, restricts visibility, extends 1d6 turns, 6: large fire blocks path for 2d6 turns ahead
4: Physical Feature (Farmland Road) (2d6) (all buildings are set back from the main road, dwellings accessible by a well defined path)
2: Bridge over chasm roll 1d6: 1-4: Wood Bridge, 5-6: Stone Bridge
3: Stone Wall roll 1d6: 1-4: mostly fallen, 5: in poor repair, 6: in good repair
4:Wooden Fence roll 1d6: 1-3: in poor repair, 4-5: in good repair, 6: freshly painted white
5: Old Orchard roll 1d6: 1:Apple, 2: Pear, 3: Nectarine, 4: Peach, 5: Plum, 6:Cherry
6: Stand of Hard Wood (good quality, straight grain, old trees)
7: Outbuilding roll 1d6: 1-3: 3 sided cattle shelter, 4: Barn, 5: Grain Silo, 6: Bunk for Hired Hands
8: Corral roll 1d8: 1-3: 2d6 pigs, 4: 2d6 goats, 5: 4d8 sheep, 6: 4d6 cows, 7: 2d6 horses 8: abandoned and now home to a huge honey bee hive in the old trough
9: Farm House roll 1d8: 1-2: abandoned, 3-4: 1 family hovel, 5: 1 family farmhouse, 6: 2 family farm house, 7: Ale House, 8: Country Estate
10: Year Round Stream roll 1d6: 1-3 decent fishing, 4-5: good fishing, 6: great fishing
11: Thorn Bushes choke the road for 1/4 mile roll 1d6: 1-3: there is an established trail around the briar patch, 1/2 mile detour, 4: there is a narrow overgrown trail down the middle of the road, 5: there are wasp nests, and no easy trail, use ground wasp result under Farmland Road Dangerous Encounters if a path is cleared, 6: a 5 HD witch with 1 2nd and 2 1st level wizard spells and 1 2nd and 1 1st level cleric spells lives in the briar patch. Roll 1d4 random potions and 1d4 doses of deadly poison for the witch.
12: Interesting Mushroom Patch roll 1d6: 1: mildly nauseating, 2-4: edible, 5: rare curative (as a prepared broth): delays poison and grants a new Save vs. Poison or Disease, 6: poisonous, appears as edible (1-3 on d4) or rare curative (4 on d4); Save vs. Poison or Death if ingested
Obviously I never started the "Animal Encounter", "Civilized Encounter", "Rare Animal", "Rare Person" and "Hex Special Chart" sub charts. The hex special chart was going to be a big 2d20 chart of special encounters and unique places that would not get put on the map until rolled randomly. Groups of hexes could share a Hex Special Chart, but a result could only be placed in one hex, subsequent rolls of that result calling for a reroll. Some hexes might have a unique Hex Special Chart, while other large tracts (of similar farmland type, for instance) might all share one Hex Special Chart.
I was going to do a similar type of encounter chart for offroad farmland travel, town outskirts and town, the hot springs area, forest edge/ mixed forest, deep forest, forest swamp, and mountains.
Of course that would have been a crazy amount of work! The next time I start a "traditional", more western / Tolkien / pseudo-medieval game I would like to do something like this, however. I have never been satisfied by traditional random encounter tables. Encounter or No Encounter does not seem like a good initial result; using my charts, every hex will have some kind of randomly generated feature to spur the imagination of DMs and players, and that does not necessarily just mean the potential for combat. An unattended herd of cattle is an extremely unlikely result to roll, but it is also essentially a big pile of loot just sitting there in the middle of the road. But if the party succumbs to temptation, whose cattle were they? Who will come looking for them?
I like the highly varied results of the basic structure of two bell bell shaped 2d6 charts multiplying and then multiplying by at least a 1d6 with three results to get the final outcome. For instance, you would have to travel through 3888 hexes on average to encounter a large enough wildfire to block your path while travelling on a farmland road (1 in 18 chance of getting a result of "Physical Obstacle" on the original 2d6 throw, 1 in 36 chance of getting a "Fire" result on the second 2d6 throw, and a 1 in 6 chance of getting a large fire result on the final throw).
The probabilities get too complicated for me to figure out quickly in my head when you start talking about a 1 in 36 chance of rolling on the Special Hex Chart multiplied by a bell shaped 2d20 chart. At its simplest, a result of 2 or 40 on the 2d20 chart would only happen once every 14,400 times! Outlier rolls on the Special Hex Charts were going to call for extra planar activity, including a chance for a roll on the gate to random plane opening and things coming across chart.
What I was trying to accomplish was to change the basic dynamic of the random encounter roll. As usually played in D&D a single roll (often a 1 or a 6 on 1d6) determines if there is an encounter; if there is an encounter, a second roll on the encounter chart determines what the encounter is. This leads to frustrating results occasionally (three straight "random" encounters with black dragons on a road trip by wagon in Carter's campaign come to mind) and it is usually fairly obvious to the players if the result of the initial throw was "no encounter" so the basic mechanic does not build excitement well. The first throw on my charts is not a chance to see if there is or is not an encounter, it is a check to see what kind of encounter occurs when the hex is traveled through. It can and should be rolled each time the hex is traveled through! It is an acknowledgement that if you spent time in any chunk of land on the map, you would keep finding "things of interest". No DM will have these detailed out beforehand, but there is no reason that the random charts cannot combine "encounters" and "physical features" and even blur the lines between the two. For instance, rolling a possibly dangerous encounter is an outlier result on the initial throw, snake eyes. 1 in 36 chance to even get to roll on what would be the only chart in a standard D&D random encounter system. Rolling a physical obstacle to encounter while travelling through the hex is twice as likely, but still something of an outlier result. But if the "Thorn Bushes choke the road" result is thrown on the Physical Obstacle chart, itself a 1 in 18 result like the first throw, there is a slim chance that a possibly very dangerous encounter will be rolled in the form of a witch living in the middle of a large briar patch, armed with both wizardly and clerical spells, potions, and poisons.
I probably won't finish the planned charts for the challenge, but I will still put the main gist of my ideas out there in the next few posts. My cards inspired a creative twist on the traditional frontier sandbox, and I can't wait to show how a Moon Dragon, a Sun Dragon, and an Astral Dragon all fit into it!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Alien Dimension
The players in my 4e campaign are exploring an alien dimension, in hopes of righting a wrong that is more or less attributable to them and which is in all likelihood completely un-rightable.
I sketched pictures and took brief notes on four alien ecosystems the party was likely to cross through while looking for Tshuin the tree jumper. Tshuin, his brother Yerush and a young warrior named Anank had first encountered the party while tracking a large hord of alien locust-scorpions being driven by Minotaur vampires under the sway of Manu Jibleetu (the lich technomancer). Yerush and Anank currently lie unconscious, kept magically subdued in the hold of the hovercraft back in 4e dimension while the party tries to track down Tshuin to explain that they had not listened to him when Tshuin had told them to just kill the pair.
You see, my players are having a moral dilemma. Tilia and Beautiful Bob pretty much are the reason that the cross-dimensional instabilities have ceased and the borderlands between the jungle and the alien dimension no longer exist. Tshuin, Yerush and Anank were on the 4e side when the dimensions separated, and their village and families were on the alien side.
The party has also learned that the villagers are at least as much alien as they are "normal", with a secondary insubstantial nervous system (ghost nervous system) attached to two very real mycelial tissue masses in the lungs and lower digestive system.
One of the effects of this ghost nervous system is that all the villagers are bound together with a telepathic link; when the dimensions parted, this link was severed for Yerush and Anank. Tshuin still felt something... somewhere... but the others would not listen to him. "Our families are dead! Our children are dead! The elders are dead! The mother plant will go unpropagated and the pitcher-flowers will be undrunk! Let us do the ritual of the black mask and welcome those who have wronged us to the same fate!"
Tshuin watched as his older brother and the arrogant warrior Anank anointed themselves and drank the sacred drink. He watched as they burned their own blood and smeared the ashes into the raw flesh revealed after they flayed their own faces. Tshuin said the ritual words that are said to free the soul, and watched as the eyes of the two glazed over... and became black... and the black spread across the face, a featureless black mask with two slits for eyes.
Tshuin hailed the party from a treetop as the hovercraft flew over the jungle. He told them that his brother and Anank were coming to kill them. The ritual of the black mask had revealed Beautiful Bob and Tilia as the reason the family had been lost. Tshuin asked the party to kill the pair, because their souls had already been lost. There is no reasoning with them, he said. They are already gone.
But did the party listen?
I sketched pictures and took brief notes on four alien ecosystems the party was likely to cross through while looking for Tshuin the tree jumper. Tshuin, his brother Yerush and a young warrior named Anank had first encountered the party while tracking a large hord of alien locust-scorpions being driven by Minotaur vampires under the sway of Manu Jibleetu (the lich technomancer). Yerush and Anank currently lie unconscious, kept magically subdued in the hold of the hovercraft back in 4e dimension while the party tries to track down Tshuin to explain that they had not listened to him when Tshuin had told them to just kill the pair.
You see, my players are having a moral dilemma. Tilia and Beautiful Bob pretty much are the reason that the cross-dimensional instabilities have ceased and the borderlands between the jungle and the alien dimension no longer exist. Tshuin, Yerush and Anank were on the 4e side when the dimensions separated, and their village and families were on the alien side.
The party has also learned that the villagers are at least as much alien as they are "normal", with a secondary insubstantial nervous system (ghost nervous system) attached to two very real mycelial tissue masses in the lungs and lower digestive system.
One of the effects of this ghost nervous system is that all the villagers are bound together with a telepathic link; when the dimensions parted, this link was severed for Yerush and Anank. Tshuin still felt something... somewhere... but the others would not listen to him. "Our families are dead! Our children are dead! The elders are dead! The mother plant will go unpropagated and the pitcher-flowers will be undrunk! Let us do the ritual of the black mask and welcome those who have wronged us to the same fate!"
Tshuin watched as his older brother and the arrogant warrior Anank anointed themselves and drank the sacred drink. He watched as they burned their own blood and smeared the ashes into the raw flesh revealed after they flayed their own faces. Tshuin said the ritual words that are said to free the soul, and watched as the eyes of the two glazed over... and became black... and the black spread across the face, a featureless black mask with two slits for eyes.
Tshuin hailed the party from a treetop as the hovercraft flew over the jungle. He told them that his brother and Anank were coming to kill them. The ritual of the black mask had revealed Beautiful Bob and Tilia as the reason the family had been lost. Tshuin asked the party to kill the pair, because their souls had already been lost. There is no reasoning with them, he said. They are already gone.
But did the party listen?
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