For it is Dark and We May Die (a dismemberment table)

Are you prepared for the death
you've earned, little man?

Running a little Arden Vul Shadowdark lately. Sign up via my email at the bottom there.

We had been playing with "CON score is your back real HP". But it seems a bit too easy. Just a bit. So I'm thinking of a new rule (I think Arnold K and Cavegirl deserve some idea credit for wound systems here): 
 
Minimum HP is zero. While you are at 0 HP, you are fine, but you can only take a number of extra hits equal to your CON mod before you enter the dying state, and each hit will force a roll on the table below.

Roll a d20 - damage taken from the attack that hit you while you were in this HP-less state. LVL 5+PCs may roll a d30 instead.

Nat 1: Gory death: Every ally that witnesses it has to roll WIS vs 12 or freak out as per the losing it table below.

5 or less: Maimed: You lose a limb, an eye, or some fingers. You survive, but you're not whole. Besides the logical problems of losing bits, you need to roll a CHA check vs this roll or freak out till you get some good drugs. 

Losing It table Roll a d6.
1) Go ape-shit, attack everything
2) Run away--roll on the megadungeon table
3) Nihilistically give up "YES! KILL ME!"
4) Revert to childlike personality
5) Manic screaming or laughter that the others cannot shut up
6) Fruitless attempt to reattach missing bit

6-15: Defeated and on the ropes: You’re out of it until you make a CHA (willpower) check (on your turn's beginning) or someone uses an action to splash you with something. Equal chance of a concussion or a scar.

16-19: Supine: You're knocked down indefinitely and have to make a STR check to stand up, unless an ally spends their action to rally you.

Nat 20 (or more): You're fine (this time). In fact you inspire your group with advantage for the rest of the round (if your turn is last gain 1HP instead).

The above table was kinda made with a just-losing-your-turn-is-boring kinda mindset. There should be something interesting happening with you. Even if you do go down you got the usual death roll mechanics of Shadowdark to give you something to do when the round comes round to you.

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A Psionics Sytem Using Playing Cards for Old School D&Ds and BRPs

Zener cards

First, you gotta see if you are psychic. You must roll a d100 at or under your mind stats (one chance per each stat. So in D&D you would roll three times, once each vs your INT, WIZ, and CHA.

Since the average score for an ability is around 10 if you are doing 3d6, you overall end up with about a 27% chance of being psychic in this system, so DMs gotta be aware that it won't be rare if they adopt this rule.

Let's get to the actual meat of the post. The brain meat. If your GM has access to those psychic guessing cards from Ghostbusters, use those. Most tables will have to use tarot or playing cards tho. Do magicians shops have Zener cards?

Anyhoo, to do a psionic thing, negotiate the potential effects this the ref and then guess a card (Zener) or a suit. If you guess right, you did the thing without issue. If you guess wrong, you take a consequence in accordance with how hardcore you pulsated your temple-veins.

when she goes
for closing the
gate at the end
of a season,
that is a
high stakes risk

For instance, if you tried to scanners a guy's noggin to pulp. The game Judge may simply say, "you're dead." But I say if you are trying to splode a simple mook's pituitary, the stakes are still low. If the stakes are low, I think it is more appropriate to have a psychic nosebleed.

You take damage from the nosebleed equal to the number that appears on the card (face cards make you pass out). Since Zener cards don't have obvious numbers, count the lines on them (a circle has 1 line, an star has 5).

See, now that you know they are more forgiving, you are going to buy the game facilitator a deck of these Zener things.

One parting bit of consideration: as a PC gains experience, perhaps they should get a little bit better at doing the dramatic stuff. Maybe once you get seasoned, stuff that used to be dramatic, like picking up a whole semi truck, are not quite as risky for you as they used to be. Or maybe you get to draw two cards and take the best for something that is now a tried and true power for you. The world is your Ψ-oyster.

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Let Them Find the Secret Door

Lately, I have not been asking for many search-type checks. Sometimes I have asked everybody to roll a d6 and hope for a 1. Sometimes we are playing Dragonbane and I want to reward having that skill. But really tho, I have found straight up success, especially at finding doors, to be good for the feels of the game. 

Each time the PCs devote time to searching for doors or whatever, they're gonna find them, but I am going to loudly roll encounter dice (or happenings dice). Players know there is a risk. That's fun. They find the things and that's fun too.

Now then, finding a secret door does not mean you know how to open it. I usually have a super-dooper simple trick to opening it in mind. In a library: notice the floor marks from the swinging shelf, but you have to find a likely book and pull it to open the latch holding it closed. Looking at baas-relief dwarven carvings? You find one with a hammer shaft that has to be worked to open the way.

Have you tried poking its eye?

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Convience Dice: Points of Convienience for RPG play

Whenever a player asks me a question such as, "Is there a stone I can pick up to throw?" I either go yes because we are standing in a quarry or no because you're sinking in a quagmire. But sometimes I'm not sure; it might be a godsend if there were a rock, and a gaff it there weren't. 

In systems with a Luck stat (DCCRPG), I usually ask the PC's current Luck+fleeting luck total and roll a d20 at/under to get the answer. Passing barely could be a "yes-but..." situation.

In systems without luck, I usually ad hoc a number from 1 to 5 and roll a d6 at/under.

Today I present a new idea: convience points. When entering a dungeon, roll 2d6. A room, 1d3. A fight, 1d6.

Tell the players the result as an amount of convience points they can use. Say the players want to cross an abyss. A player can pipe up, "Ooh, I'll spend a point to have a bridge be there!" To which the DM might say, "Cool," or "Nah, I just described a bridgeless gap, but we could spend one of your points to have a conviently placed post?... er, stalagmite on the far-side to lasso..."

You could use this system in other situations. Say the party meets some CHUDs and desire to parley with words commonese and chudese happen to share. Each point spent could be a word or phrase that both sides understand.

Or say a puzzle/riddle is present. Points could be spent on noticing things in the room or recalling incidental things that could be clues. "You notice a top, a spinning toy, is sticking out of the nearby garbage heap. It reminds you of your childhood as an orphan in the jungle temple, where the abbot was fond of saying..."

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Spells That Level Up the More You Use Them

So for our very hacked version of Swords & Wizardry/Crypts and Things/DCCRPG, called Crypts & Cryts, we needed a bunch of spells. I coulda use the C&Þ spell list, but it was feeling a little vanilla, and I kinda wanted unleveled spells. So at first I had a lot of PC-level based effects, but then it hit on me: Why not let the spells get more puissant the more you use and master them?  So far the Google Doc has 64 spells, and there might be room for more, but I think I can fit most high-level spells into lower ones with this method.

Here's an example of a kinda boring spell that got much better with this exercise: Stone to Mud.

Clay and Stone: You can convert LVL cubed yards of natural rock to mud or vice versa, lasting ten minutes. After you have cast this spell in ten dungeons, you can affect worked stone. 10 times beyond that and you can start to make LVL in number 1 HD mud elementals. 20 beyond that and you unlock the secret of stone golem-craft, and can up to LVL×2 HD of golems serving you. You also gain the ability to cast this spell to create out of thin air rock walls of up to LVL yards square (height times width). 5 times beyond that and you can use this spell to turn targets into statues and statues into flesh and blood creatures.

The game also lets you expand on the spirit of a spell, casting it in an unintended way, but you must cast it with disadvantage. However, if you do such five times, your twist on the dweomer becomes easier (no disadvantage) for you. For instance, maybe you could pull an Elohim with the above spell and make a new lifeform from the clay of the earth.

The whole RPG is embedded below; check it out in a browser that can handle it, or use this link. Oh, and the formatting gets really messed up by the single column that is forced by embedding. Meh. Full glory at the link.

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Filcho, Drayno, and Wizzo Enter a Bar

I had a sads when I saw how the Twitter algorythm treated my last post. I shouted, “WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY BOY?” Here's a play example to get those rookie numbers up, cuz I’m telling you, the post had some good ideas.

So the titular trio waltz into a watering hole and scope the seats. Filcho and Drayno decide they want to jump into the game of Groat my Gryphon they see at one of the tables, introduce themselves under fake names, and sit down. Meanwhile Wizzo spies a trollop at the bar that doesn’t look too expensive. Oh, you thought Wizzo was a dude and I’m being sexist? Pfft. No, Wizzo is a lady, so that’s on you and thousands of years of patriarchy. 

Filcho and Drayno, rogues that they are, both decide to cheat. Filcho is 3rd level thief, so he has a 3 in 6 chance of thieving. Drayno is a 4th level fighter, and so only has a 1 in 6 chance. Guess who is going to screw this up.

Meanwhile, Wizzo find her own hair in her drink right in the middle of a line about how the Gamete Hills are beautiful this time of year. What the hell? She uses her wizard eyes—she’s 2nd level— to try to find out if magic is afoot. She has a 2 in 6 chance. The player rolls a success. Ah, the culprit is a toxically possessive leprechaun on the whore’s lap. “I see you! Time to taste my Ensquirrelating Beam!”

But just then, a brawl breaks out behind Wizzo. Drayno has fumbled his cheating roll. He attacks an angry gambler with his club. The attack doesn’t hit, but the club damage roll is a 1, so Drayno’s player announces that he kicks the table up on its side to give some cover. 

Filcho wants to do a ambush with his blackjack, and so waits for someone to poke their head around the side. He rolls an attack and hits, but his damage die rolls a 6, so he doesn’t get any extra damage.

Wizzo is like, I just want to get out of here, and runs for the exit. 1 in 6 chance for that, as a wizard. She rolls a 3 though, so someone intercepts her--NO! The DM just had a better idea. Leprechaun chicanery has tied her boot laces together. She takes a pitch forward.

That was round one. Their adventures will continue, but I think I’ve shown how the system can work.

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Thief-like skills for all

First, the D&D old school thief needs a quick fix. Instead of lousy percentile skills, give the thief a 2 in 6 chance to do thiefy things at first level (non thieves will have a 1 in 6 chance), and raise that chance by 1 for every two levels gained. All “skill” chances for all classes will max out at 5, BTW.

The Fighters and Magicers get skills now too though. They also start with a 2 in x chance (not necessarily 2 in 6, as you will see) to their idiomatics, and other classes get 1 in x.

Fighter skills are always checked for as part of an attack. When you roll the weapon’s damage (roll it at the same time as yer d20), the die used for that doubles as a skill check (only use the first die in cases where a weapon does multiple dice). The fighter’s player announces what they intend their skill to be after a successful roll. For instance, a called shot is a common skill. A cleave is another. Maybe use an ax to pull away a foe’s shield, making their AC or damage reduction retroactively lower. Basically, if your attack hit, you probably announce some inimical effect on the foe. If not, maybe you do a fancy stunt.

So now low damage weapons are more accurate, if you want to use them.  Incidentally, I would have backstab be allowed to thieves or fighters.

So magic-using guys. I think the game judge can adjudicate whether they are doing is using a class skill or not. A wizard is probably good at spouting lore or alchemy. A cleric probably knows who that demon lord mentioned by the scroll is. 

Maybe use the skills for bending the rules as written for spells. You want to cast hold person on a dragon? Okay, if you make your skill check, it happens. Wanna use Turn Undead on rabbits? Skill check, but only if they are really evil rabbits.

Incidentally, I just found this old post with a similar idea that some wizard wrote. 

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Feels good thief skills

One of my players of our Arduin hack said I should post about how the thieves work. As the rules are currently written, any class can attempt any mundane action within reason. To do so, they just have to roll their check number or higher (each class has one and it gets one smaller each level up)*. The thieves get +1d to do a litany of thievy things though. +1d means at least a d24, but species or whathaveyou can bump that up to a d30 or more.
Any class can try skullduggery, but thieves do it better.

And that's it. But actually, I have been thinking of doing something similar with the other three classes. For instance, fighters have the worst check number to reflect that they are mostly focused on killing. But I've been thinking that instead of a better Base Attack Bonus, maybe I shouldn't have BAB in the game and instead just let the fighters get +1d to combat... not to mention bending bars, kicking in doors, intimidating infants, and so on. 

Yes the temptation to hack my hack is rising. You'd best make a copy of the google doc before I do if you like it as it is.
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*: Think I heard this was a Swords and Wizardry thing. But maybe you roll low in that game? I dunno. This ABAM game is an unholy alliance between Dave Hardgrave's books, old DnD, and DCCisms. You can even find mighty deeds kinda hidden in the variant classes.

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