A few new houserules for our DCC campaign (some may apply to any game!)

If your weapon deals 1d5 or less damage (this includes bare hands), you can use a 1d24 initiative die. If your weapon is two-handed you use a 1d16 initiative die UNLESS you are a human and go shirtless like a barbarian, in which case you can use a 1d20.

Leveling: In the past I've asked people with multiple leveled characters to choose one each turn of combat to act. I've decided to try a different approach (this is all in the name of simplicity and fast play): You have 1 main character. You use their initiative and saves for all your characters. The main character can level for real. All your other characters are lackeys and they can gain a 1d4 hit die for each 100 gold they spend on leveling. If your main character dies, you can choose one of the lackies and level them as follows:
1-4 hit die= level 1, up to 8 is level 2, and so on. It doubles each time. Lackies never get hangers-on xp for attending a party. They have to spend some gold them self. But they never roll for, and thus don't fumble, leveling.

Other rules you may not know, that may or may not be house rules:

Two-handed weapon wielders roll a d16 initiative die. Choose your weapon as combat begins and you are pledged to draw it at some point on your turn. New weapons drawn don't count for or against your initiative until you start a turn with them.

Duel-wielding light weapons can be done by anyone that's not a halfling, but use this rule: One to-hit roll, roll the damage die for each weapon. If they are both the weapon's highest value, they both count for damage!

Leveling:
You only get XP for gold. We always roll to see if something cool or horrible happens after you have committed your gold, but you can announce a specific goal and if it seems doable, I'll give you a time frame for how long to spend leveling (days, weeks, month, years(!)). A local economy can handle only so much partying, so not everyone can level that way at the same time, maybe.

Houserules and fluff about the campaign can be found at here
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Bringing LotFP's infamous summon spell into DCCRPG

The desktop of a demon summoner

So I am a proud owner of LotFP's Rules and Magic. I usually run DCC though. It fulfills my need for gonzo. But it's such a shame that it lacks the summon spell that +James Raggi came up with. So I'm trying out a compromise tonight.

One of my players got an arcane-type DCC familiar last time. And the familiar lets the wizard know a spell or something. So I decided on summon.

The way this spell will work:
The wizard will do his spell-check. They can choose the type (I to VI) of demon they want to try to snag. The Judge will do a die drop of all the dice. Even the weird ones. Because +Harley Stroh came up with a table for DCC demons. I have my own copy so I can switch out things that have been summoned before.

The demon will have to beat the wizard's spell check (even if the spell is unsuccessful) with a Will save to retaliate. It wins automatically if the wizard gets a 1, and comes in an abstract form. It gets +1d+2 for the degree of demon it is beyond type I (for example, a type IV will roll 1d30+4+Will). If it beats it by 1-2, it simply refuses the call. If it beats it by 3-4, it attacks the wizard for the time it has in this plane (see below). If it beats it by 5 or more, it dominates the wizard as per p. 139 of LotFP. If it beats it by 19 or more, it rolls a d20 and gets empowered or possibly (on a 20) sunders the walls between dimensions.

The demon will stick around for diminishing die's* worth of rounds equal to the wizard's spell check, unless the wizard failed the initial check, in which case the monster will use a diminishing die equal to the one from the Will check.

*Diminishing die: a die that gets one step smaller each time it is rolled. In the case of this spell, the die is rolled each round. If the die ever rolls a 1, the demon has to go home.

Death Frost Doom Isometric Map

I shared this a while back in the G+ community for LotFP, but here is an isometric map of DFD, perfect for Roll20. Almost all the rooms are there, just in different places. One set of crypts is in the shape of the evil sign. I think I relocated the evil sign to the door to room 2. Click to embiggen.

As for plot, I still had a plant hanging down blocking the way to the giant skeleton room, but it does not sussurate. Instead, there is an ancient old man that ceaselessly pipes away on a flute in 21. He has an extra flute in his coat and will offer it while still playing. Any player that takes it up is cursed to play until a new flautist comes. The dead get real cranky if their music is turned off.

I made the vampire into a seductress. In my campaign, the PCs for the most part joined her and then she took them with her to be lich kings in the new undead empire.

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A Cosmology

Sigil is widely regarded as a microcosm
that reflects the shape of the macrocosm
that comprises the known universe. Imagine
Azathoth at the middle and you may start to
understand Our Lady of Pain.

A little something I am going to be using as my cosmology in games for a while. Each area will have some Powers (gods) and Inhabitants (monsters) detailed.

This universe is a great torus; galaxies and planets ring it, but its edges dissolve into the terrifying pseudo-matter that is The Outer Limits.

The Outer Limits

A realm where the laws of physics melt and reality bends back upon itself. It's an unfathomable distance from known space, and other realities pervade our own here. It surrounds the great torus on all edges. Dark energy pushes the torus further and further apart with the march of the aeons.

• The Outer gods: Azazoth floats in the middle of all reality, just outside of it, attended by his pipers. Azaoth fuels the beginning and end of all things. 
• In his mad dreams, Shub-Niggurath is ever pregnant and making cosmic horrors.

_________________________

The Astral Sea

This can be thought of as the stars, planets, and galaxies close enough to our own to matter.

• The Stars themselves: Unfathomable entities that control the fates of men and whisper strange secrets to the mad. 
• The Great old ones: Gods in their own right, the spawn of the stars, such as Cthulhu, originate here, though they tend to be subject to the whims of the cosmic ley-lines and many of them are mercifully sleeping on some planet until they can outlive death again.
• Astral Oddities: Githyanki pirates, Chael, Maruts, Inevitables, Shmodrons, Neogi, Beholders, Illithids, Mi-go, Greys

_________________________ 

The Seven Heavens

A heavenly series of locales for almost any temperament. Of particular interest is Valhalla, the barrier to this reality, where warriors that please their gods are restored for feasting each night.

• They Who Watch: Venca, Tiamat, Psionic Dragon Gods, Zagyg, the Pantheon of Law, the Igigi
• The Heavenly Host: Cloud Giants, Angels, Daevas, Dead Heroes, Archons, Ambassadors of all kinds.

_________________________ 

Midgard (called Aert by common man)

The realm we know the best: the proving ground of the new human race. Elves and dwarves remain from the golden age, but mankind is still struggling to decide their own destiny.

• They Who Walk Among Us: Avatars, Earth-bound Great Old Ones, immortals, nephilim, gibborim, rephaim, old man Bahamut, Iuz the Tyrant,
• Mundane Monsters: Wizards (suffer them not to live) and their experiments, fey, robots, dragons, the undead, the uplifted beasts
• The kingdoms: Kings, emperors, necromancers, and khans squabble over the lands of men
• The demi-humans: Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits withdraw into their alien societies

_________________________ 

The Underworld

Beneath the earth lies the dungeons of things forgotten or sealed away, and mazes made for strange reasons by the servants of various entities. The City of Death is here, eager to claim new souls for Nergal to rule over, and in its catacombs (death for the dead!) is the gate to Tartarus.

• The Cthonics: The Drakainas, Lolth, Torog, some Anunnakit (see below), Tsathoggoa, Atlach-Nacha
• The Shunned: Kobolts (cave fey), Pale Elves (blind), Duergar, Deros, Morlocks, the porcs who bubble up, The Dead, The Phorcydes

_________________________ 

The Gates of Tartarus

The Barrier that holds back the Titanomachy's losers. Devils are former servants of the gods, bound to hold the gates in recompense for their immemorial sins.

• The Wardens: Cerebus, Hel, Lucifer, Yama, Hecatonchires, the 7 Anunnaki judges
• The Hell-bound: The Evil Dead, Devils, Tasked-angels, Maras

_________________________

The 9 Hells

These realms of torture are intended to preoccupy and imprison the most dangerous beings from primordial times. The only escape is deeper down...

• Titans and Ashuras: Maya-demons, Vrita, Kronos, Mnemosyne
• Horrors: Cenobytes, Slaadi, the Ancient Dead

_________________________ 

The Abyss

A chaotic vortex in the middle of an elemental crucible that reaches down through an insanity that reflects The Outer Limits.

• The Demon Lords: Baphomet, Orcus, Demogorgon, Juiblex, The Elemental Royalty
• Chaos' childer: Demons, Oozes, Obyriths

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The End of Creation

Tharizdun, lord of paradox, is imprisoned at the bottom of reality, in the singularity of nothingness that lies there. His release would spell the end of everything.

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These Help Me DM on the Fly

See these folders? They all have picture files to help me pull random stuff out of nowhere. And then I usually play online and can screen-share with the PCs' players.

When I need a random monster, I turn to my encounters folder, which has a 1,001 pictures of monsters. Some banal encounters too!

When the players want to hexcrawl, I got images for that too.

Dressing is the folder I fill with odd underworld locations. Crazy rooms and decor.

I still usually use my MMoA catalog for treasure though.

The images for these folders usually come from my tumblr.

Now my question for any Mac geniuses out there: Does anyone know how to automate a process to open a random file in a folder? That would rock.




EDIT: +Ed Heil  has come up with the best solution so far. I just punch one of these lines into my Console app:
ruby -e 'system("open", Dir[ENV["HOME"]+"/Desktop/Encounters/*"].choice)'

ruby -e 'system("open", Dir[ENV["HOME"]+"/Desktop/hexcrawl/*"].choice)'

ruby -e 'system("open", Dir[ENV["HOME"]+"/Desktop/dressing/*"].choice)'

ruby -e 'system("open", Dir[ENV["HOME"]+"/Desktop/treasure/*"].choice)'

If you end up trying this and it doesn't work for you, you might be able to do it by substituting the word "sample" for choice.

In any case, those lines are easy to pop individually into a shellscript in Automator. Saved as apps, these things are now just a double click away from providing me with goodies.
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Barony RPG Quick Start Guide

This is a little primer I am putting together to help my players as we tackle a one-shot adventure with pre-made characters. I think it will be quick to jump into. The wording is my take on Barony: Rogue Swords of the Empire.

How do I do all the things?

Well, if you have a trait or skill written on your sheet and there is little resistance, we will probably just narrate our way through it. If you don't, or the situation is a bit dramatic, roll 2d8. 2d8 is what we roll for everything. We then compare what you rolled to the action roll table.

Difficulty degree: The GM will tell you if the thing you are attempting is simple, difficult, tasking, or the limit of your abilities. Limit is reserved for occasions when the attempted use of a skill defies credibility or strains the boundaries of what would normally be accepted.

If you are attempting to do something that belongs to a skill you don't have, the degree goes up by two, but you can't attempt a skill you don't have if it would be tasking or limit before this raising. In other words, simple or difficult checks, that then get harder, only.

One roll per attempt (no rolling 3 times and hoping one of them succeeds, for instance).

Spells are not skills or abilities, but actions. Anyone can attempt them. I'll describe the process later.

Whatever you roll, there is a chance something bad (mixed or mishap) or too good (overkill) could happen. So be cautious if you are close to death or whatever.

What are these words on my character sheet?

Barony characters have virtually no numbers associated with them. Instead, you have attributes/traits and skills. Attributes are basic character traits and abilities. They do not confer specific maneuvers though. Here are the traits descriptors:

Artful: poise and finesse; comely, articulate, sure-footed and deft of hand
Bold: seemingly invincible, unyielding and without fear
Clever: resourceful, inventive and shrewd; traits of scheming, snap decisions, etc.
Durable: exceptional size, strength and/or endurance.
Eldritch: attuned to ambient mystic forces [magic use unrelated though]
Fast: superior reflexes and speedy movements, quick reactions

So, in general, improvise off of the above stated qualities. There are some actual game mechanics too:

Bold: Ignore battle pain (don't lose actions to pain, or take penalties from damage).
Fast: Can make two dodge actions during a response phase of combat, provided they have a skill or want to do a harder roll, then take the best result of the two.

Attributes also add extra eponymous wound boxes (there are no hit-points in Barony, only wounds).

Skills have many different uses. Basically whatever you imagine. I'll cover the combat applications in the combat section below.

Classes unlock skills when leveling up, but keep in mind they also add eponymous wound boxes.

How do I kill KILL KILL?

Combat is divided into the Advantage (any PCs that want to act first and viciously), Opposition (enemy attacks and spells), and Response phases (PCs that wait this long have a chance to block with a skill or counter a spell). You act during one of the the PC phases once per round. No initiative rolling is done.

Some skills that come up in combat (they have different difficulties), and possible goals (don't let yourself get limited) to roll them (hope they roll high!) follow:

Luck, speed and guile, or mastery of shield: blocking skills (blocks without one of these will be two more degrees harder).

Animal Reflexes: (response phase) reduce level of one wound taken this round and inflict bruise/cut
Battle Cry: Inspire self and companions with a bonus until next turn
Battle Hard: Ignore bleeder wounds for a round
Berserk: Bonus to attacks, ignore pain
Brawl: (advantage phase) lock down an opponent, or try to stun 1d8 dudes
Concentration: (response phase) deal more deadly wounds next round
Distraction: Enemies that try to hurt you take damage
Foul Blow: (advantage phase) rob a humanoid of their attack this round
Hero's Great Weapon: (advantage) inflict a bleeder, or (either phase) inflict a bruise/cut
Irregular Blow: (either) bruise/cut, or (response) bleeder
Leveraged attack: (either) bruise/cut, or (adv) vicious, or (resp) bleeder.
Quick Blows: Make 1d8 attacks during next advantage phase!
Ranged power blow: bruise/cut from a stone's throw away. If you get a mixed result, only adv deals damage
Ranged Precision Hit: bleeder across the battlefield, but mixed result only hits during adv
Strength of Limb: Lock down an opponent
Warrior's Sidearm: Inflict bruise/cut
Wrist Speed: Try to draw and attack in same round

Monsters die when they run out of words in their wounds. Same deal for you, actually. But most wounds will be bruise/cut and then when you run out of words in that category the next (bleeder) will start to go down. Vicious are the worst physical wounds. Spirit wounds are rare, but hardest to get back...
Below is a table of possible wounds. You get any words that appear on your character sheet, and ignore the rest. Everyone gets Base and Player wounds.

How do I magic it up?

Anyone can cast magic, but be aware that you may use up pieces of your spirit (health) doing so. Most characters have at least one or two magic points to buffer this though. Also, magic points (up to 4 per spell) can be used to give +1 bonuses to any one roll for it is rolled. Magic is usually intoned through incantations.

If you are sure you want to take the risk, tell the DM what you want to do and they will determine how many laws you are breaking to determine the number of action rolls and their difficulties. The laws of Barony physics are:

I (energy/forces): Force flows through fixed channels; natural forces are immutable.
II (matter/identity): Everything is a precise, immutable blend of elemental earth, air, fire, and water (or humors).
III (spirit): Consciousness is a phenomenon controlled by something unique and untamed outside of nature that manifests in one spot (the brain).
IV (space-time): Planes of existence are distinct, separate, unmixed, and don't cross.
V (knowledge/unknown): Past events are immutable in our memories, and some things are not meant to be understood.

You can break any law(s) with magic, but know that doing the same spell more than once, ever, will make it harder in degree. This is the zeroth law of originality.

Spells sound cray-cray! How can I stop them?

You can counter a spell, if you haven't acted yet, during the response phase. Unfortunately, if multiple laws were broken, you'll have to counter each violation, but it is easier to counter than to cast.

Wizard duels are things PCs can initiate too, but you don't cast spells; you just both kinda do kamehamehas until one gets knocked out. targeting magic point-lacking targets creates feedback!

The skill Magic Immunity can potentially cancel out harmful magics in an area...

How do I level?

Gotta do some crazy things called ignobles. The DM will go through the list when an adventure ends.

How do I spend my coin*?

With a roll! Starting classes are associated with resource levels. Based on the result when you go to check your coffers, you may be out of funds...

*:coin is the plural in Barony
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These Items are Your Character. Go!

A while back on g+ I ran a game where I made up the rules on the fly, because I was running Monolith Beyond Space and Time and rules take a back seat to player decisions in that one. I had the players all choose from one of the following collections of items. This became their character and its implied class. Basically it was generic d20 fantasy. Players rolled a hit die the first time they got damaged and so on.

Recently, I've encountered more than just the 4 original ones. If you go to this site, you can get a ton of them for a more modern campaign. You are the person with a
baby! Go!
The Spagetti Western collection I found has to be approached a different way. I think the key to that one is to have players choose a character from the pictured ones.

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I would love to know if anyone has created more images like these!