Bitten

This is a one-page game of being people who are halfway to zombifying. You got bitten, but medical science suspended the turning process. Now your survivor enclave wants you to stay outside and do all the dangerous jobs. They're not going to risk someone healthy, are they?

Click the image to download a copy.

Silence of the dice

A diceless GM emulator for solo or no-prep gaming.

I read Silence of the Lambs at an impressionable age. I find Hannibal Lector fascinating. Not as a killer, but for his disciplined mind. There's a scene in the book where the FBI need information from him, so they strap him into a straightjacket and bite mask and simply wait... believing he'll tell them what they want to know rather than endure the discomfort indefinitely. Instead, he waits them out and uses the time to think about a favourite piece of music.

Whenever I read about a technique or rule for solo role-playing I ask myself, could Hannibal Lector use this as a distraction during his interrogation? Could I use it while waiting in line to renew my driver's license? (I have a terrible habit of letting my phone battery run down completely before I think about charging it.) What's the minimum amount of equipment you need to run an RPG, anyway? We can eliminate dice. Can we eliminate char sheets, note paper and pencils too?

The first thing you need is a randomiser and for the games I want to play, numbers are still the best. Just thinking of a number won't work. Even if you can be objective and not pick a number that favours your character, figures from your own mind will never be random. I like mathematician George Marsaglia's. It's pseudorandom rather than truly random, but the pattern is complex enough that you'd need to be a savant to predict it without a tool like a spreadsheet. The method goes like this:

1. Think of a 2-digit 'seed' number.
2. Multiply the second digit by 6 and add it to the first number.
3. Use the right-most digit of the new number as your random number.
4. Keep going from the previous 2-digit number as long as you need new random numbers.

Example:

1. Our seed number is 23.
2. The new number is 2 added to the result of 6 x 3.
3. The result is 20. Our random number is the right-most digit, 0. (I'd take this as 10.)

Our next random number would be 2 + (6 x 0) = 2. From there: 2, 3, 9, 6, 9, 5, etc. If I wanted this to be a d20, I'd add 10 if the first digit is odd. The 2-digit number's range is 1 - 59, so the first digit makes a pretty good d6.

D12: Use the first digit, add 6 if the second is odd.
D4: Get a D12 result, divide by 4 and use the remainder.
D8: Use the process for a D4, then generate another random number. If it's odd, add 4 to your D4 result. The extra steps for these two are both annoying enough that I probably won't use them.

Note: I originally posted that you can get a D8 result by dividing a D12 result by 8 and using the remainder - which is obviously wrong, because 12 is not divisible by 8.

None of these results are truly representative of a fair die, but they're fair enough for my purposes. (Would this work at a table? Only if you had uniquely patient players.)

You also need a way to figure out what happens. I've had good results using the Mythic GM emulator, but it's too involved to keep it all in my head. Instead, I assign a number out of ten for the likelihood of something happening - 7/10 for likely, 3/10 for unlikely, 5/10 if I really don't know. If I roll equal or below the number, it's a positive result. If I roll a 1 or a 10, it's a critical result, which translates to some kind of extreme version of the expected outcome.

The way the randomiser's maths works out, there's a 1/8 chance of the two digits being a double - 11, 22, 33, etc. If I get a double, the unexpected happens.

I also need to determine what happens. For that I'm using a simple system of elemental associations -

Rolling a d12 on this table will give me an action, a faction or a personal quality. It's up to me to interpret what that means for my game. I think it's a good rule of thumb to relate it back to a detail already in the game. If I know a specific faction is involved, I can interpret an answer to mean that particular faction is taking action or displaying a quality.

So far so simple. I can remember these things without consulting a rulebook. But if I want to go completely diceless, I need to pick the right game as well. Dice pool systems are out. In Shadowrun, our tank routinely rolls three dozen dice to soak damage. Exalted pools can get even larger. Even percentile or 2d6 systems are going to be annoying, so I'm probably looking at something D&D-ish. 

I've had good results testing with a modified version of Here Is Some Fucking D&D by redditor dm_magic.  (Clean version available here.) I discard AC scores and add the opponents movement rate to an attack roll, with a target of 20. I also drop the damage roll and have weapons do full damage on a it.

Long term, I might opt for something even simpler, like Tales of Mordhearse by unwashedmendicant. Characters get one stat and a few simple qualities.

Exalted 2.5 hack

Exalted 2nd edition is a fun RPG, but crunchy. The complexity of the rules mean there's never going to be any such thing as a pickup game of Exalted unless you're willing to play one of the many adaptations out there. Here's mine.

It's based on Cthulhu Dark's roll-keep-highest system, intended only for playing Solar Exalted and makes no effort to cover sorcery. (In all the time I spent thinking about it, I never came up with a solution I liked better than the one from Daiklaive Qwixalted. That's what I've used in play.)

As a teaser, here's a set of example artefacts I wrote up to demonstrate that not every magitech item you're packing has to be another eight-foot sword:

Mountain Rises, Mountain Falls

"The Exalt and the Demon fell from Heaven, cursing and clawing at each other as they tumbled. Their impact on Creation left a crater as deep as a tall man's length. Swords broken, armour cracked, drained of essence, they glared hatred at each other as they lay exhausted. 

"Long Stride gained his feet first. Having no other weapon to hand, he raised a torso-sized rock over his head and bludgeoned the Demon with it."

Mountain Rises, Mountain Falls is a warhammer made of rough-hewn stone banded and capped with orihalcum and fixed to a five-foot haft. Too heavy for an ordinary man to lift, never mind wield in battle, a blow from this hammer could fell a mammoth.

When spending a mote and striking the ground during battle, opponents must succeed in a roll vs character's essence die/2 or be knocked prone, stepping their side's combat dice down by one step for a turn

Lamentation

"The beast called Sorrow rode down the mountainside. It was atop a pile of tumbling, rolling skulls, laughing as it came. The Excellent Harp recognised her husband's skull by the jewels set in its forehead. She was too late.

"As it raised its bow to end her life and collect her skull, she spoke to it of the affection they had shared. The slow, halting blossom of love. And the enduring oneness it had ended with a single act of savagery. Ten minutes later, with her ready assistance, it hanged itself with its own bowstring." 

Lamentation is a bow formed from the ivory of some unknown beast, decorated with rings, ribbons, and scraps of silken veils. The beast Sorrow preferred to kill married men and women, and decorated its weapon with their scavenged love tokens. It has been restrung with a single strand of orihalcum wire.

When spending a mote and shaking the bow so it jingles, all opposing combatants who have a lover on the battlefield must succeed in a roll vs character's essence die/2 or be frozen in horror for a turn, stepping their side's combat dice down by one step.

Whisper

"When Sanshu left his lover's arms he stole away every trace of his presence. Even the smell of the flowers he brought her. Still, her husband the Magistrate felt that something was wrong. Sanshu was known to take strands of women's hair as souvenirs. The Magistrate counted every hair on his wife's head. Then he was satisfied she was faithful. 

"It was years later he realised the strand of her hair he kept in a locket around his neck was gone." 

Whisper is a rope woven from orihalcum wire, silk fibres, pattern spider cobweb and women's hair. It's light, durable, and seems to know its master's desires.

This rope is very nearly unbreakable, and when spending a mote and tying a knot in it, suppresses any noise its master makes.

One page game: Wizard Squad

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

A free one-page game about tactically-trained wizards empowered by the state to investigate incidents of corrupted ancient magic reactivating. Semi-random character creation, 1d20 + mods vs target number. Grab it here.

Wizard Squad is set in a kingdom which is built on the ruins of an advanced civilisation that drove itself into apocalypse through excessive magic-use. Every now and then the seals and wards on some forgotten device breaks down (as often as not through tampering by someone who thinks there's something to be gained by reviving ancient sorcery) and then it's balrogs or worse.

One page game: Green Card Demons

A free one page game about demons trying to make it in today's economy, integrate socially and also cover it up when they slip and commit horrible crimes.  Semi-random character creation, 2d6+mods vs target number. Get it here.

Thanks to Reddit users Don_Quesote and HeadWright for commentary and layout advice and ThornyJohn for sourcing open license fonts.

I love one page games.  They're perfect for those evenings when your regular GM can't be there or there aren't enough players to make a serious attempt at carrying on the adventure.

Fascinating OSR material

Image by Pete Linforth

In this post I'd like to focus some attention on other people's creativity.  This is a list I started keeping so I could find my way back to blog posts and adventures I really enjoyed.  Some of these resources are well-known in the OSR-space, others less so.  They all deserve to be played and talked about, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have.

 Adventures

The adventures I like are strongly themed dungeons or challenging environments that are only technically dungeons.

The Boswitch Bath-house - infiltrate a bath-house, interact with the patrons, sneak around to accomplish your goal.  The adventure has three different hooks for getting the characters involved.

Prison of the Hated Pretender and The Dread Machine -some people call Prison the best module for introducing new OSR players to this gaming style.  An undead king is imprisoned in a building shaped like his own screaming head.

The Stygian Garden of Abelia Prem - explore a house and its grounds, interact with a variety of mystical plants and then head into the underworld in search of Hell's roses.  A LotFP adventure with a broad stroke of beautiful gothic decadence.

Mad Am I - a well-populated hexcrawl on an island hosting an asylum where terrible occult experiments in psychiatry have leaked out.  Also LotFP and similar in style.

Hell on the Moon - explore a crashed spaceship taken over by demons (not necessarily hostile ones) while working nights in a 50s-style diner run by the last Elf family on the moon.

 

Cool mini-fied rulesets

The basics for playing D&D 5E is three books.  The quickstart PDF is around 200 pages.  (Is it because they pay their freelancers by the word?)  The question of how much you can reduce a ruleset and have a game with effective character differentiation and challenge is one I keep coming back to.

Here Is Some Fucking D&D - based on an expanded Searchers of the Unknown. Characters have no stats, they're built from race, class and level.  4 pages.  Includes a bestiary and random adventure generator.

Dungeon Nights lite edition - trimmed down character creation ruleset in which characters can have both a race and a culture that modify their stats.  A blog post which would probably come out to a couple of pages.

Tenebrae - probably the longest ruleset on this list.  It simplifies D&D rules down to a sleek core and adds some innovative ideas.  Characters can swap classes between each other at will.  This game ought to be much better known than it actually is.

Tunnel Goons - three stats and an item list.  The rules fit on the character sheet.  A monster's only stat is a threat die.  The rules have been adapted to several different game genres.

The Golden Sea - also three stats and an item list.  This one simplifies combat and HP.  The character sheet fits the rules, a bestiary and a map on it.

Mimics & Miscreants - my favourite GLOG-derived game.  The resolution mechanic is to roll 1d20 + stat (not stat bonus) and reach 20 or higher.

Tales of Mordhearse - the simplest ruleset in this list.  A character's class is determined by their starting HP.  They have that and one to three randomly-rolled qualities/powers.

Settings developing through blog posts

The Thawing Kingdom - ages ago the kingdom was frozen into magical ice by the machinations of a mad ruler.  Now it's thawing, releasing the citizens who have been trapped for so long.  But it's not thawing evenly and the magical ice has some odd properties, which carry over to people who only thaw halfway.

The City of Infinite Ruin - everything in the city is slowly being drawn into the centre.  As it moves, the space it moves into grows paradoxically larger.  The buildings themselves expand from hovels to houses to mansions to palaces and their history becomes more complicated.

HSM Apollyon - a ship as large as a city, becalmed on an endless ocean for generations.  Inside, brave adventurers from the engineering section make forays into the passenger quarters hoping to bring back treasure and avoid monsters and demons.

Magical industrial revolution - a world where magic is codified, refined, mass-produced and made the basis for a developing industry.

Centerra - a broad-ranging set of creative world-building posts, especially the ruined cities.

The Gustatory - restaurant district the size of a mountain.  Orc chefs, soup baths, mummies in the cool room.  I'd love to run this, I'm just not sure what sort of campaign justifies a fantasy food court...

Nukaria - especially the Handsome Men posts, Nukaria's take on elves.

Sunless Horizon - the human race has survived into the final age of the universe, living in a single titanic world-ship: Ein Soph.  They're ruled by an AI given the task of finding a way to punch through into a younger universe.  The machines that run the ship are slowly going mad.

Base building mini-game

I've been playing a lot of Subnautica lately.  It's an open-world exploration game, set 90% underwater.  It has beautifully rendered environments and creatures that really sell it as a completely alien planet.

A big part of the fun is the base building mini-game.  You start basic and level it up as you uncover new blueprints.  My preferred method of gathering resources has become moving to a new area and building a small base with a scanner room that can pinpoint all the useful spawns for me.  When you disassemble a base you get 100% of the materials back, so the only investment is time.

(Meeple Girl has been playing a very different game.  It involves waiting until I'm under threat by a Warper or a Sea Dragon, then walking quietly up behind and tapping me on the shoulder... it ought to be a crime.)

The last couple of weeks I've been thinking about a method for adding a base-building mini-game to OSR games.  Admittedly, some of them already have it, in the form of castles and strongholds from 9th level onwards.  But that's intended to be a significant investment of time and resources for the characters, and a reward for the players who levelled their characters that far, as well as a completely new mode of play.  I'm going for something a lot simpler and self-contained, that the players can get into almost immediately.  This is what I've come up with.  I think it would work best in a system where XP is earned by spending treasure.

It's assumed that the characters will be taking over the available space across several buildings instead of renting a house or workyard.  They'll modify it to suit their needs, as much as practical given the restrictions.  The spaces they have access to are represented by the seven unique Tetris blocks:

Each square in a piece is 10' by 10'.  The first costs 100 GP, or whatever amount is suitable for your system.  Each additional segment doubles the cost.  The characters can keep building until they have everything they need or run out of money.  Each time the players ask for a segment, roll 1d10 and give them the piece indicated.  If the result is higher than 7, repeat the last block.

After the first piece is placed, roll 1d4 for each additional piece to see which cardinal direction from the original piece the next is added to.  The players can rotate the pieces as they like.

The edges at the outside of the pieces (not the individual squares) are assumed to be walls.  The spaces the players put together have no access to each other until they start knocking out walls.  The edges for each piece must be more than half wall to support its weight.  That's five edges for the O piece, six for the others.  Take out any additional walls and the roof falls in.

Example

My budget for rooms is 1,000gp.

First room = 4, the O piece.  100gp.

Second room = 1, the I piece.  The d4 shows a 1, indicating that it's placed at the top of the O piece.  200 gp.

Third room = 4, the O piece again.  The d4 shows a 2, indicating that it's placed at the right of the first O piece.  400gp.

Fourth room = 2, the J piece.  The d4 shows a 3, indicating that it's placed below the original O piece.  800gp, so no more rooms.

If I remove the walls between the two O-pieces, I get a nice big, open space.  Each O-piece can have one additional wall removed, which gives access to the smaller rooms, like this:

Within the limits above, pieces are placed and rotated at the players' discretion.  So if I preferred I could have had a base like this:

And that second layout looks more useful because of the next rule: courtyards.  You can extend the outermost walls in a straight line.  Where they intersect, they enclose a courtyard.  That long, semi-wide layout gives us a couple of decent courtyards for extra space.

For upper levels, start the pricing again from base.  Use the same layout but with each new floor remove 1d2 of the outermost rooms.  There must be at least one staircase on each floor.

What's the point of all this?  The base is mostly intended to be a fun way for characters to spend more gold, and something for the players to feel invested in.  If you're using the XP-for-spending-gold rule, you're probably also using a carousing table.  The rooms you add to your base will give some minor bonuses for mitigating bad rolls on that.  A forge can knock out the dings in armour, an apothecary can shorten the duration of a hangover, etc and you can hire retainers with the skills to use them on a temporary basis.

So next we slot in rooms.

Apothecary - 1 square.  Gives access to a herbalist.  +1 to saves vs disease, allergies, hangovers, etc.

Armoury - 1 square.  Sharpens blades, repairs weapon handles and straps.

Barracks - requires 1 square for each character that sleeps there.  Restricted to one open edge.  Reduces gold lost during a bad carouse by half because you were sensible and left your big purse at home.

Common room - at least 2 squares.  +1 to retainer morale rolls while in town.

Forge - at least 3 squares.  Must be in a courtyard.  At least 1 empty square between it and the nearest building.  Gives access to a smith, who can repair armour.

Kennel - 1 square per 4 dogs.  Must be in a courtyard.  Gives access to a master of hounds, who can provide training and treat sick dogs.

Kitchen - 2 squares.  Rations prepared here will never be tainted or inedible except by deliberate enemy action.  Requires a well.

Library - at least 1 square.  Gives a bonus to research actions and somewhere for magic-users to work.

Shrine - at least 1 square.  A place for rituals.  Gives clerics and paladins a bonus to communing with their gods.

Stable - 1 square per horse.  Each square must have one open edge facing a courtyard or the outside of the building.  Gives access to an ostler, who can replace shoes and treat sick horses.

Staircase - 1 square.  Gives access to other levels of the building.

Training room - at least 3 squares by 2.  Gives access to a trainer if required for levelling or learning new techniques, subject to GM approval.

Trophy room - 1 square per 4 trophies.  The perfect space for displaying souvenirs of past adventures and impressing young wenches or farmboys.

Wash house - 1 square.  removes fleas, tar and feathers, various other forms of soiling.  Requires a well.

Well - 1 square.  Must be in a courtyard.  At least 1 empty square from a forge.

In this case I'm going to have a training room, an apothecary, an armoury, a wash house, a kitchen, a trophy room, a forge, a well, a kennel for 8 dogs and a stable for 4 horses.  My characters can sleep off site.  Opening up all the stable squares to the courtyard means blocking the stables off from the building interior, but that's not a problem.  If you're riding a horse, you're going outside anyway.

Key:
A - stables
B - forge
C - trophy
D - apothecary
E - armoury
F - training
G - kitchen
H - wash house
I - well
J - kennels







And now the part I'm sure my players will spend the most time over: traps.  200 GP each.

Arrow trap

Collapsing ceiling

Fire trap

Gas trap

Glue trap

Magic item trap

Pit trap (if on an upper floor, requires 1 square of unused space on the floor below it)

Poisoned dart trap

Potion trap

Swinging blade trap

There's no reason to restrict player creativity here.  If they want a false wall that releases angry bees, they can have it.  Any 5' square (4 per map square) can be trapped.  The players can set or deactivate a trap as an automatic action, unless you're a particularly hard-nosed GM.  If characters let a retainer get caught in a trap, make a morale roll at a penalty.

Hey, isn't this starting to look kind of like a dungeon?

Yes!  And for your players, this might be an opportunity for introspection that leads to a revelation about their behaviour and real change on a personal level.  Mine are more likely to say "Hey, why not a trap that douses intruders with shrinking potion then drops them into a trebuchet?"