Intelligent Magic Items

A post many years in the making!

After finishing that "Knights in Orcus' Service" post and knocking around ideas for the other Chaos patrons in my setting, I realized I needed my own rules for demon weapons. Creating these items for my home game, I've been forced to cobble things together haphazardly. It's been rather annoying and nothing has felt quite right, so this is my attempt to streamline the rules for my home games - in whatever version of D&D I happen to be playing.

After using these rules several times in my home game, I feel good enough about them to post up. If I change them in the future I may come back and edit this.

First, let's examine the books I already have:

Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness - The rules for Demon Weapons are cool as fuck, and clearly inspired by Elric. "Slays any unit it hits" is a bit much though. The magic effects from the Chaos Weapons section are good and the artwork is of course fantastic.

Awesome, but it will need some massaging to work within D&D.
We will come back to it later.


The Metamorphica Revised - The 'Ficto-Technica' section has tables for magic items. The best table is the one on pg. 208, "Demon-Possessed Items":

This will come up later on. 

Just get it, it's $10 for the revised pdf or get the classic version FREE!


AD&D DMG - Pages 166-168.

The standard to which all others are compared! Tables for personality and special goals are fantastic, but the whole system is pretty complicated and you have to flip back & forth. As usual, it could do with a bit of organizing.

I will be using the DMG as the baseline. From there I have attempted to streamline the mathematics and make things a little simpler while calibrating for my home setting.

*****

CREATING INTELLIGENT MAGIC ITEMS

0: Start

Per the DMG - we begin with an existing magic item. It could be a standard book item or one of the DM's own devising. This system was originally for magic swords but could be applied to anything: other weapons, wands, rings, armour or whatever.

From there, a simple 6-step process:

1: Roll for item INT

2: Roll for Alignment

3: Roll for Special Abilities

4: Roll for Special Purpose

5: Roll # of Languages Spoken, if applicable

6: Calculate EGO & Personality Strength

1: Intelligence and Capabilities (%)

We begin with the base tables from the DMG to see if it has intelligence and a mode of communication, and determine starting EGO rating:

01-50: No intelligence. Stop here.

51-75: No intelligence, but a strong alignment. Roll on Step 2 and then stop.
76-83: INT 12, EGO 1, semi-empathy
84-89: INT 13, EGO 2, empathy
90-94: INT 14, EGO 3, speech
95-97: INT 15, EGO 4, speech
98-99: INT 16, EGO 5, speech, read nonmagical languages/maps
00: INT 17, EGO 11, speech/telepathy, read magical writings

Or, if you are going to make an intelligent item anyway, use this chart expanded to the full percentage range to avoid a lot of rerolling:

01-31: INT 12, EGO 1, semi-empathy
32-56: INT 13, EGO 2, empathy
57-76: INT 14, EGO 3, speech
77-88: INT 15, EGO 4, speech
89-96: INT 16, EGO 5, speech, read nonmagical languages/maps
97-00: INT 17, EGO 11, speech/telepathy, read magical writings

EXAMPLE - I begin with a magical +2 sword. I have no particular plan for this item, so let's see what the dice give me on the top chart. Rolling for intelligence I got a 91, lucky! This sword has INT 14, EGO 3 and the power of speech.

2: Alignment (d20)

If you use simple law/chaos alignment like I do, just ignore the good/evil component of the result.

Remember that all cursed weapons are Neutral.

1-5: Lawful Good

6: Lawful Neutral

7: Lawful Evil

8-11: Neutral Good

12-15: True Neutral

16: Neutral Evil

17: Chaotic Good

18-19: Chaotic Neutral

20: Chaotic Evil

Simple alignment: if Chaotic, 30% chance of a demon item

AD&D alignment: if any Evil, 40% chance of a demon (or daemon or devil) item

Unintelligent but Aligned Items

Simple: Can be wielded or held by anyone, but activated & special abilities only work if alignment matches exactly. Plain +x items are reduced by one 'plus' for every step of alignment difference.

AD&D: Can be wielded by anyone, but activated & special abilities only work if all non-neutral elements of the item's alignment match the wielder's (a Lawful Neutral item can be used by anyone Lawful). This doesn't work in reverse - a Lawful Good item can only be used by Lawful Good characters. Plain +x items are reduced by one 'plus' for every step of alignment difference on either axis.

Intelligent Items

Simple: Handling an item of opposite alignment deals damage equal to item EGO. Handling an item one 'step' away (item or wielder is Neutral) deals 1/2 damage.

AD&D: All non-neutral elements of the item's alignment must match (as above), or handling the item deals damage equal to item EGO.

Demon Items

Can be used by characters of any ethos, all the better to corrupt them to the forces of darkness.

EXAMPLE - I use Simple alignment in my game. I rolled a 5, indicating the sword is Lawful.

3: Special Abilities

Roll for abilities based on item's INT:

INT 12: 1 detection ability
INT 13-14: 2 detection abilities
INT 15-16: 3 detection abilities
INT 17: 3 detection abilities, 1 extraordinary power

Detection Ability (%)
01-08 - detect shifting rooms/walls/sloping passages 10'

09-16 - detect traps 10'

17-24 - detect undead 20'

25-30 - detect opposing alignments 10'

31-36 - detect similar alignments 10'

37-45 - detect precious metals, kind and amount 20'

46-54 - detect gems, kind and number 5'
55-66 - detect magic 10'

67-69 - detect illusions 10'

70-74 - detect secret doors 5'

75-80 - see invisible 10'

81-85 - locate object 120'

86-93 - roll twice, ignoring this result or higher (add 2 EGO)

94-00 - roll for extraordinary power (add 2 EGO)

Extraordinary Power (%)

01-06 - determine direction and depth, 1d2/day

07-14 - enlarge/reduce on wielder, 1d2/day

15-21 - spider climb for 1 turn, 1d3/day

22-28 - clairaudience for 1 round, 30' range 1d3/day

29-35 - clairvoyance for 1 round, 30' range 1d3/day

36-40 - ESP for 1 round, 30' range 1d3/day

41-46 - charm person on hit, 1d3/day

47-50 - knock, 1/day

51-56 - strength on wielder, 1/day

57-61 - invisibility to item's enemies for 1 turn, 1d2/day

62-66 - levitation for 1 turn, 1d3/day

67-70 - fly, 1 hour/day (add 1d3 EGO)

71-75 - illusion as the wand, 120' range 1d2/day (add 1d3 EGO)

76-80 - x-ray vision for 1 turn, 40' range 1d2/day (add 1d4 EGO)

81-86 - telekinesis for 1 round, 1d2/day (add 1d3 EGO)

87-90 - telepathy, 60' range 1d2/day (add 1d4 EGO)

91-94 - teleport, 1/day (add 1d4+1 EGO)

95-97 - heal, 1/day (add 1d4+1 EGO)

98-00 - Roll twice, ignore this result again (add 2 EGO)

EXAMPLE - INT 14 gives 2 rolls on the Detection Table.
I rolled 03 - "detect shifting walls/rooms/sloping passages," and 71 - "detect secret doors." Not bad!

4: Special Purpose of Intelligent Item (d%)

Every intelligent item should have a special purpose. 

All these goals are filtered by alignment. A lawful sword that must 'defeat or slay' will only select chaotic enemies of its chosen category, etc.

01-15: overthrow opposite alignment (or "maintain balance" if Neutral)
16-85: defeat or slay:
     16-22: divine magic users (incl. divine entities, etc)

     23-30: arcane magic users (incl. magic-using monsters)

     31-37: fighters
     38-44: thieves
     45-55: all non-human monsters
     56-63: particular creature type (humanoids, undead, demons, etc)
     64-71: particular race or kind of creature (elves, orcs, ghouls, etc)
     72-78: servants of a specific deity
     79-85: everyone!!
86-92: defend a particular race or kind of creature

93-00: defend interests of a specific deity

Intelligent items generally prefer to use their powers in pursuit of their special purpose, but will do so for general tasks as long as they are kept happy. Using the item in opposition to its special purpose (aiding those the item wishes to destroy, etc) provokes an immediate personality conflict.

EXAMPLE - Rolling for Special Purpose, I get a 75 - "defeat or slay servants of a specific deity." Since the sword is Lawful, I decide to randomly select from the Chaotic powers in my setting. I end up with INMA, EMPRESS OF THE WORLD, a petty god worshipped by degenerated elves.

5: Languages Spoken

It's assumed the item can understand its wielder in any case. This determines the number of languages the item can speak aloud, if it is able. Per the DMG:

# of languages (%)
01-40: One
41-70: Two
71-85: Three (+1 EGO)
86-95: Four (+1 EGO)
96-99: Five (+2 EGO)
00: Six (+2 EGO)

What Language? (%)

Here is a chart from my game as an example.

01-15 - Imperial (aka Common Viridian)

15-20 - Alryan

21-25 - Antillian

26-30 - Dunael

31-35 - Ghinoran

36-40 - Skandik

41-45 - Tharbrian

46-50 - Amazon

51-55 - Altanian

56-60 - Avalonian

61-65 - Orichalan

66-70 - Old High Viridian

71-72 - Wild Speech

73-74 - Skeletongue

75-76 - Duvan'Ku

77-87 - Grimscribe

88-91 - Demonic

92-93 - Wild Elf/Bog Elf

94-95 - Lizardfolk

96-99 - Chthonic Elf

00 - Something really old/rare (draconic or something else cool)

EXAMPLE - Here I rolled fairly low, a 15. The sword can speak one language. I rolled Wild Elvish and decided it was made by the elves to destroy the heretical cult of Inma!

6. EGO Modifiers & Personality Strength

1 - Begin with item's starting EGO score as per Step 1.

2 - Add 1 EGO for every magical 'plus' an item has. Double this bonus for weapons that came into the process with special abilities (a +1 sword adds +1 EGO, a +3 sword of sharpness adds +6 EGO, etc) 

If the item is some weird thing from an OSR blog with no pluses you must use your discretion. Eyeball a power level between 1 (+1 sword, simple misc. magic item) and 10 (+5 holy avenger, staff of the magi). If you're completely stuck roll 1d10, or 1d6+1d4, or whatever.

3 - Include bonuses from Step 3 and Step 5, if any.

4 - Add the item's INT + EGO together to find its Personality Strength (PS).

EXAMPLE - The sword started with EGO 4. Add 2 for the sword's +2 bonus.

Total EGO of 6.

"Xyrxidon" Sword +2, Lawful

INT 14, EGO 6, speaks wild elvish

Detect shifting rooms/walls/sloping passages in 10' , detect secret doors in 5'

Resolving Personality Conflicts

Personality conflicts arise when the intelligent item's desires are not being met by its wielder. These contests are resolved with Personality Strength scores. 

The wielder of an item has Personality Strength equal to their INT + CHA + level.  This diminishes as the character suffers damage. The experience level component of this formula is reduced in proportion to hit point damage suffered.

 

The DMG explains it quite Gygaxianly, it's actually less math than it seems. The DM needs to calculate this just once (and when the character gains a level). Find the character's hp breakpoint at which the item's PS is higher than his, and make a note of it. There is no need to keep track of floating modifiers, since they don't matter most of the time.

EXAMPLE - Tjarg the Fighter is 5th level with 9 INT, 9 CHA and 30 hp. He normally has a Personality Strength of 5+9+9 = 23. For every 1/5 of his total hp he loses (6 points in this case) he deducts 1 point from his PS - so at 24 hp his PS is reduced to 22, at 18 hp it is 21 and so on.

If Tjarg is using our +2 sword above with its INT 14 & EGO 6 (PS of 20), you can see clearly at 12 hp he is tied with the sword and once his hp reaches 6, the sword's personality is stronger than his! All Tjarg's DM needs to do is write down "Tjarg loses contest w/sword at 6 hp."

As long as the item has a lower Personality Strength than its wielder, it can make its desires known and refuse to use its abilities if frustrated, but has no power over the character.

When an intelligent item has a PS higher than its wielder it may dominate him at any time. It may force him to attack certain opponents or allies, refuse to strike foes, force him to surrender or to drop it, etc. The likelihood of this happening depends on the relationship between item and wielder. It may make other additional demands - encrustation with gems, a fancy scabbard or case to be stored in, other efforts toward favoured causes, things like that.

Optional Rule for Personality Conflicts:

One thing I don't like about the DMG rules: it is trivial to roll up an intelligent weapon that will never win a personality conflict! This doesn't seem that exciting to me. Maybe you want a bit more uncertainty in your game?

It requires a bit more note-taking. The DM must note the wielder's Personality Strength at multiple breakpoints. Perhaps full hp, slightly hurt, half hp and near death. Keep these notes nearby for reference. When a personality conflict arises, the DM rolls 1d8 for both the item and wielder, adding it to their PS scores before resolving the contest.

EXAMPLE - A magical boon has increased Tjarg's INT and CHA scores to 10. His Personality Score is now 25. His humble sword can only win a battle of wills when he has 0 hp left - not very useful! Instead, the DM notes his Personality Strength at 12 hit points (PS 22) and 6 (PS 21).

During a difficult fight Tjarg gets hurt badly, reducing his hp to 11 (therefore, PS to 22). His sword has new plans for him and attempts to take control. The DM rolls 1d8 for each of them. Tjarg gets a 3, totaling 25. The sword rolls an 8, totaling 28. Today isn't Tjarg's lucky day...

I have not tested this idea very much. It would have to be calibrated. You could make it more or less random by changing the size of the die. If you used a d4 or d6, upset results would be rare. A d20 would make the whole thing way too random. d8 or d10 seems like a nice middle ground - the die roll will count for about 1/4 to 1/3 of success or failure, with the remainder upheld by statistics. Just enough that one can't be certain all the time!

Optional Rule for Different Versions of the Game:

The DMG rules are calibrated for players with certain statistics. Probably using 4d6 drop-the-lowest method, or perhaps something more generous than that. From the anecdotal evidence I've seen, successful AD&D PCs tend to have 1, 2 or even 3 exceptional statistics (15 or over), with the rest hovering around average. Consider this when calibrating the PS of your intelligent items.

If you play B/X and use 3d6 in order, for example, maybe you would reduce all item PS scores by 10-20% to balance out the lower stats.

[CHANGES]

This system will generate intelligent items that are slightly different from the DMG version in some ways:

Section 1 - Ignore "no intelligence, but strongly aligned" and this is exactly as per the DMG, I just condensed the math for you.

Aligned items being commonplace adds a sense that they were created for a real purpose. Picking up a wand of fireballs that only works for Chaotics, an Evil sword of sharpness, or a suit of armour made by a Lawful cleric helps to embed these items in the game world.

Section 2 - I rearranged the order of the alignments so that law, neutrality and chaos were grouped together, but the chances of rolling a given alignment are still the same. Effects of opposing alignments are standard for AD&D 2-axis system, and extrapolated from there for simple alignment. [EDIT - I had to fix this. Before damage was impossible if the wielder was Neutral, lame]

Effects of aligned, but unintelligent weapons are my own. 

Demon weapons will occur about 6% of the time, and be explained in a later post.

Section 3 - The first table is BTB.

Extraordinary Powers are more likely (7% instead of 2% BTB), but the really powerful ones will occur less often so this seems fair. Some of the better Extraordinary Powers now add extra EGO to the item. This is fair, since rolling up an item that lets you teleport or fly every day seems like a really big deal!

I reworked the abilities so they fit my game better and have more variety. Sloping passages and trick walls are rare in my dungeons (unlike in the old days) so I combined them into one result, then I added some other cool abilities, etc.

Section 4 - Basically the same but I added more purposes to the table to give it some variety.

I removed "special purpose powers," so you'll never get a disintegrate-on-hit sword, but those were only going to happen 0.02% of the time anyway, so who cares?

Section 5 - BTB, I just included the EGO modifiers to make your life easier.

Section 6 - BTB, I just helped with the math.

*****

This is already getting long, and even more tables are coming up so let's quit while we're ahead. Rules for Demon Weapons coming up in the next installment!

Humans of the Wilderlands

I started running an open-table game set in the City-State of the World Emperor. We'll see how it goes. Some rank beginners to D&D have come out to play, and this is great, but does come with its own set of challenges:

What grinds character-creation to a halt is asking players to MAKE ANY DECISION. I think this has to do with the amount of information people need before they're willing make a choice. In 3rd edition there are dozens of starting feats available to 1st-level characters (I had to create a 3.5 character on the weekend to play in a friend-of-a-friend's game, and hated every second of it. The choices I mean, not the game itself!). There is no way a brand-new player can sit down and make any sort of informed decision about his feat choices on the day of play. He needs to take the book home and study it. Bleah!

Veterans with a given ruleset are fine here, but there is also information about the setting that must be considered, and this varies from DM to DM and game to game. Even one-axis alignment (law, chaos, neutrality) is too much setting info to absorb for some people I know to make a decision! Forget about adding complexity to PC races beyond "I'm a dwarf." You're going to hear that Scots accent whether you like it or not.

In the Wilderlands, a human character's origin might actually matter later on, but all cultures and races seem interchangeable at first with only short descriptive blurb. Thus I must force players to roll on a table. If they don't like what they get, they must pick a different option right away, and we can move along to the game itself!

EDIT: after James Mishler's great comment (thanks mate), I thought I should re-write these tables in alphabetical order, to better accord with his descriptions.


Human types in VIRIDISTAN (d%)

01-10: Alryan
11-15: Altanian
16-19: Amazon
20-29: Antillian
30-35: Avalonian
36-39: Dunael
40-45: Ghinorian
46-55: Mixed
56-57: Orichalan
58-61: Skandik
62-71: Tharbrian
72-00: Viridian


Of course distributions will vary based on location, population and political concerns. On the edge of the world, things are different, and it might look like this:


Human types in LAND'S END (d%)

01-10: Alryan
11-35: Altanian
36-45: Amazon
46-55: Antillian
56-57: Avalonian
58-60: Dunael
61-62: Ghinorian
63-77: Mixed
78-87: Orichalan
88-95: Skandik
96-98: Tharbrian
99-00: Viridian


For Wilderlands vets: I have omitted the Gishmesh and Karakhan because I decided that continent is a foreign and mysterious place known to very few. PCs being from there would squash that. Yes the game world does "shrink," but it's pretty huge to start with. The Land's End group have only ranged about 35 miles from town so far!

If a player already has an idea for their character there is no need to roll, but now I have this lying around should the need arise.

Random Monster Generator Spotlight 5 - The Metamorphica Revised

I haven't been too loud on the blog for a few weeks, but plenty of gaming is happening over here. The Land's End crew is halfway to fourth level and very busy indeed - they raided the twin snake-man towers of science & sorcery, stole some ancient technology and just committed their first "war crimes" against the Neanderthals!

I also started running some LotFP adventures I have lying around with a gang of newbies. The first session was a blast (we played No Salvation for Witches) and I'm working on a follow-up. Maybe I'll talk about it all sometime but I find regular narrative play reports a bit tiring to write and they aren't nearly as exciting as those old Planet Algol ones I loved so much.

These days I'm running out of random monster generators to compare. Instead I want to dive deeply into a book that really blew my mind:

*****

THE METAMORPHICA REVISED

By Johnstone Metzger
Released by Red Box Vancouver
Print ($20) and pdf ($10) on DTRPG here
On Lulu softcover or hardcover

I remember perusing the Metamorphica Classic (still free to download right here) and thinking "yeah, this is pretty cool." The revised edition has updated that sentiment to a well and true stoking. This book is like Frank's Red Hot: I want to put that shit on everything.

It's sort of hard to review because it's so fucking large. Even ONE section from this 269-page beast would be a useful book in its own right. The Metamorphica Revised has it all: Tables. Tables of other tables. References. Sub-tables. Categories of other tables that refer to sections of larger tables. Mutants. Science. Plant monsters. Psionics. Super-heroes. Demons. Animal-men. It's all presented in a comprehensive way and organized so it can be used for various applications depending on your game (more on this later). There are no stats provided, everything is system-neutral. Normally I would hate that but it works here as you'll see.


The Big One

The main body of the book is the d1000 mutation table. Metzger gives us many ways to use it. We can roll a d1000 if we want but the various mutations are grouped by type, allowing us to roll through numerical brackets to get something particular if we want a physical, mental, psychic or supernatural mutation.

The entries themselves vary widely and are too numerous to list (they go on for 111 pages). Many entries are 1 in 1000! Simple stuff like "herbivore," "multiple heads" or "kidney stones" sits next to weird shit like "heal brain," "bag of creatures" or "demonic phenomena" (a four-page d200 table on its own). There are more results here than I could ever use. No statistics or numbers are provided, leaving every DM to adapt or create rules for each mutation in their own game.

The only gripe I can think of is that Metzger included ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING he could think of on this table. I am not sure when I'd find a chance in my game to straight up roll d1000 and play through. But that's okay, because the next sections show us how to use the book in even more ways:


Additional Tables

This is where this book really shines. This image is from the beginning of the book, but it conveys the idea. Check this out:




Do you see those grey numbers along the side? Those are PAGE NUMBERS. All the tables are like this! Can you imagine what a bitch this book would be without them? Indexing like this makes it worthwhile to recompile the giant d1000 table in different ways for various applications, as Metzger does throughout. Physical and mental, beneficial and detrimental mutations are grouped up so you can get something for your purposes instantly.

This section also includes a whack of tables for generally useful things. Randomly determining colours, body parts, animals, materials, monster powers, bizarre features, etc.


Themed Sections

This is where the book really gets awesome! Metzger recombines elements from the great d1000 table in new ways, and offers brand-new entries to serve a specific genre.

After The Fall - Tables for your post-apocalyptic mutant game. Mutant plants, beastlings, hyperevolved animals, pages of new tables for generating mutant hordes, and a whole d1000 table for the scavenged detritus a mutant might carry around.


The Ficto-Technica - The longest themed section, this one is totally mental and took me a while to get my head around. An abstract system for generating science-fiction devices and magic items, it works by combining prefixes, suffixes and descriptive terms to name the item and leaving you to decide what it does. Combinations are sorted by type of technology, like 'the corrupt arts,' 'the pure sciences' or 'genotech.' The magic item tables come right at the end and include guidelines for living or demon-possessed items, magical armour & weapons and strange magical gear. You won't find any +1 swords, and like the rest of the book you'll have to do the heavy lifting after the tables give you the kernel of an idea. Want more Goblin Punch-style artifacts for your OSR game? You could do a lot worse than this.


Popular Science - This section is short and sweet, mostly consisting of brand-new tables. Procedures for creating space aliens, comic-book superheroes and anthropomorphic animals, along with guidelines for rolling up mutations on the main table based on what kind of scientific experiments you were subjected to.


Swords of the Chaos Lords - This is basically Realm of Chaos part three and for my home game it's worth the price by itself! Much will be old hat to anyone familiar with those venerable Warhammer books. Guidelines for creating infernal sorcerers, demons, chaos champions and - you better believe it - chaos spawn. Most of the tables in this section point to existing mutations from earlier and group them up in different ways. Tables for the ill-effects of infernal sorcery, summoning mishaps, demonic motivations and a full d1000 table of bonus 'infernal characteristics' round this section out.

As an example, let's create a Lesser Demon. This is complicated and comes with some 'default' mutations like Immune to Disease and Immune to Poison, but I'll stipulate to those and assume that you know what the 'outsider traits' are in your own game system. This is what I rolled:

Body: Cactoid with the head and left foot of a dog

Superhuman strength

Invasive

Increased metabolism

Inhuman features push through this demon's skin when it is angry, wind and storms follow this demon wherever it goes, prayers or declarations of love cannot be spoken, vehicles crash and spin out of control.

Demonic Equipment: Retinue of lesser demons, Retinue of damned souls, Magical armour

Motivation: Inspires the careless expenditure of resources, so they are used for no good purpose.

I dare you to put this thing in your game and not have a memorable session at the very least! I need to roll up its magic armour, so let's flip back to the Ficto-Technica:

Shape: Amulet

Powers: Grants the wearer 2 mutations when worn: Arcane Tracking, Absorb Mental Properties.

That's a fantastic magic item! It might even be worth tangling with this dog-headed cactus demon. I think a DM that drew on these tables for demonic antagonists would start triggering acid flashbacks in his players pretty quick. I want to play in that game.

Overall

In a word: thorough. Absurd breadth and variety, collected and organized. Procedures and ideas tailored to the genre you want. For such a massive database, Metzger really knows how to make this thing usable and easy.

A few minor quibbles: there could have been more page references when the book directs you to a distant table, which happens a lot. The grey page numbers along the sides of the tables are a bit faint in the print version, it actually took me a while to notice them. And an absolutely demented degree of cross-referencing does sometimes happen.

How Many Rolls: 1 or more... sometimes lots more.
Would I use this in the middle of a session: Depends on the application - there is a LOT of cross-referencing and page-flipping. You might want to get some sticky tabs. To generate a new creature, no. For its intended purpose of mutating your characters, hell yes!
Variety and Reusability: Approximately 1 lifetime of gaming. "Creativity aid, not creativity replacement."


Johnstone Metzger, I bow to your dark genius.

Tweaking the random encounter tables

I have been reading the Alexandrian and thinking about dice probabilities (both highly worthwhile pursuits). His series on hexcrawls is fantastic and has given me a great format to follow for my random encounter tables, where before I was really haphazard (every region had something different). I can trust that guy to present information that is useful, battle-tested, well thought out and incorporates knowledge of the underlying math.

The Numbers

As for dice probabilities, I have always flip-flopped on how to spread out the chances of running into each monster on a random encounter table. Rolling 2d6 gives you a 'pyramid' distribution (it's unlikely you'll meet those monsters on 2 or 12), which I always liked. You can hide some really evil, nasty beasts under those numbers. But just what are the chances, really? Well I looked it up. Bookmark that one, you'll thank me later.

This pyramid is actually steeper than I thought at first glance. Rolling a 7 is six times more likely than rolling a 2. I think these numbers (6/36, etc) are the limit of the kinds of probabilities that are easy to imagine and manipulate in your head, without writing them down. In fact, I think it's too granular, in a way. Let's compare two possible random encounter tables and see how much I care about the details...

This is the table for the Rainy Jungle as I used it last session. You can see there are a few oddities that could be fixed:

2d6

2-3  -  giant bee     (3/36, 8.3%)
4  -  1-2 giant geckos   (3/36, 8.3%)
5  -  1-3 neanderthals   (4/36, 11.1%)
6  -  1-3 giant botflies   (5/36, 13.8%)
7  -  1-3 goblin hunters  (6/36, 16.6%)
8  -  1-6 capybaras   (5/36, 13.8%)
9-10  -  1-3 steam beetles  (7/36, 19.4%)
11  -  1-2 orchidmen   (2/36, 5.5%)
12  - roll 2x and combine   (1/36, 2.7%)

Why are steam beetles so popular/? Because the probabilities are in 'chunks'. I can't freely add or subtract 1/36th to any result, except by adding 2 + 3 or 12 + 11. If I have less than 11 results, some have to group up and this creates odd 'lumps' in the probability pyramid. The 2d6 table works well when you have exactly 11 results. Any less and it becomes really awkward to use. 

I *could* move goblin hunters to the 9-10 spot and steam beetles to 7, but this seems needlessly fiddly and annoying to format. Is there a better way?

Let's change it to a straight d20 roll and see what happens:

1d20

1  -  1 giant bee    (1/20, 5%)
2-3  -  1-2 giant geckos    (2/20, 10%)
4-5  -  1-3 neanderthals    (2/20, 10%)
6-8  -  1-3 giant botflies  (3/20, 15%)
9-11  -  1-3 goblin hunters   (3/20, 15%)
12-14  -  1-6 capybaras   (3/20, 15%)
15-18  -  1-3 steam beetles   (4/20, 20%)
19  -  1-2 orchidmen   (1/20, 5%)
20  -  roll 2x   (1/20, 5%)

The probabilities are almost the same (within 3.3%), and I can fit the same number of monsters. But all of a sudden the table is much more adaptable. I can modify a result in the middle of the table (like making the goblins 5% more or less common) without having to rework everything!

The small downside is that I can't have a 2.7% result for the REALLY rare monsters. The smallest unit is 5% but that's a fair trade for versatility, ease of use and less mental math. 5% is the chance of a critical miss, so there is a nice symmetry in it also being the chance of rolling the blood-mad Wights of the Murderous Moors, or whatever harshness is on your table.


The Monsters

Can you feel... the danger?

Random encounters haven't happened often in the last few sessions (my dice seem to love going easy on the players). Given their rarity, I have decided to move away from the more 'naturalistic' monsters. Having the only random encounter in a three- or four-day expedition through the steaming jungle wilderness be with mundane capybaras (pictured) is a bit weak. 

Even if they should be there for 'realism', the encounter can at least be with giant capybaras the size of VW buses, or vampire bats instead of a swarm of normal bats, or sneaky camouflaged giant chameleons with 25' long tongue attacks (that's a cool one actually...) instead of plain giant lizards. Capybaras can be the kind of thing you hunt for dinner.

So here's my rectified random encounter table with better monsters and everything streamlined a little bit. Thanks again to the Alexandrian for this.

1d20

1-3  -  1-3 goblin hunters
4-5  -  1-3 neanderthals
6-8  -  1-3 giant botflies
9-11  -  1-3 steam beetles
12-14  -  1 man-mantis   [2-HD version of giant mantis]
15-16  -  1-2 giant chameleons
17  -  1 jungle bear (hairless)  [too good not to use!]
18  -  1 giant bee
19  -  1-2 orchidmen
20  -  roll 2x and combine

Now the monsters are a bit more exciting. Nothing you could actually encounter on Earth (a few variations are okay). I'm going to do all my random encounter tables in this format. It's customizable and has just enough granularity for me to work with, not so much that it takes any mental strain to manipulate.


*****

I'm on fire this week. Let's see what's on the playlist next?

Starting Equipment & Doodads

So, continuing my quest to make every game more like Dark Souls. I was thinking about the 'starting gifts.' Some are great, some useless. I took the Master Key every time because it allows you to skip the shitty part of Blighttown and really makes life easier.

Since the PCs start with garbage Middenmurk-style weapons, maybe a table of 'inheritances' that could include decent gear would be cool: your grand-dad's old campaigning sword, piecemeal chunks of armour, stuff like that. Your fighter could start out with a pigskin jacket, rusty meat cleaver, and shiny platemail boots. Maybe he would rather sell them for rent money? Maybe other 1st level scrubs want to roll him for his old pop-pop's gear?

Of course I would need to create rules for piecemeal armour, which seems like wayyyyy too much fucking work. In the mean time, I dug out this chart I saved of d100 random items in your PC's pocket. I did some digging, and Hack & Slash had a link to another one on his big link compilation page. These are great, and I will begin using them IMMEDIATELY.

Naming the Cults

It's snowing outside.

This is an easy one. A master table of all the religions in the game! I had a heck of a time adding and subtracting to this so that some might be familiar to my players, there aren't too many to keep track of (I'm looking at you Celts), few boring non-adventurer gods, and it still adds up to a number that we can roll on a set of dice.

I think this is a good balance. The other gods from the real-world pantheons are still around, but the priestesses of Hestia for example won't be encountered strolling down the highway on a quest.

You may note a great degree of... "ecumenism" in this setting. I'm definitely taking a more freewheeling approach to religious conflicts, where the temple of Satan can walk across the street to talk to the Christians instead of ally themselves with the servants of Orcus against all the forces of good, and where Loki's clerics could team up with Wotan's servants to help their culture conquer Britain and the forces of Lugh & Arawn. Plenty more combinations await!

!!!! RELIGION TABLE !!!!

Master table for rolling up random clerics/cultists

Where devotees of some of these "religions" get their spells is up to your own judgement.

D48 (d6 & d8) ROLL:

ABRAHAMIC

11 Jesus

12 JHVH

13 Satan

14 Gnosticism

15 Pelagian Heresy

ANGLO-SAXONS

16 Baldr - the shining one

17 Bragi - skalds

18 Loki - trickster

21 Thunor (Thor) - storms, thunder, you get it

22 Tiw (Tyr) - glory, war, law

23 Wotan - wisdom, language, war

24 Eastre - spring, dawn

25 Freyja - love, fertility, sex, death

26 Frige (Frigga) - wisdom, foreknowledge

27 Hel - underworld

BRITONIC

28 Arawn - underworld

31 Belenus - “the fair shining one”

32 Crom Cruach - “bloody crooked one,” human sacrifice

33 Dagda - druidry, magic, fertility, agriculture, strength

34 Lugh - skill, crafts, war

35 Manannán - sea

36 Brigid - spring, healing, fertility, poetry

37 Ceridwen - rebirth, transformation, inspiration

38 Morrígu - war, fate, doom

ROMAN

41 Apollo - sun, music, healing, truth, prophecy

42 Bacchus - wine, madness

43 Jupiter - sky, thunder, king of the gods

44 Mars - war

45 Mithras - secret warrior mystery cult

46 Neptune - sea

47 Pluto - underworld

48 Saturn - agriculture, wealth, generation, dissolution, time

51 Vulcan - fire, forging

52 Diana - hunting, the moon, nature

53 Minerva - wisdom, strategy, trade

ANCIENT ONES

54 Chthulhu

55 Yog-Sothoth

56 Dagon

57 Azathoth

58 Nyarlathotep

61 Tsathoggua

DEMON LORDS

62 The King in Yellow

63 Thasaidon

64 Arioch

65 Orcus

66 Demogorgon

67 Jubilex

68 Lolth

*****

Now for something more relaxing:

MEGA MUTATION POST!!!!

*****

EDIT: HOT DAMN!
Other people are on to the same thing and this is just great.

Also, this badness over at Red Box Vancouver. The revised edition costs $10 for the pdf (but remember that's in our Canadian dollars, which are basically wooden nickels), but the 'classic version' is free.

Now to peruse through and try to integrate it all!

*****

Okay folks, it's been a minute. Tonight I am trying to switch over to night shifts for the rest of the week, so I'm up til 7 drawing a new map of Albion, writing up dungeons, and collecting links and ideas for various aspects of the game.

One thing that's been on my mind for a while is a bad-ass "super-mutation" chart. Something that has EVERYTHING, where I'll never run out of new shit to inflict on PCs, and I can also use to whip up freakish Chaos champions, pathetic sorcerous experiments and everything in between. I will also use some of the more innocuous and cosmetic mutations for the elves in my game, who are supposed to look freakish and alien.

So far, I have no such compiled table, but a list of links or references to other people's tables. All I have to do is create a weighted chart that lets me decide which one of them to roll on! I will weight it so the really savage tables are much less common, and so the tables with MORE STUFF are used more often.

-Tiefling appearance table from the 2nd edition Planeswalker's Handbook

-Mutation table from Carcosa

-"Effects of the purple lotus" from Death Frost Doom

-This sweeeeeet table from WWCD? (please I hope to see more of these)

-I think this one's from Warhammer.

-This one is more of a 'sorcerous mishap' chart but has plenty of great stuff.

-Scrap Princess at it again!

This will be added to as I find more links and get more books. I'm not really sure how to format a table in this stupid blogger interface, so w/e bro, the Notepad solution it is.

ROLL d100:

1  - 20%  - Tiefling

21 - 28%  - Carcosa

29 - 34%  - Purple Lotus

35 - 52%  - WWCD?

53 - 74%  - Warhammer

75 - 91%  - Dungeon of Signs

92 - 00%  - Scrap Princess

*****

Brought to you by the changing of the seasons and the unconquerable sun: