(I was going to mention this in my last post on gaming prep & workflow, but it really is its own topic)
I have spent hours hand-picking music for my in-person games and I consider that time well spent - everyone comments on the atmosphere during the game! This is the kind of work that continues to pay off, since the same playlists can be used multiple times (with periodic updates to keep them fresh). That kind of work is useful prep. Plenty of other things, aren't.
If you use Spotify, maybe that works for you, I don't know. I still use mp3s on my phone because I grew up with Napster. For my current in-person game I have a wilderness playlist and a dungeon playlist which have each grown from about 2 hours of music to -- checks notes -- over 6 and 7 hours respectively, more than enough to run a session and not hear any repeats.
It has taken me a LONG time to build these playlists because I have very stringent requirements for in-game music, which I will try to outline here for your edification and amusement:
Rule 1 - Minimal Dynamic Range
When you first decide to play music during your games, you might run for the music of your favourite films. The problem is that most film soundtracks are written & produced just like classical music with much broader dynamic range than modern popular music: from near-silence to huge crescendos. This works during a movie but is absolutely insufferable to listen to even at home alone, when I'm trying not to turn my stereo's volume knob every goddamn minute.
Most 'modern classical' compositions are simply way too over-the-top to work as background music anyway. Big orchestra hits, swells, violins attacking like swarms of bees, timpanis crashing... I'm trying to have a conversation here! Hans Zimmer is really bad for this. During a game this will amount to quiet sections being totally inaudible while everyone is talking, then conversation getting interrupted by a blast of sound. A non-starter.
What you want is a constant volume level so that you can set it and forget it. Your game music must be quiet enough that it doesn't impinge on everyone talking & nobody has to raise their voice, loud enough that it can actually be heard a little bit.
This is actually a very narrow band!
An additional oft-overlooked consideration with this rule is trying to find songs that are roughly volume matched to each other. I think Spotify or some other streaming services might do this for you? Just pay for premium because if I hear an ad during your game I'm strangling you.
Some examples of too much dynamics:
On the flip side, this track is consistent throughout. Howard shore is the GOAT but take care because not every song on this album is so cooperative.
Rule 2 - Not too 'song-like'
I used to play extreme metal or folk music during my games, I don't do that anymore. I avoid anything with drums and most guitars. This contributes to the background sense of the music - I don't want the players to really take notice except in rare instances. Strings, synthesizers, things like that are all fine. Even in ambient music there are percussive elements and these should be considered carefully, some can work as long as they don't sound like an actual drum kit.
Acoustic guitars can be OK, depending. Medieval instruments like a glockenspiel or something need to be chosen with care, as they can easily descend into terminal cheesiness. Anything with lyrics is right out, although some vocal chants or something might be okay.
Rule 3 - Not Easily Recognizable
The hardest one to do, depending on your gaming group. The first time a player says "Hey, isn't this from Lord of the Rings?!" you'll never make that mistake again. Everyone is now imagining the scene where Gollum finds the ring, instead of the damned hexcrawl you're trying to run. Pretty soon someone is doing a Gimli voice, someone else is telling the story of Viggo Mortensen breaking his toe and the game has gone completely off the rails.
Just don't do it! Skip Hollywood franchise films, blockbusters and things your players will know (I can't tell you what those will be, you have to know your players - a DM's work is never done).
Dig deeper and find stuff people haven't heard. This is where being into underground music really pays off (a rare circumstance indeed!). Call up your much cooler friends and ask them what they're listening to. Dig into anime from the '90s, foreign films, non-triple A videogames, or fire up Youtube and poke around for some new microgenre that hasn't been saturated to death yet.
Rule 4 - Not Too Much Variety
I stick to 3 or 4 artists for a particular themed playlist. This is not a hard rule. Since it's tough to find composers who have enough songs that fit my requirements, it ends up working out this way. I find creating strongly themed playlists works better - the players can feel the difference between different areas of the game world, different modes of play or even levels of danger!
Rule 5 - No Jazz!
No matter what Noisms says! (that article has some good stuff in it though)
Suggestions
Oh what, you want some songs that you should include, instead of a list of prohibitions? Okay, here are a few, you'd better thank me for bestowing my wealth of experience. I'm giving y'all the game here, so don't say I never did anything for you guys!
Remember, these are entire albums. You have to use the principles I just taught you to pick the appropriate songs from each!
I'm on the latest episode of Gus B's Classic Adventure Gaming Podcast, you can find the latest episode HERE. Go check it out, the latest episode is about the already legendary first Cauldron Con in Germany and has a star-studded cast of cool guys, scene VIPs, 10' pole forum goons and Discord chatterboxes from the deep end of the oldschool D&D pool!
I'm not an interview guest (nobody should be listening to my opinions, haha) but I did create the podcast's theme music! It took me a while but I'm quite proud of it, this is the first project I've finished since beating tendonitis and getting my playing back this year. Go follow them and listen to the back episodes, they're all great!
"No updates since January!!! Where you been at TS?"
I flatter myself that you are thinking this.
I've been short on posts for a few reasons this year. I have been playing and running A LOT of games in the last few years. I got on Discord, made new friends, played in some pickup games, joined some campaigns and had lots of fun (hails to all the cool and weird folks I've met on many different servers, too many to name).
Mainly though, I was running my own games for my own players. No matter how much I use modules and steal material from everywhere I can, inevitably either my players take a weird turn forcing me to write new material and/or I get a cool idea I have to write up for myself anyway. As I've said before it takes me forever to write even a small dungeon, so there was no energy left over for blogging.
It'd be a lot cooler.
Several recent developments have hampered my gaming even further:
I am studying for a work exam on evenings/weekends (normally this would be 3 months of full-time schooling, so doing it in my spare time takes a while). This really cuts into anything else I might spend my time on. I have put my online game (running since October 2019!) on hold for several months to focus on school stuff, and my in-person games (both of them) have slowed down completely over the summer/fall.
More importantly: due to a relentless and constantly-evolving rehab & weightlifting routine, the tendonitis that plagued me for years is finally in retreat and I can use my hands again! It is impossible to overstate how positive this change has been. For the last 5-6 years I haven't been myself at all - being unable to play music has really been wretched. Only now that I am out of it can I see, by comparison, what a deep mental pit I was in for a long time. Like having my mouth sealed shut for half a decade - all of a sudden the duct-tape has been ripped off!
I only dived deeply into RPG gaming more intensely a few years ago because my hands hurt so much I couldn't play. Now that I'm back I am making up for lost time, spending hours in the studio, finishing up projects and taking on new ones, not to mention practising to regain my previous skills. Although my speed is nearly at peak levels I've noticed my endurance, accuracy and precision on my instruments are *not*. This will take time... time that I'm not prepping for games.
*****
"Okay TS, that's great (and verges on oversharing) but what's the point?"
I need to write more gaming material in less time than ever before. Running multiple original sandbox games (even using modules when possible) has placed a creative demand on me that I've never had to deal with before. Here are some of the ways I have kept the workflow going, and some mistakes I've made & lessons I've learned along the way.
Other People's Suggestions
First of all, I tried to find reading material on speeding up my prep time. I couldn't seem to find anything good. I asked plenty of other gamers and found that sometimes even communicating my problem was basically impossible - a baffling situation!
The Alexandrian has a lot to say on the subject. Many of you will find all of it old news, others will benefit. Start here. I read these articles a long time ago and they are helpful if you are currently a beginner or mired in counterproductive habits, but for me at this point they don't say anything new.
Sly Flourish's book The Lazy Dungeon Master just sucks, don't read it, fucking embarrassing.
If anyone else has suggestions for "smart prep" resources, I'm all ears, but strangely this is one area of gaming that I don't see too many people discussing. Am I an outlier? Am I just missing the conversation? Let me know in the comments.
A Short Tale
I was house-sitting for my brother a while ago, spending most of the time on the couch with the cats and watching all the streaming TV that I don't have at home. I eventually felt guilty I wasn't being productive so I brought over the gaming material I could fit in my laptop bag: the Sword & Magic rules, my campaign notes & maps and a 2 or 3 helpful booklets (more on that below).
I tell you, I created more dungeon rooms in my notebook on the couch with inane sitcoms droning in the background, than I do on my computer with a modern word-processor and access to a veritable mountain of gaming resources, tables, blogs, PDFs & books!
What can we learn from this?
Get The Fuck Off The Computer
The dangers of distraction are well-documented in the social media age. I have certainly killed a lot of time scrolling IG or hanging on Discord, but you know all about that stuff.
My point here is somewhat different.
When I'm writing on my computer I try to stay organized. I want my dungeons to make sense, to 'fit' together into a coherent whole. So to help with that I have my dungeon map open in photoshop, a project overview & to-do document, a doc for the particular dungeon level I'm working on, my treasure tables, a stack of books beside me, my favourite generator tools, etc. Having all of this at my fingertips candrain my ability to do anything. Alt-tabbing around between documents, maps and different books is really distracting and soon, work bogs down utterly. Attempting to hold all the existing dungeon information in my mind while creating something new is pretty much impossible.
To an untrained observer I am "focusing" on creating a dungeon (after all, I am engrossed in these dungeon documents & maps, I'm not browsing socials or looking at my phone) but I can easily spend hours doing nothing of substance. I might be tweaking the map, reordering the to-do list, adding some inspirational source material I should eventually read, or re-writing the room keys to be more terse and evocative...
But NONE of that help me decide what is in the next dungeon room - and that's what I need to figure out by game night!
Peter de Vries wrote "Write drunk, revise sober." Perhaps for me it should be "Write on paper, revise on the computer." Now on Saturday mornings I go down to a local hipster coffee shop with my notebook, get caffeinated and write down dungeon ideas. I just bang out cool rooms, monster lairs, dungeon dressing, 'specials' and anything else I can think of.
As it turns out my memory is fine for this purpose - I don't need all the keys and maps in front of me in order to write rooms that make sense in the context of the dungeon I'm working on. I can remember the basic organizing principles, and don't need to know exactly whether the pit trap is in room 10 or 11 in order to write something down the hall.
Use What You Have & What Works
The other factor in that house-sitting success story was my limited access to game materials. Instead of having access to my crammed gaming bookshelves (not to mention an unimaginable horde of PDFs on my computer) I was forced to make use of the books I brought along. Instead of browsing for that "one perfect table" I rolled on what I had, noted down the result and moved on. This kept me focused on generating ideas instead of "comparison shopping" indefinitely.
What many folks know already is that not all gaming materials are created equal. I have been running a city campaign for 4 years and never once have I used anything from Vornheim. Meanwhile The Nocturnal Table features in my game consistently. Coincidence? Um, just, like, my opinion, man? I think not! Good game materials deliver results when you need them. When you find powerful tables or useful reference works, use them all the time instead of indulging your inner magpie and looking for the next shiny object. I wasted years beating my head against substandard tools, trying to make them work because everyone else said they were great.
(This is where the dudes at old-school bastions like K&KA will steer you right. Ask them what kind of tables & reference books they use. I know they seem scary, just be cool and don't talk about B/X.)
Here is a short list of highly useful tables and reference works that I can recommend to everybody. It isn't anything earth-shattering, and most of these you probably know already. Some are hard to find but don't @ me. Get these in physical copy or download & print them, stack them beside your desk, turn off your computer and get more shit done than before:
- The 1st edition DMG
- OSRIC (get the Black Blade hardcover if you can)
- Hack & Slash - Treasure (the best thing Courtney ever wrote, fight me. PDF only but I printed it out for my gaming binder. Yes, it's that essential)
- Judges Guild - Ready Ref Sheets, Wilderness Hexplore Revised, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, City-State of the Invincible Overlord (and plenty more, but these are the best)
- Matt Finch - City Adventures, Tome of Adventure Design (Honestly I don't use the TOAD as much as some people, but certain sections of it are gold. There is a bit of a learning curve while you get familiar with what it can do and where to find things)
- New Big Dragon Games' d30 Companions (duplicates some DMG stuff but both have useful shit)
- Ktrey's Wilderness Hexes. Too bad this is not available in book form. (hint hint bro, my money is yours for all the use I've gotten from these over the years) Also you can browse his blog for even more material.
I'm sure I omitted your favourite book or table. There are lots more, but the point is that these are some of the basics. Start with a useful core of books that definitely work and expand one piece at a time as you find useful things. For further reading, some of these and more are mentioned in Melan's blog article Great Tables of D&D History.
*****
A lot of this advice comes down to working on what actually gets results.
This post got really long, so I cut out some for a future article to make things a bit more digestible. Maybe writing post was a distraction in itself... Oops, time to go! I hope this was useful or interesting. I'm still out here gamin' hard, and I hope you are too.
Have fun everyone!
To return to the reason for this post: here is one guitar player who wouldn't let a little setback - an industrial accident that cost him TWO FINGERS - prevent him playing some of the heaviest shit ever committed to tape:
"Again, if I really think about this then it seems pretty nifty. And it is ABSOLUTELY better than most of the garbage I run across. (This is what praise from me looks like. Its not the best food ive ever eaten in my life. Why is that the case?)"
"The ability to create, and communicate, the truly MYTHIC in quite well done. The designer understands the need to do this in an adventure and has the ability to do it."
He didn't quite like my minimal prose stylings, but you can't have everything in life. Anyway, as usual you can get the adventure for FREE in Footprints magazine #25.
Well, various people have jumped in with their opinions on this latest nonsense from WotC about a new 1.1 version of the OGL. Some say it invalidates the old version, others say it can't. (A great deal of talk is happening on Reddit, but that language I will not utter here)
[DOUBLE EDIT - I'm going to add more good links as I find them (or you can also just go on youtube and search 'OGL 1.1' to find a million videos)]
This shit even made it into VICE and The Guardian (I ain't linkin it)!
I find the debate mildly amusing but it really doesn't change a damn thing. The OGL isn't even necessary for what we do! Although I do hope this latest round of blood-from-a-stone tactics will convince a few people dumb enough to still play Corpo-D&D to throw away their expensive 5e books and come over to play with the cool kids.
Either way my message to Hasbro & WotC is, was and always will be the same. I hope you will all join me, dear readers, raising your voices as one in a righteous chorus to say:
License this dick, suits.
That's all for today, but here is an old video that may shed some light on the subject. Watch and at least try to pay attention:
A few months ago, I got the wonderful Helvéczia boxed set from EMDT (read all about it here, and then go buy it here). One day when my online B/X group was a bit short-handed, I decided to run the starting adventure included in the book. My players had a great time. I thought I would have to explain everything to them but they understood the premise instantly and got right into character. Now they ask me when we can play "the fop game" again!
Here is how it all went down:
THE SEVEN KNAVES
Meeting on the Road
Three wanderers ambled along a cliffside highway after sunset: Tarasz Lobodou - a handsome Cossack wearing expensive boots and a feathered hat; Wilhelm Rudd - a sure-footed, sharp-eyed Dutchman with a crossbow, at home in the wilderness; and Zenzi - formerly an innkeeper, this German was now pursuing his education in arcane sciences, while carrying a sack full of grenades.
Tarasz, introducing himself: "People outside Zaporizia can't pronounce my name very well." Zenzi: "Yes, and those inside don't want to!"
Having just been turned out of Oberwalden village by the sullen residents, they were on their way to the next town and the next adventure when they came upon an old moss-covered stone cross by the roadside. A dishevelled vagrant slept beneath it, his hat over his face. Tarasz shook him and he woke with a start of fear, only relaxing when he noticed the group wasn't hostile.
The tramp introduced himself as Bernard, explaining that he had been begging for alms at a house up the road when he was set upon by a gang of toughs who took what little money he had and gave him a thrashing for his troubles - they posted a few guards on the road by a stone arch, so he wouldn't come back.
Moved by the poor man's plight, Tarasz gave him a few coins [+1 Virtue]. The group thought they might investigate these ruffians to see the truth of his story.
But first, Wilhelm's keen eyesight spotted a distant red glow in the nearby forest and the group decided to investigate, with Bernard in tow. Walking along a narrow path through pine forests that had never known a woodsman's axe, they came to a small patch of glowing red mushrooms with fireflies dancing above. Each adventurer took a piece, and the glow persisted after they had been picked.
The forest path continued past the mushrooms until the group came upon a small mountain lake (more of a pond, really) surrounded by rushes. A cave opening in some rock formations was visible beyond. Peering into the water, Zenzi noticed a yellow glow amongst the weeds at the lake's bottom. Wasting no time, Tarasz stripped to the waist, set his sword & pistol carefully aside, held a dagger in his teeth and dove into the water.
Lucky he was to bring a weapon, as the brave Cossack was immediately attacked by a gigantic man-eating frog! The horrid beast almost swallowed him whole, and only swift action with his main-gauche allowed escape. Meanwhile two more of the creatures leapt towards the group on the shoreline, one almost swallowing Bernard whole.
Zenzi, noticing one of his areas of study is Amphibians: "This is the greatest day of my life!"
While Tarasz swam for dear life, a keen-eyed crossbow shot by Wilhelm and a blast from one of Zenzi's grenades taught the other amphibious predators a lesson. Making it to the shore just ahead of his pursuer, Tarazs managed to put a final bullet in it a split-second before it bit him again! After the fight, Tarasz swam down and recovered a glowing golden cross from the bottom of the lake while Wilhelm managed to treat Bernard's wounds [a very lucky Medicine roll!].
In the cave was a tomb, showing an armoured man and an inscription: Von Oberwalden. Part of the carving was movable and had a place for a key or signet of some kind. Zenzi made an impression of the symbol, but lacking any such key the group moved on.
The House
Emerging from the woods, the party espied a moss-covered stone farmhouse across the road. Cheery light shone from its windows and the sounds of song & merry-making could be heard. Further back up the highway, a stone arch was visible against the starlight.
Deciding on a 'divide-and-conquer' strategy, Wilhelm snuck through the woods while the rest of the group walked up the road with a lantern towards the stone arch. Lurking in the trees, Wilhelm could hear the two guards playing dice and grumbling about their posting.
Tough 1: "We have to sit out here, watching out for that bum! Meanwhile Raoul and the lads are drinking in a nice warm cabin. Pfaugh!" Tough 2, notices the party appraching: "Oh, what's this? Mayhap we've got some relief after all."
But it was not to be. As the party got close enough to recognize, Tarasz whipped out a pistol and the game was up. Caught by surprise, they considered their options but were thoroughly demoralized to see Wilhelm emerge from the trees at their flank, crossbow levelled. The toughs were forced to admit they had robbed Bernard, were interrogated, then bound & gagged and left in a roadside ditch. The beggar was overjoyed to get his handful of coppers back [+1 Virtue for everyone].
Tough 1: "As a good Christian, you wouldn't shoot an unarmed man?" Tarasz, brandishing pistol:"Mayhap I'll send you to G-d and let him be the judge of that!"
The group learned very little except the gang's leader was a rich gentleman named Raoul, and something important was happening tonight.
As the party returned to the house, the Oberwalden town church bell tolled ten o'clock. The sounds of merriment still issued from inside. Listening carefully, Wilhelm felt sure there were no more than six men inside. The stables held only a fierce-looking, night-black warhorse nobody dared approach. The party decided to lie in wait for a while, reasoning that after all this drinking somebody would have to come outside to relieve themselves.
Half an hour later, their patience was rewarded when a shabbily-dressed thug stumbled out towards the forest. Tarasz and Zenzi crept up on him carefully, the latter preparing to cast a spell on him: The Mirror of Narcissus.
Zenzi's player: "And just as he whips it out, I step forward and meet his eyes..." Tarasz's player: "I take some small steps back from the scene."
Failing his Temptation save, Witless Heinz (for so he was called) saw Zenzi for a simple rogue just like himself, happily having a few drinks. He spilled the whole story: Raoul was a tough & fearsome leader who sometimes ventured into the woods all alone and showed signs of knowing magic (his boots were shoed in reverse). He had told the gang that an important visitor was arriving tonight, commanding them to return to the house at eleven o'clock. The group sent Heinz back inside with a commandment to keep silent about them [he made a Temptation save to keep his mouth shut, another of the company's lucky rolls this night!].
The group heard Oberwalden's church bells ring out eleven as they deliberated on their next move. Finally they decided on the direct approach: Zenzi threw a grenade through the window while the rest of the group charged in through the stable door! There was the crash of gunpowder, screams of agony & fear, fire and smoke. Tarasz spotted the rogue Raoul standing in the front doorway, lace spilling from his cuffs. The black-clad Spaniard held up a crystal globe which seemed to absorb Tarasz's mind, drawing his whole consciousness towards it - but the Cossack's will was stronger than this black magic and he resisted. Inside, Wilhelm cut down some Frenchman who tried to blast him with a blunderbuss, while Bernard went wild with a club in the confusion & smoke.
Seeing things were turning against him, Raoul tried to flee down the highway, but Tarasz managed to hit him with a flying tackle, knocking the crystal sphere from his hand just as Zenzi came around the corner! Together the two of them subdued the rogue.
As the smoke cleared, Wilhelm saw that poor Witless Heinz had been laid low by Bernard in the latter's zeal to punish the ruffians who robbed him. Taking pity on the fool, he saw to his injuries [another great Medicine roll, and +1 Virtue!].
The Visitor
With the villains subdued, the group searched the house and interrogated Raoul. They found a few Pfennigs on the ruffians, and Zenzi took Raoul's spare set of fancy black clothes, putting them on so he resembled the dashing criminal.
Searching Raoul was illuminating: the party found a catalogue of grave sins (murder, arson, etc), each one signed by himself and another called Goodfriend. The man was tough-minded and resisted interrogation, but the group did manage to get a few details out of him - the mysterious midnight visitor was to be the Devil himself, with whom Raoul would make a bargain most foul!
A plan began to form. The group tied Raoul to a tree outside and cleaned up the house as best they could. Zenzi carefully cut Raoul's moustache off and stuck it to his own lip.
As midnight tolled, the clatter of wheels and neighing of horses could be heard. An elegant black carriage pulled by four fierce chargers pulled up to the small country house. Its driver was obscured by a cloak & broad hat, with clouds of red sparks issuing from beneath as if exhaled by a furnace. Stepping jauntily out of the coach, dressed in an elegant vest & monocle was the sooty-faced Devil, horns and all!
He rapped sharply on the door and Zenzi invited him in. "Ah, nice to see you again Raoul. Do you look a bit different...? No matter." Whether Zenzi's hasty disguise had fooled the demon [another fantastic roll this night!] or all men looked much the same to him was unclear.
"You have the papers?" Zenzi produced Raoul's paperwork and Goodfriend reiterated the terms: worldly fame, wealth, magical power & skill at the Devil's Bible (playing cards) in exchange for a sequence of heinous crimes... and one immortal soul! After signing the contract, Zenzi really didn't feel any different, but Goodfriend said the changes would take effect the next day. He offered to do deals with the rest of the group, but when they weren't interested he bid everyone farewell, jumped into his carriage and was gone with a clatter of hooves.
Return to the Crypt
After this, Raoul gave up some of his secrets under intense pressure from Wilhelm [torturing a captive, uh oh, -1 Virtue!]. The group was able to recover his treasure - a lockbox with some coins and a signet ring showing a snake coiling around a sphere - the same symbol as in the Von Oberwalden tomb.
Returning to the forest cave, the signet ring unlocked a deeper passage inside. Descending the stairs, Tarasz just barely avoided a hidden spear-trap [lucky save!]. At the bottom was a large stone coffin with a carving of a bearded man with a mace & shield, while four moldering coffins lined the walls.
Opening the sarcophagus revealed an ancient armoured corpse with a sword on its chest, holding a scroll-case. When Zenzi's Faithful Servant spell retrieved the scroll, the sword rose into the air and attacked! A tense struggle ensued but with Zenzi's quick thinking, a chunk of coffin-wood and Wilhelm's net, the sword was thrown back into the sarcophagus and the lid slammed shut.
Opening the scroll case revealed an ancient paper: The Testament of the von Oberwaldens. This ancient will seemed to indicate that anyone who held it and the signet ring is the true and rightful master of Castle Oberwalden and the whole valley around it!
With this new windfall, the group wonders what strange escapades might come next?
The Catalogue of Sins:
Tarasz - offered charity to Bernard (+1 Virtue) Everyone - returned Bernard's stolen money (+1 Virtue each) Wilhelm - showing mercy, healing Witless Heinz (+1 Virtue) Wilhelm - torturing Raoul (-1 Virtue) Zenzi - using Student spells (-1 Virtue) Zenzi - making a pact with the Devil! (-3 Virtue)
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.
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!
