Best of the Web - Religion & Octopi

Elfmaids & Octopi has a trio of nice posts about Religion.

Ye Gods! Cosmological Musings on the New Gods which lays out the cosmology and 12 gods for the home campaign.

Common Cults of the Elder Evils which gives 4 different 1d12 tables of cults that could be developed and dropped into any campaign.

Local Harmless Cults which provides 4 different 1d12 tables of colorful, quirky cults, some of which are actually harmless and most of which might seem dangerous to information starved adventurers.  

It would be nice if someone put together another book like Pettygods filled with deities like the ones linked above. Fantasy Worlds should be filled with a few big religions and lots, and lots, of little ones. The more a GM has to choose from the better.

Best of the Web - Aggregators & Sorters

Now that Google+ is gone the web is starting to slowly come together. First we have aggregators like RPG Planet and Old School RPG Planet (both by Alex Schroeder one of the indispensable figures in the RPG web) that take the posts from hundreds of gaming sites and list them so you can glance over and click on posts of interest. Finding blogs can be nearly impossible, this makes it super-easy. The only draw-back is the site is like a river and if you ever try to find a link (that you didn't bookmark the other day) it can be impossible to find again. Also it lists everything (as it should) so a lot of stuff you like will be mixed in with stuff you don't care for while someone else will love that stuff you didn't care for.

Then we have sorters. Like these Best of the Web posts a sorter plucks out the best bits the've found. The advantage to this is that it is more selective. If you find a sorter that has similar interests you are gold, it's like a Pandora channel playing the music you like and ignoring that other stuff. It can also be far easier to find an old post because they are posts themselves and thus searchable (the main reason I created my own Best of the Web series, so I can read old stuff).

This week I ran across a few other sorters (Found through Alex Schroeder site). This makes me very happy but also means I'll be reading their back catalogs looking for the gems and nuggets.

• Seed of Worlds has a weekly collection called Shiny TTRPG links collection
• Take on Rules by Jeremy Friesen has a new daily post called Amplifying the Blogosphere that has become a must read (and not just because he mentioned Best of the Web recently, thx)
• Weaver.skepti.ch has a series of posts called EOW for End of Week (he also mentioned me, thx) that does the same

Thoughts on Combat Momentum

 I was reading about the Encounters Die and it occurred to me that no games really capture momentum. If you read a story about sports (or even combat) the side doing well is said to have the momentum. This is mostly confidence for those that have momentum combined with lack of confidence for those that do not have momentum. That is where the momentum die comes in. 

The Momentum die is an old-style d20 numbered 1-10 twice. One color is dedicated to each side in the combat. If the die is one sides color they add the value to their To Hit rolls (fighters can take it as a addition to damage instead if they want), and the other side subtracts the value. 

1. When combat starts the d20 is at 0 (placed where everyone can see it). 
2. During the first round of combat the GM compares the successful hits for each side. Subtracts one from the other and moves the Momentum dice total that many numbers in that direction. For example the characters hit 4, their enemies 1, so the die moves 3 points in the characters direction. The Momentum die goes from 0 to 3 in the Characters color (characters now get +3 To Hit, enemies are -3 To Hit. The next round the characters hit twice, the enemies hit 3 times. 1 point in the enemy direction turns that 3 to a 2 (characters now have +2, enemies -2). The characters still have momentum but not as great. This repeats every round until the numbers are high enough one side always wins momentum which should move the die to 10 before long.
3. If one side gets a 10 momentum the other side rolls morale.

That's it. This makes being outnumbered particularly hairy, it might shorten combat or make it extra long, I can't be sure until its tested. I'm willing to take suggestions if anyone has any ideas that might improve it.

Thoughts on Alignment

There has been a bit of talk about alignments now that Wizards seems to be moving away from the idea. I've played enough non-D&D game that I'm not sure I care all that much what the do, but I thought I'd lay out some of my own thoughts on alignment. First, I think in terms of two types of Alignment.

Personal Alignment - For lack of a better term, personal alignment means the 9 alignment grid. It is a general graph of the character or NPCs personality. There are no alignment languages of this type and a spell can't tell if one is Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, that stuff is for the Religious Alignment. 

Religious Alignment - The term isn't really all that fitting but it'll do. This is the old Chaos vs Law conflict that happens throughout the Multiverse. These groupings allow for alliances for the greater cause. Alignment languages might be a thing, allowing the disparate allies to communicate. Each alignment is marked by their loyalties (or lack of) and a Know Alignment spell would tell you which side they stand on. 

You can't gain Clerical Healing if you are not of the same Religious Alignment as the Cleric and don't expect to be brought back from the dead unless you're the same Alignment and Religion as the Cleric. The hope here is to make it beneficial for characters to get involved in religion beyond just befriending a Cleric to act as a dutiful healer. Also I'd assume there are areas that are Holy or Unholy Ground. These areas will prevent healing and resurrection if one is not of the correct alignment and give a boost to those of the correct alignment.

So basically you could have someone that is Chaotic Evil aligned with Law for whatever reason and nobody would know until they got caught doing something Chaotic Evil. People lie, especially to themselves, that Chaotic Evil bastard may not even really know how bad he is until the opportunity presents. That Chaotic Evil guy couldn't be a Cleric or Paladin of a religion demanding they be Lawful though as the God in question, the one dealing out the spells, would certainly know.

Anyway that's the way I look at alignment, when I do look at alignment which isn't very often.

Best of the Web - Old Style and 3D Printing vs Games Workshop

Donato Giancola of Dweller of the Forbidden City has two brilliant articles. The first Running D&D the Role of the Ref lays out how Donato runs games. It's the old style approach stripping out the Game Masters need to handle story and narrative and just presenting the world. This says a lot about how games have changed over the years because anyone that started playing in the old days will recognize the play style immediately. 

The second post is Randomization - It's Not What You Think. Well it is what I think, and it is what most Grognards would think, but a few of the things were abandoned long ago by most in the hopes of streamlining things or making players happy and Donato lays out the points with very convincing rationals why they should be reconsidered. I've never liked individual initiative but the case is made and I can't really deny it is a good one worth exploring. Also Spell Distribution, my games have never had a lot of spell casters so this hasn't been a thing but I like the way its laid out and I'll be giving it some thought. 

Ran across an old article called Games Workshop Takes Legal Action over 3D printing on Greyhawk Grognard.  It made me wonder how the case turned out. It also got me thinking how Games Workshop should be embracing the technology. Imagine if they didn't have to make led figures and ship them around the world, but instead could send out the plans and have them printed up in the many Games Workshop stores. Certain figures are super-popular, print up more of those. It really would solve a lot of supply/logistics problems. Assuming the 3D mini's are of equal quality to the ones they normally make.

Thoughts on To Hit and Damage rolls

To Hit rolls are binary, you hit or you do not. Yes you might have critical hits and fumbles but there is a lot of wiggle-room there that nearly every game just discards. Rolling a 19 and adding all bonuses resulting in hitting easily is no different than getting the exact number required to hit. So I was wondering how practical it would be to take that number (the amount above required to hit) and add that to the weapon damage.

This might be lethal at low level, but then DCs and ACs should make it harder to hit and thus there will be less overflow to add to damage.

I also think it would work particularly well in any game that uses Armor Points that absorb damage instead of AC.

Okay, its a bit of extra math but hardly difficult math. Also if you went with straight weapon damage instead of a roll you could reduce things to a single roll. 

Best of the Web - Judge Dredd Random Crimes

Tony Bro001 at Roleplay-Geek has a fun table for determining random crimes in Judge Dredd including the penalties called Judge Dredd Random Crime Drop Table.  I don't play Judge Dredd but I love this and I'll be making something similar for medieval type crimes for my Thule Marches campaign since the characters will start off working for the March Lord and will have some kind of law enforcement function (if they choose to enforce or not is on them). 

As I said, I love what he's done but what I don't get though is why a drop table? Why not a regular table with higher crimes as higher number results so modifiers can be added to increase the likely hood of serious crimes or not (-3 to roll during day, +3 to roll at night or in alleys for example). I can see the value of a dice drop table when generating a random dungeon or village, you know, to pick out the location of the buildings, but beyond that I've never understood this type of table. If someone has a semi-convincing reason why these type of tables are valuable let me know. 

Thoughts on Adventure Design (Part 2)

In yesterdays post I talked about dividing modules to separate the Map and Overview from the Encounters so that multiple Encounters sheets can be drafted for the same Map and Overview. This time I'm thinking about those Encounters and more specifically the use of Monster Manuals. I love Monster Books but they aren't useful in quickly populating a dungeon. This is an idea for a supplement to that. A pdf that would be super-useful in populated an adventure. 

5E srd has some prepared stat blocks that enable a GM to simply state GOBLIN in their adventure. This is a decent start but I don't like it for three reasons. 

1. The Stat block should be in the adventure, you shouldn't depend upon cross-referencing to another book. That is great design to create slimmer books but horrible design for usability at the table. I know some folks like hardcover books but they are limiting as the kind of thing I'm talking about works far better in PDF where you can copy/paste to quickly populate a module.
2. The Stat blocks have too much info. Does the GM really need to know the Knights skills? Or their passive perception? or even all of their weapons when they are most likely to use their most damaging go-to weapon?
3. One GOBLIN is insufficient. Back in 4E's monster manual they listed different varieties of each beast to create variety to the encounter. This is the best thing in 4E and they didn't carry it forward. Imagine if that GOBLIN was actually a page or two of WEAK GOBLING, VETERAN GOBLIN, SKIRMISHER GOBLIN, WARRIOR GOBLIN. So the GM could just copy/paste out one or all to create a group of goblins, or to put a different Goblin in different rooms to customize encounters.

So this supplemental book would be a pdf, full of statblocks, with multiple statblocks per beast. include a table of weapons used by the group, and tactics and you have a very useful entry. Yes this book will be a lot longer, and it'll be a dull read, but it should be super-useful and super-fast when it comes to populating an adventure. 

Yes there are probably online generators that do all of this (they have them for RuneQuest which had far more complicated stat blocks, but I've never seen them for D&D). If there are generators it should be easy to cook up what I'm looking for.

Thoughts on Adventure Design (Part 1)

Most old school adventures had an idea, a map, and 30ish pages of fluff that a GM had to sort through (and often cross-out) before they could use the thing.

All Dead Generations has  post called One Page Dungeon Design that is all about good One Page Dungeon Design. The One Page Dungeon is an interesting concept because in most cases they don't provide enough detail to run right away either, but they basically skip the part where the GM has to hack out the fluff and provide the kernel of good stuff directly so the GM can add in their own details right away (much of which can be improvised) allowing for a bit more usability.

All this got me thinking. Does anyone run modules as written (outside a convention setting that is)? If the answer is no, not really then we should all be doing some thinking on how to fix this. B1 In Search of the Unknown created a starting adventure designed where a GM would populate the dungeon, thus learning how that sort of thing is done. This was a good idea but I don't think it was ever duplicated so maybe it wasn't so good, but I tend to think it was and my mind ran with it, a bit.

Imagine a one-page dungeon with just enough info. Nothing about the encounters, just a bit of history, some notes on the location and traps or dressing or unique challenges. Then imagine 2-3 pages listing the encounter table and contents of each room (with stats). Then imagine another 2-3 pages listing an alternate encounter table and contents of each room (with stats). Then maybe a third for a higher level. The same location could be filled with Orc & Ogres in Option 1, Bandits & Bugbear in Option 2, and Drow & Dueger in Option 3. The GM then picks the option they prefer for their campaign. They might end up using all three options as a campaign goes on over the year. Do it right and you might find half the RPG blogs adding their own option to give a location life again, and again.

Anyway I think that might be a useful way to package adventures.

Note, clearly I'm mostly talking about location type adventures here, anything more than that could be cobbled together out of multiple locations with Encounter Option designed to go together in some way.