Left 1d4 Dead

I love the zombie apocalypse survival horror computer game Left 4 Dead. Which is a bit weird, considering zombies as a whole scare the snot out of me, and I avoid horror movies like the plague.

But Left 4 Dead has such awesome gameplay. Particularly the way it forces the players to work together and help each other out. For those who don't know, in Left 4 Dead, various things can incapacitate you: being mobbed by normal infected, the special attacks of most of the special infected, falling off a ledge, that sort of thing. The only way to cease being incapacitated is for one of your teammates to help you up, or do some similar action. Actually dying in L4D takes, well, a lot of effort, but can happen if the party is stupid and doesn't help each other out.

I love this feature. So, here's a suggestion for how to incorporate it into D&D, or some other game that uses hit points (ans assuming HP represent, in part, luck and ability to dodge, not just structural integrity):

When a character is down to 0 hp, he is incapcitated, and can't do anything. Additionally, he must make a save (vs. Death Ray, or DC 20 Fortitude, or whatever fits the edition) or suffer an ongoing detrimental condition (-2 on all rolls, or perhaps a Negative Level), until the character can rest and get some decent medical attention (takes at least 2 hours and a DC 20 Heal/Treat Injury check, or a Heal spell. Cure spells won't cut it). The effects stack if the character is incapacitated multiple times. Optionally, the third time the effect is applied, the character dies.

If another character gives the incapacitated character a hand up (an attack action), the incapacitated character regains half his lost hit points, although any ongoing conditions remain. Characters cannot be given a hand up in this way until they have been down to 0 hp.

This means that a party can work without a dedicated healer character, but benefits from having one, as the healer can help stave off incapacitation, and thus saves to avoid bad effects, and can help reverse those effects when they occur. Meanwhile, non-dedicated healers will have to, occasionally, help their fellows out.

Similar systems could be applied to paralysis, hypnotism, being chucked off ledges, and suchlike, making each easily fixed by a fellow party member, but forcing a save against some on-going detrimental effect.

Petrol Powered Fantasy

If I remember rightly, it was the Dungeonomicon that pointed out that most D&D worlds have no oil deposits. Most such worlds have huge networks of caves, the Underdark, stretching across continents, holding vast underground seas, and home to a myriad of evil civilizations. There's no room for oil down there.

So what if all those caverns once held oil? What if some ancient god or wizard decided to open a hole in the world, far down in the deeps, and drain it all away?

And what if somebody went and turned the valve the other way?

The world changes forever, and probably not for the better. The surface kingdoms suddenly have access to a fuel source more powerfully combustible than wood, and undergo something of an industrial revolution, thanks to the invention of the petrol engine. Cities become nosier, more polluted, and more crowded and dangerous, thanks to the influx of refugees from the underdark. The countryside, always a haven for bandits and monsters, is now roamed by the less social underdark escapees, who prey on travellers not riding in the safety of the new armoured, petrol-powered coach services. The dwarf holds are a warzone, as they are the largest territory that is above the oil level while still being underground, making them a valuable prize for many displaced underdarkers.

The elves, fey, and other nature-aligned folks don't approve of the situation. Eco-terrorist druids direct crazed, polluted elementals (oilementals?) to cause even more havoc in civilized areas, and bemoan the invention of the chainsaw.

What will the PCs do? Normal dungeon crawling, but with new tools, and a good reason why every underground area is chock full of evil creatures? Perhaps get involved in the crime and vice of the underdarker slums? Guard against monster attack on the new highways? Or perhaps seek a way to drain away the cursed oil once again.

(incidentally, this would be a perfect excuse to break out the d20 Modern rules, possibly along with the d20 Past and d20 Apocalypse books)

[AP Round] Lady Blackbird

-Swinging cage

-Vance: Teleport, knock out guard, first key hit with command

-Work out plan using kinematographic ship chart

-Travelator, Lady Blackbird charms guards

-Engine room, pretend to have surprise inspection, Kale and Snargle sabotage primary boiler

-Refresh scene identifies Captain Hollis as former comrade of Cyrus Vance

-Run into Captain Hollis and his clockwork terminators, lady blackbird smashes them with magic!

-Enter hanger bay, ships hang from ceiling, bridges are in various states of redress, door in floor.

-Fight with noble-blooded pilots, including Chief Pilot Corvallis (electric swordfight)

-Kale and Snargle activate fueling mechanism

-Lady Blackbird injures herself trying to activate generator (first attempt to use Fly spell)


Keys worked well, players enjoyed them, etc.

Less Fill, More Force

I talked with theLoneAmigo about my previous post. He articulated a niggling feeling I'd had all the way through writing it.

It's filler.

Or, more specifically, most of the results it produces are bland, generic, and not really something you actually need a random table for. You have random tables to give you results that are either too complex or gonzo to quickly come up with yourself (if, like me, you have imagination lapses), to give you results that you wouldn't have thought of yourself, or else to give you a result when you can't make a choice between a variety of options because they're all cool.

The first two uses for tables are what I personally call Idea Forcers. They give you a bunch of data which you can, and hopefully will, turn into a cool concept with just a little interpretation. Unlike Filler, they make you be creative, rather than take the need to be creative away.

So, having been a bit nebulous with my definition of an Idea Forcer, I'll give you a few examples:

• The Villain Machine (for SuperLite, the MicroLite20 supers mod)
• How to Host a Dungeon
  
• the Oracles from In A Wicked Age

Essentially, each of the above Forcers features either fully-fledged ideas which require interpretation to integrate with a game or each other, or a wide assortment of small nuggets of information which you need to weld into a cohesive whole.

Now, jumping back to an earlier paragraph, remember where I said the other purpose of tables is to “give you a result when you can't make a choice between a variety of options because they're all cool.”? Well, that's what Jeff's Miscellanium is, as an example. Each table features an assortment of gonzo ideas, none of which are boring. He shows the unspoken wisdom that, just as you shouldn't roll to see if the characters succeed if failure will ruin the game, you shouldn't roll on a random table if it will give you results that are boring.

May the Force be with you.

Beware the... uh... what did you say those goblins were called?

I had hoped to start off with something a bit more meaty, but nothing meaty has sprung to mind the last few days.

Mmmm... bacon...

*ahem*

Anyway, inspired by the myriad awesome random tables that can be found on Jeff's Gameblog, and his cool Miscellanium of Cinder, I present:

The Mildly Amusing Random Goblinoid Tribe Name Generator:

Tribe names are usually in the form of "The [Creature/Body Part] [Action]ers", or "the tribe of the [Colour/State][Creature/Body Part]", but other combinations are possible.

A - Colour (d10)

1. Red
   
2. Crimson
3. Green
4. Blue
5. Brown
6. Purple
7. Black
8. Gray
9. White
10. Pick an obcurely-named or embarassing colour. Examples: Chartreuse, Asparagus.
    

B - State (d12)

1. Bloody
2. Bitten
3. Chewed
4. Dead
5. Moldy
6. Screaming
7. Slavering
8. Hunting
9. Broken
10. Splintered
11. Angry
12. Pick your favourite culinary term. I'm partial to "Marinaded", myself.
    

C - Creature (d20)

1. Dragon
2. Wolf
3. Wyvern
4. Spider
5. Crow
6. Squid
7. Demon
8. Dwarf
9. Elf
10. Halfling
    
11. Mimic
12. Bat
13. Ogre
14. Orc
15. Rat
16. Ooze
17. Flumph
    
18. Pick a farm animal
19. pick an entertaining bird name. Examples: Lesser Bitterns, Penduline Tits, Russet Mud Warblers.
    
20. Flick to a random page of your favourite monster book, and use that monster

D - Body Part (d20)

1. Eye
2. Ear
3. Nose
4. Knuckle
5. Fist
6. Hand
7. Knee
8. Spleen
9. Elbow
10. Tooth
11. Toe
12. Foot
13. Buttock
14. Spleen
15. Kidney
16. Liver
17. Gut
18. Finger
19. Lip
20. Pick a specific bone or muscle. The more medical it sounds, the better.
    

E - Action (d20)

1. Slay
2. Bite
3. Kick
4. Chew
5. Rip
6. Kill
7. Bruise
8. Bash
9. Spit
10. Trick
11. Eat
12. Mug
13. Zap
14. Lick
15. Cook
16. Knee
17. Poke
18. Chop
19. Wrestle
20. Grope
    

What can I say? I was bored on the train.

A little intro

Hello. I'm Jarrah. Myself, TheLoneAmigo, and Altharis are three young(ish) gamers, who all constantly have ideas for RPGs. These ideas usually get mulled over and developed for several hours, often get shared with the others of our triumverate, and then mostly get squirrelled away in our memory banks, never to see the light of day again.

Bit a shame, really. I like to think some of those ideas have at least a nugget of promise in them.

So, TheLoneAmigo made us this blog, so that we can leave our ideas out in the open, for the whole internet to view, judge and use, as seems appropriate.

That's why we're here.

Rock the Underdark

The crowd is a shrieking, moaning, roaring mass of flesh and bone. It roils like an angry sea beneath the cavernous roof of the Pit, orcs jostling with gnolls for shoulder room, goblins climbing and scuttling everywhere. The troll bouncers make no attempt to control the crowd as it turns upon itself in anticipation. In the midst of the chaos, a single beam of light streams down, illuminating a circle on the stage.

A single dark elf steps out into the light, clutching an instrument that mixes a bass guitar with a dying baby. His hand is poised to strike.

A black, unearthly wail echoes out from the stage.

The crowd goes silent.

The band has begun to play.

Spark of Genius

I've been punting the idea of a game about a rock band since Guitar Hero first hit my living room. It's a simple formula - nearly everyone feels the desire to be a famous musician at some point in their life. Yet it never quite clicked for me, until I stumbled upon a children's book by Graeme Bass, The Worst Band In The Universe. Somewhere among the images of weird aliens wailing away on bizarre, impossible instruments I found the seed of an idea: monsters in a rock band.

And where better to find monsters than the Underdark?

The question is, where do I go from here? I can't quite find a game that lets me tell the stories I want to tell in this world. I want a game that emphasizes the way that the flaws of the characters drive the power of their music, and the difficult struggles within a band made up of orcs, elves, and ghouls. Traditional games are right out, and I can't quite find the indy game that hacks in the way I want it to. I may have to build one myself.

Ignition

3... 2... 1...