Ablative Armor, or How I Stopped Worrying about Verisimilitude and Learned To Love the Abstract Nature of D&D Combat.

On Jack's lovely Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque Blog, Barry Asks:

I am looking for OSR rules that use armour to soak damage rather than make harder to hit - anyone have those?

This is a perennial and interesting question, so rather than clog up the comments, I'll put my thoughts here. It's not my intention to discourage pursuits along this line, and I've included a few different ideas. Hope this helps in some way.

The easiest way to turn armor into a more ablative system probably involves incorporating something like DR (Damage Resistance from the 3e era). Typically, one would assign some DR values to each traditional armor type, but probably still preserve the Shield's AC bonus (as most of the defense provided does still seem to fit as purely deflection).

Just in case, here's what DR is: Any damage inflicted by an opponent is simply reduced by the amount of DR that the armor has, possibly reducing it to 0. So you make a little table (these values are only examples, and are problematic for reasons outlined later).

Armor Type	DR
Leather Armor	3
Chainmail Armor	5
Platemail Armor	7
Helmet (?)	+1

Et cetera...

I still love the old “Shields Will Be Splintered Rule” for homing in on the Shield “Soaking” damage as part of player choice (here's how it works: If a Character would take damage, they instead can sacrifice their shield and take no damage, the Shield is rendered useless). You could do this with all armor if you wanted, and have it all without any fiddly subsystems, but then combat turns into strip poker as character armor just falls off with each hit :).

Traditional AC just becomes the base for the system your using (potentially modified by Dexterity, or Shield, depending on the rules system you're going with). “Hits” become more frequent (since there is a “lower” effective AC all around) and subtracting damage for every hit makes inflicted damage lessen. So a “to-Hit” roll that doesn't meet AC is a “Miss” while damage is reduced for each successful “hit” meaning that a particular hit was “Soaked” in this case.

A good question to ask at this stage (before we dive in any further) is: What is your reasoning for wanting this change? I know a lot of people are dissatisfied with the Abstract Nature of D&D combat, but it's useful to think about what the perceived problem you're trying to fix actually is.

The most common desire is to try and graft on more simulation and realism onto the existing abstract combat system, and on the surface, ablative armor rules seem to stress that a hit "connects" instead of “wearing armor makes the character harder to hit.” But it's important to re-contextualize the line of thinking here.

Remember, a “hit” doesn't necessarily mean “connecting blow.” All a “hit” really means in game terms is the opportunity to inflict hit point damage. And don't even get me started on the abstract nature of hit points :).

Given the longish duration of D&D combat rounds, a “to-Hit roll” is pretty difficult to justify as a single swing. It's probably more akin to a series of strikes, feints, parries, etc. All looking for that perfect opportunity to “deal damage.” The “to-Hit roll” just tells you if that “perfect opportunity” came up due to a combination of luck, skill, the environment, and so forth. It doesn't even have to come from the weapon, it could be a knee to the groin, a bash with a shield, anything that impairs the opponents ability to fight for another round (in the case of eliminating that final and crucial hit point). 

If the problem you are trying to address is the general perceived "whiffiness" of roll, miss, roll, miss, roll, miss, or if you need a subsystem that can synergize nicely with weapon breakage/armor upkeep rules, then ablative armor can still seem like the route to solve this. But again, it isn't necessarily the best route to go (it does add complexity for example, and has it's own issues that I try to outline below).

D&D's abstract combat really is a “feature” and not necessarily a “bug.” DM Narration can accomplish the same thing as DR with no additional systems:

Gragach the Clumsy is a Goblin, and rolls a 10, which is not enough to “hit” Haglef the Mantled, who is wearing Platemail. It's very easy to categorize this as a “miss” which is a convenient antonymn for the word “hit,” but not necessarily what happened here. The narration of combat can fix this.

So you narrate "The Goblin's spear point glances off Haglef's breastplate" (see it's technically not truly ablative protection here anyway, it's not "soaking damage" it is actually making the character "harder to hit" in the sense that no HP damage is inflicted, you could just as easily say “The Goblin's crude bronze spearhead just isn't hard enough to penetrate the solid Steel of Haglef's Breastplate” for a more ablative interpretation, but the end result is the same) instead of a series of variations on "The Goblin Misses. Next."

Here's another example (it's easier to apply to melee exchanges, as Ranged Weapons have a built in “You Missed.” excuse that doesn't strain most players' and DM's suspension of disbelief too much. Trebego the Yellow stabs an ensorcelled Haglef (still clad in Plate with a Dagger). He hits, and does 4 damage. Under the abstract system, we just narrate and figure out what happened “Trebego's blade squirms it's way between the plates that gird Haglef's shoulder, managing to pierce flesh and glancing off the bone.” There is nothing intrinsic about Haglef's armor that protects him from the possibility of this occurring. Trebego just got lucky, or really knows how to stick it to Fighters from his underhanded training.

Ablative Armor's intention is generally to create combat situations where there are a lot of “hits” but little “damage.” This is already built into the system as it stands (it doesn't matter how they don't deal damage really), if you just use a looser reading of the definition of a “hit.”

We still try though. We want a sword slashing a Chainmail Gambeson to not manage to penetrate the links (it's the whole point of that kind of armor after all!). So we keep coming back to Ablative Armor to solve this problem, but it in itself creates it's own subset of new problems.

If you decide to go with Ablative Armor, it might be a good idea to make any DR values somewhat variable, either through the application of randomness (assign DR a die value instead of a static number) or perhaps incorporate some simple rules for certain weapons being more/less effective against different armor types (A Piercing Pick is deadly against Chainmail, A hefty Maul is just more effective at battering someone in Plate Armor, than trying to slash at them etc). It might also help to think long and hard about hit location, because most armor types are mixtures of different things.

Variable DR like this is useful in the situation that the enemy is simply not able to inflict damage on a foe due to their attacks. For example: If you assign Plate Armor a DR of 7, and a Goblin has a Spear that only does 1d6, the possibility of that Goblin inflicting damage on the a character wearing Plate Armor is nonexistent, no matter how well the Goblin rolls. The side effect though is this adds another roll to each “successful hit” and more rolls to arbitrate combat tend to slow down play ever so slightly (which adds up with each successful “hit”).

You're also going to have to work through most existing monsters in most systems and assign them an arbitrary DR value and a new AC as well. Is their AC high because they're quick and difficult to strike or extremely skilled or lucky? Or is their AC high because they can be hit easily, but are harder to damage? It's a lot of work, but some find this kind of tinkering fun :).

The final issue is one of de-protagonization, that is: it just isn't always fun for Players. No one likes to see their critical hit and high damage roll (“I hit him! Finally!”) reduced to 0 just because the monster has high DR. It makes an otherwise wonderful roll meaningless, and snatches this sense of victory out of the player's head and hands far too often. It chips away a the FUN. Combat becomes a “mother-may-I” situation, and in some cases combat drags on because Players just can't beat the high DR, either due to bad Damage Rolls or insufficient weapons.

Hope this helps a little bit with your quest. I wrangled with this “problem” for ages, but no solution I found or homebrewed really addressed the issue without adding more rolls and complexity. I think re-enforcing the abstract nature of combat (ie: it's not trying to be “real,” there are no “hits” and “misses” in the normal sense, just times when damage is dealt, and times when it is not) and achieving the desired sense of verisimilitude through narration eventually got me to stop worrying and learn to love it as is :). Doesn't mean I'll ever stop tinkering though :).

RC Hacks and House Rules: Page 226 - More Treasure!

The next random number takes us to page 226, still within Chapter 16: Treasure.

A couple of Treasure related charts here, but the one that really stands out as potentially much more useful than it initially presents itself is the Average Treasure Values Table.

Here we have a breakdown of Treasure types A-M (Lair only) by their average values in gold pieces. When I was younger, I always had an absolute blast generating treasure using the charts on the previous page. Having never owned the Monster & Treasure Assortment accessories, I instead made my own.

Classic D&D Hack:
I had a small container of index cards with alphabetic dividers A-V, with a dozen or so pre-generated treasure hoards waiting between each letter. I was always fairly meticulous about designing my treasures for adventures, but having a bunch of “DM Approved” hoards to hand out at a moments notice, definitely saved some time when players decided to sidetrack-down the lair of a Random Wilderness Encounter.

In the top right corner of each of these cards, I scrawled the overall gold piece value for the treasure for Experience purposes, but never in my many years of Classic did I ever bother to consult this Average Treasure Values Table to see how “close” I was with the average.

My first thought after studying this table was somewhat akin to a mental forehead slap. While the hours I spent throwing down percentile dice on the preceding charts were definitely fun, I could cut out some serious prep time by simply building this kind of Random Encounter coin out of these averages₁.

Let’s take the Medusa: Lair Treasure Type F

The average value of this treasure in gold pieces is 7,600. Although the coins indicated in the treasure table for lairs are in the thousands, we can break this down any way we wish:

200 platinum
2,000 gold
4,000 electrum
5,000 silver
10,000 copper

But wait! Sharp eyes may have noticed my math is missing a thousand gold. That’s where a quick d1000 comes in handy. I rolled a 464, which gives me some more gold to play with and “uneven” the numbers of the smaller coins. The remaining 536 will even out the gold and above. This option is great for sticklers that prefer organic hoards that are random down to the last copper piece. Since the denominations of coins are mostly metric, this adjustment process is pretty quick. Just watch out for that pesky electrum.

Another way this table comes in handy is when planning character advancement. The Medusae in my Rules Cyclopedia are only worth a paltry 175 experience points apiece. But add in the average treasure value of 7,600 gold pieces and now we’re talking some actual advancement for low to mid-level parties. Most DMs prefer to intuitively adjust treasure and experience awards on the fly, but this table could serve as fairly useful guides for beginners who are trying to design by-the-book adventures with character advancement in mind. Locate the Treasure type that is most inline with how many experience points you would like a given adventure to reward (remember to divide it by the party), then simply locate a monster that has that treasure type. This sort of backwards design seems rather strange to me, but I could see it being useful.

Also on this page we have a few more tables pertaining to another type of treasure. Any Dungeon Master worth his or her salt can look at the following list of words and be relatively comfortable with them:
Agate
Garnet
Topaz
Carbuncle
Jacinth
Onyx
Peridot

The DM wears many hats: actor, storyteller, puzzle-designer, world builder, and yes, even amateur gemologist. Although I prefer to encrust my gems on large, unwieldy surfaces to encourage time-consuming prying (more Wandering Monster!), gems are still a staple of the fantasy treasure hoard. Getting to know your gemstones a little better is quite easy with access to the internet. Familiarizing yourself with a few more gemological terms and expressions as well as having some visual inspiration can really help make that dreadfully boring “500gp ruby” a thing of the past.

1. Since these averages do not include the value of magical items, and for magic items, the only pricing information in the Rules Cyclopedia pertains to creation (which is only a rough indicator of actual value). This means that the DM can’t easily just “buy” magical items to place in a hoard using the Average Treasure Table values. This is just as it should be, providing a few extra steps of deliberation before plunking down that Horn of Blasting.

Rules Cyclopedia Hacks and House Rules: Thief Special Abilities

Rules Cyclopedia: Chapter 2: The Character Classes, Page 22.

Oh, I was hoping I would have a few more of these under my belt before tackling this, but the random number generator has spoken. Page 22 consists mostly of tables relating to the Thief character class, specifically, the Experience Table, Saving Throws, and of course, the Thief Special Abilities Table.

Gentle reader, versed in the ways of Classic D&D, I’m sure you can sense the reasons for my trepidation here, for there are a few features of the Thief Special Abilities Table that seem somewhat out of place among an otherwise light rules set.

I’ve made several attempts over the years to find a solution for what I see as the key problems with this particular Table. Problems may be too strong a word, bugbear is better.

Ktrey's Key Bugbears:

1. Percentile Based Resolution – Other than the Woodland Abilities of the Halfling, virtually none of the Special Abilities for other classes are tied to the success of a roll on a d%. I understand that the d% produces much more granulation than the other dice, but it still seems out of place for D&D PCs. After all, we’re not playing RuneQuest.


2. Six of the Eight Thief abilities, when tested by player, can lead to awkward game-play situations.
   
   
   1st level Thief Player: “I check for Traps” (rolls 52%)
   DM: “You don’t find any.”
   (Player knows that he rolled above his Find Traps, so there could still be traps and perhaps proceeds a bit more cautiously. Quite a classic quandary.)
   
   1st level Thief Player: “I try to Move Silently” (rolls 45%) “Crap.”
   
   
   Before you cry “player problem,” please entertain the inconsistency here, although failure at a task should always be a possibility for players, only a few other classes have built in thresholds like this (the Cleric's Turning Chart comes to mind). Fighter can swing his sword against a foe and the outcome is unknown until it is compared to the AC of the defender (which the Fighter can guess, based on the foe's armor, etc, but this is not a sure-fire way to determine the difficulty). Magic-User's get their spells off, and the Saving Throw determines success or failure (what does an Owl Bear save as again?). Thieves are first hand witnesses to their failure, in real time.
   
   The previous page in the Rules Cyclopedia (p. 21) has some text that addresses this with the following:
   

   “at the DM's discretion, either the player or the DM will roll percentile dice (d%).”

   I tend to automatically dislike anything that takes the dice out of the player’s hand, doubly so when it is tied to their character’s success or failure at a task.
   
   The Rules Cyclopedia also continues by mentioning circumstantial bonuses and penalties that can be applied to the chances in order to further obfuscate potential success and failure. A rusty lock granting a 40% bonus to Open Locks, etc.
   
   With the addition of these two caveats, percentage based abilities work a little better, but still just don’t seem to fit in with the understated elegance of the rest of the rules.
   


3. Poor 1st level Thieves begin play with the following percentages:
   

   Open Locks 15%
   Find Traps 10%
   Remove Traps 10%
   Climb Walls 87%
   Move Silently 20%
   Hide In Shadows 10%
   Pick Pockets 20%
   Hear Noise 30%
   

   These aren’t terrible odds on paper, with most of the abilities increasing by five each level for the first eight levels, but in actual play, lower level thieves simply can’t shine without hefty “circumstantial help” from the DM or incredibly consistent luck.

In the past, I’ve done some rather strange things to address these issues. Some proved more popular than others, and as with any of my Rules Cyclopedia House Rules, these can be taken, left, or adapted to fit. If anything I hope to promote more discussion about polishing an already shiny system that is perfectly playable as-is.

So without further ado, I present some Hacks and House Rules for Page 22 of the Rules Cyclopedia:

To address Key Bugbear 3 (Poor 1st Level Thieves) I’ve occassionally let players add ability score based amounts to their Thief Abilities:

Ability Option One: DEX x 5
This gives beginning thieves anywhere from 15 to 90 points to spread out among their Thief abilities. Allowing for a great deal of customization (to fit backstory, or character concept). To limit this somewhat, I recommend that players adhere to certain restrictions; no thief ability can be raised above what it would be for a 5th level thief, or no ability can receive more than 20 points this way. Like most Point-Buy additions, this option does result in more book-keeping, as players need to keep track of their bonus points and actual level percentage separately. In play, it also tends to make for some pretty darn competent thieves, which is generally only ideal for a short campaign.

This option is very hackable to boot. Consider trying DEX x 4, or 3, or 2, or even 1 depending on personal preference and the power-level you promote. It's just a little extra-oomph for the Thief who fancies themselves a master locksmith, but would never dream of picking a pocket.

Ability Option Two: Ability Based Bonuses.
This option ties different stats to the different thief abilities. Then, either the ability score, or more stingily, any ability score bonus is applied to the Thief Ability in question.

Open Locks - DEX
Find Traps - WIS
Remove Traps - INT
Climb Walls - STR
Move Silently - DEX
Hide In Shadows - DEX
Pick Pockets – DEX (Possibly CHR?)
Hear Noise – WIS

Dexterity is arguably one of the best of the six ability scores in Classic D&D, providing that much needed Armor Class boost at lower levels, as well as the bonus to hit with missile weapons. This option takes some of the bite and power out of the attribute, and may lead to more careful ability score selection.

While the above ideas primarily seem to address the power level of thieves, some of the options outlined below also work wonders for this. This section outlines some ideas for dealing with Key Bugbear #1: Those Pesky Percentages!

Pesky Percentages Option 1 or D6 Forever!
Some other intrepid House Rulers have worked to convert the Thief Abilities into tasks that can be resolved with a d6. Their rather impressive work on this subject can be found on this page: Thieves and Rakes: A Variety Of Class Options. While I haven’t had the chance to playtest these rules, they do seem to strike me as sound. And I especially like that the rules dovetail nicely with the extant “find secret doors” and “listen” rules for demihumans.

Pesky Percentages Option 2 or Task Difficulty as Armor Class
Give Thieves the Fighter’s Attack Progression for attempting their Thief Abilities, and give their obstacles an Armor Class based on difficulty. Decide whether or not you would like to allow Dexterity bonus (or even other ability bonuses) to figure into this roll. The Thief then simply writes a THAC0 next to each of his abilities and task resolution is handled with the roll of a d20 against the DM determined AC of the obstacle. As a handy hint, this Obstacle AC can decrease as the character descends deeper into a dungeon.

This Option also helps bring back some of that “mystery” to thief abilities, as the player will likely never know the difficulty of the obstacle they are trying to overcome, and therefore won’t automatically be tempted to assume failure or meta-game (see: Ktrey's Key Bugbear 2). Unless a One is rolled and there are provisions for automatic-failure. I have in mind an upcoming article on one of the more venerable (second perhaps only to the Critical Hit?) house rules: The Fumble. The “Joys of Fumbling” will provide some advice on how to handle these 1s.

Pesky Percentages Option 3 or Convert Thief Abilities to General Skills
Since Stealth (choose terrain) is already a General Skill, some Dungeon Masters may be tempted to simply convert the other thief abilities into Rules Cyclopedia General Skills. These General Skills can use Dexterity, or for more variety, the optional ability scores above. While this does mean that Thieves will start off with 8 more General Skills than the rest of the character classes, and may be spending all of their skill slots improving these abilities rather than taking on new General Skills, they are Thieves after all, and this is only a method of representing their specialized training and niche. For this very reason, limiting or disallowing other classes to take these skills is highly recommended to keep the Thief special. One could even give Thieves another “Thievery Skill Slot” every few levels (I’ve had success with adapting the Weapon Mastery table for this) to encourage them to use their normal slots to take other skills.

Caveat: With high ability scores the chance of success for thief abilities converted in this manner increases dramatically, so liberal application of those “circumstantial modifiers” might be needed. On the flip side, a set of +1 Lock Picks, or Boots of Silent Step +2, become wonderful treasures that fall in line with the Fighter's ubiquitous +1 Longsword. (Lock Picks +10%? Please.)

Or, if you prefer to not deal with the headaches of “circumstantial modifiers”, give each of the Thief General skills a flat base. Say, 8-10 (or cruelly roll randomly! Yikes!) and allow them to be improved normally with slots via advancement. With this method it might be better to use the “growing d6” method for resolution (helm tip to Sham’s Grog n’ Blog for highlighting this niftiness). Simple tasks are resolved using 2d6, standard tasks are resolved using 3d6, for more difficult tasks, increase the number of d6s and ring in the bell curve.

Pesky Percentages Option 4
Slot Based Thief Abilities or When Things Just Get Weird.
This one is rather radical, but was fairly fun for the players. Thieves use the Magic-User’s spell progression for their “Thief Slots.”

Glancing over the Spell Lists for the respective Spell Casting Classes, let’s look at some Thief Abilities and their Magical counterparts.

Find Traps – 2nd level Cleric Spell – Find Traps)
Open Locks – 2nd level Magic-User Spell – Knock)
Remove Traps – 3rd level Magic-User Spell - Dispel Magic?)
Move Silently – 2nd level Cleric Spell – Silence 15’ Radius)
Hide In Shadows – 1st level Magic-User Spell - Darkness, or 2nd level Invisibility)
Climb Walls – 2nd level Magic-User Spell – Levitate?)
Pick Pockets – 1st level Magic-User Spell – Charm Person?)
Hear Noise – 1st level Cleric Spell – Detect Evil?)

Some are less than perfect fits I agree, but bear with me. For the most part, Thieves will use the standard method in your game for Thief Special Ability resolution, but giving the Thief a limited number of Daily “auto-success” for their abilities could considerably improve their chances to shine.

Some interesting questions crop up: Do they meditate on any of these techniques every night and pick a new one from their “Thief Slot List” each day (like Clerics)? Do they begin with access to only one to study nightly, and then “learn” them from other, more experienced thieves or musty manuals of thievery (Magic-User)? Are there new and exciting Thief techniques that can be learned? Are the game mechanics of these “Thief Slots” identical to the spell effect (modified to have Magic read as Traps in the case of Dispel Magic)? These are some thought-provoking questions for the DM brave enough to attempt or adapt this hack, and are tragically beyond the scope of this installment.

At roughly the equivalent level for Clerics, and exactly for Magic-Users, the spell casting classes already have the ability to perform these tasks, edging in on the territory of the Thief while simultaneously tying up a precious spell slot. I find it helps to keep in mind that Thieves tend to advance much quicker than the other classes, but this advancement doesn’t really seem as rewarding as the others (and only produces a lot of erasures beneath their “Thief Abilities” section on their sheet).

What about the 7th level Thief and their first 4th level “Thief Slot” you ask? Well a quick glance at the spell lists reveals some potential candidates:

4th level: (Cleric Spell - Neutralize Poison (“I've spent years building up an immunity to Black Dougal’s Bane”)
For dastardly thieves, its reverse Poison could also be neat.
4th level: (Magic-User – Polymorph Self) Disguise anyone?

By turning creativity up, it becomes pretty difficult to place a limit on which spell effects Thieves could potentially replicate as one of their “Thief Slots.”

Be warned however, this option is straying very far out of the stalwart Keep of house-rule territory and closer to woolly woods and chaotic caves of “System Revision.” In fact, it seems that something very similar was tried previously with the old Warlock RPG as one of the first attempts to “fix” D&D:

Warlock RPG - Thief Special Ability Charts

Some good ideas here for “Thief Slots,” but again, this is dangerously close to rewriting the game. Using these, I’d be tempted to start writing up some “Fighter Slots” and then I might as well be fiddling with another Edition.

Which of these Hacks/House Rules do I use in my games? Well, currently I don’t have a Classic D&D game running (although I’m looking to rectify this soon), but one of my last games with Thieves used the Task Difficulty as Armor Class option with a surprising degree of success. Almost to the point of me adopting the progression across the board, with each class using the Fighter progression for various Class related tasks, but that, I’m afraid, will need to wait for another post...

Bah. Who am I kidding? For my next game, I'm just as likely to play completely by the book with my Thieves. The Rules Cyclopedia just plain rules, and the above could just be considered a lengthy thought exercise. But do let me know if you find anything interesting, useful, or unclear.

Dedicated to the memory of Luven Lightfinger, Apprentice extraordinaire (Str 13, Int 14, Wis 9, Con 12, Dex 16, Cha 13) who lost his life “In Search of the Unknown” along with his party’s Elf due to rolling poorly versus a portcullis trap:

If all attempts to escape fail, the persons trapped will be doomed to their fate.

Thank you Mr. Carr and B1.

The House Rules Cyclopedia (Part One)

This will be the first of my (weekly? Bi-weekly?) installments regarding the wonderful Rules Cyclopedia. Some entries will focus on House Rules, and others will revolve around some of the RC hacks I’ve used in the past.

Not including the Appendices and Contents/Credits sections, the Rules Cyclopedia contains around 263 pages. But, instead of wading through in order, I’m going to be using this Handy Custom Random Number Generator to generate a page number between 5 and 267. This will let me tackle the contents of the book rather haphazardly, and I embraced randomness long ago. Besides, I’m firmly convinced that a potential Hack or House Rule lurks on virtually every page of this book.

First result: Page 98. (Any readers should feel free to follow along at home)

Here, tucked away in Chapter 7: Encounters and Evasion we have a rather remarkable table (Subtable: 11. City Encounters). By combining the roll of a d8 with a d20, any of 160 people and professions are at your disposal to give that “Human” result from the previous tables a little more punch. Or one could use it to add a little more spice to the randomly encountered city denizen.

However, I have a feeling that this table is eminently more hack-able.

I'll be using this nifty online dice tool to help me take this table through the paces, and Yafnag is great for the occasional random name.

Subtable: 11. City Encounters (Page 98) Hacks:

Random Character Backstory:
These days, characters are rarely born in a vacuum, and some players just love fleshing out their character’s history and backstory for you. But this table can be used to give others a springboard, and the results can provide some excellent adventure seeds as well.

Example:
So, father was a Gambler (4.4) and your brother is a respectable Wheelwright (8.17). If father’s still alive, maybe he owes money to a (7.17) Tavernkeeper. Maybe your sister ran off with a (4.12) Guardsman. Childhood sweetheart: son of a (4.11) Graveyard Keeper. Best Friend: (7.5) Indentured Servant.

Even More Backstory?
What did your character do before becoming an adventurer?

Example:
Maybe you aspired to be a (8.10) Vigilante.
Interesting.
Who committed the crime? (4.5) A Gemcutter. Against who? (3.10) A Druid Adventurer.

Contacts
Continuing the theme of living, breathing characters, I’ve always been tempted to use this table to help tie players to a particular place by letting them begin the game with a few “friends.” Sometimes a character’s contacts can also be brimming with interesting story, hooks, and/or seeds.

I smell a House Rule:

HOUSE RULE:

Characters start the game with d4+Charaisma Bonus Contacts. Either randomly roll (my personal favorite) or choose some “contacts” from Subtable: 11. City Encounters. These “contacts” are people that your character knows and who are automatically considered “friendly” for the purposes of NPC Reactions. Remember that Armorsmith in the sample adventure from the Mentzer Basic Player’s Handbook who let your character trade his chain for plate? These NPCs are people have known your character long enough to do you the odd favor or two, and likewise if they needed help from you, you’d be hard pressed to refuse.

Example:
Artan the Fighter has 3 Contacts:
(1.16) Bazaar Merchant
(4.1) Freighter
(2.12) Carter
Need to stowaway somewhere? Looking for rare goods? Need help smuggling something through the city? There you go. Randomness sometimes produces results that go together like peas in a pod. This is one of those examples. Looks like Artan might have been a Caravan Guard or a Marine/Sailor at some point.

General Skills
Do you use General Skills? Need something for those pesky Profession (choose type) and Craft (choose type) skills?

Example:
How about Craft (4.8 – Glassblower) or Profession (8.20 – Woodcutter)? This table can really help characters fill in some blanks.

Retainers, Hirelings, Henchmen
Who doesn’t like Retainers (or Hirelings, or Henchmen)? Chapter 12: Strongholds and Dominions specifically refers to this table on page 138 in regards to retainers. The RC seems to have phased out the use of the term Hirelings (although the Retainers section does state that the two are interchangeable).

Example:
Hirelings weren’t always necessarily mercenaries for hire, why the extra sword-arm and treasure-porter you managed to hire might actually be a former (4.10) Government Official. Better yet, what if she still is?

Adventures
I’ve even used Subtable: 11 City Encounters in the past as a springboard for urban adventure.

Example:
First I use the table to make a few NPCs
(8.14) Winemaker
(5.1) Jailor
(6.11) Politician
(1.8) Astrologer

Then I embrace randomness, and try to string them together:
A superstitious Politician needs the adventurers help to get information from a local Winemaker about an alcoholic Jailor that he suspects of being susceptible to bribes. Along the way, the PCs will need to solicit the help of a greedy Astrologer.

Heck. Even a dungeon hook one-liner can work sometimes:
Go to the dungeon and rescue a prominent (5.14) Madame from the clutches of the goblins that waylaid her carriage as she was traveling between cities.

Urban Design/World Building
So you’ve mapped out that city/village/hamlet but what are all those buildings? How does this town relate to others economically?

Example:
Well, the small rectangular building belongs to a (8.4) Town Hall Employee, who also works as the town’s (7.14) Weaver. Another quick roll and (7.1 – School Teacher) tells us that that the building by the river is a School, while (4.19 - Hunter) can be interpreted to tell us that this town’s chief export might just be furs and skins. The (6.19) Taxidermist will tell you that most of the town’s imports consist of (3.4 – Diary Worker) dairy goods from another nearby village.

When coupled with a little bit of creativity, this table is positively brimming with ideas and has many more uses than just your standard “Encounter Table.”

Have you ever found a use for it in another interesting way?

Rolling Dice (cont.)

In my previous post, I expounded upon the difficulties of dice. Seeking a solution, I acquired a variety of plastic containers to test the hack.

The cases that seemed to suit my needs best were made by a company called Craft Mates. They were less opaque than others, and the added benefit of a locking mechanism for the compartments means that I can shake the entire container vigorously without letting loose a hail of dice.

Interestingly, my favorite flavor of the Craft Mates I purchased contains 7 separate alcoves, each large enough for 3d6. Can you say "Instant NPC?" Using a standard Attribute Order (STR, DEX, INT, WIS, CON, CHR), I can generate the crucial stats for a generic NPC with a quickness hereto only rivaled by the tiny BASIC program I wrote in Middle School.

For most utilities though, the seven compartment can be filled as follows: d100, d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, d4. Even the unrully rolliness of the standard pyramidal d4 seems to be somewhat better when the dice are provided with a limited range of motion. I'm sure there have been studies to determine the amount of "shakes" required in order to maximize randomness (just as I recall reading somewhere that shuffling the standard deck of cards seven times seems optimal), but three quick (and thunderous!) shakes seem to produce a pretty broad spectrum.

Naturally, the players have yet to adopt this practice. There's a fair degree of superstition that goes into most of their die rolls and it seems that convenience can't overcome their predilection for the skin-to-skin contact of rolling dice the old-fashioned way.

On a Roll..

We’ve all experienced it. Either as players, or much more often, as DMs: Dice, and the rolling of said dice can take up a lot of valuable tabletop space. Numerous house rules have been developed concerning dice landing on the floor, askew and partially atop rulebooks, in drinks, ad infinitum.

I had a moderate epiphany today that could very well address these issues.

It started this morning as I was blearily leaving for work; Candace recently purchased a pill case that finally met her grueling standards. It’s quite large, and her reasoning behind putting off the purchase for so long was that a lot of her vitamins and supplements are much larger than the standard pill. As I was standing and staring at the box, I absentmindedly wondered how many dice could fit in a case like that.

Flash forward to a smoke break later in the day, that’s when the thought hit me: If a clear plastic container can contain the dice for storage and portability purposes, then why not utilize it for rolling purposes as well?

As I sit behind my homemade screen, I have rulebooks, stat sheets, index cards, and sundry other gaming supplies competing for space on my small side of the table. Rolling dice becomes such a hassle, that I have often just considered generating sheet after sheet of random numbers and marking them down successively. But if my dice we’re all stored within self-contained clear containers, rolling them would only involve shaking the container a few times and setting it down to read the pip. This could be particularly handy for percentile dice.

I believe there was an old board game that echoes this idea (Sorry? Boggle?), only 2d6 was stored within a clear plastic dome, and rolling was accomplished by depressing the dome. Now some of those would be pretty handy. Good bye dice clutter! Hello new self-contained rolls!

Container Store, here I come.

Note: If this idea has already been done, then I’m unaware of its application. If you utilize this idea to make RPG millions, I would appreciate a free set and some credit.

Paperclip Character Sheet Hack

I hit upon this little gem somewhere during my web trawlings, and brought it up to Team RTS, who seemed to appreciate its low-tech simplicity.

On the vertical margin of your character sheet, start at the bottom and make some short lines, all the way up.

During play, you can use a paper clip to keep track of your current hit point total by sliding it down the side of the page each time you take damage. Fighters and other classes with larger hit die should space these marks accordingly. You could even number every five ticks or so to get your current total at a glance.

The genius of such a simple idea reaffirms the relationship between geeks and gamers. It’s a brilliant idea, and as a staunch advocate of other luddite hacks like the Hipster PDA, I love things like this.