Thursday 30 August 2012

game notes on a post apoc one shot

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF THE WORLD HAS ENDED ?

One day everything ended. YOu don’t think you were there but its hard to remember. Cause and effect subtly unhinged, and everything began to break down in a flowering of wonders and terrors. People disappeared  by the millions and shops vomited a tide of half formed products. Cars  turned carnivorous , a knife and tape was taken to the maps and the maps become more real this way. Rivers poured down the side of buildings and harpies and other winged murders built their nests in pylons. Nothing makes sense anymore and it’s wondrous like when the incandescent manta rays swim through the night singing to the stars and it’s horrible like when delicate filaments flicker out from streetlights and cut you in tiny pieces to sliver down the drain.
People survive in villages and trading towns, and everything runs on barter , kluding and scavenging .


There’s a serpent in the middle of the world who has the answers. You each have part of the map there on your arm in scars. You don’t know how it go there or much of anything really.
The serpent will answer only one of your questions. Which one is it going to be?

ABOUT YOU
6 traits, one thing, name optional.
traits are Violence, Sneaking ,Athletics, Kludge, Network, Scavenge
Pick a primary , secondary and tertiary .You have a d12 in the primary, d8 in the secondary , d6 in the tertiary, and d4 in the other 2.
You’ll either roll this die against a target number or someone else’s die of the same trait. (or more rarely a different trait).
Rolling a 1 means roll again. IF you get another one you auto fail. Getting one point above is a success. A tie is tie. The status quo is preserved. For every 2 points you succeed by you get a thing.
Examples of things include:
quietly, carefully, stylishly , subtly , quickly.

If you fail a roll in most circumstances you can PUSH YOUR LUCK.


This means you get a reroll but success or failure something else goes wrong as well. 

If you succeed a roll but want to GO BEYOND THE IMPOSSIBLE, then you roll the die again, if you succeed again, add what you succeeded by to the first die's roll. If you fail or roll a one, then the result of the first die is now a failure and something bad happens.


Before you roll can also CUT SICK ON IT and have the maximum value on the dice explode. BUt if you fail the roll something bad happens.




Example of target numbers

Violence:
1: breaking a stick
3: Kicking down a firm door
6: Throwing someone onto a low roof
9: Throwing a fridge at someone
12: Punching a hole in a car


Sneaking:
1: hiding something behind your back when someone turns around without being completely obvious about it
3: sneaking up on someone who’s not really paying attention
6:Picking a pocket
9: Getting through an occupied house with no-one noticing you
12:Stealing the shirt off someones back without them noticing

Athletics
1: catching a ball
3: Jumping over a low fence
6: Doing a backflip
9: Jumping off a 3rd  story building and landing safely
12: Jackie Chan on a good day

Kludging
1. Taping something back together.
3: Getting a bike functioning with various odds and ends
6: Getting a computer functioning with various odds and ends
9: As above but with completely implausible materials
12: Making high tech stuff like a fuel air bomb or a helicopter out of rubbish



Networking:
1. Finding a place to stay with friends at short notice
3. Getting a good swap for something you don’t need
6. Finding someone who knows something that no-one else knows
12. Making best friends in a new and hostile culture where you don’t know the language

Scavenging
1.Finding something that burns okay
3. Finding an okay tool substitute
6. Finding an exact part
12. Finding a fully functionally piece of complicated machinery


For contested rolls there is Done, Totally Done, And Brutally Done
Totally done is beating the opposing roll by at least 4. Brutally done is beating the opposing roll by atleast 6
DIE CHAIN
d2 d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 2d8 d20

Violence contested rolls;
This is when you are trying to violence someones person with an act of violence.
Violently!
If that roll got Done (ie you beat their number ) means they are pushed over, jammed into a dumpster,  knocked around , bleeding, bruised or something. THey roll a smaller die with their violence now until they get a chance to recover.

If that roll got Totally Done they are now knocked out. And possible bleeding to death depending on the means
IF that roll got Brutally Done they are Savaged. THis could be killing them, removing and eye, breaking a limb or otherwise severally inconveniencing them. THe gm will have to rule on a case                 by case basis what this means. `
Armour and Weapons:
(SHOE I’M TRYING TO NOT MAKE THIS COMBAT FOCUSED REALLY I AM)
armour and weapons comes in 4 categorys (if need be could go higher for vehicles and.. ghost dragons or something)
armour: None(Pessimistically), Light(Optimistically), Medium (Adequate) , Heavy (Realistically)
weapons: Minimally(bare hands), Sufficiently (a chair leg, a snooker ball in a sock) , Lethally  (a sharpened stop sign, pistol, katana) , Brutally (a chainsaw, machine gun, a shark)
You can determine what armour you are wearing by that long post on post apoc armours, or just choose one. Wearing Medium or Heavy armour means some other rolls like Sneaking and Athletics will be more difficult for you. Depending on what it is. G.m will just have to wake up I guess.

Your dice size is modified by one size for every category you out or underclass the opponent's category. That was a clumsy sentence. So punching someone with no armour means you would roll your standard violence die, punching someone with light armour would mean you would roll one smaller and using a fire axe on them (lethally) would mean you would be using a die 2 sizes bigger.
The opponent can use athletics to oppose you if they are not trying to fight back, ie ducking behind cover or whatever.
Initiative  is determined by whoever is trying to do the cooler thing going first.


SNEAKING CONTESTED ROLLS
Sneaking is generally a not contested, but sometimes people know you are around and they are totally trying to find you. I am listening to Belinda Carlisle right now. It is amazing.
If your roll gets Done, this action escapes notice. If gets Totally Done you can Misdirect them and they think you are somewhere else. OR in the case of pickpocketing, they think it was someone else.  If this roll gets Brutally Done they are completely obvious. Like in the movies were someone’s right behind someone and they keep being behind them even when the person turns around? That’s what is happening. You can totally steal ammo right from their gun and they will not notice. Go you.

ATHLETICS CONTESTED ROLLS
Athletics contests are generally trying to evade or catch someone, in a mixture of running after each other , ducking under stuff, and jumping on roofs. Other example could be a rock climbing race or anything on that Gladiators show.
Unlike Violence Rolls which do a “my turn , your turn “ thing, Athletics contests just make the one roll for both people.
Like Violence contested rolls a Done roll means you lower their die by one category, as you narrow the gap between you and give them less room for error. IF a roll gets Brutally Done or one party succeed in 3 rolls in a row they have succeeded it whatever they were doing.
Each roll should be like a set piece such as “oh noes its a stray mule pulling a melon cart” or “oh noes a rope bridge”.
So if Brutally Done is an immediate success what is Totally Done? Well this means you have managed to put an obstacle  in your opponent's path (if you are the chasers you did it by cutting off their alternate path. Or something. ) and they have to make a roll to overcome the obstacle with the difficulty being based on how cool a thing you just made up and how sweetly it uses the environment. They might be using Athletics but it’s not inconceivable that they could use Violence, Sneaking , Networking etc depending on Reasons.

THis is all assuming both peeps are the same speed. If you are faster than someone for every category you are faster than them you roll a bigger die.
Speed categorys:
Crawling
Dawdling (children, elderly)
Typical
Crap Bike, skateboard
Dog, Decent bike
Tuk Tuk. Golf Cart, Mule
Horse, Motorized Scooter
Car, motor cycle
etc.

KLUDGE OPPOSED ROLLS
Okay so kludging is building things out of others things in defiance of circumstances, materials, and personal safety.  So ..opposed rolls? Sure.. sometimes you wanna fuck around with something someone else kludged together.
So this is a one off roll, unlike Athletics or Violence (which is are on going things). The counter-kludging process takes a certain amount of time which is going to be so variable based on the size of the thing, what you are using, and most importantly how much bullshit you are spinning about it.
So if the Roll got Done it’s tampered with. One thing about it is not working.
If that roll got Totally Done it’s now doing something you want it to do instead of what it originally did.
If the Roll got Brutally Done, it’s FUBARed. It either immediately tears itself apart or catastrophically fails next time it’s used. As many aspects of this kludge that you want are now irretrievably and utterly ruined.

NETWORK OPPOSED ROLLS
Network opposed rolls are when you wanna lie about someone (or you, know tell the truth if its something juicy), or let people know what a jerk they really are. Or if you wanna take someones reputation and burn it to the ground.
Each roll is done is representing a week or month long campaign of slander, whispering, rumour mongering and shade. If the target wants to retaliate  their roll is resolved after yours.

If that  roll got Done, their Network die is one size smaller for the next 1d4X10 weeks. Or sooner if  they are successfully restore their reputation (resolved as another Network opposed roll)

If that roll got Totally Done everyone know believes something about the target that you choose. MAybe not completely but definitely in “well ..no smoke without fire” kinda way. This lasts until they manage to cover it up or refute it. Which is a Network roll against a set difficulty. THis difficult is based on the evidence for this truth and how plausible it is and how fitting it is with people current perception of them

If that roll got Brutally Done then you make them a Pariah. No-one likes them. They cannot use their network ability for anything other than trying to restore their reputation and even then it’s 2 dice smaller. They will never work in this town again.


SCAVENGE OPPOSED ROLLS
Okay this stretching it. Opposed scavenger roll are pretty much the least likely , but when someone has hidden something and/or you are looting their house that’s when this happens.

If the opposed roll gets Done, you get what you wanted
If the roll gets Totally Done , you scour the place. You get a complete understanding of what’s here  and can pick and choose.
If the roll gets Brutally Done, you not only get what you want, you can rig up a trap for the original owner or make it look like no-ones was here or someone other than you was at fault.




THING
your thing is the thing people immediately notice about you. You get one thing but if you really really want you can trade your secondary  AND your tertiary for a extra one.
You can choose but I numbered it anyway if you wanna roll.

1. Kung Fu master: you have a mystic stare and chiseled buns . Using just your elite bod counts as Sufficient Weapons
2. Mermaid. You are a mermaid.
3. Mutant Animal. You are a mutant animal, like Booga from Tank Girl
4. Talking Animal. You are a regular animal but are smart and can talk.
5. Ex Army/ExPolice/Owns-A-Gun: you start with a pistol or a shotgun or a machine gun or a bazooka. The bigger the weapon the less ammo you have for it.
6. Midget: you are very small. This means your speed is one less but you half as much pieces of armour to count as a armour category
7.Absurdly Good Looking: YOu are really good looking and or likable and funny and shit. Anyone trying to use Networking against you rolls one smaller die.
8.Naturally Over Caffeinated You are really nervous and jumpy. You count your Athleticism as one die higher if you are running away
9.Mutant. You are have some kind of mutation that comes in handy some times.
10. Vampire. You are a vampire. You drink blood, and are really pale , and see well in the dark. THat’s about it. Sneaky rolls Difficultys are one point lower for you, but any other difficultys are one point higher in sunlight
11. Werewolf. Think teen wolf but a little bit less lame. Athletic Difficulty numbers are one point lower for you but only in wolf mode. You can’t talk in wolf mode. It takes 30 dramatic seconds to change to and from werewolf mode.
12. Zombie. You are Zombie. BUt don’t believe those hollywood stereotypes , you can totally talk and drive stick and everything. You don’t need to breathe or eat though. But your speed is Dawdling.
13. Dinosaur. You are a talking dinosaur. BUt like only people sized or atleast as half as big as you would normally be. This gives you Medium armour and Lethal weapons but you can’t really use much in the way of tools, equipment, armour, vehicle etc. YOu can talk though. And wear sunglasses. IF you are using the kludge trait you will need someone to order around
14.Lucky Bastard: You seem dangerously trusting and naive, but somehow survive due to dumb luck.  You can reroll one die in a session
15.Good With Animals: You are always making friends and/or taking care of animals. You can totally use your Network trait on animals. YOu do seem to be slightly naive about what those claws  and fangs are for though.
16.Implausibly muscled ; Ala Zangief. Any Athletic or Violence rolls to do with lifting, throwing or breaking stuff are 1 point lower
17.Astounding Mimic: You can mimic anyone’s voice and do crazy impressions . It’s quite possible that everyone hates you.
18.Future sight! You have visions and get glimpse into the future. Once a game session you can have a vision and say what you see and the g.m has to work it into the session somehow. Like a chump.
19. Appliance: You are an animate kitchen appliance. You do not eat or breathe but need semi-regular dosages of electricity
20.Robot. You are a robot. You have some useful device or ability coz robot but you have a weakness like stairs or water

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Post Apoc Armour and a chameleon

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Seth S that's a chameleon prize for you, for everyone else here's some post-apoc armour stuff that I had kicking around for a now dismantled project. Anyway so you have your armour categories which do what ever armour does in your setting. You need a minimum of  X pieces of armour to qualify for that category.

Armour categories Light 2 pieces
                             Medium 4 pieces must include chest armour
                             Heavy 6 pieces must include chest armour and  either a helmet or greaves and gauntlets
                             Very Heavy : Must have 2  relics/high magic/ power armour etc

Items with a + beside them count as 2 pieces. Items with a - break if an attack roll rolls exactly what it needs to hit  you. Do I need to say that you can only effectively wear one piece of each type?

Helmets
milk crate -
bike helmet  -
motorbike helmet +
fencing helmet
Colander-
Pot -
Big soup pot with eye holes
Hockey mask
Pitchers mask
Kendo Mask +
Army Helmet (metal) +
Pith Helmet
Safety Hat
Welding Mask -
Riot Helmet +
Mascot head -
LArge animal skull -

CHEST:
Leather jacket (fashionable. At some point anyway)
Motorcycle leather jacket +
Boiled leather Cuirass   +
Phone books taped together to make vest +
Bullet Proof vest +
Chain links (from bed)
actually Chain mail +
Downhill Mountain bike chest guard +
Horse riding vest
Football armour
Pot lids tied to chest and back +
Sides of shopping trolley attached to front and back+
Woven inner tubes +
Breast guard
Backs of office chairs taped together

LEGS
Mud guard from motor cycle
Shinguard (hockey or soccer) -
Motor cycle boots
Riding Boots
Steel capped boots
Safety shoes (steel capped)
Gumboots (steel capped)
groin guard (sports)
Metal cod piece
Bike chain kilt
Plate skirt
Street sign loincloth/tabard
Knee pads (sports) -
Knee pads, doll heads
Soft-toys packed with sand taped to legs -
Section of tire

HANDS , ARMS
magazines taped to forearms -
Spiked Leather greaves
Motor cycle long gloves
MMA gloves
Skateboard wrist protectors
Padded bikechain wrapped around forearms
P.V.C pipe
Drain Hosing-
Elbow pads (sports) -
Elbow pads (doll faces)
Plate Gauntlet +
Chain gloves (butchers)
Thick leather gloves
gardening gloves -
Greeves made from shopping trolley
Section of tire (car or motorcycle)

SHOULDER
Poltroon pauldron/gardbrace (antique)
Poltroon    pauldron/gardbrace(from riot armour)
Goat/Horse/Cow Skull
Metal eagle
Football shoulder pads
Motorcycle tire, section
Mudguard
Teddy Bear packet with sand or polyfill
Small shopping basket
Milk Crate
Cooking Pot

Monday 20 August 2012

Red Lands Character Creation in readable format

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF Tony Pace absurdly kindly formatted the red lands character creation post into a vastly more readable goggle document:
ZING!
(seriously dude, you are a champion!)



 and here is more background on the thing
Red lands agogo

Sunday 19 August 2012

Commissioned GOLD DRAGON

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF I got a commission to make a gold dragon and so I made it twice as much never-ending story


"just updating the roster guys!"




Also the festering home brew system I posted last post?
I just realized the other day that I did not even think about barbarians, paladins or rangers. Or druids.Gnomes were a deliberate omission. People can play em, I just cannot be bothered typing them up. Easy enough to just use halfling but make choices from dwarf or elf.
But yeah but just clean forgot rangers etc. Which utterly does not matter because the fighter talent choices means its easy to make a barbarian or a ranger (with your skill choices) and druids is easily a witch reskin. Paladins I would just make a talent for starting with some clerics spells. Also at about level 11 there is epic talents which could include stuff like shape changing or magic horse (what was the paladins special steed thing called again?) . Have not made those yet, because I have a long time to put it off.

Thought about having fixed talent paths for something like a paladin, ( basically talents with prerequisite) so you get your minor healings spells, then your fear resistance, then your smite evil.

If I did put that in it would pretty marginal to avoid the pathfinder build thing.  

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Planes scape some tables for Sigil (Scrawled over mix)

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF So these are some tables for Sigil, presuming you have taken my suggestion and are running it like I would.
As in infra-structure is far more chaotic and teeming, with who's in charge varying from block to block.

For purpose of these tables a block is 3d4X10 buildings long on each of its sides
The shape of the block is  (2d6)


2: roll or pick a letter of the alphabet. It's that shape.
3: Square , as in all its lengths are the same
4: Lune, a crescent moon shape, roll length for the widest of its 2 axises
5: Spherical, roll length for the diameter
6: Narrow roll 1d4X10 for the length of on of its sides (the ends) and 3d4x10 for the "sides"
7: Standard more or less a rectangle, roll length on 2 sides
8:Kinda squished/stretched rectangle , roll each length separately
9: Triangle , roll length 3 times
10: Equilateral triangle, roll length once, all sides are the same
11:Irregular Polygon, 1d4+4 sides, each 1d4X10 buildings long
12:Regular polygon 1d4+4 sides , as above but roll once for side length.

Streets, if you don't wanna do what I would do and make whizzing noises and just scrawl a bunch of lines at random in the block, here's yet another table you can roll on

1:Tidy Grid so when you rolled the length of a side? Get whatever you rolled before you multiplied by ten and there is that many streets on each side of the grid. Assume alleys and lanes, catwalks and bridges for access to any buildings not on on these streets. Double or triple the street numbers for more teeming blocks
2:Mess Grid as above but roll again for the other side. Double or triple the street numbers for more teeming blocks
3: Rings, take that number for a side  (or just roll 3d4 again) , halve it, round it up and there's that many ring streets in each other, with 2d4 "spoke" streets
4: Do that thing from Vornheim where you write words, overlap the letters and that's the street layout.
http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co.nz/2009/12/urbancrawl-rules-for-slacker-dms_21.html
So.. Who's In charge Here?

I.e if something catches fire , who shows up to direct the citizens to put the fire out rather than loot the house, or who's gonna stop you from stealing everything?
(for the hive +4 to this roll ,and for upper ward -4. Everywhere else no mod, or choose a number between the 2 )

d20
1-3 Harmonium
4-5 Grim helmed and masked servants of a justice god
6 Some Unlikely followers of a vaguely community minded god (so gods of thieves, luck, war, magic, industry for example)
7 Every upright citizen has a whistle. And a special toot. When the special toot is tooted , rapid mob justice ASSEMBLE!
8.An unlikely faction (Athar, Believers of the Source, Indeps)
9. A really unlikely faction, pressed into the role by circumstances (1d6 1.ongoing threat from monster/gang/faction 2. threat has resolved but kinda stuck now 3. really not sure how it happened, like totally blanking on it 4. place holder after power vacuum 5. Stepped into to calm down riot/simmering racial tension/aftermath of disaster, can't seem to unstep) 6. High up is heavily invested in community (either because of ethics, family, or personal interest) (ciphers, Bleakers, Guvners, Doomguard)
10.-11 Mercy killers
12-14 A district funded militia  with a charter and head quarters
15 A barely coherent brute squad
16 A gang or freaky cult (or combination of the two) has its head quarters here and feels like its the only ones allowed to cause trouble here
17 Militia with a tight grip on district, pretty much a protection racket.
18 District is under the protection of one complete bad ass
19 Spooky constructs or magical animals that can smell guilt.
20+ No one is charge,may or may not be a complete shit hole depending on sense of community present
d4 1. everyone actively despises everyone else and it's more or less a lazy riot 2. People look after their extended family. Just. 3. Everyone looks out for everyone else but wouldn't put themselves at too much risk 4. Intense solidarity , "touch one touch all' mentality.

So this building I just ran into...
1-4 residentual
5-6 roll below
7 roll below but use the option for classy/trashier, (what ever is opposite for neighborhood)
8 roll again and add a result from Distinctive! table as well

d12
options is for hive/lower ward/upper ward
1 Opium den/ fest hall ( or "fest hall") / hell fire club
2 Drinking shed/ Inn /Fancy Inn
3 Flophouse / Boarding House/ Hotel
4 Storage Ware house
5 Temple
6 Pit fighting Arena/ Tannery / Art Gallery
7 Boarded up ware house, 1 in 4 chance of being a secret head quarters for a cult or gang
8 Gang head quarters/ district peace keepers (station or head quarters)/""
9 Pawn Shop/ pawn shop/ antique ship
10 Tinkers/blacksmith/ haberdasery
11 Brothel
12 Herbalist, hedge wizard, witch or fortune teller

  Distinctive!(d20) (for results with slashes , these are choices not ward variants as in the table previous)
1. It's run by talking animals/constructs/undead/discards
2. recently been repaired after magic attacks
3. Weird glowing mushrooms cover it's roof
4. Subject to mysterious, arcane and threatening graffitti
5. Has elaborately carved facade from buildings last incarnation. Rumour that it was made from petrified monsters/people/animals
6. Burned out ruins, cursed to remain that way, normal service still applies, just run from basement or attic via ladder
7. been fumigated by dabus
8. Being run by faction that it does not really make much sense for them to run
9.Occupant has collection of weird shit like crazy/crazed bottled things, ears , candles, glass flowers
10. Fortified and paranoid about attacks from mysterious forces
11.Murder has happened, peace keepers or muttering mob investigating/"investigating"/jumping to wild conclusions
12. Infestation of Verminous Slaad/Cranium rats/Flits (blink lizards), abyssal cockroaches, celestial singing mice
13. All of the occupants have been replaced by anarchists/athar/doppelgangers. They all think that they are the only one, and no-one actually has any idea what they should be pretending to be, and so are all following each other

14. Has a suspicious door leading to the basement/attic/closet. "That door? Oh That Door. We dare not speak of it"
15. There's a portal here and a smuggling operation going on
16.Owner threatens players or tries to fine them or otherwise shake them down
17. Someone or thing emerges from portal (d6 1 disruptive animal 2 clueless 3 monster 4 thief on the run 5 substance from plane like water or lava or ooze or flowers 6 roll twice)
18. Someone here has a connection to a players past , like a family member or a dance school rival
19. Robbery in progress/about to happen/has happened
20. Dangerous accident is about to happen/happening/has happened


A district contains an exploding 1d6 blocks (exploding means if you roll a 6 you keep rolling and add all the rolls together) 

Okay so making this makes me realize I need to make random gang or cult table  and a random citizen of Sigil. Abulafia could help you out with the gang/cult one I guess. I might stick this table on there some time
http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Sunday 5 August 2012

TIGER

Print Friendly Version of this pagePrint Get a PDF version of this webpagePDF Tiger. The stripes were annoying and the whole thing took longer than it should and its a tiger.



tigers bound around with as much disdain for gravity as a house cat but way as much as 2 or 3 people.

Randomly determining the next monster results in: Dolphin.
 Wah.