The Sexiest Thing I've Heard All Day

Oh my god, so good.

"I have to say I'm sorry it's got totally out of hand, I have no idea who won the game."
"No, that's ok, we had a great time."

If I link to an interview, you might ignore it. If James Mal links to an interview, you might ignore it. But if we both link to it you know you best listen to that shit.

The history of the hobby didn't just go:

war -->wargaming-->D&D

There's some fascinating stuff in-between. Check out how game theory, the US army, and the problem of referee-boredom helped invent RPGs.

Every "new" idea I've ever heard about GMing is tucked away somewhere in this interview.

Things Go Like This

Sometimes there's an ambiguous hangout moment when there might not be a game. The laziness and torpid sunniness of the afternoon will simply fail to allow it to congeal. It's receded into a possibility of a game.

Players want to play when they are playing, and players wanted to play days before when they scheduled playing, but right now, when the game threatens to start--when that one player is like 'alright, so are we gonna do this?'--everyone has been in the apartment long enough to be thinking about something else or to get themselves occupied.

Someone just woke up, someone's tired from medicine, someone is looking at webcamgirls. They're dispersed and distracted--worse--I'm dispersed and distracted.

Like look at all these game things--they are everywhere all of a sudden in what once so recently was just an ordinary living room/recording studio/painting studio: notebook, d100 tables printed out, official game products (I never seem to need to crack those open), character sheets (why do I have to keep track of the character sheets?), laptop (there's a picture I want to show them if they go to a certain place and it's on the laptop) (oh and the music is on the laptop, it's important to be in charge of the music), and the minis and the little diorama of the restaurant and this box full of dice and something to drink and the deck of cards with different dangerous weapons written on them in Sharpie...every single thought ticks off some attempt to locate some physical object attached to that thought and it feels like this: like these various and mostly not-strictly-necessary things with which to run Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plus Mutant Future are various subsections of my own thinking brain and it is therefore my very own brain itself which is tucked and wedged in around the room and spread out across two couches, a coffee table and a shelf behind Kimberly. I need my brain.

I'm not hungry but I know I need food to do this. Noodles. Meanwhile: I take small, necessary steps. None of these commit you to actually playing. Steve, explain to Kimberly what happened last time while I do this. Kimberly your character has body-building which gives you a +something to P.S. do you know if you have that written down? Let's put all the minis where they were by referencing this photograph I took last time... Everyone find their character sheets while I do that. They definitely think they are going to play. But my head's all fuzzy, still.

What I need to do is describe the scene now. This is what's happening. I know all this already because we already did it. Not hard. And then what next? What's next is they are pursuing this villain. A dishonorable and cowardly foe. Yes. The foe is in the place. And I just need to think: what would I do if I was this foe? I am eating and drinking very fast. Either these calories are helping me think or just giving my fidgety hands something to do--it's unclear but there's no time to worry about that. I think like I'm the villain. Certain goals are meant to be achieved by me using certain known resources. I am armed, rational, and fearless. I am located in this place, which is here, which I know and they don't know and I know they don't know. Here is what I would do. And them, what would they do? What are you guys doing? The different people's pressure fronts in the room gel into a distinct climate. I drink Dr. Pepper and I begin to think very very fast. I know all of this stuff because I invented it, like a week ago. I remember. And I know what she's carrying because I have a deck of cards that says what she's carrying--I wrote on it: a flamethrower. Look, guys, a flamethrower, I'll just sit and think while you deal with that. Yes. It will take them longer to assimilate that than it will take me to think of the next thing. And that's all that really needs to happen. Yes. Right. They are going, they are playing and there's four of them and one of you and everything they do requires translation by dice so you're ahead. Maybe only one step, but that's all you need. Usually more. A player is doing a voice now, that's good, I will do a voice back, a voice is good because you think like the voice and then you're an NPC and an NPC just has to do what he would do. Ok. Good. You're in a room, its dark there's a stairway going down. They don't know what to do, they talk about what to do. It's going, it's good. I am now experiencing a high-focus productive submanic state that prior experience has proven can be maintained for up to 14 hours. Good. Good.

I Challenge Your Kung Fu!!!!!

Ok, crowdsourcing a random table was fun, so here's this:

It's 1:36 pm.

My TMNT/Mutant Future game tonight starts at 5-6pm.

That gives y'all between 4 and 5 hours to meet my:

Y.D.I. KUNG FU CHALLENGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finish this random table of kung fu moves, the more responses, the larger the die I roll on the table.

Range of damage should be suitable for combatants with approximately 15 hit points, give or take.

This table will get used on the porn stars in the bleak mutant wasteland tonight.

(Addendum: I really like the ones people have been posting--especially the ones with extra dice "minigames" attached.)

I'll start it off....

1. Golden Monkey Hook Strike: Leap into the air, hook leg around target's neck, land on the ground and attempt to crush trachea. D6 hp + endurance roll to avoid d6 choking damage plus target is on the ground and grappled.

Failure To Reduce Speed May Result In Dinosaurs

The complete half-crowdsourced d100 table of Things That Happen If You Fail Your Handling Check while driving across the mutated wasteland.

I'll be test-driving it tonight, probably in combination with this mechanic. Thanks to everybody who helped out...

("dex or d4" means make a dex or pp roll to avoid taking d4 damage. Seat belts prevent this unless otherwise noted. )

(flip a coin or something to see if you go left or right, when/if applicable.)

1-skid 40 feet, stall.
2-skid, spin 180, stay in same lane.
3-flip over once. You're upside down. dex or d4.
4-flip over twice. You're right side up but not moving. car needs work. dex or d6.
5-spin off the road. still rolling,
6-spin off the road and hit mutant plant which releases spores. con roll or gain a random mutation.
7-spin off the road and hit something hard dex or d8.
8-hit other vehicle--just a tap. 10 sdc to both. If there's no other vehicle, you scratch a sign, guard rail, etc.
9-hit other vehicle--hard. handling checks at -2/10% for both drivers. d8x10 damage to both vehicles.
10-hit other vehicle--medium. handling check for both drivers at -2/10%.
11-hit other vehicle--catastrophic. roll again on this table for both cars twice, each car takes d10x10 damage.
12-pop a side wheelie for a mile and come down smooth. successful charisma check means you manage to convince everyone in the vehicle it was on purpose.
13-minor engine explosion. those within 10 feet of engine take d6 damage. there goes your engine.
14-fwip fwip fwip! one random tire gone. handling check once per round if you go over 35 mph.
15-lost a hubcap. c'est la vie.
16-k-chunk! bad bump, something's hitting the wheel and making bad scary noise. no immediate obvious effect but the longer you ride this, the worse it'll be (GM's discretion).
17-pop a side wheelie and come down hard. roll again.
18-catch some air, come down. make another handling check.
19-due to some combination of geography and speed, you catch some serious air. handling check at -3, but if you make it, you are +1 on all initiative rolls for the rest of the day because you're so buzzed
20-fly 60 feet through the air, come down hard. your car is dead. dex or d10 sdc to everybody inside.
21-flip over and spin. dex or d12 to everybody inside.
22-whoaaaaa. wiggly. dex or d4 to everybody inside.
23-pothole or something. transmission wrenched. speed halved.
24-slide into other vehicle but, hey, look at that, they take 20 sdc and have to make a handling check and you're fine.
25-lost your muffler.
26-chugk. rattlerattle. ting! something stuck somewhere in your vehicle fell out and now it runs better! +1 to all handling checks from now on.
27-gas tank leak. lose 5 gallons per mile.
28-thunkg, wrenchhhh, ching! lose random window.
29-same, but lose back window
30-same, but lose front windshield
31-swerve, slam into your horn. now it won't stop. -2 to everyone on everything until they get used to it (takes 5 minutes).
32-lost a headlight.
33-lost both headlights.
34-lost a side mirror. -3/15% to handling checks when you'd want a side mirror.
35-trunk flies open. 50-5o chance anything in there falls out. roll once per item.
36-part of your vehicle is on fire now. you're not sure which part.
37-radio comes on spontaneously, it's your favorite song. if the vehicle has no radio, you suddenly discover that it does. rock! Now if it's the post-apocalypse, where the fuck did that radio station come from?
38-weird swerve. anybody in the back seat roll dex or d6.
39-skid. whirr, k-chuggg-kk! everybody inside dex or d6. car takes 50 sdc. it's ok. it's ok.
40-big fucking crash into nearby large and unmoving object. car is totalled. everybody dex or d20. dex or d12 if you're wearing a seatbelt.
41-fly into the air--you're about to flip but your car is held in a mysterious null-inertia field. you just hang there. what the fuck?
42-oh, that didn't sound good. vehicle takes 100 sdc.
43-whoa, whoa, whoa! crissssh! all handling checks are at -2/-10% now.
44-as above, except -4, -30%
45-roll twice
46-roll three times
47-vrooom, screech, skraaaaaape, wobblewobble. everybody roll con or PE to avoid vomiting.
48-mutant animal suddenly appears in the road. 1-2 small 3-4 medium but fast 5-6 large with chameleon-lke abilities (GM's choice of what exact animal)--Do you try to avoid hitting it? If so, roll again on this table. if not, well, ask your GM.)
49-brake immediately and everybody takes dex or d4 or roll three times. You decide.
50-move one lane to the right or left to avoid losing control.

51. large mutant bug hits windshield. no effect if it's not on drivers' side (50-50) but effete aristocrat in next town may offer to buy it as an example of "found art" for 3 cans of gasoline/diesel fuel.

52. lose a wheel. skid a number of feet = to your mph and stop.

53. Pit trap! The vehicle crashes with a note of finality into a specially dug trap for vehicles. May or may not be an ambush waiting, perhaps the trap was from long ago and was abandoned, or perhaps it's time to fight off a horde of mutant lizards who want to eat your skin. Vehicle is going to take some time to dig out unless you know anything about engineering/have some help.

54. loud screeching of metal on metal from transmission. 1-2, attracts large land predator, 5-6, a larger flying predator.

55. You bump a small object and get back on track, minor damage to the car, rattled for 5min.

55. A pedestrian appears in the middle of the road. If swerving to avoid collision, re-roll. If not, roll on this table:
1: Pedestrian is an extra-terrestrial super-being, which constitutes an immovable object. car is totalled. everybody dex or d20. dex or d12 if you're wearing a seatbelt.
2: Pedestrian is a time-displaced, long-lost friend or relative of PC in car.
3: Pedestrian was a dummy filled with explosives. Car is now airborne, and flipping forwards clockwise. 50% chance of landing wheels first.
4: Pedestrian was just a pedestrian and is now mangled beyond belief, but still somehow miraculously hanging onto car.

56. drive off the road into minefield.

1-anti-logic mines
2-radiation mines
3-gas mine
4-explosives

57. Steering wheel comes off and the brakes no longer works. Vehicle continues in same direction.

58. The vehicle transforms! A bump in the road has awaken its sentient core.

59. There's something on the wing (mirror).

60. Fender dragging.
61. Brakes gone.

62. Gas pedal stuck.

62. Large paper blows onto windshield.

Odd, obscures view. Even, does not.

Paper is:

1 old newspaper 'leisure' section
2 wanted poster with pc's face and name on it
3 blueprints to a large underground installation
4 map of local area
5 map of someplace else
6 wanted poster with npc's face and name on it

63. A bump opens a hitherto-hidden compartment containing a random (or GM's choice) item.

64. Bump, spin 360. You're fine but lose a turn against any pursuers and have to start again from 0.

65. You're bumper-to bumper pushing or being pushed by other vehicle. Roll another handling check.

66. Bats and huge manta rays fly out of the sky. Or did you just hit your head?

67. The pair of fuzzy dice hanging from rear-view mirror are sentient, and berate the driver for being inattentive and reckless with the vehicle.

68. Lose a door.
69. Hit something, dent in part of car.
70. Rattle. PE roll or disoriented.

71. Spring pokes through seat and up into driver's backside.

1 on 1d10 chance of contracting tetanus, unless wearing armour.

Swerve to the right (odd), or left (even).

72. Ominous squeaking noise increasing in volume from left rear side. 1d4 miles later throw left rear wheel. Crawl to halt in d4 rounds and watch the wheel roll past you.

73. Ominous squeaking noise increasing in volume from left rear side. No cause can be discovered, and even the best mechanic will be unable to replicate the problem.

74. Hit a crazy stupid cult leader suddenly appearing in the middle of the road. Vehicle takes d10 sdc, everyone in vehicle gets 3d10 crazed culty enemies (1 in 1d4, it's a suicide cult, so they're allies, but they want you to join...)

75. Vehicle suddenly jumps 10 feet in the air. Roll d6:
1-3 Vehicle comes down hard, medium handling check to stay in control.
4-5 Vehicle flips on to it's side and skids to a stop. Everybody dex or d6.
6 Vehicle flips upside down. Everybody dex or d20. dex or d12 if you're wearing a seatbelt.
If PCs investigate, 15ft sinkhole in the road contains giant mutant worm creature (think Tremors) that has dashed it's head against vehicle undercarriage. d3 other creatures nearby are drawn to vibrations and will arrive in d4+2 mins each. Good luck!

76. Light reflecting off of the Saint Christopher medallion dangling from the rear-view mirror temporarily blinds you for 2-4 turns.

77. You leave your right turn signal on, drawing the ire of your passengers and 2-4 vehicles immediately behind you.

78.Random light stuck on.
79. air conditioner stuck on.
80. ac stuck off.
81. interior light broken.
82. interior light stuck on.

83. A school of jellyfish splatter across the windshield, sticking to it for 1d4 turns.

Using windshield wipers only smears them worse than before (add an additional 2 turns).

Touching the tentacles with bare skin results in a painful swelling and blistering (1d4 damage), but enables a clarity of mind and dexterity that gives +15% to handling checks for 1d6 turns.

84. dash lighter malfunctions. small fire in front seat.

85. distracting hitchhiker at the side of road (d10 x 3)

Hitchhiker is:

1-3 male, 4-6 female, 7-10 indeterminate.

wearing:

1 only boots and goggles
2 sunglasses and a muu-muu
3 orange coveralls
4 a badly stuffed Santa suit
5 a patent leather catsuit
6 a massive smile
7 uniform from a defunct law enforcement agency
8 novelty t-shirt and parachute pants
9 a parka, scarf, toque and mittens
10 an elaborate, feathered headdress

holding:

1 nothing
2 a toolbox
3 a towel
4 a parasol and large wicker basket
5 a backpack
6 a tire iron
7 a leash with a small dog-headed child attached
8 a large rifle
9 a bottle of alcohol
10 a large block of cheese

86. You see a signpost with directions for a destination towards which you think want to go, but pointing in a direction different from the one you have been heading. Slow down and lose 10-30 minutes trying to figure out which way is correct.

87. Large bump deploys a drag-chute and slows vehicle by 40mph, until chute is cut away.

88. Lid of cup in cup holder comes off, splashing a foul smelling liquid onto a pine scented air-freshener, causing it to grow immediately into a mature pine tree which smashes up through the windshield, to a height of 30'.

89. As 37, radio turns on. Broadcasts (d6):
1-2. Static
3. Signal from a settlement, inviting survivors to come for aid and shelter.
4. Automated signal from a pre-collapse government installation.
5. An odd low bass thrumming, which is barely audible, but can be felt in your guts.
6. Nyarlathotep.

90. skid, sideways triple pinwheel through the air. successful handling check at -4/-20% and you're fine and everyone thinks you're awesome, otherwise everyone takes dex or d20 and car crawls along at 10% speed.

91. Something is burning in or on the engine. roll 1d4.
1. roadkill. ME checks or vomit.
2. chemicals. PE checks or -2 to all rolls for next day.
3. smoke. Blind until you make 3 successful PP checks to waft smoke, open windows, etc.
4. horror. Increasing smell of meat, but harmless. If investigated, there are four hands (roll on species table) nailed to engine block.

92. An unlabeled button on dashboard lights up and starts rapidly flashing.

If pressed:

1 nothing happens
2 the button flashes faster
3 an electrical charge shocks you
4 you are mentally linked with an onboard computer that lets you know the status of many of the vehicle's systems as well as it's overdue maintenance schedule for the last seven years. It also hints at its previous life as a control system of part of an orbital navigation satellite network.

93. "Did you see that?" Something unsettling in the sky-- a time rift! You are distracted & roll to a stop. Roll d4.

1. Mutation surge: primal. Gain 1d6 Bio-E, but decrease IQ by 10. This lasts until player is unconscious through battle or sleep.
2. Gary Morbriar! A mutant fox in a white suit of armor (a space suit) lies in a crater in the road.
3. Dinosaurs. Replace next random encounter in the region with a dinosaur encounter-- they've entered the food chain. All further random creatures in area have a 50% chance of being dinosaurs.
4. UFO. A party of 1d4 mutant humans, resembling grey aliens, takes an unhealthy, abductory interest in the party.

94. A red light comes on in the centre of the dash board, and a robotic voice starts calling for "Michael".

95. You hear and feel what sounds like a large projectile being fired nearby. (d4)

1 nothing happens
2 fireworks explode above you
3 it is your vehicle back-firing, and it continues to do so 1d4 times.
4 it is a large projectile being fired! Roll on table to see where on vehicle is hit and what damage has been done.

96. Vehicle crashes and explodes in a suitably dramatic 80's action movie fashion, flinging the occupants to relative safety. About a mile further on, the survivors discover a complete working replica of their now-destroyed vehicle, occupied by what looks like their own skeletons.

97. A jarring bump, everything seems fine until someone realizes with horror: The Cigarette Lighter Is Gone !

98. A jarring bump, everything seems fine until someone realizes with horror: Where did that person in the back seat come from?!? (d6)

1 harmless hitchhiker
2 thieving hitchhiker
3 sociopathic hitchhiker
4 it's just me, Chatty Squirrel
5 quantum time-traveler trying to set this timestream 'back on the right path'
6 Grandma Sally, 1 in 4 that she died in her sleep hours ago and nobody noticed

99. A dashboard display flashes the following message:

1 No signal found.
2 Battery strength at 23%
3 Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? (Or another random Nietzsche maxim...)
4 Insufficient memory to perform back-up.
5 Battery strength at 42%
6 Sample DNA not recognized by sequencer. Please insert new sample and restart thermocycler.
7 Passenger seatbelt is unfastened. (Irregardless of whether this fact is true or not.)
8 In the event of a landing at sea, your seat cushions can be utilized as a flotation device.
9 Flux Capacitor Failed - Eject Flux Capacitor, Flux Capacitor Failed - Eject Flux Capacitor repeated over and over. (There is no button labeled 'Flux Capacitor'.)
10 Engine temperature has reached maximum operating parameters. Engine shutdown in 5, 4, 3... (Engine shuts down and vehicle will coast to a stop and remain that way for at least 30 minutes.)

100. Buzz rumblestrip, disturbing a enormous colony of miniature mutant grouse. The colony takes to the air obstructing sight. All drivers in the area check perception (M.E.) or roll again d4 times.

Help Me Finish This Table

This is a d100 table of Things That Happen If You Fail Your Handling Check while driving across the mutated wasteland. It only has 50 results so far. If you feel like helping out, write in some more results in the comments and number them starting with 51 and going up. If you only wanna do 1 or 2 that's fine...

It'll probably get used tomorrow.

("dex or d4" means make a dex or pp roll to avoid taking d4 damage. Seat belts prevent this unless otherwise noted. )

(flip a coin or something to see if you go left or right, if applicable.)

1-skid 40 feet, stall.
2-skid, spin 180, stay in same lane.
3-flip over once. You're upside down. dex or d4.
4-flip over twice. You're right side up but not moving. car needs work. dex or d6.
5-spin off the road. still rolling,
6-spin off the road and hit mutant plant which releases spores. con roll or gain a random mutation.
7-spin off the road and hit something hard dex or d8.
8-hit other vehicle--just a tap. 10 sdc to both. If there's no other vehicle, you scratch a sign, guard rail, etc.
9-hit other vehicle--hard. handling checks at -2/10% for both drivers. d8x10 damage to both vehicles.
10-hit other vehicle--medium. handling check for both drivers at -2/10%.
11-hit other vehicle--catastrophic. roll again on this table for both cars twice, each car takes d10x10 damage.
12-pop a side wheelie for a mile and come down smooth. successful charisma check means you manage to convince everyone in the vehicle it was on purpose.
13-minor engine explosion. those within 10 feet of engine take d6 damage. there goes your engine.
14-fwip fwip fwip! one random tire gone. handling check once per round if you go over 35 mph.
15-lost a hubcap. c'est la vie.
16-k-chunk! bad bump, something's hitting the wheel and making bad scary noise. no immediate obvious effect but the longer you ride this, the worse it'll be (GM's discretion).
17-pop a side wheelie and come down hard. roll again.
18-catch some air, come down. make another handling check.
19-due to some combination of geography and speed, you catch some serious air. handling check at -3, but if you make it, you are +1 on all initiative rolls for the rest of the day because you're so buzzed
20-fly 60 feet through the air, come down hard. your car is dead. dex or d10 sdc to everybody inside.
21-flip over and spin. dex or d12 to everybody inside.
22-whoaaaaa. wiggly. dex or d4 to everybody inside.
23-pothole or something. transmission wrenched. speed halved.
24-slide into other vehicle but, hey, look at that, they take 20 sdc and have to make a handling check and you're fine.
25-lost your muffler.
26-chugk. rattlerattle. ting! something stuck somewhere in your vehicle fell out and now it runs better! +1 to all handling checks from now on.
27-gas tank leak. lose 5 gallons per mile.
28-thunkg, wrenchhhh, ching! lose random window.
29-same, but lose back window
30-same, but lose front windshield
31-swerve, slam into your horn. now it won't stop. -2 to everyone on everything until they get used to it (takes 5 minutes).
32-lost a headlight.
33-lost both headlights.
34-lost a side mirror. -3/15% to handling checks when you'd want a side mirror.
35-trunk flies open. 50-5o chance anything in there falls out. roll once per item.
36-part of your vehicle is on fire now. you're not sure which part.
37-radio comes on spontaneously, it's your favorite song. if the vehicle has no radio, you suddenly discover that it does. rock! Now if it's the post-apocalypse, where the fuck did that radio station come from?
38-weird swerve. anybody in the back seat roll dex or d6.
39-skid. whirr, k-chuggg-kk! everybody inside dex or d6. car takes 50 sdc. it's ok. it's ok.
40-big fucking crash into nearby large and unmoving object. car is totalled. everybody dex or d20. dex or d12 if you're wearing a seatbelt.
41-fly into the air--you're about to flip but your car is held in a mysterious null-inertia field. you just hang there. what the fuck?
42-oh, that didn't sound good. vehicle takes 100 sdc.
43-whoa, whoa, whoa! crissssh! all handling checks are at -2/-10% now.
44-as above, except -4, -30%
45-roll twice
46-roll three times
47-vrooom, screech, skraaaaaape, wobblewobble. everybody roll con or PE to avoid vomiting.
48-mutant animal suddenly appears in the road. 1-2 small 3-4 medium but fast 5-6 large with chameleon-lke abilities (GM's choice of what exact animal)--Do you try to avoid hitting it? If so, roll again on this table. if not, well, ask your GM.)
49-brake immediately and everybody takes dex or d4 or roll three times. You decide.
50-move one lane to the right or left to avoid losing control.

Thank You For Not Being Ignorant Assholes

First, I'd like to note that the show is doing really well and so for those of you who watch it, thanks. The rest of this is for everybody whether or not you watch it:

Even though it has little to do with the bottom line, once in awhile the pyrotechnic display of bigotry, sexism, self-righteousness and can't-be-bothered-to-google-ignorance that I periodically get in my inbox in response to this TV show that the Escapist pays us to make about our game kind of makes me despair for humankind. I don't mean that as an exaggeration I mean it literally. No matter how many nice letters and traffic bonus checks you get, there's only so many times you can read "Wyverns can't talk, you and your stupid tattood whores don't know shit about D&D stop posing" before you honestly start thinking: "What's the point? What's the point of ever trying to talk to anyone you don't already know? People seem to go out of their way to misunderstand and score snark points off everything you say. Why not just hang out here in my apartment in Hollywood with my stripper friends, making paintings and doing cool Hollywood things and play our game and forget about all these stupid nerds and their stupid nerd hobby?"

This line of thinking, however, only goes so far before I remember you guys and I remember the fact that pretty much everybody who reads and writes to D&D With Porn Stars only says things that seem sane and smart and recognizably human and there's almost no obscure topic I can talk about--game-related or otherwise--that somebody out there doesn't seem to know something interesting about and I just want you all to know that I appreciate that. When I start thinking that there's just no way to make yourself understood about anything even slightly out of the ordinary unless you're standing right in front of people I remember how many people have--for whatever reason--ended up on this site and started reading and then thought "Hey, this porn actor actually sounds like he knows what he's talking about" and although I regret that I live in a world where you actually have to thank people and be surprised when people don't act like assholes I just want you all to know that I know and appreciate the fact that y'all are smart and don't act like assholes.

And I appreciate how rare and nice that is and the girls do too and if it weren't true I wouldn't keep doing this.

An Easy All-Purpose Crazy Random Table Mechanic

Step 1:

Write ( or locate) a crazy random table for something that happens to the PCs. It should have at least 20 results. Like: (A) "Result of attempt to sell stolen goods" or (B) "accidental potion creation side effect" or (c) "drunken dungeoneering mishaps". It should have good and bad results, and they can be mixed together.

Step 2:

When the time comes to do that thing, have the PC roll a (roll under) d20 check on the relevant attribute. For example: for chart A above this'd be charisma, for B it'd be intelligence, for C it'd be dexterity.

Step 3:

Have the PC roll on the crazy random chart.

Step 4:

Now look at the result of the attribute check. If it was a success, then do like this: If the player rolled under his/her ability score by (say) 4, then the PC can choose the result s/he rolled during step 3 OR any result from the chart that's within 4-up or 4-down from whatever s/he rolled. Like if the result of the random table roll was 15, then the player can choose any result from 11-20.

If the result was a failure, determine by how much it was a failure. This is the window from which the DM gets to choose which thing happens. If the attribute check failed by, say, 2, and the random chart roll was a 13, then the DM can choose any result from 11-15.


_


This obviously takes a little longer than just rolling on the chart straight up, but the interaction and tension it creates can be a lot of fun--especially when it's done all out in the open.

It also makes it easy to draw up random charts at will and have the results be relevant to the PC profile--without having to come up with an ability-score related modifier for every subsystem.

The Abyss Stares Back

Jeff Jones



Barry Windsor-Smith

Kris Kuksi

Kenji Yanobe

Ivan Bilibin

Ian Miller

Harry Clarke


Eduardo Paolozzi

Nicholas Digenova


Sean McCarthy


Paolo Uccello

Walt Simonson


Stephen Gammell (Thanks, SirLarkins for IDing him)

Another Totally Free Product Brought To You By DIY D&D

This week's episode of "I Hit It With My Axe" is long and serious. (Relatively--it does feature spontaneous titfondling and casual PC mutilation, if you're into that sort of thing.)

I generally like the pointless funny episodes more since funny's funny, whereas any plot revelations in the game are stuff I knew about ages ago and often made up to begin with, so they have less impact on me.

This plot-heavy episode, however, is notable since I had some help from some cyberfriends:

-Jeff of the Gameblog wrote most of the nobles of Vornheim (other than Vosculous Eeben). I figured: if I write some high-level fancies for this city, they may or may not ever get used, depending on what the PCs decide to do. Hell--there's no guaranteeing they'd even return to Vornheim.

However, it's nice to have some stuff there, and it's nice to throw fellow DIYers some cash from the show's budget (even if it means I temporarily become a YDIer) to develop a little depth on the setting in case I ended up needing it while I focused on more pressing things like sifting through 16 hours of tape looking for a 2 second clip of someone zooming in on a blue-wizard-with-pointy-hat miniature.

With Jeff's permission, I might put his full write-ups for the nobles up here--maybe fleshed out into full-on artifacty NPCs.

-The Death Frost Doom module to which Mandy refers to during the very blurry exposition was, of course, produced by consummate professional James Edward Raggi IV a.k.a. Lamentations Of The Flame Princess.

Fans of that grim and unforgiving auteur may be interested to note that sometime around October the 'Axe' crew will be returning to the site of Death Frost Doom* (which I am, rather lazily and metally, calling 'Deathfrost Mountain'). Wherein they will encounter some things that were not in the original module. One of which is very large.

In case you didn't feel like clicking the link or just like your videos small:



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*At which point I will make sure the LOTFP logo appears in the credits, James. I figured this time we were just talking about it rather than "using" it.

Crossing The Streams

In addition to their ordinarily allowed spells, wizards may choose any one extra spell of any level and designate that as a "poorly remembered spell". This spell represents the caster Fucking With That With Which One Ought Not To Fuck.

This is a spell that the wizard kinda mostly is pretty sure he saw someone cast once while he was leaning over somebody's shoulder and pretty much thinks he can kinda guess how it works.

When cast, this spell has an unmodifiable 50% chance of working backwards--striking/affecting the caster and/or her allies (if it's a harmful spell) or the caster's enemies (if it's a beneficial spell). If the spell isn't strictly beneficial or harmful, then the GM is encouraged to interpret "working backwards" in the most disastrous possible light.

Artifacty NPCs

Ok, Telecanter, I'll bite. Artifactlike NPCs are go...

But if I'm gonna do this, I think I should inject some DIY D&D philosophy into it.

Basically the thing is, your NPCs suck and they are all going to die. This is not one of those mostly-not-DIY-D&D blogs you occasionally wander onto where everyone spends half their entries explaining how NPCs have to have motivations and depth and everybody trades character-design tips they got from reading Jane Austen and/or watching Buffy.

This is how NPCs work in games I like to play:

An NPC shows up with one dimension. This dimension is awesome and generally involves tenting his or her beringed fingers and laughing maniacally about cruel deathtraps s/he dropped the players into. The NPC probably gets fed to a pit full of Yeth hounds or is ignored in favor of the players doing some crazy shit they thought up while trying to fish a nacho out from under the couch.*

If, by some miracle, neither of those things happen, the NPC might show up again the next session with two dimensions. He seemed like a kindly barkeep but he was a wereweasel all along? Huh. Wait, you're Luke's father? Whoa. At any rate, he is probably going to get impaled on something before breakfast the next morning, or, again, ignored in favor of some plot thread s/he isn't involved in so whatever.

If the NPC manages to come back again then the NPC will now have acquired a third dimension. Because this keeps the players from being all "Fuck, Gorgraxx The Unliving again?" Like in Jedi, we find out Vader, in the end, was more loyal to Luke than the Emperor. Huh, who knew?
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In other words, just as PCs have to start at first level and earn their badassness by surviving and solving problems, NPCs start out as giggling fiends or cliched schlubs and earn their complexity by surviving and having the players give a fuck about them. This is how TV writers actually do it, kids.

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So, here's how I'd write up an Artifacty NPC:
Vosculous Eeeben is the current Duke Regent of Vornheim. Like most who have donned the Three Beaked Mask of the Regent, he is a vain compromiser, given to fits of solitary drinking. His only joy is gambling on duels between immature carrion crawlers in the grub-breeding pits.

Like most nobles of his line, his mother began exposing him to small doses of poison at as a child so that, by the age of 13, he'd built up an immunity to most common toxins.

If Eeben appears in a second session, he will be revealed to possess the following characteristics:

One item from the DMG "miscellaneous magic" table.

One trait from the "Hidden Traits of NPC You Didn't Realize Was Going To Be Important Until You Started Playing" table.

If Eeben appears in a third session, he will be revealed to possess the following characteristics:

Roll or pick something from the Traumatic Adolescent Background Generator.

If Eeben appears in a fourth session, he will be revealed to possess the following characteristics:

Roll or pick something from the Traumatic Childhood Background Generator.

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Addendum:

The more I think about it, the more I feel this is the way to go if you're going to have "shared" NPCs. What the NPCs appear to be at first is something everyone can start with--what the NPC actually is is a DM's decision. Everybody needs an avuncular innkeeper--what that avuncular innkeeper turns out to be underneath (if anything) is a place where DM's differ. And these differences are interesting.

This is, pretty much, how DMs deal with many things in D&D--monsters, f'rinstance--already.

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*Just because the PCs are ignoring an NPC doesn't mean his or her scheme won't happen, obviously--but the NPC's personality and quirks only matter if the PCs pay close attention to him while he's enacting it.

Another Experimental Adventure Creation Method

You can sew, dance, and blind fight? Just what we needed.

Here's how I made my last TMNT/Mutant Future adventure: I looked at the character attributes in the game (strength,intelligence, etc.) and flipped randomly through the skill list and tried to think of a situation where each attribute and/or skill would be useful. About 15 minutes of thinking got me about a session's worth of material.

You could probably brainstorm a whole megalocale or campaign pretty quick if you just tried to get at least one situation for everything on a game's skill list. Call of Cthulhu seems particularly ripe for this treatment.

Not that the PCs would have to do all that stuff to get through the game--it just seems to spur the imagination to try to think of how a gameworld where both artist: stage magic and pilot: hovercraft could both be useful in short order.

Oorld's Wide Web

(Here's another one for Jeff.) Long ago, a small, brave spider named Oorld crawled all the way around the Earth, spinning and weaving a long, long web as she crept. The web collected all the stray ideas and loose thoughts in the world.

Pieces of the web still exist--some have been made into earrings. Holding a piece of the web near one's ear allows a character to hear billions of voices--a fragmented chorus of opinions and alleged facts about whatever the user happens to be looking at. The main effect is to make the possessor extremely tired (-2 to all saves).

Occasionally the formula for a useful spell or a powerful metaphysical insight is audible above the ill-informed din. Once per year the owner may make a wisdom check to try to find such a voice:

If the check fails, s/he is afflicted by a Class III effect,

if it succeeds, the web allows the possessor to use a Class I power OR may choose instead to make another wisdom roll in order to try to hear a more powerful voice,

if a second roll is made and failed, the user is afflicted by a Class IV effect (and gains no powers),

if the second roll is a success, the web enables the user to employ a Class II power (instead of the Class I power) OR the user may choose to make a third wisdom roll to gain even deeper insight,

if the third roll fails, the user will be permanently afflicted by some form of insanity,

if the third roll succeeds, the user will be permitted to use two Class II powers.

Deck of Hurtful Things

When throwing together random post-apocalyptic villains for our TMNT game, I find that deciding what weapons they're carrying is a subtler task than in the D&D campaign.

In D&D, the weapons tend to be either standard issue (bow, sword, axe) or culturally-specific (the goblins throw vials of slime at people, that's just one of their things), and anything more unusual than that is probably magic, so it's treasure and therefore rare.

In the post-apocalyptic setting, the "everything is scavenged" vibe and the resulting lack of unifying "cultures" plus the wildly varying tech levels plus the whole survivalistic angle plus the fact that novel weapons are not necessarily more powerful than standard-issue ones (i.e. they're not necessarily magic) plus the fact that a big draw of the Ninja Turtle game is the novelty and complexity of the fight scenes all suggest that the precise kind of weapons used plays a much bigger role in defining the mood than it does in good old Vornheim which, after all, is supposed to look and act enough like Medieval Europe often enough that the players are at least a little surprised when things get weird.

Point being: it is helpful to think up a wild and various list of possible weapons the baddies could be carrying in a radioactive future in the event that the PCs run into unexpected trouble or in the event that I get lazy about building specific badguys before I run a session.

Rather than write these on a chart, I decided it'd be fractionally easier to get a sharpie and write the weapons and their vital stats on a set of playing cards. (I know I'm not the only one, lots of game companies produce card products with treasures or traps or whatall on them--and of course there's Sham's W/O Walls dungeon-building technique. It's easier to look at a one thing on a card than find something in the middle of a chart.)

I used the cards themselves to suggest what weapons would go on them: clubs are blunt weapons, diamonds are edged weapons, spades are projectiles and firearms, and hearts were various unarmed strikes and techniques. The value of the card roughly corresponds to the power level of the weapon--with court cards being exceptionally bizarre or powerful. Jokers are wacky weapons.

Now if the party tries to rob d6 mutant bikers for their gasoline, I can shuffle, deal, and in that moment where everyone tries to read my handwriting it's just like that moment where you go "He's reaching for something! What is it? A knife? A gun? A limpet mine made from a real limpet? A speedboat propeller attached to a frisbee?"

I kinda like the idea of using playing-card vandalism to handle anything in any game that:

--comes up a lot,

--doesn't take too long to think up,

--you want to be different every time, and...

--isn't very environment-specific

The Yog-Sothoth.com people have an insanity deck for Cthulhu--seems like the kind of thing that makes sense to be in a deck. NPC personalities could be a good one to do next. Clubs are cliquish, diamonds are powerful, spades are dangerous, hearts are friendly...something like that.

Actual Yakuza Review A Game About Yakuza...

3 yakuza review Yakuza 3.

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I've never played this game and probably never will, but it's a fascinating article.

The Unimaginable Star of Yragnnngrelfffzzzikkrraxxllarrrgghh

(Here's a minor artifact for Jeff's new project...)

This name is an approximation--the mind of anyone attempting to speak the true name of this extradimensional artifact is immediately seized by the object's "entropic field". This anomaly is just one of the chaotic effects generated by the bizarre and enigmatic sphere.

The object resembles the head of a morning star*, however, while it is both visible and describable, it is unimaginable. No being can picture it clearly in his, her, or its mind. For this reason, if the orb is used as a weapon (it has the range of a sling and inflicts damage as a morning star), the attacker is at +2 "to hit". However, this also makes retrieving the sphere after it is thrown (or after the possessor is separated from it for any other reason) unusually difficult--the task requires a successful wisdom check at -2.

Anyone who takes damage from the Star is temporarily affected by its chaotic field. Tasks attempted by the character which would normally require a die roll will no longer have the normal chance of succeeding but will, instead, have a 50% chance of succeeding. (The task must be one which would have had at least a 10% chance of succuss and at least a 10% chance of failure otherwise.) This effect lasts for d20 die rolls after the character is hit (This roll should be kept secret by the GM.)

The sphere is said to affect the waves of probability in many ways--few of which are concrete and detectable--however, the Star clearly confers the following powers/effects on the possessor:

(1 or 2) x I
(same number) x III
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*It is claimed that, when in the Eastern hemisphere, the Star appears as a shuriken with eight arrow-like points--these reports are unconfirmed and perhaps unconfirmable.

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image totally not made or owned by me

Thousand Drunken Tongues Technique

(I'll be using this in TMNT and any Oriental Adventures games I might run.)

A PC can learn this technique for a cost of 1/2 the x.p. necessary to reach the next level, though s/he might have to seek out a master.

After a successful unarmed to-hit roll, the player begins to speak and the GM starts a stopwatch. The player must then continuously describe, in detail, a series of physical movements his or her character is using to attack his or her enemy, without stopping.

(Example: "I leap into the air, twist, land on top of the guy's head, reach down, shove my fingers into his eyesockets, pluck out one eye, throw it into the air, slice it in half with my dagger, catch the pieces in my mouth, spit them into his face, jump off his head, sweep his legs out from under him, catch him by the hair, throw him through the window, jump through after him, punch him in the neck four times before he hits the ground"...etc.)


If the player pauses for more than one second ("one Miss-iss-ipp-i") the recitation must stop and the GM stops the stopwatch. The longer the player speaks, the more dangerous the attack. The attack causes damage equal to one half the number of seconds the description goes on.

The described attack does indeed occur--though it can only include actions which the PC (or, at least, a Jet Li-like version of the character) could physically perform--i.e. if the PC can't eat metal then the description cannot include the PC eating the target's sword. If the description suggests some result in addition to direct physical damage from the assault (i.e. if the strike involves the target being disarmed or thrown into a spike-filled pit), the target may be allowed a reflex save or the like.

Although the described attack can include any number of actions involving weapons, they do no additional damage and the initial to-hit roll is made as if it were an unarmed strike. If more than one target is included in the description the PC can decide how exactly to allocate the damage generated.

An attack description can last up to a number of seconds equal to 30 + the PC's level OR 2 times the maximum amount* of physical damage that PC is ordinarily capable of doing in melee combat--whichever is higher. (*This maximum will take into account damage done by weapons, though if a particular weapon increases the maximum, that weapon must be included at some point in the action description.)

The technique is usable once per day.

Maybe more of these later.

Make Sure You're Still Sneaky...

-Here's a philosophical question: If your PCs are in the big city and break into a random drug store, do they get potions or do they just get a bunch of echinacea and St. John's Wort and whatall?

That's really a Noir v. Weird Tale question. In a Lankhmarish city like Vornheim then, yeah, there'll be some bona fide potions in there. If you're lucky...

(Bigger version here.)
Some other notes on this episode...
-There was a bit more rigamarole and dice rolling before Satine got knocked unconscious, but for clarity's sake it got elided in the video.

-Frankie V. Wyvern: Don't you just love it when you can freak your players out by doing absolutely nothing?

-For those not keeping score, Frankie asks if she can get the Wyvern to like her on four separate occasions in about four minutes.

-The mutation chart was from the old Warhammer Realms of Chaos supplement.

Why Doesn't Character Generation Always Involve An "Office-Wide Beauty Contest"?

James Bond creator helps trick Germans into moving a whole Panzer division via graverobbing, forgery, and painstaking chargen...

Check it.

Really, seriously. Listen. So good.

Last Night's Game In 9 Pictures

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(Visual aids, terrain, and minis used during the TMNT adventure in The Red Palace.)

Oh, and for those keeping up with the rules hacks--removing SDC worked out fine. Felt just like D&D.

Katana + Monster Truck + Radiation - Taste =....

The Ninja Turtle Campaign world thought process last night went something like:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles +...

Pendragon...

Pendragon? +

Oriental Adventures...Warring clans...

Clutch!

Yes I'm a new world samurai, beebopawoobopalopbamboom

Ah, there we go, and it all clicked...