|
PeterWeller posted:I liked the monstrous compendium and adding new sheets to my binder. Silhouette posted:Dungeoneer's/Wilderness Survival Guides. Lots of stuff to make the usually skimmed over drudgery into mini-adventures for tempo changes. Hunting/gathering rules and charts, environmental hazards discussed and charted, etc... As long as you have to houserule as needed to avoid pointless story-destroying deaths and it can add a lot of flavor to travelling. If you try and implement everything in the WSG all the time an entire gaming session will amount to "walking across the meadow".  (OTOH that meadow will be the most  meadow ever.)AlphaDog posted:the game is far better in sandbox mode than in story mode. Silhouette posted:2E books are dirt cheap, though
|
#
?
May 12, 2013 02:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 05:35 |
|
|
B/X roll-under retrohack update! It's coming along pretty well; all the mechanics are now in place, and I've written up most of the actual rules (many of which are just rephrasings of B/X anyway, on the basis of "If it ain't broke...") Unfortunately, some of the rule changes affected spells, and I also wanted to amend the spell lists, so I've made a rod for my own back as I now have to type all of them in.  (Humbug Scoolbus, you can rest assured that this isn't interfering with my day job. First draft of the new book should be finished tomorrow!  )
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2013 20:23
|
|
|
Is anybody familiar with Beyond the Wall and its playbooks, and if so, do you think they'd do a good job of stat generation for, say, BECMI or Adventurer, Conqueror and Kings? It's a cool idea, I just want to know if I can use it for lifepaths for other OSR games with slight modification.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2013 16:12
|
|
|
Payndz posted:
Thank god. I was starting to go cold turkey.
|
|
#
?
May 23, 2013 19:22
|
|
|
I've been reading the ACKS Player's Companion a lot lately and I have to say that ACKS is now my official go-to game for quick and dirty dungeon-crawling with a bit more mechanical depth than B/X. I'd obviously cut down on the number of classes (because with 12 classes in the core rulebook and 18 new ones in the Companion there's simply so many to choose from as to cause analysis paralysis) if I were to run it as a silly dungeon-crawler, but the Companion makes character creation a lot faster than before. The first time I ran ACKS the most time-consuming parts of character creation were choosing Proficiencies (not surprising, as in my experience 3e and 4e cause a similar lag with feat and skill choices) and purchasing equipment. The Companion has templates for each class, which you can either let players pick from or (if you want to go really old-school) roll 3d6 for. Each template comes with a pre-chosen list of equipment and Proficiencies, as well as spells for spellcasters, meaning that for pick-up dungeon-crawlers with the system character creation is as simple as rolling 3d6 in order, choosing class and rolling 3d6 for template. I think it was AlphaDog who previously posted about running B/X as a really fun-sounding dungeon-crawler where, as characters died, players simply rolled up a new character, and their new character would join the group in play the moment the player had finished rolling up their character. I want to run something like with that (because I thought AlphaDog's telling of them sounded like a blast), but to make it even more stupid and gamey I'm going to add a number of unlockable rewards for the players to use at character death. So, when the game begins each player is only allowed to choose from the Cleric, Fighter, Mage and Thief classes, but with a number of "Achievements" for dying in particular ways that would unlock new character classes for the player, both from the core rulebook and the Companion. For the purposes of this game, there would basically be just three locations: the town, the wilderness and the dungeon. The town would be the only place where the players could purchase equipment, gain XP for treasure they had looted in the dungeon and hire followers. The wilderness would just act as a middle-ground between the town and the dungeon where random wilderness encounters might take place. The dungeon will probably be a twenty-level mega-dungeon that I would construct and stock as the players made progress through it. Some examples of ways to unlock new classes: Get killed by an enemy that surprised you - Assassin Get killed during a random wilderness encounter on the way from the dungeon to town - Explorer Get killed by a level-draining undead - Anti-Paladin, Zaharan Ruinguard Get killed by a hostile dwarf/elf/gnome - Dwarven/Elven/Gnomish classes Get killed by an animal or nature-themed monster - Shaman And so on, so forth. Does this sound completely stupid, and if so, does it at least sound completely stupid in a good way?
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 13:30
|
|
|
IMO it sounds gloriously silly and good-natured. I do think that you should have a slightly larger wilderness, because that way you could have an elven village for recruiting elven classes, a dwarven mountain fort for recruiting dwarven classes, etc. Or maybe that's just my preference for sandboxes talking. And yeah, ACKS with the player's companion is probably the overall best D&D there is. Alternatively you could steal a page from GW's Mordheim game and set the campaign in the ruins of a recently nuked metropolis. Every session would then revolve about finding a good ruin/dungeon, plundering it, and then getting home in one piece. With a good random dungeon generator, and stuff like that found at wizardawn.com, it wouldn't even take all that much prep.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 13:56
|
|
|
VacuumJockey posted:IMO it sounds gloriously silly and good-natured. I do think that you should have a slightly larger wilderness, because that way you could have an elven village for recruiting elven classes, a dwarven mountain fort for recruiting dwarven classes, etc. Or maybe that's just my preference for sandboxes talking. And yeah, ACKS with the player's companion is probably the overall best D&D there is. As far as the larger wilderness goes, while I like the idea of having separate elven and dwarven towns, at this stage of this mental exercise I want to stick to just one town as the central hub of the game. I sort of want this game to have the feel of something like the Diablo and Torchlight games, where the town is the safe haven you go to in between excursions to the local dungeon. The feel I'm going for with the game is Dungeon Crawler Video Game: Tabletop Edition, and as such I'm not all that concerned about building a sprawling world beyond the town and its local dungeon. Stealing from Mordheim is a brilliant idea though: for the longest time I've wanted to use Vornheim's urban-crawling rules to run something like a D&D version of Mordheim, and some of ACKS's classes already have that "ruined cities blasted by magical nukes" thing written into their background that they'd be a perfect fit. I wouldn't even have to change too much about my initial plan: the town location would be the shanty-town/military camp that has sprung up around the ruined city, the wilderness would be the sprawling streets of the town and the dungeon would be the various major buildings and landmarks of the city waiting to be looted. I have to start writing this stuff down.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 14:34
|
|
|
Ratpick posted:Does this sound completely stupid, and if so, does it at least sound completely stupid in a good way? Ooh, I really like this and might start using a variant of it in future ACKS games I run. I actually really like how little mechanical control you have over character customization in baseline B/X, since it keeps people from falling into the 'my character concept is that I am mechanically optimized' trap that happens with 3e and onwards, and giving people too many classes and proficiencies to deal with starts to risk them falling into that mindset, in addition to making character creation take too long. That said, some of the classes in ACKS are really fun, so I think I might start a 'by default, you can only make a core class' policy, but then make it so that there will be plenty of NPCs with fancy classes that the party can befriend and potentially start playing as. I'm realizing I really don't like proficiencies, though. They feel better balanced to me than feats, but you still end with with weirdness like players who stack bonuses to reaction rolls and are suddenly averaging an 11-12 result on them. The fact that B/X works just fine without them means I think I might just cut them completely the next time I run an ACKS game and let people have one special ability that they get to design every 4 levels. VacuumJockey posted:Alternatively you could steal a page from GW's Mordheim game and set the campaign in the ruins of a recently nuked metropolis. Every session would then revolve about finding a good ruin/dungeon, plundering it, and then getting home in one piece. With a good random dungeon generator, and stuff like that found at wizardawn.com, it wouldn't even take all that much prep. Wizardawn is amazing. My DM ran us a game in one of their dungeons recently and none of us had any idea it was randomly generated/populated until he told us.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 15:52
|
|
|
Ratpick posted:Does this sound completely stupid, and if so, does it at least sound completely stupid in a good way? It looks like it was my story that you're building off, yeah. I think I might do unlockables/achievements for our next lighthearted game, because that idea is loving awesome. I might even try to find a copy of ACKS though, since I'm not sure B/X will hold up well like that, if only because there's not really enough unlockable stuff (unless you start as Just Fighters...)
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 16:06
|
|
|
OtspIII posted:Wizardawn is amazing. My DM ran us a game in one of their dungeons recently and none of us had any idea it was randomly generated/populated until he told us. Pretty sure Wizardawn is just one guy. He posts on an oldschool forum I post on sometimes, when he makes a new tool or something.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 18:01
|
|
|
 I've had the black box starter set since I was 11 but was never able to find players. I finally got around to playing yesterday. I wanted to play By the Book and Jesus is it brutal. We played the first two sessions of the Zanzer's dungeon tutorial, and the party wiped once against the first encounter with the gnolls, and would have wiped a second time in the encounter with the crossbow wielding orcs in the long hallway. But I was feeling merciful so I decided to have them retreat after the first orc was brought down to one HP. One poor guy died 3 times. I know you're supposed to start your characters with 6 HP when you begin the first session (since picking a class doesn't come into play until the second session), but players get no such leeway after they die and have to reroll. If one poor schlub rolls a 1 on his hit die, that's all he gets ... 1 HP ... and that's the max. No point in carrying potions if your Max HP is 1. Don't invest too much in that character because he's not going to last long. It also sucks for people who want to play a certain class but wind up getting low rolls on their prime requisite. I had one player who wanted to be a figher. He rolled a 6 on his strength score. Oh well, too bad. And that's all you get 3 dice. No roll 4 and drop the lowest. One character that was rolled had -1s and -2s in nearly every adjustment. I noticed, that as we started, the players were all for a brutal no holds bar game of Classic D&D, but after the constant deaths, rerolling, and wipes, they were clearly getting discouraged. I started adding house rules. Players could now roll 4 dice on their attribute roles and drop the lowest. They started with 6 HP plus or minus their constitution modifier. And also introduced the check for morale mechanic earlier in the game so that monsters could run away occasionally and it wouldn't always have to end in a brutal battle to the death in which it was becoming clear the the party was going to lose. I think, part of the problem, was that these were players new to D&D and rping in general. There was one guy that had played a bit of AD&D decades ago, but that was it. They didn't really try much of anything outside the basic mechanics that were introduced and occasionally the wrong die was rolled or we forget to apply a modifier that may have helped them. I was also new to DMing, having only DMed games like Dragon Strike and attempted (but failed) to DM this black box when I was a kid. But I think I did as good a job as I could do as a first time DM. Still, I'm not sure they'll all want to continue where they left off after being put through a meat grinder like that. You have to respect the realism of the game though. You're in a dungeon surrounded by evil monsters. You're level one and pretty much completely outmatched. Let's face it, you're going to die. And only through cunning, persistence, and sheer luck are you going to bring a character out of this successfully.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 22:11
|
|
|
Ratpick posted:Stealing from Mordheim is a brilliant idea though: for the longest time I've wanted to use Vornheim's urban-crawling rules to run something like a D&D version of Mordheim, and some of ACKS's classes already have that "ruined cities blasted by magical nukes" thing written into their background that they'd be a perfect fit. I wouldn't even have to change too much about my initial plan: the town location would be the shanty-town/military camp that has sprung up around the ruined city, the wilderness would be the sprawling streets of the town and the dungeon would be the various major buildings and landmarks of the city waiting to be looted. Ruins of the Undercity, while meant for solo play, is what amounts to a D&D version of Mordheim set in a sort-of-gothic fantasy Arabia. Substituting RotU's random dungeon tables with a dungeon generated from, say, wizardawn.com, you'd pretty much be ready to go with just about any OSR D&D clone. With a copy of Vornheim to fill out the gaps you've got the cornerstones of a kick-rear end city-based campaign.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 22:17
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:It looks like it was my story that you're building off, yeah. I think I might do unlockables/achievements for our next lighthearted game, because that idea is loving awesome. I might even try to find a copy of ACKS though, since I'm not sure B/X will hold up well like that, if only because there's not really enough unlockable stuff (unless you start as Just Fighters...) I recommend getting the Player's Companion if you want to hack your B/X game. One of the greatest things about the book is the section on class creation rules. Even if you start with just the baseline B/X classes, you can easily use the class creation rules with any B/X compatible system to create new classes, and thus more unlockable goodies. I actually agree with OtspIII with regards to proficiencies to an extent though: while definitely more balanced than feats, they still have some potentially problematic effects, such as stacking so many bonuses as to render some of the game's subsystems moot. I still like them even though they're a bit of a mixed bag, as they add a bit of customization to what is basically just BECMI with some new classes. I already brought this idea to two of my friends and they seemed keen. One of them suggested that if I choose to go with the Mordheim/ruined city vibe I should also steal a bit from STALKER, mainly stuff like anomalies and such. While it'd make for a neat B/X-based weird fantasy/horror game (and let's face it, low-level B/X, if run properly, already is a horror game on account of how vulnerable the characters are) I'm not sure if it'd chime with the light-hearted nature of my original idea, unless I inject a lot of dark humor into it. (Which shouldn't be a problem, because dark humor is an emergent property of our B/X dungeon crawls on account of the fact that characters tend to die in hilarious ways.) Ratpick fucked around with this message at 23:22 on May 24, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 24, 2013 23:11
|
|
|
I'm pretty familiar with the ins and outs of BECMI and Dark Dungeons, what are the differences in ACKS? Do they use Gazetteer style skills?
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 00:34
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:I'm pretty familiar with the ins and outs of BECMI and Dark Dungeons, what are the differences in ACKS? Do they use Gazetteer style skills? ACKS has a number of differences from BECMI, the main ones being the following: A lot of things that have their own subsystems in BECMI (like turning undead, thief skills and dwarves' and elves' special detection abilities) are resolved with a d20 vs. target number system. Said system is used for most things in the game, including the skill-like proficiencies. All characters have proficiencies, which are basically Gazetteer-like skills, weapon mastery and 3e style feats rolled into one. Some give passive bonuses to certain things, some give you entirely new tricks (for an example, Magic Music lets you fascinate and sleep creatures with musical performances), while others grant some other type of benefit (such as a familiar). Characters start with one general proficiency (stuff like Healing, Crafting and so on) and one chosen from their list of class proficiencies, and they gain more as they level up. The demihuman classes have been split up, so that not every dwarf has the dwarf class. The core rulebook has the Dwarven Vaultguard (pretty much the BECMI Dwarf, a Fighter analogue) and the Dwarven Craftpriest (a Cleric), as well as the Elven Spellsword and Nightblade (the former the Fighter/Magic-User we know and love, the latter a Thief/Magic-User type). The Player's Companion has more classes (both human and demihuman) as well as rules for creating new ones, so you could theoretically build classes for Dwarf Druids, Elf Barbarians and stuff like that. Spell casting uses spell slots, but characters don't need to prepare or memorize spells. Arcane casters have a limited repertoire of spells chosen from the list of arcane spells, the number of spells in their repertoire dependent on their level, while Divine spell casters have access to all spells from their entire (albeit smaller) list of spells. Higher level spells are all rituals, meaning that they have special costs and require more time to cast. The game caps at level 14 at which point characters are assumed to be running their own kingdoms/temples/mage's towers/thieves' guilds or what have you, and the game dedicates a lot of information to the actual mechanical side of domain management. Domain management is a game within a game of sorts in ACKS. There are lots of minor subtle differences from BECMI, but those are the main ones.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 01:09
|
|
|
Gianthogweed posted:
This is the box I started with when I was 10 or 11, and I didn't stray far. My game is 2e. A simple rule for hitpoints is you are unconscious at 0, and dead at -10. Once knocked out, you bleed out 1hp a round until someone bandages you. It gives even the 1hp person a chance to survive a hit. I don't remember much of how brutal it was. I probably just used the Zanzer's map over and over, just placing whatever the hell monsters I wanted in different places, with my friends being idiots within the dungeon. They liked it because it was more open, as we went from Heroquest (can only do certain actions) to Dragonstrike (can do special actions with a check) to this (do whatever the hell you want).
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 02:22
|
|
|
I never owned or played the black box D&D, but assuming it's almost the same as B/x or BECMI, there are two minor changes you can make that will alleviate the problems you had. 1) Just after you roll ability scores (before you even pick a class) you may swap 2 ability scores with each other*. That lets you get a Prime Requisite for a class you want. 2) At first level, you get maximum hit points for your class, +/- your constitution modifier. When you level up, roll as normal for hp. An unlucky hit can still kill you, but it's dramatically easier to learn the game when you don't have one loving hit point. Seriously, gently caress that rule. *In AD&D, I'd point out that most of the actual methods for rolling ability scores have you arrange them however you want. I wouldn't apply that to D&D, because you really don't need to, and the game works fine if you're a fighter with 14 strength and every other score hovering around 7-10. Remember that a character with two or more scores of 6 or below can be rerolled, though!
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 02:23
|
|
|
I've been running a 2e game for awhile, and like to write my own c++ programs to help come up with content. They're all console based, and print to the console and a text file for easily putting into campaign notes. I've got a Treasure Generator I wrote that has the exact DMG tables in the back, that rolls up whatever A-Z listing you want, as well as individual items off individual tables. I've got a Spellbook Generator which rolls up lists of spells in various ways, pulling from ALL of the spells from the Wizards Spell Compendiums (1-4). I've written a Noble House Generator which rolls up a single character, and iterates year by year through his life. He eventually gets a wife, they have kids, the kids get married, etc. Deaths are random, births are random, gaining of levels and items is random, and their stats are based on the stats of their parents. So like, if both parents have an 18 in a stat, the kid will roll 6d6 drop 3 low for that stat, meaning he's got a really good chance of having a high stat there. It works the other way too. Everything is based off chances based on stats, so women with higher constitution are more likely to have more children, people with higher charisma and intelligence are more likely to get married sooner, and the stats (and birth order) determine which classes they may attain, and how they get, during their life. I wrote a simple Weather Generator which rolls up a years worth of temps, three to a day, along with the cloud cover, rain, wind, and composite effects (storm, hail, tornadoes, etc). It's based on the temps of Detroit, and a standard Earth calendar, though I may make it more modifiable in the future. Then there's a Bookgenerator that plays madlibs with book and author titles, to help fill up libraries. I love this one. I wrote a Character Generator for rolling up characters using the different methods in the book, showing their race and class options, their proficiency lists for each class, thieves and bards set their skills, mages get to do some spellbook stuff through the attached Spellbook Generator, and some other stuff. This was recently written, and not quite done. I'm proud it has all 65 of the Priest Handbook specialty priests as well though. Then there's my huge Inngoer Generator, which is just a mass npc generator. So when my players enter an inn, I lean over to my netbook and see who/what is in there. It also rolls up groups of mercenaries, travelers, adventurers per the MM, various kinds of inns, and I forget what else. My current project is a Mundane Item Generator, which is to make the ornamental objects found be more interesting. It's a bit like Dwarf Fortress style items. It rolls up the item type, its quality, material type, and various adornments, and prints it out. I have it set to either print up a single item of value X, or a trove of items adding up to item X. Still very much in alpha, it is looking to be pretty fun. Examples: (Note, the random names are from my terrible name generator I wrote in like 20 minutes. Consider them inspirations or placeholders for the most part. Bookgenerator: 'Stars of Seventh Secrets' by Culfuz Smilmalb of the Healers 'Silken Gifts' by Talmuv Growi the Powerful 'Writing of the Falling Voyager' by The Enlightened Empress of Birch Obaj Slebuj 'Last Hunter of Souls' by The Chaplain of Cracked Mages Spalta Suwog 'Every Laughing Castle' by The Emperor Lolmid Snebe Character Generator: Half-Elf Thief, level 1, Thaco: 20/20 Str: 8, Wt.All. 35, Max 90, OpenDoors 5, BB/LG 1% Dex: 15, Reaction/Missile Attack Adj: 0, Defensive Adj. -1 Con: 12, HP Adj 0, Sys. Shock 80%, Res. Survival 85% Int: 12, Languages 3, MaxSpells 6th, Chance to Learn 50%, Max 7 Spells/Level Wis: 7, Mag.Def. Adj -1 Cha: 11, Max Henchmen 4, Loyalty Base 0, Reaction Adj. 0 WP: Dagger, Lasso NWP: Trail Signs, Survival, Animal Handling, Camouflage, Musical Instrument PP: 25, OL: 10, F/RT: 35, MS: 10, HiS: 20, DN: 15, CW: 80, RL: 0 Inngoers (Rolls up 6-30 entries like this, of varying types) Hoken, Half-Elf Male, Tea Trader [16,10,7,11,6,10] AC: 10 HP: 2 Thaco: 20/20 53 years old, 67 inches tall, 123 pounds, Elitist and Harsh brown eyes, long straight black hair, a painter's moustache Plustik, Human Male, Hoken's Guard [14,10,11,7,14,15] AC: 3 HP: 5 Thaco: 20/20 Footman's Mace, Splint Mail Armor and Medium Shield 29 years old, 67 inches tall, 165 pounds, Gloomy and Overbearing Darting hazel eyes, medium curly black hair Noble House Generator, a small 50 year run, coded to preserve formatting code:Rolled up a set book: [1] Sleep, Trembling Horn, Magic Missile [2] Stinking Cloud, Circle of Flame, Melf's Acid Arrow [3] Phantom Steed, Protection from Normal Missiles, Call Spirit [4] Rainbow Pattern, Enervation, Phantasmal Killer [5] Sending, Shroud of Flame, Hold Monster [6] Monster Summoning IV, Barrier Reaver, Disintegrate [7] Sequester, Gemjump, Delayed Blast Fireball [8] Mind Blank, Undead Aides, Defoliate [9] Succor, Weird, Power Word, Kill Snippet from my Weather Generator: January 14 -Morning: 19'F, Wind: 10 MPH, few clouds -Daytime: 20'F, Wind: 9 MPH, clear skies -Night: 14'F, Wind: 10 MPH, clear skies January 15 -Morning: 18'F, Wind: 11 MPH, scattered clouds scattered flakes -Daytime: 13'F, Wind: 12 MPH, cloudy light snowfall -Night: 8'F, Wind: 12 MPH, cloudy scattered flakes January 16 -Morning: 14'F, Wind: 14 MPH, scattered clouds -Daytime: 10'F, Wind: 14 MPH, overcast heavy snowfall -Night: 7'F, Wind: 13 MPH, broken clouds light snowfall Items from my Mundane Treasure Generator: A sandstone idol of a traveler and a steam mephit. The traveler is crying, and the steam mephit is attacking. Has a pair of inset azurite: opaque, mottled deep blue, worth 10gp each. 20gp, 2sp, 5cp An exceptional copper flask.The object is engraved with an image of a hag. The hag is confessing. 3sp, 7cp A broken gold holy symbol. Has a trio of inset malachites: striated light and dark green, worth 10gp each. 32gp A masterwork silver medallion. The object is covered in silver filigree. Has a pair of inset jets: deep black, worth 100gp each. 204gp, 8sp Anyone interested in this kind of stuff? The oldschool forum I post on couldn't really care less about these, though I have a dedicated thread to writing them.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 09:41
|
|
|
Hells yes. Any chance you could port it to java or something? I have no idea how to compile C++ on ubuntu. Actually, gently caress that, I learned c++ once I can figure it out.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 09:46
|
|
|
Ravendas posted:I've been running a 2e game for awhile, and like to write my own c++ programs to help come up with content. They're all console based, and print to the console and a text file for easily putting into campaign notes.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 09:46
|
|
|
I put most of the programs on my Dropbox account, in this shared folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ifeo68p5u7y2ils/qcZgtEVqg- I think that should work. They are all just single .exe's which make a text file in whatever folder they're run in. They're all called 'generated____.txt' where the underline is the program name. As I primarily make these for my own use, as no one seems to care about them on the gaming forum I post on, there are some odd things, like my Inngoers will print out specific house names for house guards. Those can just be handwaved as random noble guards or city guards. I get very little feedback on what I make, so it'd be nice if some people tried them out and told me how thy could be improved (outside of 'make a ui~'). Black console windows work well enough for what these are doing for the most part, and I've never made a UI in C++. Edit: Weather Generator is the least interesting one to run. It just opens and immediately closes, just spitting out a text file with a calendar of temps and such printed out.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 10:11
|
|
|
Ravendas: I like the noble house generator, it just has some interesting ways of picking how characters die. "(Male) Strendo: Born in: 1024, went to war and never returned in: 1026" just returned as a result for me.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 12:35
|
|
|
Snorb posted:Ravendas: I like the noble house generator, it just has some interesting ways of picking how characters die. Hahaha yeah. I never really made it check... anything... to bring up the death notes. I think everyone has a 3% chance per year of dying, and it just pulls a random reason as to why they died. Kinda one of those times where I wrote it, saw that it worked decently, and moved on to another thing without ever coming back to improve it. Edit: If you run the Noble House Generator for hundreds of years, it will roll up essentially the population of a city. Anything beyond 100 years is often times near unreadable. I think I made it go for 50 years for a smaller house, 75 years for larger houses. Double edit: I have it so you can put in the start date for it, so like in my campaign, the current year is 400. If I wanted to roll up a 50 year house, I'd start it at 350. Then the dates it spits out lines up with the calendar I have for the campaign. Triple Edit: My new Mundane Treasure Generator now has the basics of clothes added in. How's this for the most passive-aggressive petty wizard robe? A ruined homespun robe, dyed deep red. The object is embroidered with an image of a warrior. The warrior is complaining. Trimmed with beaver fur. 29gp, 2sp, 9cp Ravendas fucked around with this message at 16:00 on May 25, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 12:43
|
|
|
Good Christ, some of the ones I just generated are grim. M Plajoz, born in:821, never returned from a pilgrimage in: 828 M Alkusp'Tribaz, born in:823, lost in a duel to the death in: 826 F Fisa, born in:835, had a fatal jousting accident in: 845 M Squuz, born in:818, assassinated in: 826 M Bleko, born in:843, died from a fondness for drink in: 844 F Dralp, born in:845, never returned from a pilgrimage in: 846 F Pruf, born in:829, struck by lightning in: 835 F Skubok, born in:801, fell victim to the plaque in: 802 F Isk, born in:757, died from a fondness for drink in: 762  This fantasy realm don't gently caress around much, does it? Anyway, for actual feedback: * Keep the hilariously age-inappropriate deaths exactly as they are. * I'm not much of a programmer, so I don't know how feasible this is, but maybe you can have the program pull from a large bank of names so you don't get (as) weird names? (Like say, Lilia, Anezka, Martine, or Catherine if you need a female name.) * I'd like to say separate each generation with a blank line, but it looks like it focuses on the First Ancestors' descendants one at a time. Would it be easier/harder to group the First Ancestors' children in one block, then the grandchildren in a second, and so on?
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 21:47
|
|
|
Snorb posted:F Skubok, born in:801, fell victim to the plaque in: 802 Ravendas, please make sure there is at least one entry in the table where plague is spelled incorrectly like this. My fantasy Vietnam needs its tooth disease.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2013 22:30
|
|
|
Snorb posted:Good Christ, some of the ones I just generated are grim. How it prints out is Person, Person's Spouse, then start printing their children, stopping to print their spouses and their children. That's why it's kinda back and forth. I could change the print order, but that'll have to wait. I know the name generator comes up with some terrible things. It's pretty much just a list of consonants, a list of vowels, and a list of consonant blends (bl, sk, cr, nd, ck, wh...). Then it just goes back and forth a random number of times to make a name. 99% of the time it makes a pronounceable name, however it also has nearly the same chance of sounding terrible. It's kinda grown on me though, and I use it for ideas for names in my game. The best name I rolled up was Blaqok. Edit: Plaque vs plague? Did I really enter it as plaque? Let me check... Yep, wow. I know the difference, I know how their spelled, guess it slipped past my anyhow! Double edit: From the program, here's the list of 30 deaths I wrote up. Since then, I wrote up many more lists in other programs I wrote, so I could probably make these more mad-libs like. "fatally kicked in the head by a horse", "thrown from their mount and died", "had a fatal jousting accident", "died from a wasting disease", "lost in a duel to the death", "gored by a boar", "crushed by falling masonry", "killed in a bar fight", "killed in a peasant uprising", "fell victim to the plague", "caught rabies", "poisoned by a bad batch of alcohol", "fell victim to pneumonia", "died from a fondness for drink", "killed by bandits", "killed by local monsters", "drowned", "burnt to death", "struck by lightning", "bit by a venomous animal", "offended the wrong mage", "assassinated", "let too much blood", "took a poorly measured medicine", "never returned from a pilgrimage", "abducted by a witch", "disappeared in the wood", "captured by a tribe", "went to war and never returned", "killed in a magical experiment" Ravendas fucked around with this message at 02:38 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 02:34
|
|
|
Wow the weapon mastery rules in the rules cyclopedia are really cool, I didn't really pay attention to them because it was hard to figure out what they're supposed to actually do but they open up a ton of options. I like how they're gm controlled too, so you can give a boost to the guy who rolled all 10s or something, and the way they're implemented also leads to an interesting narrative of finding the Great Old Master or whatever.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 01:13
|
|
|
Speaking from experience, it's probably not a bad idea to run with the training rules as written. Let them spend the slots, but only benefit once they pass the training course. This isn't so much a punishment mechanic as it is a pacing one so that they don't get all the benefits too fast and suddenly you have a dude with a torch who is deflecting four blows with one hand and then lighting everything in the room on fire with the other at level five. Unless you want that. I mean, why not.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 01:19
|
|
|
It still wouldn't be as good as sleep. I have dm nightmares about sleep.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 01:21
|
|
|
Rulebook Heavily posted:Speaking from experience, it's probably not a bad idea to run with the training rules as written. Let them spend the slots, but only benefit once they pass the training course. This isn't so much a punishment mechanic as it is a pacing one so that they don't get all the benefits too fast and suddenly you have a dude with a torch who is deflecting four blows with one hand and then lighting everything in the room on fire with the other at level five.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 02:12
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:I would disagree completely actually. That means that the fighter/halfling/dwarf's main class feature is tied up in the plot/randomness and not dispensed when their level would normally give them access to. If you wanted to balance it by having spell casters jump through ridiculous hoops to use their main class feature, then I guess you could have a balanced low powered mother may I game. Spellcasters do kind of have to jump through hoops to get their class features already, after 4th level at least, when you have to learn spells from scrolls that you find. and it's not like you automatically get a stronghold at ninth level, you still have to act it out through the narrative. So I like it in the context of Basic.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 02:26
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:I would disagree completely actually. That means that the fighter/halfling/dwarf's main class feature is tied up in the plot/randomness and not dispensed when their level would normally give them access to. If you wanted to balance it by having spell casters jump through ridiculous hoops to use their main class feature, then I guess you could have a balanced low powered mother may I game. Magic Users do have to jump through hoops to get spells as written, though. It's how DMs can control access to some of the more abusive things if they care to, but the free lunch stops at level 4. It's only polite to give them at least one gimme for each spell level they have, of course, but that's what there on the page. The thing about Weapon Mastery is that it was introduced in a supplement for high-level characters, and the rules are designed essentially with those characters in mind. It is effectively expected that your character won't be a grand master anything until quite a while has passed. So it's not "jump through ridiculous hoops", it's "run at the levels it was intended to be run at".
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 02:34
|
|
|
My B/X roll-under hack is nearly done!  Having MY GIRLFRIEND move in with me meant that evenings of full-on nerdery were no more (not that I'm complaining), but I kept pecking away at it when I got a moment, so now it just needs some bumf to be written and general tidying up, and version 0.1 will be ready for anyone who's interested to look at. Is Dropbox a good way of sharing PDFs?
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 15:24
|
|
|
I'm really interested in reading it. I think Dropbox would work, yeah. Or google docs.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 15:48
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:I'm really interested in reading it. I think Dropbox would work, yeah. Or google docs. Me too! I'm looking forward to it, Payndz.
|
|
#
?
May 27, 2013 15:59
|
|
|
Here you go: the PDF of my B/X roll-under hack, finally available (after Dropbox was a colossal pain in the arse). Comments welcome, and if anyone fancies playtesting it that would be fantastic. No idea if I'll ever play it myself, but at least I got it out of my system and can concentrate on real work!
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2013 14:01
|
|
|
Payndz posted:Here you go: the PDF of my B/X roll-under hack, finally available (after Dropbox was a colossal pain in the arse). Comments welcome, and if anyone fancies playtesting it that would be fantastic. No idea if I'll ever play it myself, but at least I got it out of my system and can concentrate on real work! I've only skimmed it so far, but it seems cool. Would you mind terribly if I linked this to a non-goon friend? He's the other main GM for our group and it looks exactly like his sort of thing.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2013 14:31
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Would you mind terribly if I linked this to a non-goon friend? He's the other main GM for our group and it looks exactly like his sort of thing.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2013 15:03
|
|
|
Oh, that looks really cool! Would you mind giving us a quick summary of where to look for changes--it's a pretty big document. So far I've seen the whole central 'roll under' part and the bonuses/restrictions that classes get.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2013 19:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 05:35 |
|
|
quote:Swole’s Mighty Blow I love it. I'll have something more substantive to say later.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2013 20:35
|
|