#gm tools

[tenleaguesbeneath]

Some astronomically unusual habitable worlds

Or, weird star systems that include a habitable planet, or at least one in the habitable band that could be terraformed, on the assumption that systems you can live in are more interesting than those that can't. "Habitability" is a bit of a stretch here; a habitable world could be anywhere from "it has an evolved biosphere with plants you can eat" to "an airless rockball, but if you pelt it with enough comets, put a biosphere in place, maybe you could eventually live there" or perhaps one where someone already did the hard part; that part is deliberately vague depending on how hard your sci-fi is.

Throw these on a d10 or 2d6 table or something; stick "planet orbiting a yellow dwarf" and "moon of a gas giant orbiting a yellow dwarf" in the most common spots, and you're good to go. This is a draft of a setting design generator table I might use. I might use it for Stars Without Number or I might use it to fill in stuff about under-developed systems in BattleTech, for instance. None of these have precursor aliens so that they can be used in settings that don't include them (if you add precursor space habitats to your star system tables, you can get pretty wild and I do fully encourage that), though one of them assumes humans have been at this space colonization thing for centuries. Likewise, this doesn't include anything that requires Weird Space Magic, like hollow worlds with an antigravitational inside and an inner pseudosun. If that exists in your setting and you're building a Weird Planets table then by all means put that in.

If you want to follow real astronomical commonality, small dim stars are much more common than big bright ones. I'm not an astrophysicist, though, and I haven't done the math to demonstrate that any of these are physically possible.

A world in a distant orbit around a bright star. Because luminosity increases with mass faster than gravity does, this world has a very long orbit; seasons might last decades. Depending on the role solar gravity plays in your setting's FTL (if any), these planets might be faster to reach coming out of FTL.

Converse to that, circumbinary planets (with two closely-orbiting stars at the center of the system) will have shorter years in the habitable band, since the mass is divided among two separate stars leading to much lower luminosity for the same mass

A world in a spread-out binary star system (the planet is closer to its primary than the other star is). The other star shines brightly on it. In the right time of year, there's never a night dimmer than a full moon.

A spread-out binary system with two separate habitable worlds, light-hours or light-days apart

A planet in a binary system with two stars of greatly different brightness, but because of relative distance they appear similar. It's tide-locked to the dimmer star, giving it an uninhabitable hot side and an inhabitable side with a day/night cycle.

A world in a highly eccentric orbit around an extremely bright star. In time, it will fall in to the inner system and its seas and atmosphere will boil away, but that's maybe a century or three out

That same world, coming out the other side. It might have scorched ruins on it, left behind when it was abandoned. It's on its way to the outer system, where it will freeze for a thousand years or more.

A planet that distantly orbits a black hole or neutron star, its atmosphere restored after the supernova burned it off. At the rate its primary is radiating (remnant heat/accretion disk), it's exactly in the habitable band, for now.

An outlying "moon" of a gas giant. Instead of orbiting its primary properly, it orbits at the L4 or L5 Lagrange point

A binary planet in a low orbit around a red dwarf. Their tidal forces on each other are the only thing that has kept them from becoming tide-locked to their primary.

[cerinslair]

d66 Ways to Explain This Player Character’s Brief Absence

Aw beans, one of your players couldn’t show up to tonight’s game. Here’s 36 ways to explain why their character is missing just for this session! Roll a d66 (rolling one d6 for the tens-digit and another d6 for the ones-digit) or choose an option that makes sense for your situation.

For brevity, “PC” will be used in place of the missing player character’s name.

11: PC had previously sworn an oath to a wizard they were indebted to, granting the wizard one-time power and authority to temporarily summon PC to them whenever they require their aid. The wizard is cashing in right now.

12: PC found a cursed scroll which temporarily turns them into an incorporeal spirit, forced to haunt the other player characters undetected until they learn some moral lesson the scroll wants them to learn.

13: A faerie spirit on a quest for revenge mistook PC for someone else and stole them away in the night. They’ll return PC once they realize their mistake.

14: The battle of two quarreling chronomancers blew through your location, and PC fell into a time-rift left in the wake of one of the wizard’s attacks, sending them into the (near) future.

15: Aliens abducted PC but will return them when they prove too difficult to contain/experiment on.

16: PC finds themself trapped in a time-loop, and eventually discovers that they only way to escape is to avoid contact with the other player characters for the duration of the loop.

21: PC overheard something the other player characters said about them out of context and misinterpreted it in a way that greatly upset them. They sneak away to abandon the group when no one is looking but return upon realizing it was all a misunderstanding.

22: PC has an important family (or other personal) matter to attend to that requires their swift response, as it involves legal recourse surrounding the disappearance of someone close to them. They will return once it is settled.

23: A scatter-brained wizard’s apprentice studying teleportation magic accidentally switches places with PC, teleporting them to their mentor’s tower an impossible distance away. The apprentice thinks they can figure out a way to swap back with PC if given some time on their own. They hope PC hides in their study until they do – their master tends to fireball intruders on-sight and ask questions later.

24: PC has been possessed by a ghost, who will return control of their body to them once they complete some task the ghost wasn’t able to finish before they died.

25: PC stepped away to refill their water, and got turned around on their way back. They wandered around lost a while, but will find their way to the other player characters eventually.

26: A faerie spirit decided they fancied PC and whisked them away to the faerie realm in an attempt to seduce them. They’ll return PC once they realize they aren’t their type.

31: An enterprising minor demon wants to strike a bargain with PC and teleports the two of them to the top of a tower in an attempt to show off. However, the demon’s pitch is not going well, especially when it’s revealed they lack the power to get them both back down again without resting a while first.

32: PC is called in for jury duty, and either has to serve their time or go to the local magistrate to appeal for a waiver.

33: PC ran into an old friend and went to catch up with them over some drinks. However, the two of them got held up by some of the friend’s newest adversaries.

34: PC is avoiding the other player characters while they prepare a surprise for one or all of them – a gift, or a party to commemorate a certain event like an anniversary or holiday.

35: PC is troubled by recent events – related to the group’s adventures, or external to them – and wants some time alone to clear their head.

36: PC has been haunted by dreams of a symbol in a dark room. They spot this symbol on a stray cat and can’t help but investigate. It seems to be leading them somewhere, but only if they follow it alone.

41: PC is visited by the restless spirit of a friend long gone. Their ghost wants to tell PC a secret – a secret that they must take to their own grave – and leads them away from the rest of the player characters.

42: PC has been struck by sudden inspiration for a work of art, and they simply must bring it into the world before the inspiration fades.

43: PC received an ominous warning from a fortune teller to stay away from [events of today’s session] and is keeping a safe distance just in case.

44: PC is having a crisis of faith in themselves after recent events and takes off on their own for a while until they reassure themselves of their skill. Training montage optional.

45: PC is sent a threatening message by one of their adversaries telling them that if they don’t leave the group, their allies will be made to suffer for it. They leave, believing it to be some heroic self-sacrifice. They return once they realize they are all stronger together, and only with each other’s help can they defeat the adversary’s threat.

46: PC tried to follow an “astral projecting for dummies” guide as a joke, but ended up separated from their body until they figured out how to stop.

51: PC ran afoul of a witch years ago, who tried to curse PC with eternal sleep. However, the witch got their arcane verb-tenses mixed up. So instead, PC was cursed to sleep through a specific date and time. That date is today.

52: PC is shown something that causes them to doubt if their cause is the right one, and leaves until they can find out the truth. They return when what they were shown is proven to be a fabrication by their adversary to mislead them.

53: PC leaves the group because they feel their contributions aren’t appreciated enough. They return after some self-reflection reveals they weren’t feeling unappreciated, they were feeling jealous.

54: PC is feeling extremely ill today. If your group has access to magical disease relief, specify that such relief will still take time to affect whatever sickness has befallen PC – it will just relieve some of the pain in the meantime. Until then, they require rest.

55: PC must take a day off for an important religious observance of their faith.

56: PC received a message from a character they flirted with in town, inviting PC to come visit them for some fun. They sure are taking their time coming back.

61: A minor celebrity from one of PC’s niche interests is going to be in town sort-of-but-not-really nearby, and PC just can’t miss this opportunity to meet them!

62: PC accidentally stumbled into the secret hidden lair of a C-list villain. It will take them a little bit of time to escape on their own.

63: PC saw a rare, elusive mystical beast, prized by many, such as a unicorn. They chased after this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and will return very disappointed.

64: PC is in a sour mood after accidentally breaking a sentimental keepsake, and just wants to be alone for a while.

65: PC insulted a wizard, who responded by turning PC into a pile of rats. Rats, plural. We’ll have to collect all of them up before they can be changed back.

66: PC is just feeling soooooo eepy. Little nap.

[dungeonmalcontent]

I am in all things,

Each shade and hue.

Invisible,

Yet visible too.

You only see the surface

When I see you.

A riddle. Probably thought I'd put the answer down here, didn't you. But not yet. If you have a guess stick it in the tags.

[radnewworld]

So, here’s the thing... Your RPG has a character fantasy that it’s trying to play out, right? There’s a flavor that’s going to be baked into the mechanics to try to make it easy for a player to express and be immersed in their character within that fantasy. There is a LOT to discuss on the subject, but I want to zero in on one aspect that can really make or break the fantasy for your players: success and failure.

Whether it’s tests of combat, social, exploration skills, or something else entirely, most RPG systems will determine success or failure by a die roll. It can be a d20, 2d6, 2d20, 1d100, or some truly wild systems with fists full of specialized dice, but we can boil them all down to mathematical probability. Ignoring modifiers and target numbers, if a person needs to roll a 11 or higher on a D20, they have a 50% chance of succeeding. Duh, right? But really think about what that means... In that scenario, the character’s odds of success or failure are even. Do the thing twice, probably fail once and succeed once. A coin toss. It’s just a matter of pure luck at that point. Certainly not something you’d plan on or expect to work!

Contrast that with having to roll a 3 or higher on a d20: 90% chance of success. Solid odds that you’d feel pretty confident with, right? Sure, 10% isn’t that unlikely, but you’d bet on succeeding. You might even expect that to work. You could form a plan around a 90% chance of success. A failure would be a bit of a shock and maybe cause a significant disruption.

Now imagine you only succeed if that d20 shows a natural 20. 5% chance. It ain’t happening, friend. You’re rolling and only divine intervention will save you. Even before the die finishes clattering, you’re expecting and maybe even preparing for the consequences of failure. Should you succeed though... Whole table goes wild. Cheers, backslapping, and probably the formation of a story that you’ll all remind each other of for decades to come.

So what, right? Maybe you’ve never considered the math behind the die rolls, but this is pretty basic stuff! Stay with me for a bit longer as we circle back to the fantasy... Imagine you’re playing a game about spies and you’ve showed up to the table with an expert lock picker. Your character is recognized as an expert in the field, with years of training, experience, and education under their belt. The game starts, and your GM describes a fastfood joint’s general manager’s door in your path as locked by a fairly standard, hardware store quality lock. You get ready to roll to pick the lock, die cool in your hand. The GM gives you the target number... And after doing some basic math in your head, you realize that, even with all of your character’s expertise and tools, your odds of success are 50%. How’s your fantasy feelin’ about then? Do you feel like your lock picking expert is in control of their fate? Or are they at the mercy of the fickle whims of capricious luck? Do you believe in this world where an expert has a coin toss’s odds of defeating this bargain bin lock? I’ll bet not. It’s as ridiculous and jarring as the odds of a 72 year old librarian with aesthma successfully putting a Hell Angel’s biker into an arm-bar hold 90% of the time.

Take a look at the range of difficulties in your game, then compare that with what a typical player character is capable of. What are the odds of their success for a normal or difficult task? Will your experts generally be kicking around that 80-90% chance of success? Or something closer to 50/50? Is there a substantial difference between your experts and untrained characters? This might seem boring, and probably will need the help of a website for dice odds for non-d20 systems, but it is worth the effort I promise you! With this knowledge, you can better craft your game session or system to present the fantasy you want the players to experience.

Here’s a quick and dirty guide:

If players can reasonably reach the 80-90% chance of success for most common tasks, you’re looking at an expert fantasy. Players want to see their character blow through mundane challenges like Superman through a wooden door when their character’s specialization comes into play. This isn’t to say ALL challenges should be simple; far from it! Players crave challenge, particularly for their character’s specialty, so be sure to include situations that will push their character to the limit. If our lockpicking expert is called upon to open up a bank vault in 10 seconds or less, while their allies battle enemy spies the next room over, and the whole mission is on the line, it is perfectly reasonable for the task to be 50/50 odds (or worse!) for the expert and flatly impossible for untrained rubes to attempt. That’s where the expert fantasy shines: difficult tasks with high stakes that only the specialist can possibly succeed.

If most checks for your players are going to be in the range of 40-60%, and doubly so if the difference between an expert and a normal character is minimal, you are in for slapstick or a lot of hot-or-cold rolling. If a magic item requires an Arcana check with a target number of 15 (a hard challenge as the game states), a 1st level genius wizard with training in arcane lore for a total of a +6 bonus to the check and an intelligent fighter with no Arcana training has a +2, that means the wizard needs to roll a 7 or higher and the fighter needs a 13. The wizard has a 70% chance of success while the fighter kicks a 40% chance. The difference between a lifetime of magical study with a genius intellect and some smarter-than-average newbie is 30%. There are, almost certainly, going to be situations where specialist characters will fail a fairly mundane task while their much, much less expert allies will pass.

Short note, I think a lot of 5e’s math problems can be fixed by doubling Proficiency bonuses, increasing harder DCs by 5, and reworking Expertise into something that ignores Disadvantage or grants Advantage more often. I’ll show my work if folks are interested later.

Lastly, if your characters expect failure more than 70% of the time... Whoooo boy, you are doing something weird! Either the game is based on failing-forward mechanics, something where only the truly lucky or exception survive, or dealing with failure is the whole point. Children With Wands is the only game I’ve seen that makes this fun, but I’ve met some truly special individuals who play early editions of Warhammer Roleplaying specifically to gleefully mulch their way through character after character. I don’t judge.

Hopefully this gave you something to think on if you’ve gotten this far. Whatever your fantasy preference, I wish you happy gaming!

[triaelf9]

Adventure Archive TTRPG assets for May!

This month's TTRPG assets are up in the Adventure Archive, a collection of ✨377📷 items!  Patrons & ko-fi members $5 and up get access to the asset archive for their games & can make monthly requests for ones they'd like added!

https://patreon.com/TriaElf9 

https://ko-fi.com/triaelf9

[thelibraryofthacey]

Friend linked this in a Discord server and it looks neat and useful. It's a free PDF detailing a short and simple method of procedurally generating a dungeon's overall structure. Enjoy!

[bloombeard]

The Bloom

I've been running a plague storyline in Blades in the Dark. 'The Bloom' manifests as flower petals growing out from around your neck, between your fingers and toes, armpits, between your legs etc. The petals multiply and multiply until you finally just... blow away. No body, no ghost, you just fall apart. Petals in the wind.

You know you're close to fully 'blooming' when the floral scent that's been all you can smell for that last few weeks changes to smelling like rotting meat.

Attune to the bloom and you might brush against a strange kind of consciousness. It's not so much a mind as it is a psychosis in isolation. A kind of memory-vacuum. If the player received consequences from their attune roll, they get this information at the cost of a trivial piece of their memory (like where they live, or their father's first name).

The Bloom eats memories.

[auroramancygaming]

Graph Paper Printable

Do you need paper to make your D&D maps? Or maybe you just need some graph paper for you discbound notebook?

With this printable, you can print and punch the holes to make as many pages as you want in your notebook, or just use it as loose paper, or even use it digitally in your iPad or tablet. The grid is in 5mm.

The pack includes 4 layouts in A4 and A5 sizing, with margin for discbound punch-holes, and is prepared for 2-sided printing.

Purchase it here

[craigofinspiration]

What would you like to do?

[rocketorca]

I’ll be at PAX Unplugged this weekend repoing @cloudcurio. I’m bringing a bunch of @mapcrow SIGNED prints and a MONSTROUS sample booklet. Stop by the PlusOneExpo booth #4223 say hi and pick some freebies up!

[luckynewtgames]

With how common the fantasy setting is in TTRPGs and how common the medieval setting is in fantasy, this is an incredibly intriguing read.

For once, I'm even going to recommend diving into the comments because there's some added information and good debates. It's definitely worth looking these things up ourselves, too.

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[open-hearth-rpg]

SUPERVILLAIN PLOT GENERATOR

With this latest release I finish my trilogy of superhero rpg tools. The Supervillain Plot Generator is a table of eighty items each for five categories. It’s useful for all kinds of superhero games: Mutants & Masterminds, Marvel, Wild Talents, Masks: A New Generation, etc.. You can combine this with the Supers City Events and Superhero B-Plot releases. Rather than dump the text of this into the blog post, here’s a link to a pdf of the table. 

On itch.io you can pick up a Print & Play version of the Plot Generator as cards. It’s also up on Drivethru and once I get a proof copy, I’ll have a physical deck you can purchase via Drivethrucards. I’ve got those for most of the decks so far and there’s a real, tactile pleasure to having them. As before: the text of this is released under CC 4.0 Share Alike Attribution.  It is not AI generated nor to be used with any kind of generative AI.

What does the plot generator have?

Plot: What operation is the villain carrying out? (Switch Bodies, Raid Alternate Worlds, Capture Hero). This is the “crime” the villain (or villain group) is carrying out. It might be a starting point, an ongoing plan, or something they’re building towards. I’ve tried to offer a mix of these, but also leave them open enough that the GM can take them in different directions. 

Goal: Why is the villain doing this? (Dissolve Trust in Something, Gain New Powers, Attack and Dethrone God). This is optional, but combining this with the plot can create interesting new directions. It potentially gives you a new take on the villain’s motivation and sets up future events if the PCs thwart this operation. I like the context this gives and the 6,400 possible combinations means you can generate some wild stories. 

Low-Stakes Location: Incidental places for investigation, encounters, or preliminary skirmishes. (Gymnasium, Waterway Runoff, Megacorp Distribution Center). I wanted a quick list of distinct places I can have pop up during the game– not for the climax, but during the figuring-out phase. I’m working to not always fall back my go-to’s like diner, warehouse, and nightclub locations. 

High-Stakes Location: Key sites for operational targets, hidden bases, and final battles. (Private Military Contractor, Bio-Weapon Lab, High-Speed Train). Here I wanted places which would be interesting for staging a fight. They can be high-stakes for many reasons: security, inherent danger, threats to bystanders, expensive items. Many are unique and distinctive, helping complete the story created by the combination of plot and goal. 

Complications: Twists, turns, and swerves which may impact the heroes and/or villain. (Turncoat Hero Involved, Family Ties Revealed, Need the Help of a Foe). This is another one that can recolor and recontextualize the villainous operation. I’ve written many of these so they can be seen either from the PoV of the PCs or their enemy. Like Need the Help of a Foe reads very different if the villain’s looking for aid versus the PCs trying to take the mastermind down. 

MY SUPERS PREP

I have a big collection of supervillain sourcebooks. They come from Champions, Silver Age Sentinels, ICONS, various M&M editions, and beyond. And while I appreciate all the backstory and background provided with each of these I often ignore or skim these for highlights at the most. I want a cool concepts, set of powers, and image. I then slot these into my plots. It’s best if they’re from the system I’m running so I don’t have to build a new template.

I don’t know if that’s how other GMs do it. But I got used to reading through villain books and finding the character stories steeped in the concepts of a particular setting. I’d have to tweak elements and/or integrate those bits into my game. Sometimes that brought new, cool things, but sometimes it over complicated it when I tried to port-in wholesale new big plots, metastories, and organizations. So I started skipping that.

My goal with this is: find a cool villain or set of villains, generate the elements above, and figure out their backstory from there.

THOUGHTS ON GM TOOLS

The idea of having goals & complications is inspired by several different Blades in the Dark heist decks and The Game Master’s Handbook for Proactive Roleplaying. I can imagine maybe doing a Fantasy version of this, but I think a Cyberpunk or Modern Urban Fantasy might be more difficult– the specifics of those settings could get in the way. 

Why cards? I love the tactility if we’re face to face: at home or at a con. I take picture cards, cards with entanglements, cards with names. The Faction Builder and City Builder toolkits offer a distinct use case from the other tools. They can generate ideas on the fly, but they’re more often session zero collaborative resources. I love being able to deal out cards or put them in the middle of the table for folks to work through. They can always come up with something else, but don’t underestimate the power of gently modeling something for your group. 

So why do all these other tools and why do them as cards? For this I have to talk about my GMing hang ups– more style than philosophy. I like random tables. I especially appreciate those created by Kevin Crawford for his stuff. But I also dig all the various tables and tools used in lots of different OSR games. I pulled a couple of Diogo Noguiera’s small, stand-alone games off the shelf to look at. I love the weirdness of A Thousand Thousand Islands, and Augmented Reality is my go-to for any urban, cyberpunk, or sci-fi game. 

But I find myself mostly using those in one of two ways. On the one hand I explore them to build some bits pre-session. So I create an eldritch conspiracy in Silent Legions or generate a court with Godbound’s tools. They give a skeleton framework– and I’d say about a third to half of the time I end up using them. On the other hand, I also read through these tables to prime the pump. They inspire my descriptions and details. In particular I skim through Augmented Reality before a session and note down sensory details and setting elements. 

But I don’t like to use tables when I’m actually at the table. I appreciate GMs who can do that smoothly and quickly. Two great OSR GMs I’ve played with, Anya and Horst Wurst, do that with a natural skill– making it a point to draw players into the random nature of it. There’s an invitation to appreciate how the dice change the direction of things. There’s also an element of Apocalypse World’s disclaiming responsibility there. 

But I don’t like switching and flipping through tables myself. My mental process when I’m running has a tight set of sockets. My attention’s on the players, the character keeper (if online), a rules ref page (if necessary), my notes (mostly what I’m writing down but sometimes small lists I’ve created beforehand), and the time. More trad games like 13th Age and Mutants & Masterminds add foe record sheets. It always takes me a while to integrate those into my process. That’s about my limit. 

Which means I don’t like pulling out a book or extra print-out pages. Even pulling up a pdf feels wonky to me. And I stress: to me. I bet most GMs actually have a handle on managing this. I love collections of rumor tables and happenings, but I don’t want to stop, grab a book, and have to do a look up. My space is chaotic enough as it is. 

But cards, oh cards. I love them. They take up less space. I can stack them in boxes. I can quickly draw and glance at them for ideas and inspiration. I can easily hide that I’m doing that if I’m feeling particularly anxious. But I can also fuck around with them to deal with my general nervousness and constant low-level panic when I’m running. 

They’re TTRPG fidget spinners, with added utility. 

So that’s why I’ve made all of these tools– they’re a thing I wanted and I hope they’re useful to other GMs. 

Again, you can check all of these out on Itch or Drivethru.

[oblongburrbank]

Just did up a quick worksheet, mostly for myself, figured I'd post it up.

The idea is to cross over a few things:

get the small local vibe from hex flower

get the exploration aspect from a proper hex crawl

get the efficient use of detail from a point crawl

heavily encourage the use of landmarks

Anyway might fill out a couple myself if I have time!

[spookygarmr-fr]

The Feyscar Karma Table

Love it or hate it, Draumvollr has a (very simple) karma system you can use. There are no permanent effects as this is only intended for extra flavor in a world overflowing with magic and serves as a straight-forward method for GMs to utilize the Titan threat.

I've put the table under the cut but of course I must recommend checking out the link above if you want all of the deets. As with everything on this tag, feedback is encouraged! Making tables is not my strength and I'd like to work on that.

What is a Feyscar?

When a character is afflicted with any of the effects on this table, all successful uses of Detect Magic on them gives the user a glimpse of garish, jagged, marks gleaming white-hot that sting and burn at the eyes to view directly. Those who are brave or foolish enough to focus their study on this phenomenon colloquially refer to it as 'feyscarring' and the origin of this energy remains locked in mystery to them. This aura is not visible using Detect Good/Evil and diminishes when the effect wears off. Additionally, all effects listed have a 24 hour duration unless stated otherwise.

[bloombeard]

Mystery Potion: Sorrow

A salty-sour vial of clear potion labeled only with the word "sorrow." A few minutes after drinking, you begin to cry. You can still move around and act while crying, but it gets harder every time you fail a check/suffer a consequence. While you are crying, nearby weak NPCs become supernaturally terrified, and tough NPCs are distracted. PCs must resist/roll saves or suffer from the same effects.

GMs: Don't tell your PCs what this potion does. They have to drink it to find out.

[auroramancygaming]

To-do list Printable

Need help keeping track of what you need to prep for you campaign? Or just tracking tasks in general?

Focus on your next prep GM tasks with this printable to-do list. You can print how many you need, in you preferred paper, and use them as-is, or punch discbound holes and insert them in your notebook.

It has a very minimal design so it doesn't distract you and fulfills its purpose.

It comes in 4 colors, in A7 sizing and with margin for discbound punch-hole, so you can take it everywhere with you.

Purchase this printable here.