The Woods Are Alive

This one's a random table of animals. I made it for personal use, but maybe you'll find a spot for it at your table. 

Want to breathe life into your forests? Talk about the animals. It doesn't have to be much, just a sentence or two. Do it whenever the mood strikes you, or when your players' eyes start to glaze over, or when there's not a random encounter. 

Here's a table of 20 animals, with descriptions of what they're up to. I bolded the animal so you can easily grab it and make up what they're doing on the fly. These are ones found in the coniferous forests where I live, and have seen in the wild (minus number 20). 

1. A pair of squirrels bound through the creaking tree branches in a high-stakes game of tag.
2. A hare bolts across your path, running from something that thought twice about approaching the party.
3. A white-tailed deer picks her head up from grazing and watches the party for a moment before gracefully bounding off, two clumsy fawns in tow.
4. A red fox swiftly digs a hole to bury its leftovers.
5. A remarkable number of bees drone around the party before deciding they don't contain nectar after all.
6. Ravenous mosquitoes descend on the party every time they enter shade.
7. Clouds of gnats hover along the trail, flying into unsuspecting noses, ears, and—gods forbid—mouths.
8. You catch glimpses of a marten in the underbrush as it hunts.
9. A porcupine waddles down the trail, untroubled.
10. You hear the staccato hammering of a woodpecker long before you see it up in a tree.
11. The quiet is shattered by the drumming of a ruffed grouse perched on a nearby log.
12. A cheerful choir of bluebirds flit between branches overhead.
13. A robin preens itself before taking flight.
14. A family of chickadees dart back-and-forth between the ground and a nearby tree.
15. A chipmunk scurries up a tree and begins to furiously chitter at the party.
16. Frogs croak and hop along the edge of a pond.
17. Butterflies lazily drift from bush to bush.
18. A black bear stands on its hind legs to get a better look at the party before meandering off.
19. A gray owl gazes imperiously down as the party passes under its tree.
20. A bobcat makes an impossible-looking jump up into a tree, a rodent dangling in its mouth.  

Tenacious Clocks

This one's about clocks. And to a certain extent, hit points. But mostly clocks.

You know, those things from Apocalypse World. Though nowadays most people probably associate them with Blades in the Dark, as linked above. Some games use countdowns instead—I tend to do this, especially in games that don't feature clocks already. Either way, some sort of progress tracker being a built-in game mechanic has been in vogue for quite some time.

And I love it. Especially when I crack open an OSR/NSR book and see them as a feature. I appreciate that they're not everyone's cup of tea, and it doesn't take much looking to find clock critics. "It's just hit points for consequences," is a common refrain I've come across, especially when it comes to the Harm Clock as seen in Apocalypse World.

The Harm Clock has 6 segments, and once all segments are filled you are taken out of action and possibly die. Which is a lot like having 6 hit points. Except, it's also a wounds/injury system. 

Here's a primer/refresher: Harm before 6pm (the first 2 segments) heals on its own. Harm from 6-9pm (3rd segment) doesn't get worse, but doesn't get better by itself. Harm after 9pm (segments 4-6) gets worse unless stabilized and won't heal without medical attention. It also states that harm should progress rapidly if the character is being active. 

That's some heavy lifting from a little circle with 6 segments. It's a visual representation of dramatic tension that doesn't just hit a payoff when the progress is complete, it happens along the way as well. One might even say that little circle is a...

Tenacious Clock

A tenacious clock is just what I decided to call a clock that has consequences before striking midnight. Most games don't use tenacious clocks, because most clocks don't need to be sticky like that. And yes, you could potentially use linked clocks instead of a single one, but where's the fun in that? 

I'd like to see more of these things in games. Hell, I'd like to make more of them myself. So on that note, here's a tenacious clock that I could easily stick into any dungeon crawler that I run.

Saint Aoife's Hounds

When the Relic of Saint Aoife is removed from her burial chamber, her Hounds awaken and the Hunt begins. This is an 8-segment clock. For every hour the characters remain in the cairn, a segment fills. Once they've left, a segment fills each day spent in the same location. After 4 segments, the Hounds start accosting anyone the characters come into contact with. After 6 segments, only crossing large bodies of water or equivalent magic or enchantment can get the Hounds off their trail. When the clock fills, the Hounds have found their Prey. May Saint Aoife have mercy on your souls, because they certainly won't.

Wait, I have an idea for another one. This one could fit into Blades in the Dark, or any game where a player character is a charlatan. I like this one because it involves two linked clocks, but they don't start at the end of the first.

The Scam 

Selling snake oil is a medium-length con, this is a 6-segment clock. Every time you run this con (make a significant sale, run advertising, etc), mark a segment. After 3 segments, the victims' loved ones take notice—make a new clock called "Vengeance." After 5 segments, the authorities have taken notice—make a new clock called "Wanted for Questioning." When the clock fills, the public has caught on to your scam and will no longer buy your elixir. 

Well that was fun! I think I've been ignoring how much drama a clock can hold. I'm excited to not make that mistake going forward. If you use clocks and either have or end up making some tenacious ones, I encourage you to share them with me either in the comments or on Bluesky.

Omino Spells

This one's about gamifying spell memorization.

I recently read The Dying Earth by Jack Vance for the first time. While it didn't change my opinions on Vancian magic in fantasy roleplaying games, I can appreciate why a bunch of people in the 70s and beyond were like, "yeah that book is cool, let's do it like that." In certain situations, I also want to do it like Jack did—just not every time I play a fantasy dungeon crawler. 

I hadn't given any of this much thought since finishing the book, until a question popped into my head today: how do they fit in there? The spells in Vance's world occupy wizards' minds until they are unleashed, taking up (meta)physical space. Marizian the Magician is so powerful he can memorize six normal spells, or four of the most powerful ones. What does it look like inside his head when he does that? 

Old school D&D cares a lot about replicating the feel of the spell-slingers that wander the Dying Earth. A level 1 Magic-User can memorize a single instance of a level 1 spell. It doesn't care much about how that arcane formula is stuffed into the aspiring wizard's mind, just that it is crammed in there. 

What if there was a game that did care? What would that look like? Well, maybe it'd look like Tetris. Or any video game with a grid-based inventory. Or Mausritter's inventory system. But this time, in your brain! Maybe a novice thaumaturgist starts with a mind hovel and grows in power until they have a mind palace to house their spells.

It just might look like this.

The Mind is a Fill-able Thing in Space

This is a proof of concept more than anything. I will reference various things from D&D, but this isn't a fleshed-out system designed to be used with a particular edition of any existing game.

Anyway, check this out: 

 

So you start with two boxes of space for spells. If you're playing a game with cantrips, maybe those would take up one box, allowing you to memorize two relatively weak, non-damage dealing spells. A level 1 spell like Sleep would take up two boxes. Maybe level 2 spells would take up 3 squares. From there, spells could start taking the shape of tetrominos, like the ones in Tetris.

By Anypodetos - Own work based on: Tetromino Tiling 5x8.svg by R. A. Nonenmacher., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8663361

Even more advanced spells could take the form of pentominos, like this:

By R. A. Nonenmacher - Created by me, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4416149

The spell-caster finds or copies spells into their book, each spell has a shape, and every day the conjurer pours over their spellbook, rotating and arranging their spell choices to fit into the canvas of their mind. 

Is it practical? Hell no. Would it be fun? Highly subjective. Would the spells leave your brain once cast, like Vancian magic? Who knows! Has it been done before? Probably! But I'll be damned if I could find it.
 

 

Another Kind of Factions

This one's a draft of faction rules using Otherkind Dice. Which is to say, I haven't tried it. Yet.

I love factions. They're like the MSG of roleplaying games, their inclusion makes everything taste better. I also adore when a game has GM turns that happen in-between sessions. Especially when there's mechanics involved. For me, few things make prep more fun than getting to play a little mini-game during it. 

Recently I was looking at the faction rules in Mausritter. They're great! The goal progression results reminds me of an Otherkind result card, only there's just one question being answered. Which is elegant in its simplicity, but got me to thinking, "what would other result cards look like?"

Design Goals
"What am I trying to accomplish?" is a wonderful question to ask yourself repeatedly when you design something. It's can be easy to get the ball rolling, and even easier to continue chasing it to straight to catastrophic failure. I can't tell you how many times I began working on something, followed inspiration, incorporated it into a game night and went, "well, that sucked." So I started with that north star query.

"Make a faction system that tracks fallout and debt as factions make moves." There it is. I want something that determines how the public and other factions (enemies and allies) react to a faction moving toward their goal. I want factions to be able to interact with one another via debt. 

Faction Stats
As far as this system is concerned, factions have resources, goals, public reputation, faction reputation, and debt.

Resources are what factions use to accomplish their goals. They could be something concrete like a cavalry troop, or intangible like blackmail on members of the high council. Resources come into play in the form of dice, which is determined by the strength of the resource. They can either be standard (d6), diminished (d4), or enhanced (d8). Factions start with two or three resources, depending on their size.

Goals are, naturally, what the faction is trying to accomplish. I would use clocks, or progress marks as Mausritter calls them, ranging between two and five segments (or marks). If a goal seems too big to accomplish in five segments, then it should be broken up into a series of goals. "Usurping the king," for instance, probably has a few smaller goals before a faction could achieve the big one. 

Public reputation is the general attitude of different populations toward a faction. I imagine this to be regional. A thieves guild might start off with a favorable attitude with farmers in the countryside ("stick it to those richie-riches in the city!") but disfavored by the citizens in the city they operate ("that's my purse! I don't know you!"). It could also be done on a smaller scale, like a church that the lower class of a city adore for their charity but the upper class resent for their tithes. 

Faction reputation is how factions feel about one another. I can think of two ways to implement this. The first is simple: two factions always feel the same about one another. So if one faction views another as the enemy, the opposing faction does as well. The other is more complex, and a faction's attitude toward others is independent of their attitude toward them. This would require more bookkeeping, but would result in things like Faction A viewing Faction B as an ally, while Faction B sees them as an enemy and works surreptitiously to undermine them. That sounds cool as hell to me! 

Either way, both public and faction reputation would be tracked numerically. 0 being neutral, with -6 and +6 representing hated and loved respectively. For public reputation, the score would help me roleplay NPCs the players encounter. For faction reputation, it would both help me roleplay faction NPCs and also make decisions during the faction turn. If Faction A has a -3 reputation with Faction B, Faction B is going to interfere with Faction A's plans when convenient. If it's -6 instead of -3, Faction B is going to interfere at every possible opportunity. If it's a +6, Faction B might abandon goals that run counter to Faction A (especially if B is the smaller faction). 

Debt is what it sounds like. One faction can ask another to lend resources. They then take on a debt, which is repaid by lending their resources to the faction that helped them. It's a way to incorporate and track the political machinations of these organizations in their quests for power. More on how debt actually works below.

Does that all make sense? I hope so. Anyway, how do we actually play the mini-game? We grab some index cards, some dice, and prepare for...

The Faction Turn
Factions act in-between sessions, lowest number of resources to highest. Smaller organizations are able to mobilize and act more quickly, but larger factions are able to interfere more easily because of this. 

At the start of a faction's turn, they pick a goal to make progress toward. Then, they select any number of their resources they could reasonably use to accomplish that goal, and grab the appropriate dice. Don't roll yet!

If they do not have enough resources to answer every index card, or they want a better chance of success, they may enter into debt or call in what is owed with another faction to add more dice. They may enter minor debt (d4, owe them 1 time) or major debt (d6, owe them 2 times). If they have negative reputation with the faction they ask for help, double what is owed in return, but once the debt is repaid their faction reputation increases by 1 for a minor debt, or 2 for a major debt. Calling in a debt gives the lender equivalent sized dice to what the debtor received.

Lastly, factions can interfere before the roll is made. For every resource die an interfering faction decrements in size, they can likewise decrease a resource the acting faction is using this turn. 

Now, on to the result cards. Roll the dice and place as you wish. 

Notes: Unless otherwise stated, a new resource acquired from accomplishing a goal starts as diminished (d4) for two turns. Likewise, any enhanced resource (d8) automatically decrements to standard (d6) once it it used.

Does the faction make progress towards their goal?
7+: Yes, major progress (2 segments), and if this results in acquiring a new resource it begins at standard (d6).
6: Yes, major progress (2 segments).
3-5: Yes, minor progress (1 segment).
0-2: No, they suffer a setback (-1 segment).

Does the faction exhaust resources working toward their goal?
7+: No, they don't, and if an enhanced resource (d8) was used, it does not decrement.
5-6: No, they don't.
3-4: Yes, one is diminished next turn.
0-2: Majorly. Two are diminished, or one is diminished for two turns.
If the resource chosen to be diminished is already a d4, that resource is lost instead.

How does it affect their reputation with the public?
7+: Public opinion in the area skyrockets (+2 rep), and word of this is received well elsewhere (+1 rep with another population).
5-6: Public consensus in the area is positive (+1 rep).
3-5: It's split. Some see it as good and others use it as further fuel for their mistrust or animosity (no change).
0-2: The public consensus is negative (-1 rep). 

How does it affect their reputation with other factions?
7+: As 6, but +2 rep with one ally and +1 rep with one enemy.
6: Allies react positively (+1 rep), enemies are neutral (no change).
3-5: If a debt with them was entered, they react positively (+1 rep). Otherwise, allies are neutral and one enemy is upset (-1 rep).
0-2: One ally reacts negatively (-1 rep), and one enemy is incensed (-2 rep). 

There it is! As you can see, there are four index cards to answer. Factions start with a maximum of three resources, which means they will either be incurring debt immediately or facing the harshest consequences for their moves. Likewise, each card has a 7+ result that can only be gotten by placing an enhanced resource (d8) there. 

Like I said up top, I haven't tested this yet. It existed as a couple of paragraphs on a notes app in my phone before I typed it all out into this post. Now that I don't have to ask myself, "what did I mean by that?" I can give it a go. There are some questions I don't have an answer to yet, like, "does lending a resource take it out of play for the turn?" I hope to get my answer by trying it both ways and seeing for myself how it feels. I'm excited to take it for a spin in solo play before bringing it to one of my tables. Hopefully it inspired you to think about different ways you can run factions. And if you happen to try this way out yourself, let me know how it goes!

 

Life is Likely Hurt & Pain

Here in
DUKK BÖRG.

This one's a review. Of DUKK BÖRG by Gem Room Games and Nerdy Paper Games. It's a DuckTales-themed hack of MÖRK BORG.

Let's get the disclaimer out of the way first. This is about as biased as as a review as you're likely to find. One, Dan Phipps of Gem Room Games and I have been mutuals on social media for a few years at this point, I don't remember how many. Talking about games with Dan is a blast. I'm probably going to go into any of his work expecting to enjoy it, even if it's not particularly my jam.

This, however, is extremely my jam. I grew up on a steady diet of DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers, and Sonic the Hedgehog. You give me a game where I get to play around in those worlds, I am all-in. Hell, just let me be a duck or a mouse, even! I spent an embarrassing number of hours in 2020 playing Animal Crossing New Horizons looking like this:

 

 

 

 

Like, hundreds of hours.

Speaking of which, I should probably pick up Dragonbane at some point. 

Anyway, I bought DUKK BÖRG. Then I read it. Then I played it. Let's get into it.

Part 1: The Book

I backed the physical copy of the book when it went to crowdfunding. It's pretty, in the creepy way that many BORG games are. They nailed that MÖRK BORG-style layout, and between that and the art, it is very fun to look at. It is also less-practical to use at the table because of this. The book has a handy index on the inside back cover, and I saw they have a plain-layout pdf as well. I have ran plenty of MÖRK BORG only using the physical book, so this wasn't a hurdle for me. I could see it being a barrier to entry for others, though. 

 

This thing is fun to read. It is as stone-faced as it is silly. It dares you to take it as seriously as it takes itself (more on that later). The classes, locations—even the magic items—are rife with adventure hooks. The classes themselves nail the cartoon's archetypes, as does the equipment. Those world-ending psalms that are a hallmark of BORG games are just the DuckTales theme song. And like the theme song, they are repetitive. That might wear on anyone brave enough to live in this cartoonish hellscape for long-term play, but the text is challenging you to look at your players with a straight face and tell them what new thing is heralding the apocalypse with an oo-woo-ooo. 

 

Included is an adventure, The Aeonian Citadel. I ran it for the Tuesday crew, so without further ado...

 

Part 2: The Play

There are going to be some spoilers for the adventure. You have been warned!

 

My Tuesday table currently consists of three of my friends I have been playing games with for 8 to 20-ish years. One has played MÖRK BORG with me, the others have not.

 

They ended up making a Treasure Hunter, a Gizmo-Speaker, and a Devotee. Each of them had at least two classes they were interested in playing, deciding on one might have been the hardest part for them. One ended up rolling for it. The clan creation was a highlight for me, and a great way to tie the player characters together. I let them spend their starting silver on gear because the adventure plops you right in front of the dungeon and doesn't really let you leave. 

The dungeon itself is SKRUJ's tower, and it extends up into the sky and down into the earth. The length of it is indeterminable, because travel between each keyed floor includes a random number of unimportant floors. Unimportant, that is, unless there's a random encounter on them. My players got really lucky on those rolls, but luck has a funny way of running out.

 

See, the thing about the tower is that it's a race against time, but time only passes when the characters smell money. There are set, keyed money encounters, but they can also happen during a random encounter. If you smell money too much, game over. Once my players figured that out, the sense of foreboding only increased. 

 

Therein lies the beauty of DUKK BÖRG. The game, and by extension the starting adventure, is so full of Saturday morning zaniness that we ended up laughing and joking around. But it all rests on the bones of the incredibly dangerous MÖRK BORG skeleton. So it might be a funny mental image when a troupe of primary-color wearing ducks with slingshots pop out of a vent, but when it hits you that this is a life-or-death situation the game asks, "who's laughing now?" Like I said before, it dares you to take it seriously. There are consequences for not. 

My players decided to descend the tower, and I encountered my only hiccup in running it. See, I had read the entire dungeon when I first received my physical copy last November, but I only skimmed it before playing it last Tuesday. One subterranean floor has a freezer. 

 

The book tells you what temperature the freezer is at, and another section has a consequence for unplugging it. There's a cryptic label with letters missing on the freezer. Neither myself nor my players could figure out what was in the freezer. I'm not sure if the incomplete label refers to something in the real world, something from the DuckTales cartoon, or something I was supposed to come up with. It put me on the back foot, which was frustrating in the moment. In hindsight, I wish I had read through the adventure again in full and expanded on that dang freezer. 

But that was just a road bump during an otherwise action-packed, laugh-filled evening with my friends. Each keyed dungeon floor they explored was interesting, the multiple encounter tables kept things fresh, they even ended up finding some cool magic items. One of the players forgot he had a pet lemming for half the session, but I've never played a game where a player's pet isn't forgotten about. 

 

They made it to the very bottom vault of the tower, but didn't make it back to the ground floor before becoming indoctrinated cogs in the corporate machine. We faded on them shuffling off, holding orientation papers in their feathered hands. I couldn't think of a better end to our brief time in this fowl world. 

I asked my players if they'd like to take another run at the adventure sometime in the future, when we want a break from whatever else we're playing. After all, they only explored half of the tower. They immediately started hatching their next plan.

I'm excited to return to the Accursed City, because DUKK BÖRG isn't just a pun, it's a pun that's playable. I don't think I can give any higher praise. 

Solokind Negotiation

This one's about using Otherkind Dice in old-school solo play.

My love for Meguey & Vincent Baker's index card dice system is no secret. Recently, I've been gearing up to do some solo dungeon/hex crawling. It seems like a fun way to pass an hour or two, and if it ends up resonating with me I'd like to join the ranks of people running sandbox campaigns for their friends that they also play solo in between sessions. 

As I prepare for my descent into The Incandescent Grottoes, I took stock of what I need. There are many fine products for one-player games—GM oracles, spark decks, etc. I'm using a procedure-heavy game and published material, so I don't really need help with content generation. The one thing that puzzled me was how I was going to treat with the dungeon denizens I encounter. 

I looked around for ways other people have handled this situation. Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't find much of anything. I'm sure there are brilliant solutions out there, just out of reach of my search-engine skills. So I had to think of how I'd do it. And naturally, I thought of Otherkind Dice. 

Negotiation
When you negotiate with an NPC, use the following three index cards. Roll 3d6 and assign one die to each card. Add your reaction roll modifier (Charisma) to one of the results. If a negative reaction roll modifier would give you a result of zero, treat it as a 1.

What do they want?
6: Help achieving a small goal.
4-5: Something material and common.
3: Help achieving a large goal.
1-2: Something material and rare.

What will they give in return?
6: More than you're asking for.
3-5: Exactly what you're asking for.
1-2: Less than you're asking for.

How will this affect your reputation with them?
6: A great increase in reputation.
3-5: A modest increase in reputation.
1-2: No increase in reputation.

I think Otherkind Dice are a powerful tool for the solo roleplayer. I imagine a solo game only using them could work quite well. I can't wait to continue my solo journey and find other hurdles to overcome with a few index cards and some six-sided dice. 

Wrestling with a White Whale

This one's about grappling.

Has any ttrpg done grappling well? I'm sure some have, just as I'm sure every edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game that includes grappling rules is not among them. Rise Up Comus said as much yesterday on Bluesky, and it got me thinking... how would I do it?

That question opened up a majestic can of worms (sorry, I'm so sorry). What do I want from grappling rules? Well, I want them to be fast. But not too fast, one-and-done is anticlimactic. Dice rolls should be involved, however. In contested rolls! That way my players and I can narrate the back-and-forth as each side struggles for the upper hand. And it should be simple, something I could explain in about 30 seconds. 

Here it is in much more, "these are game mechanics" language. 

A Grappling Contest

These rules use a dice chain (d4>d6>d8>d10>d12>d20). 

When one character attempts to grapple another, a contest is started between them. Each contestant starts with a grappling die, which is a d8 by default. The die is incremented one step for each advantage a contestant has, such as a difference in size, abundance of limbs, etc.

The contest is a series of rolls using the grapple dice. Any to-hit melee bonus or penalty from a contestant's Strength score is applied to the roll. Each time one side loses, their grapple die decrements one step. When a contestant no longer has a die to roll, they have lost and are grappled. 

Well, there you have it. I haven't tested this, besides grabbing some dice at my kitchen table. It seemed fun to me, I could imagine the back-and-forth action that I want out grappling mechanics. Will it be fun for my players? Only time will tell.