Upside Down D&D

A while back I made characters with people who have never played the game before and I was reminded of the confusion surrounding the fact that you have an attribute score and a modifier derived from that score.  That experience gave me this idea that evolved into a really simple story-gamey version of D&D.  This is simpler than Red Box Hack or Dungeon World (at least based on my minimal knowledge of those games) and maybe closer to the original game rules.  What the DM does in the game described below is pretty much the same as a DM in DnD.

UPSIDE-DOWN D&D

Character generation:

1. players roll 3d6 in order for D&D abilities. (Low is Good)
2. roll 3d6 and the single best (highest) die roll is your HP.
3. roll those three dice again, one at a time once on each of these tables:

You are a...
1: Noble of House __________
2: Veteran of the ___________ War
3: Librarian from the City of ____________
4: Worshiper of ____________
5: Criminal who pulled the __________ Heist
6: Fey of the ___________ Woods

Who carries a...
1: Big Axe
2: Crystal
3: Knife... and more knives
4: Brutal Mace
5: Bow and arrows
6: Sword and shield

And who tends to be...
1: Crazed
2: Bon vivant or grump
3: A hero or a leader
4: A coward
5: Greedy
6: A sneaky schemer

Here's how it would work.
Any time you would roll dice in a regular game of DnD instead the Player rolls 3D6, or 2D6 if the DM says its really hard.  The DM says what ability is being rolled against (S, I, W, D, Con, or Cha) rolling over that ability means success.

The items don't add dice, instead they let you accomplish things you couldn't otherwise.  With an axe you might be able to chop down a door, with a bow you can hit somebody from across a room, what's a crystal let you do... etc.

The last die rolled above is like XP.  At the end of the game the DM writes down in order who generally acted the most in character.  The Player then gets that many bonus dice to add to any action or actions in the future that they want.  The DM can also give out Dice to PC's who act in line with their character in a way that is generally detrimental to the party.  For example, when the coward runs away, that PC could get a bonus dice to use later.

This isn't my ideal DnD, but I think something like this could be a great way to play with people who have never played an RPG before, and in that context, could be fun.

Lords of the Underworld

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To The Dark Sea Again

The Dark Sea setting that I started sketching a while back has been percolating in my mind again.  I stopped working on it because I realized how bleak it was, a sea of the dead, no light, Underworld with a capital U.  I set it up as dungeon/hex crawl treasure grab in the finest of old school traditions, but that started to feel wrong.  I saw it as a campaign setting unto itself, but now I think it could function really well as a diversion from a regular D&D game.  Here's how it would work:  Say a PC dies.  the DM can hint that there are ways to get them back.  Clerics that can cast Raise Dead.  But there's a hitch.  They need to find the soul  before they can cast the spell.  The surviving characters get go on an adventure into the Underworld!  I'm not sure why it took me so long to come up with that.

You could say that the recently deceased don't immediately become a part of the Sea, maybe they first go to the Black Citadel where they might get sold or traded to lesser nobles of the Underworld.  (Yep, I read Wraith: The Oblivion in high school.  Don't think it ever got played though.  Now maybe my D&D game can benefit from that finally.)  This is setting up a wheel-and-deal scenario rather than a straight fight, which makes sense since it's probably pretty tough to go toe-to-toe with a lord of the Underworld.

Any way, I've added a picture/link on the right to gather these posts.

Speaking of pictures here are some that inspire the Sead of the Dead:

Mind Mage and Space Wizard

Here's two Space Mutant D&D Character classes:

Mind Mage:
XP and Saves as Cleric
HD: D4
Prime Req: INT, WIS, and CHA
Restrictions: none

Special Abilities:
Powers per Telecanter. Skip step one at first level. Assume the character has the gift. roll step one every time the character gains a level. or +1 rank/lvl to an existing power or roll new power randomly and new power starts at rank 1.

Roll D12 or choose for one or more Psionic Traits:
1 third eye
2 pale blue skin
3 really big head
4 no hair at all even eyebrows
5 no iris - eyes are all white
6 finger and toenails look like microchips
7 blood is bright purple
8 weird stone flies around head at all times. If it is taken away the psionic becomes magnetic and will eventually die.
9 skinless cranium. transparent bones.
10 casts no shadow
11 people cant help but stare at character when present, but no one remembers what he/she looks like
12 ears like Yoda

Space Wizard:
as M-U except as noted.
Restrictions: none
Special abilities:
Must commune with Space Gods every night in order to get powers. Whether or not a Space Wizard gets a full nights sleep does not effect their ability to cast spells. powers are granted like clerics. Spell books don't have spells in them, rather their full of maps of constellations, the names of long dead gods from distant stars, rocket fuel recipes, things like that.

Space wizard wands look like this:

Space Wizards don't make scrolls, instead they can store spells in their wands.  By performing a ritual that's one day long per level of the spell and putting 100 gp worth of powdered meteorites, crystals, moon fungus, etc. any spell the Space Wizard can put any spell they know into their wand.  A Space Wizard can use another Space Wizard's wand.  A non-space wizard can try, but there's a 2 in 6 chance that something really bad happens.

OPDC 2013 and Tracks vs Hooks

The One Page Dungeon Contest 2013 winners have been announced and I'm one of them!  I'm flattered and surprised.

Here's three of my favorites that I printed out to use:
The Sea Tower This one is all text and has some great stuff in it.  My favorite line is "...the maintenance drones have degenerated into savage tribes.."
Clown Robot Doctor Apocalypse I think this is my favorite entry from this year.  It looks like a blast to play through.
Faery Ring to Alpha Ari  This is a ruined space station that you get to by entering a ring of magic mushrooms.  That is awesome and it makes me think, are there other abandoned space stations that you can get to by entering magic mushroom circles?  (the answer is YES)

Laying Tracks vs. Casting Hooks

I've been thinking about how I start adventures sometimes.  I have this annoying habit of writing up a dungeon and then starting the PCs out in a sandbox type situation that has the dungeon in it, thinking that I'll make stuff up on the spot if they don't go right for the dungeon.  They almost never go right for the dungeon.  Dang it.  Sometimes I make up great stuff and we all have fun anyway, but sometimes I don't and the session falls flat.
So, my advice to myself and you I guess if you're reading this (and I know this is not new advice) is to run a sandbox if I have a sandbox prepped and run a dungeon if I have a dungeon prepped and not try to do both at the same time.
For example, to run IRON CLOUD I would not have then PCs just wandering around in the wasteland I would have them seeking out the Iron Cloud on purpose and start the game when they find it.  I've shied away from this approach in the past because it feels like railroading.  It of course is not.  Railroading is when no matter what the players do the same thing happens.  This is giving the game parameters, but inside those parameters anything can happen.  The idea is the same if the parameters are a sandbox or a dungeon.

To make this work the players need a hook to get them there.  With Iron Cloud I gave the different names of the airship to give the DM and the players some ideas for hooks without spelling it out.But the DM will probobly need to spell it out so here's a little random table:

(roll D4)
The PCs are seeking:
1. the lost knowledge of the wizard Zadrilon
2. revenge against Kragofax, maybe he ate the character's village
3. to ally or dominate Kragofax
4. to conquer and control the Iron Cloud itself

Gomerville, new village on the Borderlands

We just finished what I'm pretty sure was our 8th session of Keep on the Borderlands, and we're ready to go on to other things. The PCs have not left the map and are in fact in the Keep right now, but after time warping 50 years into the future the Keep is a ruin and the lair of a gnoll sorcerer who rides a giant spider.

While the PCs were time warped in the Shrine of Evil Chaos a town was built and named after one of the characters:

The town's population is about equally divided between humans, bugbears and dwarves.  (bugbears and dwarves are now optional PC races) This is what they saw when they approached the town:

That tower in the middle is the Temple of St. Cuthbert.  

Here's the player map of Gomerville:

And here's the DM map of Gomerville:

The town has some factions and I threw some in-town adventure hooks at them, but they didn't bite on any of these this session.

A flying dungeon for 1PD 2013

My entry in the one page dungeon contest 2013 was inspired by Archigram's Instant City.  

Their idea was that this airship descends on a hum drum little town and they have a party, and then the airship takes off, leaving behind a taste for miniskirts and high technology.

If you're ever like, "I need to come up with a Space Mutant D&D adventure and I'm looking for inspiration  but I don't have time to watch a whole episode of Thundarr the Barbarian" then spend 5 minutes at the Archigram Archive.  Guaranteed.

Any way...

Here's IRON CLOUD.

My goal was to carefully plan an adventure that has all of the glorious stupidity and potential for hijinks that something that I pull out of my butt while the players are rolling characters would.