The Anatomy of a Trick

I've been struggling for a while with how to understand and come up with tricks. A lot of that, I think, has to do with how open-ended they are. Courtney's Tricks, Empty Rooms and Basic Trap Design defines tricks as EVERYTHING in a dungeon that isn't an empty room, monster, trap or treasure.

Reading through Appendix H: Tricks in the DMG last night, though, something clicked and I think I have a better grasp of tricks now. As I type this out, it feels like I'm stating the obvious, but if I couldn't figure this out 24 hours ago chances are good that this could be helpful to at least one reader. Obviously, this is a new way of thinking for me so it probably has some holes. Criticism and examples that aren't included in this theorizing are welcome.

Tricks fall into two broad categories:

1. Tricks that are merely an empty room, monster, trap or treasure masquerading as a different one of those options; for example, an animated statue coated in yellow mold waiting for adventurers to come into range. It's a nasty monster masquerading as golden treasure.

2. Tricks that aren't masquerading, that aren't, when boiled down, really just an empty room, monster, trap or treasure. They may include those, but they aren't just that.

These "type two" tricks follow this formula:

1. There is an item. This could be an architectural feature, like an arch or doorway, a fixture, like an altar, fountain or pedestal, or a "free-floating" item, like a ball or futuristic alien device just lying on the floor of a room.

2. There are one or more ways to interact with this item. Personally, I think that it is more fun the more ways there are to interact with the item; one important facet of items with multiple ways to interact with them is that some of the ways to interact with them may be less obvious than others. Examples of ways to interact with items include touching and throwing, talking, casting spells or projectiles at or through them, offering something to them, attacking them and "messing" with toggles, switches, levers and buttons on them. Interacting with the item in multiple ways in a particular order may count as a separate way to interact with the item.

3. There is then a deciding factor that will connect the method of interaction with the result. This deciding factor might be the particular way the item was interacted with, a roll on a die or some mixture of both. For the simplest of tricks, this is just whether the trick is interacted with or not.

4. Finally, there are the results. These might be bad, good or not obviously one or the other. Complex tricks with lots of results (some good, some bad, some hard to nail down) are possible (and fun!) but the simplest tricks have just one result. Here are some categories of results; if you can think of others, please comment about them:

• Changes to Characters: Whether attribute scores, sex, facial hair or size, something changes.
• Access/Transport: Characters may or may not get a choice about this access or transport. Examples include teleportation, trap doors, chutes, slides and plain old secret/locked doors opening.
• Treasure: The characters are rewarded with treasure.
• Monsters: The characters are faced with an encounter.
• Trap: The characters are faced with harm.
• Resources: The characters get something that helps them attain some other goal, whether killing monsters and getting treasure or a plot or exploration-related goal, from information like a clue or treasure map to physical tools like keys or mirrors, to consumables like torches, food or even wishes.
• Changes to the Trick: Interacting with the trick changes it; it may disappear or stop working, become another item, such as treasure, or new ways to interact with it may become possible.

So, what do you think? Is this all so incredibly obvious that it wasn't worth posting? Am I missing something? Is this helpful? Would random tables for each of these components, organized in this specific way, be a helpful addition to the trick resources out there? What other trick resources have you found helpful?

Gaming Really Does Kill Blogging

Hi everyone. I'm still here.

I've just been spending most of my gaming time writing up my megadungeon, running it and playing in a 3.5 game with some friends.

The 3.5 game has been… eh. I enjoy playing with my friends, and I can't deny that it's pretty cool to be able to cast "Chain Charm Monster" or to shock the DM with my Old School tactics, but… I really, really don't like the complexity or how long it's taken me to create my character. And we just took something like three hours to kill a dragon.

BUT, my DM decided, at my strong suggestion, to adopt the Arduin critical hit and fumble tables! So I'm looking forward to that unexpectedly killing a PC or ending a boss-fight in one round, even if the criticals and fumbles have to be confirmed. I love those tables so much.

Some Clerical Reputation Mechanics

I recently decided to include Clerics in my game (currently that's not the case) and, as part of figuring out how I want to do this, posted a question about creating pantheons on Google+ and got some good responses and also a few links to Alex Shroeder's blog where he outlines how he's been running deities and Clerics in his games. I found his post about reputation especially interesting. I've reworked it a little bit and present it below. Along with tracking the alignment of my players, I'm hoping to expand this system and to use it not only for Cleric PCs' religious standing but for all PCs' standings with different factions or NPCs.

Feedback appreciated.
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Clerics begin play with a reputation rating of 1 with their deity. At the end of each session in which a Cleric has performed an act on the following table, the Cleric’s player rolls the die that corresponds to the most significant act of the Cleric that day; if the rolled result is higher than the Cleric’s current reputation score, the Cleric’s reputation score increases by one.

d4: Fulfilled intermediate tenet of faith or service related to single believer
d6: Fulfilled major tenet of faith, service related to single local congregation or saved life or body of single believer
d8: Related to single order or sect, saved lives or bodies of single local congregation
d10: Related to whole religion or a servant of the god, saved lives or bodies of entire order or sect
d12: Related to the god, saved the lives or bodies of whole religion

Losing reputation is easier and more drastic than gaining reputation. At the end of a session in which a Cleric has blatantly violated a tenet of the Cleric’s faith or done an active disservice related to the Cleric's faith, the Cleric’s player rolls the die that corresponds to the act of the highest magnitude of the Cleric’s that day. The number rolled on the die is subtracted from the Cleric’s reputation score; in this way, negative reputations are possible. 

If the Cleric has performed both reputable and disreputable acts within a single session, increase the disreputable die size by two and compare the two dice; subtract the smaller die’s sides from the larger die’s sides and roll a die with the number of sides that results, applying the result towards or against the reputation in correspondence to whether the larger die was reputable or disreputable.

For example, Kolath the Cleric of Zeus, within a single session, stole some gold from a member of the congregation of the local temple of Zeus and also helped the rest of the party fend off an army of goblins intent on killing the entire local town. The theft from the fellow follower of Zeus corresponds to the d4 and saving the town, which includes the local congregation of Zeus, corresponds to the d8. Adding two to the four sides of the d4 and subtracting the resulting six from eight leaves a d2 for Kolath's player to roll to see whether Kolath's reputation rises with Zeus or not. Unless Kolath's reputation with Zeus is already lower than 2, Zeus is so non-plussed with Kolath's theft that even saving an entire congregation is not enough to impress Zeus.

Reputation with one's deity is important because Third through Seventh Level Cleric Spells are granted to Clerics by higher powers. In order for spells of a certain level to be granted to a Cleric, the Cleric must both be of sufficient level to have spell slots of that level (like the "normal," as-written Cleric in most systems) and must have a reputation rating with the higher power of at least the same level as the spell.

A Blessed Incarnation Commemoration to You

Hail the Heav'n-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Son of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings

Ris'n with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

[T]he Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. -Matthew 20:28 (NASB)

Print Friendly

We've had a lot of great bloggers join the OSR blogosphere since Jeff Rients gave this sage advice on his blog last year, so I think it's a good idea to pass this around again. If you're a blogger, this button is a great thing to add to the bottom of each blog post; it lets readers print your post off or turn it into a PDF. I don't know how many great blog posts I've saved this way, and how many other great blog posts I've been frustrated to find I'd have to copy into a Word or Text document or lose track of. Please, give the OSR blogosphere a great Christmas present and make the stuff that you're already posting easily save-able for the rest of us. Thanks!

Shield of Wonder

The actual downloading method is lame (I really wish they were one document) and it's written for 3.5 and 4 (though that's not a huge deal in actual practice), but THIS is what I call a magic item.

The DMG, Section by Section, Part 20: Spell Explanations – Illusionists

Short post today, just wrapping up Illusionist spells, which in turn wraps up this section on magic in the DMG.

Phantasmal Killer
This is, as I understand it, an incredibly nasty spell. One way to escape it, however, is to go unconscious, "somehow." If I'm ever playing and my PC's buddy is being attacked by one of these, you can bet I'll be knocking my buddy over the head to save him.

Detect Magic
I was really interested to see Gary refer the reader to the Cleric, rather than the Magic-User, version of this spell for commentary. Comparing the Cleric and Magic-User versions of this spell, it seems that the Cleric version only can detect the strength of a magic aura while the Magic-User version includes a chance to detect the particular type of magic involved. By giving Illusionists the Cleric version of the spell, Gary is giving them the weaker, less effective version.

Finally, in a note that seems to cover all spells, Gary points out that, "the reverse of any spell must be separately memorized, and that each requires special components." I've never liked the idea of having to choose between "normal" or reversed versions of spells during spell memorization, but I certainly can understand why Gary would rule this way.

The DMG, Section by Section, Part 19: Spell Explanations – Magic-Users

Comprehend Languages
I found it interesting that this can be reversed and cast on a scroll to make it unreadable, though casting the unreversed version of this spell twice on such a scroll will make it readable again.

Enlarge
Apparently Gary's players tried to kill opponents by enlarging them inside their armor, but Gary says that their armor will either come loose (if secured with buckles and straps) or be ruined (in the case of chain mail) rather than kill an enlarged subject of this spell; even clothes are assumed to "split away during growth." I would have thought that Gary would have just had what a subject of this spell was wearing grow with the subject, but leave it to Gary to surprise me, right?

Tenser's Floating Disc
I don't know why Gary's such a kill-joy with this particular spell. First he stipulates clearly that no Magic-User can begin play knowing this spell or Nystul's Magic Aura, and then he bans Magic-Users from riding the Disc. Lame. (Though I think Gary's reasoning for banning these two spells may have been to allow players to choose a spell on a result of 10 on the beginning spell tables. Still.)

Unseen Servant
This is the spell my players have played around with the most, stretching the limits of how much they can communicate with an inanimate force (being able to command it clearly means that some amount of communication is possible, I've ruled). Gary stipulates that this force has no shape and therefore cannot be clothed.

Web
I hadn't ever realized that this spell requires at least two anchor points or the web will collapse in on and get tangled up with itself. I hadn't ever really thought about that, but it makes good sense.

Wizard Lock
I also hadn't realized that casters could freely pass through their own Wizard Locks. This has interesting possibilities if you want to take magic in the direction of different flavors of the same spells. (Brendan, I'm thinking of you here.)

Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer
I hadn't realized that this was in 1e as well as 2e. It came up in a previous discussion on this blog. (I prefer any one of my solutions, for the record, though the existence of this spell does settle what Gary thought about the issue.)

Wall of Force
This spell's commentary is interesting because Gary discusses two specific ways to defeat it, much the same way that prismatic spheres in AD&D and prismatic walls in Arduin are handled. These magical barriers that require specific, sometimes (especially with Arduin) non-sensical, unrelated magical keys fascinate me and seem under-utilized in the D&D I read about and play.

Ready Ref Diceless Initiative

Flipping through the Ready Ref Sheets recently, I noticed a really interesting initiative system.

Basically, different factors have assigned numbers, which you add together to determine what you could call an "initiative score," I suppose (the Ready Ref Sheets don't use that, or any, term). The higher your score, the earlier you go in the round.

In the Ready Ref sheets, they present the actual weapons used as the number and then everything else as a modifier, but I'm going to present them in reverse order, since it makes more sense to me to start with the factors that change the least, rather than the factors that change the most.

First off, the character's Dexterity score translates into an initiative number (identical to attribute modifiers in OD&D or some version of Basic, I think):

3-4: -2

5-8: -1

9-12: –

13-16: +1

17-18: +2

Secondly, armor and encumbrance factor in:

(Blank, so either no armor, or just not available to PCs): +3

Light Armor: +2

Heavy Armor: +1

Plate Armor: –

Encumbered: -1

Monsters also get numbers based on their speed:

18" and up: +3

12-17": +2

9-11": +1

4-8": –

3" & less: -1

Finally, the following weapons and attacks are associated with these numbers:

1: Read Scroll

2: Spell of 7-9th level

3: Short Weapon (Dagger, Hand Axe, Mace)

4: Medium Weapon (Sword, Hammer, Battle Axe) or touching

5: Long Weapon (Morning Star, Flail, Spear, Pole Arm, Halberd, Two-Handed Sword)

6: Very Long Weapon (Mounted Lance)

7: Spell of 4-6th level

8: Extreme Weapon (Pike)

9: Missile Fire

10: Spell of 1-3rd level

11: Breath Weapon

12: Glance

Numbers from all three (or two, in the case of monsters) factors should be added up and compared to the numbers of all the other characters involved in the combat; highest score goes first and ties are broken with "actual dexterity ratings."

It's a simple, elegant system, and one I may consider switching to. It's short enough that it could probably fit on a 2-page character sheet without crowding other records too much. Has anyone ever used this system before? Would you ever consider switching to it?

Shrelft the Pilgrim Peddler

So, I'm finally running games again. We ran a session of Dawn of Worlds a few weeks ago and played some S&W last Friday. I'm really enjoying gaming.

We didn't get a lot done, which is fine. We rolled up some new characters, discussed keeping track of time better (we all agreed that using a Gregorian calendar would be easiest and the players decided to start on January 1; we don't have years yet), played out a visit by Shrelft the Pilgrim Peddler and then they had a run-in with a Lindwurm.

But let's talk about Shrelft the Pilgrim Peddler, since there's been some interest expressed in him. I've refrained from sharing him before now because the majority of his inventory is from the Arduin Grimoires (specifically Grimoires IV, V, VI and VII), but I figure I can share the parts of Shrelft that I came up with and a few examples of his inventory so that you can have Shrelft show up in your games too, if you want.

Here's how I've described Shrelft for myself:

Shrelft shows up at the PC's home base occasionally, selling minor magical items and dungeoneering gear that is pretty much unavailable elsewhere. Shrelft will show up in a particular session on a roll of 1 on a d6. No one knows much about Shrelft, especially concerning where he obtains his wares. When asked about his sources, Shreflt only smiles, and those who try to follow him always lose him around a corner, over a hill or behind a tree; Shrelft also ceases to visit those PCs until a 2 is rolled on 2d6 (roll once per session), at which point Shreflt has apparently forgiven the PCs and will resume his normal schedule.

I then list 20 magical alchemical items for purchase. I usually roll a d20 three or four times to determine what Shrelft is selling today, and d4 for each item to determine how many he has for sale. The four Grimoires I mentioned have a lot more than 19 alchemical items, but I decided that, until the PCs get richer (switching to using the ACKS method of dungeon stocking will make that happen more quickly, it's looking like) there's no point in teasing them with anything that costs more than 1000 silver (I'm using a silver standard).

Some examples:

Saethryth's Salve (500sp): A thick green paste that smells of mint and fish. Applied to a freshly cut body part, even a head, it will keep that part alive and viable for up to a week. If the part is bound to a fresh wound within that week, it will grow a healthy connection. (This is, I think, the only item I didn't get from the Arduin Grimoires. It's a favorite with my players, understandably. It's probably under-priced, but that's OK.)

Sigestamundo's Silver Screamers/ “Banshee Stones” (105sp): The size and weight of steel marbles and silver colored, when sharply struck, they ignite and take off in random and crazy flight patterns, trailing sparks and grey metallic smoke while screaming and wailing. They fly for 1d8 seconds but take flight again once they hit something. They last for 20 minutes.

Zartan's Outfire Fog (330sp): Comes inside sealed glass containers, which hold enough fog to fill an area of 100 cubic meters. The fog is heavier than air and puts out all mundane fire in one second and all magic fire in three seconds. The fog dissipates in one minute, after which magical fires return.

Zorn's Instant Armor (250sp): Small grey cubes with a red button on one side. When the button is pressed, it unfolds into a simple shield which lasts for 1d100 minutes before crumbling away.

Lalamaluna's Liquid of Lasting Luminescence (25sp): This yellow-gold liquid glows brightly for 20 years after its manufacture; anything soaked in it will also glow, provided the liquid, which is water-soluble, is not washed away.