15 Movement-Based Magic Items

A woman out for her morning run on the latest British invention for home exercise, London, England, January 4, 1923. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)

Some magic items. We all like magic items, right? Anyway, introductions are boring. Here are fifteen magic items I came up with:

Two flat discs, about 1′ across. One is black, the other is white, and the two are connected by a 20′ long cord. The black disc has a switch on top of it which, when depressed, will cause anything touching it to disappear. A fraction of a second later, everything that disappeared will reappear at the white disc. The white disc doesn’t have a switch, so travel cannot be made in both directions.
A 100′ length of rope, with a small bag attached to one end. Breathing into the bag for 10 minutes will cause it to magically expand, growing larger and larger until it’s roughly the size of a horse. At this point, it will begin to float up into the air, trailing the rope along with it. It will rise until the other end of the rope is is 2′ off the ground, then stop. The balloon can support roughly 500lb of weight before it will begin to droop back towards the ground. If additional ropes are tied together, the balloon will continue rising until the bottom most rope is 2′ off the ground.
A full sized door, complete with frame and hinges. Obviously, this is a fairly cumbersome item to carry around. If the door is placed against some surface (such as a wall), the edges can be hammered in. Over about 10 minutes of noisy work, the door will gradually embed itself into the surface. Once in place, the door can be opened, and will reveal a passage straight through to the other side of the wall. If the wall was particularly thick, the door can create a tunnel up to 200′ long to reach the other side. Once mounted, the door is a permanent fixture, and cannot be removed.
An ancient treadmill. It’s a massive, heavy thing made of steel and wood. When walked on, movement can be “stored” within a person, to be released the moment they step off the treadmill. So, if a person walks on the treadmill for 1 mile, then when they step off the treadmill, they may pick any point 1 mile away from their current location, and will be carried there in an instant. Time spent walking on the treadmill requires the same amount of time and ration use as if one were walking on a road through flat lands.
An envelope made from parchment, small enough to fit inside a coat pocket. One person of any size can be fit inside the envelope, though they must either enter it willingly, or be placed inside it while unconscious. While inside, the person is weightless, and does not experience the passage of time. Even if they are injured and bleeding out, their condition will not worsen while they’re inside. If the envelope is destroyed, the person inside is not harmed, they merely pop out. However, if the envelope is destroyed while it is inside a small container (say, a bird cage), the person may be injured or killed.
The Trebuchet of Safe Landings, capable of launching 90 kg travelers over 300 meters.
Rings of Burrowing; a set of 10, one for each finger. Wearing the whole set allows a person to dive into the earth like a mole, and survive down there for as long as they like without worrying about lack of oxygen. Only soil can be dug through, so a constructed floor, or particularly rocky terrain would prevent the wearer from using the rings. The initial dive into the earth requires a full round action. While burrowing, the wearer can move up to 20′ per round. Emerging from beneath the earth requires only a move equivalent action, so that a standard action (such as an attack) is allowed right after popping up.
A small ladder with only two rungs. When placed on the ground, fluffy rungs will descend from the nearest cloud to meet it. (Assuming, of course, there is a cloud nearby). Anyone who climbs the cloud ladder can drift with the cloud, traveling great distances along the path of the wind. Each day, there is a cumulative 1-in-8 chance that rain will begin to fall from the cloud. If the passengers have not dropped their ladder down to leave before rain starts to fall, then they will be dropped from the cloud with the rain, and plummet the ground below.
A map, and a dart, kept together in a specially made case. If the dart is thrown at the map from at least 15′ away, then the thrower will be transported to wherever the dart sticks. From 15′ away, the armor rating of hitting a specific hex is 17. For each point the hit roll misses by, the dart will land 5 hexes further from the desired target, in a random direction. If the hit roll results in a 6 or lower, then the dart landed off the map entirely, and the thrower is transported to one of the outer planes.
Bosco is a playful dog. She doesn’t really know any tricks or obey any commands, and she gets excited by balls, butterflies, and her own reflection. She’s very fun, but not often useful. However, if attached to a pulling harness, up to eight other dogs will materialize into any other harnesses nearby. Bosco is a whole dog sledding team, wrapped up in a single dog.
Quadruped Bracelets, when worn, cause the arms to elongate. If the wearer leans forward just a bit, their knuckles will be able to reach the ground. Using all four limbs to move doubles a person’s movement speed, though having longer arms hinders them in other ways. Notably, using weapons is almost impossible, and anyone attempting combat actions while their arms are long will suffer a -5 penalty to their attack rolls.
A 1′ long stick, covered in simplistic etchings of sex acts. If the stick is broken in half, the person holding it will be transported back to the spot where they were conceived. (Anyone who is touching them, or touching the stick, will be teleported along with them). This may be their parent’s old bedroom, a secluded spot in the woods, or wherever else their parents happened to be fucking when they wound up making this person. The stick can work as many times as it can be broken in half.
River Lightning Shoes are a precious magic item. If they touch a river, then the wearer will transform into an arc of light, and begin shooting downstream at 300 miles an hour. They can attempt to disembark from the river at any time, but they’re going so fast they only have a 2-in-6 chance of getting off at the right spot. Otherwise they’ll either undershoot, or overshoot their destination by 1d6 hexes. Try not to fall into a river by accident when wearing these!
The Breastplate of Flight can be integrated into any set of medium armor. Whenever the wearer is struck by an attacking foe, they will instantaneously teleport 10′ away from their attacker, along a line that both characters are on. (So, if your attacker is standing to the East of you, you will teleport 10′ to the West). Helpful in escaping from a battle you wish to flee from, but obviously makes brawling somewhat difficult.
A length of rope 50′ long. The rope has been specially treated with the blood of cockroaches, and baked in the sun. Within any area completely encircled by the rope, the person who laid the rope in place is capable of superhuman feats of speed. Their movement speed is doubled, and they’re able to take twice as many actions each turn as they normally would.

How to Keep Your Friends Alive When Everything Seems to Want Them Dead

Combat healing is a bullshit mechanic. Honestly, any healing that takes place during a session seems a little bullshitty to me. I don’t like to think of hit points in D&D like life bars in video games, going up and down constantly. Rather, hit points are like a character’s ability to hold their breath while diving. When the players are in a dangerous situation, hit points measure how long they can last there before they need to come up for air. (By which I mean, return to town, and rest up for their next delve).

Being low on hit points and having to choose between walking away or pressing onwards is an important experience. On the one hand, you’ve made it through this many rooms already, and treasure may be just around the corner…but you might die. On the other, you could return home and come back later fully refreshed, but the rooms might be restocked.

And yes, it could be argued that this situation still occurs when midsession healing is allowed. You’ve just gotta wait for the cleric to run out of healing spells. But that seems like a pointless complication to me. All you’re doing is delaying something that would happen anyway, and in the process, you’re burdening the party with spells and items, which take up spell and encumbrance slots. Those slots could be filled with more interesting options if the opportunity to heal from injury wasn’t so useful as to invalidate other spell/equipment choices.

All of that in exchange for essentially giving the players a communal pool of extra hit points. If all you want is for the players to last longer, why not just give them more HP to start with?

All that being said, I’m not against the idea of mid-session healing in theory. It’s the practice that annoys me. Healing potions and Cure Light Wounds spells are too reliable. You can pretty much always get your hands on them, easily keep them with you, and using them is always an unambiguously good choice.

Below are a bunch of healing and healing-adjacent mechanics that I think would be interesting to see in a game. I’ve avoided pinning any of these down into any specific means of conveyance. They could be turned into spells, or class abilities, or items, or purchasable services. At this point, what I want to do is come up with some interesting ways to replace healing. The vectors by which that healing is delivered can be worked out later.

As a small aside, several of these have been shamelessly lifted from the video game Atlas Reactor, which is why I used screenshots from that game for this post. I realize game mechanics can’t be copyrighted, but it does seem only fair to acknowledge my source.

Magic Shields, which act as temporary hit points for the target. So if I’ve got a shield on me with a rating of 5, and someone deals 6 damage, then the shield absorbs 5 of those, becomes dispelled, and now I take 1 damage.

I imagine the shields having a short duration. Something on the order of a single combat round, so that whomever is doling them out will want to be careful when they use it. It’s not something you cast on the fighter at the start of combat because they’ll get hit eventually. It’s something you save, until the fighter is surrounded by 12 goblins, and needs a little extra survivability for the coming round.

Healing is based on location, so that players must reach a place in order to heal. The simplest way to do this might be to have pools of healing water which exist in some places. I feel like a lot of older video games did this, and I always thought of it as a very video-gamey solution to the problem. But, the more I think about it, the more I think it actually fits D&D better than D&D’s native method does.

I particularly like how it fits into the “I’m almost dead” decision. Do you return to town, where you can rest and heal up in safety? Or, do you open just one more door, and hope it’s one of the places you can heal in.

The danger here is that once the party finds one of these healing locations, they can always return to it. But that could be solved by saying each person can only use the location once. And, of course, the locations can be as common or uncommon as the referee desires, based on the style of game they want to run, or on the individual area. (Ancient temples may offer more healing locations than vampire castles do, for example).

You could also make the location something very simple, but restrict it in other ways. For example, “While standing under moonlight, Dave can heal up to 30hp each month.”

Create a lifelink bond to your ally, so that some percentage of damage done to them is instead transferred to you. Something nice and even, like 25, 50, or 75%. This could last a single round, or until the bond is broken somehow.

I like the percentage approach because no incoming damage is actually being invalidated, the players are just shuffling it around to suit their needs. A character who is safely hidden away from the bad guys may end up dying through this transfer, and the character actually getting hit isn’t exactly safe either. They’re still taking hits, just fewer.

The way I imagine it, this would be done by a willing party member, to assist another party member. But, it might also be possible to force unwilling people to become damage sponges. It might make the players too overpowered to allow something like that, but their obviously evil acts could have interesting consequences.

One player tags a target in some way, perhaps by throwing a special goo onto them, or casting a spell on them, or something. If the tagged target takes any damage, then whomever dealt that damage is healed. Not necessarily at a rate of 1:1, that’s a little much.

Perhaps the amount of healing could be determined by the tagging method. If you hit the target with a level 1 tag, each successful hit against them will grant 1 healing. Level 2 tags could grant 2 healing, etc.

This would have the interesting side effect of allowing the tagger to direct the focused fire of the party. “Hey everybody, attack this guy!”

An ally is tagged in some way, similar to the above. Any damage they take during some period of time is recorded. Lets call it the “recording period,” and it could last anywhere from one to three combat rounds, I think. When the recording period ends, the damage taken is totalled up, and the tagged player gains Fast Healing 1.

Every combat round, they regain 1 hit point, until they’ve regained an amount equal to the amount they lost during the recording period.

Essentially, any damage taken during the recording period will be returned to the tagged player. But, it’s returned at such a slow rate that they may not survive long enough to get it all back.

An area of effect damage spell, which also grants a small amount of healing to allies as a side effect. Much like a fireball would harm a group of cultists, but would heal the fire element they summoned.

Of course, part of the challenge of casting area of effect spells is damaging the most enemies you can, while not damaging any of your allies. This flips the problem a bit. You don’t want to cast it on a group of allies, because you’ll lose out on the damage (which is much more substantial than the healing). But, you also do want to get the benefit of the healing, so you specifically wait for a good mix of friend and foe.

Cause an instrument of violence to become incapable of causing harm. For example, a sword may be tweaked so that it cannot stab, or the ground may be adjusted such that if a person fell onto that bit of ground, they wouldn’t take any falling damage.

So lets say you’re fighting a goblin. One player does whatever they need to do to “break” the goblin’s spear. They’ll probably make a few attacks with that spear, and some of those attacks will hit. It might take two, three, or even more hits before the goblin realizes their weapon has been nerf’d, (almost literally in this case), after which they pull out their dagger, which probably deals less damage.

Healing potions exist, but they are incredibly rare. The players will be lucky to find a handful over the course of the whole campaign. This robs healing potions of their reliability. You can’t always get them, and so they’re something to be saved. There’s a worry that if you use a potion, then you may not have it sometime in the future when you really need it.

Healing potions exist, but they are incredibly large and heavy. Like, instead of something you drink, a healing potion is something you bathe in, and must be carried around in a huge barrel, just for one dose.

This exacerbates the problem of healing items taking up encumbrance that could be spent on something more interesting. However, this healing item takes up so much encumbrance that it stops being useful enough to invalidate other equipment choices. When a player asks themselves: “Do I bring a healing potion, or three iron spikes?” they’d be a fool not to bring the potion. But if they have to choose between bringing the potion or all the rest of their equipment, that decision isn’t so easy.

I think if I went this route, players would immediately start hiring people to carry their potions for them, which is fine! That presents an interesting set of problems all its own. What happens when these potion porters die? Do you leave the potion behind? What about when you’re in a dangerous situation (when you’ll need a potion the most), and all your porters flee? How many people will really be willing to do the job of hauling huge barrels of potion in the a dungeon? It sounds like an unpleasant and dangerous job with shitty pay.

Healing potions exist, but they’re poisonous. There’s no risk of death (or hey, maybe there is?), but there’s a lot of ways a potion could harm a character, while still increasing their hit points.

Maybe potions cause mutations? Maybe they artificially age the player? Maybe they cause a person to go blind for an hour after drinking them, or make a person incredibly flatulent such that they attract more monsters? The possibilities for side effects are pretty much infinite.

It’s also worth asking: are the side effects guaranteed, or are players allowed to make a saving throw?

If You're Not Metagaming, You're Not Trying Hard Enough

Whenever an obnoxious pedant decides that people on the Internet need to hear their opinions on RPGs, it’s only a matter of time before they pen a condescending diatribe about metagaming. And I’m nothing if not an obnoxious pedant. So, after six years of angrily foisting my RPG opinions onto the Internet, it’s about time I got around to this.

TL;DR, metagaming is fine, and trying to stop your players from doing it is bad. This is old fuckin’ news to a lot of you I’m sure, but after some recent discussions I’ve had, I feel compelled to explore the reasoning personally. Before we even get into what metagaming is, though, I want to take a look at the name of the game. Literally, “role playing game,” and specifically what is meant by “role playing.”

Some folks will argue that it refers to thespianism. That the player “plays the role” of their character, in the same sense a stage actor does. The goal of the game, then, is to get inside that fictional character’s head. To understand them, and to portray them as faithfully to that understanding as you can.

This interpretation makes a certain kind of sense. I can see where it comes from, but it ignores the fact that RPGs grew out of the miniature wargaming community. The people who coined the phrase “Role Playing Game” were trying to describe what made their game different. And the people they were describing it to had a background of controlling dozens or hundreds of toy soldiers on a field.

In this new kind of game, instead of controlling an army, the player controls a single playing piece. That might sound limiting at first, but, they’re controlling it in a much more intimate way. The player doesn’t simply issue orders to the unit, they are the unit. If the player wishes, they can make their playing piece dance or sing, or recite an endless string of references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The playing piece will never lose morale and flee from battle, unless the player decides it’s time to flee. In other words, the player doesn’t merely control their piece, they take on the role of their piece.

Now, I’m not a historian. I don’t have factual evidence that this is where the term “Role Playing Game” came from. As far as I’m aware, nobody present at the time ever bothered to put their reasoning into words. I’m happy to be proven wrong if someone has a source, but until then, I find this to be a much more likely explanation than any thespian interpretation.

Of course, none of that actually matters. Aside from etymological curiosity, there’s no reason to quibble over why the name is what it is. After 40 years, and countless thousands of iterations, you can’t break down the name of the genre into its component parts and expect to draw any meaning from them. The phrase “Role Playing Game” has a definition separate from the words “role,” “playing,” and “game.” Much like the genre of Science Fiction is no longer strictly about fictional science, as it was in the days of Jules Vern.

I’m not interested in restricting what an RPG can and cannot be. Things grow, and change, and evolve from their original intent. That’s a good and beautiful thing. I only bring any of this up because it’s the source of so many misconceptions about the oldschool style of play. On more than one occasion, I’ve been told by very angry people that “if you’re not role playing, why participate in role playing games?” It’s a silly attitude, and it’s one that perpetuates the myth of metagaming into the modern day.

So…what is Metagaming?

Metagaming is bringing your own real-world knowledge to bear against game problems. A classic example would be using fire against trolls because you (the player) have read the monster manual, despite the fact that you (the character) have never encountered a troll before. Other examples would be making a decision based on the referee’s facial expression (“She’s smiling! Retreat!”); or their past behavior (“Don’t open the chest. Molly always traps the first chest in every dungeon.”); or even just genre convention (“Dead bodies always end up turning into zombies. I chop off all their heads.”) Some people will even argue that it’s metagaming to make good choices if you don’t think your character would make those choices. (“Obviously the dragon is too powerful for me to defeat, but I’m really angry it killed my parents, so I have to attack it anyway.”)

Within the context of this conversation, “Metagaming” refers only to knowledge a person already has, or comes upon incidentally. It does not refer to information a person intentionally seeks out. If a player goes out and buys the module their referee is running, and keeps it open on the table next to them while they play, that’s a completely different sort of problem. It’s called “being an asshole.” The solution is not to play with assholes, and there’s no need to discuss that any further.

“Metagaming” is an inherently pejorative term, in that it only exists as a way of identifying bad behavior. Or, in this case, what some people claim to be bad behavior. As far as I know, there are two basic justifications for why metagaming is a bad bad no no:

First, there are those who stubbornly want their games to be challenging, while refusing to put in the effort required to make them actually challenging. The trolls I mentioned above are a good example. This kind of thinking is rank laziness, and deserves no consideration. Second, there are the thespians, whose first priority is to embody the character, rather than to play the game. Romeo kills himself every time the play is performed, even though the actor knows Juliet is only faking.

Advocates from both schools will make noble speeches about the importance of “staying in character.” In the latter case, those speeches will be more sincere, but regardless, what we’re actually talking about is asking the players to sabotage their own efforts in order to maintain the ideological purity of the game.

The whole concept of self sabotage undercuts the adversarial relationship between player and referee. It’s become something of a taboo to advocate for that relationship, but I believe it is essential for the players and the referee to sincerely try to best one another.* Not because the referee wants to “win,” but because the PLAYERS want to win.

In order for them to win, there must be conflict. In order for there to be conflict, there must be something to be in conflict against. As referee, I can give my players a fake conflict. A cardboard cutout that only exists to be knocked down. Invariably, they will overcome, and they’ll experience a cheap imitation of victory. Alternatively, I can give my players real conflict. I can create an environment that is trying to defend itself to the best of my ability. Then, IF the players overcome, their victory will be a truly meaningful thing. The result was not predetermined, it was earned.

Without real conflict, we’re just going through the motions. Kids with sticks, who are afraid to poke each other’s eye out. Except the sticks aren’t even real.

To expound on one of my examples above, lets say I’ve got a group exploring a dungeon, and they encounter some big bad scary monster I’ve created. One the players says they should attack, and I fail to suppress a grin of delight at the hell they’re about to unleash upon themselves. The players see this, and decide to take a more cautious approach.

Certainly I’ve made a mistake in tipping my hand to the players, but once that mistake was made, why shouldn’t they take advantage of it? The worst case scenario is that they waste some time, but ultimately, are satisfied that they followed up on every lead. The potential alternative is that they pretend nothing happened, get themselves killed, then resent the fact that they could have survived if only they’d been trying their hardest.

There’s basically no downside to encouraging players to metagame, which cannot be said of the reverse.

Now, obviously, people prefer different styles of play. It’s not bad-wrong-fun if you enjoy thespianism in your RPGs. If you’re playing D&D I think you don’t really understand the game, but, this post is not an angry rant directed at your existence. It really isn’t. You do you, and I sincerely hope you have fun doing it.

My frustration is that the thespian outlook so thoroughly dominates discussion of RPGs, that most folks take it as a given that metagaming is bad. To the point that any defense of metagaming is made out to be ludicrous.

But it’s not ludicrous, because I’m a very smart person who would only ever advocate for the correct viewpoint. Ipso facto, metagaming is fine, and trying to stop your players from doing it is bad.

d100 Materials your Post-Apocalyptic Armor is Made From

For each piece of armor found, roll once or twice on the table to determine what materials it’s made from. Everything on this list is super realistic. If you find something you think is unrealistic, it’s just because you don’t understand something that I do understand. Because I am a very smart boy.

Street signs, such as “Stop,” “Yield,” or “Children at Play.”
Car body pieces, like the hood, doors, or bumper.
Rubber tires.
Sheet metal
Leather, perhaps in the form of an old world jacket, or something tanned in the post apocalypse. In the case of the latter, it may be human leather.
Chain link fence.
Cookware, like pots, pans, or baking sheets.
Layered silverware or cutlery
Plywood, probably from some old Ikea furniture.
Books of any sort. Paperbacks or magazines work just as well as hardbacks or coffee table books. Don’t underestimate the stopping force of layered paper!
A weave of cables and wiring.
Folded duct tape.
Regular old-world clothing, like a T-shirt, but stacked in layer upon layer upon layer until it’s formidable armament.
Protective sports equipment, like football shoulder pads, hockey goalie leg pads, or a BMX biker’s helmet.
Bones from various creatures, animals, beasts, and humans.
The carapace of a giant, mutated insect.
Soles from old shoes.
Old plumbing pipes, made of metal or PVC.
Carpeting torn up from a floor, possibly layered to make it thicker.
Cut-up metal cans, like you would use for paint or oil, or Campbell’s soup.
Children’s plastic toy armor.
Ludicrous cosplayer armor, which can be made mostly functional if you cut off all the extraneous spikes.
Some piece of medieval reenactor armor. It’s probably not actually made of metal, or if so, it’s probably not made terribly well.
Real medieval armor. Before the apocalypse, this would have been a valuable historical artifact.
Police riot gear, well preserved from the per-apocalypse.
Chain link made from belt-buckles.
An old robot chasis that a human can squeeze themselves inside of.
Animal cages.
A lifejacket
Old AOL disks, pinned together.
Motorcycle safety gear.
Safety gear from a construction site, like a hard hat, gloves, or reflective vest.
Welder gear, either the mask, or the heavy apron.
One of those lead-lined aprons dentists put on people when they X-Ray them.
Firefighter PPE.
Wicker, probably taken from some old patio furniture.
Soft, thick pads, like pillows, couch cushions, or even just a comforter.
License plates
Chainmail made from carabiners
Old, discarded plaster casts, like the ones used to keep a bone straight while it sets.
A woven mesh of nylon rope.
Old BDSM fetish gear. Some of that shit is fuckin’ sturdy, and you’re not in any position to be picky.
A Halloween costume.
Old bullet casings, strapped together in rows.
Video game cartridges, pinned together.
A trash can.
Hair from humans or horses, woven into thick sheets.
The skins of old deflated sports balls, like basketballs and footballs.
A satellite dish.
Soda can tabs. That’s what the armor worn by the woman in the image above is made from.
Twigs, strapped into rows.
Three ring binders.
Tin cans.
A hollowed out part of a taxidermied animal.
LEGO bricks. Particularly some of the large flat plates.
The boards from board games.
Trading cards of various types, from baseball to magic the gathering.
Nerf.
Stuffed animals.
Plastic plants, such as fake ferns.
Computer parts, like circuit boards, keyboards, chassis, and CRT monitor housings.
Food containers from the world before. Stuff like cereal boxes, or chip bags, layered together.
Rulers and yard sticks, held together with pins.
Window blinds.
Clothes hangars, interlocked with each other.
Silicone sex toys: dildos, butt plugs, vibrators…
D&D 3rd edition splat books.
Clip boards.
The backboard from a basketball hoop.
Cardboard boxes.
Cleaning gear: rubber gloves, dustpans, or the heads from brooms and mops.
A piece of some kind of experimental body armor from the pre-apocalypse. It looks like it was made by a doomsday prepper with more money than sense.
Broken bits off of plastic shopping carts.
One of those layered cardboard scratchers they make for cats.
Bicycle parts, like the wheels, handlebars, or chain.
Wine cork lamellar.
Library card lamellar. (Also “club cards” from big box stores, or credit cards).
Safety glass, probably pulled out of a door from a school.
Matchbox cars.
An old folding table.
Giant letters that used to form the name of some long-forgotten business.
Mail made from fidget spinners.
Smartphone cases.
Old metal tonka toys.
Roofing shingles.
Horse shoes.
Hula hoops and jump ropes.
Discarded plastic bottles.
Circular saw blades.
Dozens and dozens of “unbreakable” combs.
Cheap costume jewelry: rings and bracelets interlocked into mail, draped bundles of necklace chains, and so on.
Cardboard tubes, like the ones from toilet paper, paper towels, and wrapping paper.
Vinyl house siding.
Steel medical brace.
Shovel heads.
Fan blades
Cutting boards.
Dumb, cheap, fantasy weapons. They’re so ridiculous that nobody can actually use them as weapons, so they’re trying to put them to use as armor.
A dartboard.
Something crazy valuable that the “armor smith” apparently didn’t realize was valuable. Like a working gameboy, a floppy disk with secret information on it, or a bit of wood with a treasure map singed into it.

Free Adventure: Potatoes & Rats

What is The Mongrel Banquet Club?

A gathering of cretinous alcoholics who only have two wholesome pleasures between the lot of them: pooping, and playing D&D. They spend all day in their secret clubhouse, yelling obscenities at each other and making jokes about genitalia. And if I told you any more than that, they’d probably kick me out, because we’re just juvenile enough to still think Fight Club references are clever in 2017.

“The first rule of the MBC is…”

Sometimes, between hangovers, the MBC makes books. The first three were Secret Munticore, PeePee Soaked Heck Hole, and Baseball #1. I’ve had some hand in all of these, but given the incestuous, shitstained style of the MBC, I haven’t made a point of really promoting them on Papers & Pencils.

So, what’s different about Potatoes and Rats?

P&R is a book that I pushed along, every step of the way. I was the one who posted the prompt. I organized people, edited what they wrote, and helped with the layout. Only a single room of the dungeon is completely my work. But just about every single sentence has been massaged by me in some way. That’s even a photo of me on the cover.

In other words, Potatoes & Rats has been my mongrel baby, and I won’t rest until every single person in the world has read it, and acknowledged me as a good father.

But what is it? Why should I buy it?

Because it’s free, ya dingus.

I don’t want any of your money. I just want you to read the wacky ravings of me and my fellows, chuckle once or twice, vomit three times precisely, and come away from the experience with a little less faith in humanity than you had going in.

As for what it is, well, it’s sort of a dungeon adventure. I say “sort of,” because it’s unplayable. It even says so, right there on the cover, next to the bit where we wrote the word “by” two times, and decided not to fix it as a joke.

The book is really more of a collection of weird, unfunny jokes, strung together in adventure module form because we’re all a bunch of hacks who are trapped in the conventions of our genre.

Anyway, I think I’ve written enough text to space out these images. So just go download it, and read it, and…like…tell me I’m good. Give me the love I never got from mommy or daddy.

Get Potatoes and Rats on RPGNow, or if you prefer, get it on DriveThruRPG, which are different websites, but also the same website.

Yes, No, and Maybe

Sometimes it’s useful to put your thoughts down in clear, precise language, even if those thoughts aren’t particularly novel.

As arbiter of the game world, the referee fields a lot of questions. Whether explicit or implied, these questions are usually of the form “Can I?” Such as “Can I climb the wall?” or “Can I sneak past the guard?” Even questions which don’t seem to follow this form often do. For example, if a player asks “What is the statue made of,” what they’re actually asking is “Can I tell what the statue is made of?” And while the full answer to these questions will be more complex, it will always boil down to either Yes, No, or Maybe.

There’s a well known dictate of improv comedy: “Always say yes.” As a fundamental rule, it’s useful if you need to create a coherent narrative for an audience. Unfortunately, some misguided folk have spread around the idea that the rule works just as well for D&D. It does not, for the simple reason that D&D is not a performance. The game is not meant to move smoothly through the familiar narrative notes of exposition, action, climax, and resolution.

In D&D, it’s important that it be possible to fail. Not just once, at a dramatically important moment, but over and over again until the failure becomes boring and you have to choose between continuing to bang your head against the wall, or going off to do something else. (The beauty of D&D, of course, is that you can go do something else in the game). If all the referee is needed for is to say “yes,” then they should just be another player at the table. The group can all participate in improvised fantasy theater for the amusement of themselves, or an audience. Given the proliferation of minor celebrities streaming their games on twitch, I suspect we’re going to see a lot of that.

That being said, I don’t want to make it sound as though saying “yes” is bad. If anything, I think the above misconception is so particularly dangerous because it’s so close to the truth. If you take the “always say yes” motto and apply it to D&D, you will have a good time. Then, if you’re observant, you’ll start to notice how all these dice and rules and systems are just getting in the way. You might reasonably think they’re getting in the way because they’re bad, when in fact they’re getting in the way because they’re meant to support a D&D game. But if you “always say yes,” you’re not playing D&D; you’re playing an improv game, with unnecessary baggage.

A better dictum might be “Try to say yes.” Think about the situation the players are in. Is the thing the they asked to do something they reasonably could do? If so, then say “yes!” Don’t muddy the game with unnecessary barriers, but do bear in mind what barriers exist, and enforce them. Never say “no” just because saying “yes” would trivialize a challenge. Taking clever action to trivialize a challenge is half the fun of good D&D.

This isn’t all that difficult to do. As referee, you have all the details of the game world in your head. Even the ones you haven’t bothered to come up with yet are in your head. And, as an adult human, you’ve spent a not-insignificant portion of your life observing other humans. You’ve got a good idea of what they’re capable of.

So when your players are in a room with a statue, and they ask “Can I push the statue over?” just look at the image in your own head. What kind of statue were you picturing? Do you think an athletic person could push it over? If so, say “yes”. If not, say “no,” and explain why. Is the statue too heavy, is it bolted to the floor, or is it just magically un-push-overable? If you’re not sure whether a person could push it over or not, say “maybe.” I’ll talk more about maybe a little further down.

First, while we’re still on the subject of “yes,” I want to talk about qualifiers. Qualified yeses give the players complications to overcome, and are almost always more interesting than a simple “yes” or “no.” Which isn’t to say you should invent complications that don’t exist, but you should take a moment to think about the specifics of your player’s proposal. What problems might they encounter?

A chainlink fence is a good example. If your players want to climb over a chainlink fence, you can’t really say “no” to that. Climbing over a chainlink fence is easy. You yourself have probably done it many times. But, it’s also noisy.

Instead of just saying “you make it over the fence,” you can say “Yes, you can climb the fence, but someone may see or hear you.” Razorwire is also a common feature of chainlink fences, so you might say “yes, you can climb the fence, but you’ll take damage from the wire, and there’s a chance you’ll become tangled.” The more you try to spot these hiccups in your players actions, the more your players will think about their actions. Your game challenges them, and they’ll be more engaged with it as a result.

Which brings us to “Maybe.” Maybe is easy: if you don’t know whether you should say “yes” or “no,” roll a die.

In a lot of cases, the die you should roll is spelled out by the rules. “Can I stab the goblin?” roll an attack. “Can I find food in the wilderness?” roll a Bushcraft skill check. These pre-established cases are easy to resolve, but just because the rolls are established in the game’s rules, doesn’t mean the referee shouldn’t consider whether “yes” wouldn’t be a more appropriate answer. “Can I stab the sleeping goblin?” Yes! Anyone who makes you roll for that is an asshole.

It should be noted that the inverse is not generally true. If the rules have established a roll that determines the success or failure of a specific type of action, it’s almost never appropriate to say “no.” Better to simply penalize the roll. After all, skilled foragers may still be able to find food in a barren landscape, it just probably won’t taste super good.

Then there is the other kind of maybe. The ones without any pre-established resolution mechanic. You still need to roll dice, but which ones?

Some folks use roll-under ability score checks. They figure out which of the scores best represents the kind of effort needed to successfully accomplish what the player wants to do, and have the player roll a d20. If the roll is equal to or under their ability score, the check is a success.

Roll under checks are an elegant solution. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just about the only good justification for having ability scores at all. But, since I think the ability scores are kinda sloppy, and want to move away from using them, I avoid this method. Instead, I just pick a chance-in-six that seems appropriate for whatever the player is attempting. I default to a 50/50 chance (1-3 success, 4-6 fail), and modify up or down based on circumstance, and any clever planning the characters put into their attempt.

That is all I have to say. This post is done now.

Hashtag DIY30

Over the past month, a lot of folks have been participating in the “30 Days of RPGs” meme. It’s one of those classic Internet things, where someone wrote up a list of 30 questions, and participants are supposed to answer one each day.

Over on the googleplus, there have been a lot of rumblings about how boring/annoying it is. Don’t get me wrong, if you have fun answering these questions, then I’m sincerely happy for you. But the specific questions asked never seem to produce the kinds of answers that I (or others) enjoy reading.

A big group of us decided to put our money where our mouths were, and see if we could put together a more satisfying list of questions. We Gygaxian Democracy’d a list of 30 questions, and have been sharing it around g+ for a few days now. If you’re interested, head over to #DIY30 on Google+, read some of the answers, and get to writing some of your own!

30 Days of Questions for DIY D&D:

What is a heretofore unknown secret of Troll ecology?
What’s a campaign you would love to play in, but nobody is running it?
How can a monster harm a character in a new and unusual way?
Make a monster based on your deepest fear
What sort of abilities would a Bug Knight class give to a character?
There are six kinds of vampires. Don’t be boring.
What happens when you water fruit trees with goblin blood?
“Mommy, what are tooth faeries like, and what do they do with all the teeth?”
Who rules the deepest ocean floor?
What is beyond the Wall? (So help me, any of you who makes some lazy-ass Game of Thrones reference is kicked out of the OSR.)
Why is the stone circle on the hill top broken?
What is there to do when stationed on an interstellar lighthouse?
Three sports that wizards play.
Roll a D20 and count down that many photos on https://www.flickr.com/explore. That’s your prompt.
Write a pitch for how you would turn a shitty game into a good game.
Make an equipment list for a post apoc setting, using only things in 1 room of your home. Garage and kitchen are easy mode.
What political situation existed 500 years ago, and how does its fall affect the world of today?
The wizard has researched a new spell named “Chance Minutia.” What does the spell do?
What single change would you make to a popular D&D setting and why?
Describe a mechanic you would put into your Science Fiction Heartbreaker.
Most unexpected spell that helped you get past the walls of the Fortress of See.
Describe Milk Demons for me. What do they do, what are their names, what do they taste like?
How should gods work in a game?
If the object closest to your left hand right now was a magic item in your campaign, what would it do?
The last thing you drank is a potion. What are its effects?
Your childhood pet is now a monster. How is it going to kill me?
So what’s with that overly-elaborate locked box?
What’s a really cool imaginary place you’ve made up? Draw a map of it. Don’t worry it’s just a map. E’rybody can make maps.
Goblins are great. Why or why not?
Share something cool you made if you can at all justify it as RPG related.

Basic Game Structure, & Hacking as an Involved Deviation

As I’ve discussed before, and will no doubt discuss again, the core mechanic of D&D is the Three Step Conversation. It starts with the referee describing the environment, followed by the player describing how they interact with that environment, followed by the referee describing how the environment changes. Rinse and repeat until fun is achieved.

The Three Step Conversation is a powerful, versatile tool for making the game happen. But, like any core mechanic, it can’t cover every situation that will come up during play. That’s why we have subsystems and dice; deviations from the core mechanic that help resolve situations where conversation is not the best tool. There are basically two types of deviations: quick, and involved.

Skill checks are an example of a Quick Deviation. They handle problems that can’t effectively be solved by conversation, and aren’t interesting enough in themselves to waste any time on. Nobody wants to play a “foraging for food” minigame, so resolution is distilled down to a single die roll.

Which isn’t to say that foraging for food can’t be interesting. It totally can be, but within the context of a D&D game, it’s enough to know whether the foraging was a success or a failure. Spending any more time on it would distract from game’s focus. Rolling a single die skips straight to the interesting bit (success/failure), and gets us right back to the Three Step Conversation.

Combat is an example of an Involved Deviation. It’s a whole minigame, with its own rules, and choices for the players to make. It presents the player with a set of risk/reward choices (If I attack I can do damage, but I’ll put myself in danger of taking damage myself), which are mostly resolved with die rolls. Hopefully, any involved deviation will have a few key elements:

It’s fun.
It’s dangerous.
It’s quick enough that it doesn’t dominate the game session.
It’s possible to completely trivialize it with adequate planning.

All of which brings me around to Hacking. In ORWA, hacking is a quick deviation, handled with a single die roll. But, as the game moves into more of a cyberpunk / science fiction territory, I am curious about the possibility of making it an involved deviation. I’ve also been playing Shadowrun lately, which has got me thinking about that game’s rules (which are interesting, but also terrible).

All of this started with a conversation I had with my friend Frotz, who already wrote up his own thoughts based on that conversation. His ideas focus on making the system work within the Shadowrun framework, while I’m more interested in creating something modular that could work well in a more D&D style ruleset.

Basic Computer Design

The referee will design computer systems (sometimes improvising them on the spot if need be), just as they would for a monster. Each computer has three basic pieces of information: Security Rating, Access, and Network.

A computer’s security rating is a number between 2 and 5. It’s a measure of how well protected the computer is, and will need to be overcome each time the hacker wants to do something. It functions a little bit like a monster’s armor rating this way.

Access is an explicit list of important information and systems which can be reached from a given terminal. This might be something like “Mr. Badguy’s Emails,” “Blackmail gifs,” or “Automated turret control.” The list does not need to be exhaustive, it should only mention the items the referee feels are most notable. If the players try to find something that isn’t explicitly listed, the referee can either say yes, say no, or determine the answer by rolling a die.

Network is optional, and can mostly be handled by common sense. It’s just a way of determining which computers are connected to one another. So if you go into the big bad guy’s fortress, all the computers there might be on the BBG network. Or, if the referee wants to be clever, there may be multiple networks in the fortress.

Hacking

Hacking is done with a pool of d6s, because this whole idea started off as a mod for Shadowrun before I decided to make it modular.

Untrained characters have a pool of 2d6, whilst trained characters begin with a pool of 3d6, which increases periodically. (Either when skill points are put into it, or when a hacker character levels up, depending on how you want to use the system).

A hacking attempt is a complete success if two or more of the dice roll equal to, or above, the system’s security rating.

A hacking attempt is a partial success if only one die is equal to or above the security rating. In this event, the character’s action succeeds, but the system’s Alarm goes up by 1.

A hacking attempt is a failure if all the dice roll below the security rating, The character’s action fails, and the system’s alarm goes up by 1.

Alarm

Hacking isn’t just about getting what you want from a computer. It’s about getting what you want, and not getting caught while you’re getting it.

Each computer’s alarm begins at 0, which means nobody knows nothin’, and there ain’t any evidence for them to find if they go looking for it. Each time the hacker messes up whilst hacking, the alarm increases by 1. The higher the alarm gets, the more trouble the hacker is in.

1. A minor flag. There are tons of false positives at this level every day. It’s unlikely anyone will ever notice unless they have some other reason to investigate a possible hacking.
2. Yellow flag. At some point within the next day or so, security is going to make a thorough examination of the system, and realize it was hacked.
3. Red Flag. The sysadmin will receive a phone call at home, and is going to remotely check on the system. They will realize it is being hacked within a few minutes, to a few hours, depending on how urgently they treat the call.
4. Black Flag. A trace is made. The authorities are automatically contacted.

Actions

Logging into most computers will require passing a security check, and is required in order to perform any of the actions listed below. Once you’re in, though, passively viewing the terminal’s unsecured information can be done without any further checks. That includes stuff like company memos, and possibly some security cameras.

Of course there will be protected information that will require security checks to see. Security checks are also required for changing or downloading anything on the computer, or uploading something to it.

So if the hacker wants to help their companions sneak past a security camera, they’ll have to make one security check to access the computer, another to record 10 seconds of security camera footage, and a third to set the camera to play that 10 seconds over and over again on an endless loop.

If the Alarm is getting too high, and the player wants to try and lower it, they can do so. However, this requires a check made against a Security Rating of +1.

If the hacker wishes to access another computer on the same network, they may attempt to do so. Treat the new computer just as you would any new computer. The only difference is that the hacker is not physically present. Hacking across a network uses the target computer’s security rating, +1.

If the hacker would like to gain Root Access over a system, they’ll need to make a security check with four successes, instead of the usual two. There is no partial success for gaining Root Access. Once the players have that, they no longer need to make a security check for most actions they take on this computer, with only two exceptions: root access does not affect the chance of reducing the alarm rating, nor does it allow you to access any other computers on the network.

Equipment

Deck – A set of portable tools, necessary if you want to try to hack without getting access to a terminal. With a deck, a hacker can break in to devices like ATMs directly, or splice into a network cable to create their own terminal in a secluded location. The downside, of course, is that most hacking attempts have a +1 to their difficulty when made without direct access to the machine. Decks are an encumbering item.

Script – Scripts are digital items that are both expensive, and consumable. They’re most useful when hacking with a deck, where they can be used without needing to upload them first (which, of course, requires a security check).

If a script is available, it can be used to reroll one die per action. If the rerolled die comes up a 1, then the computer’s auto-patching function has discovered the exploit your script was using, and closed it. The script is now useless.

Breaking the Basics

For the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the most basic rules. The fundamental stuff, which forms the building blocks of most OSR games. How could they be changed to better serve the type of game I want to run? So I’ve been tinkering, and talking with folks on Google+, and I’ve got some ideas for what I’m going to do in my next campaign.

Or, put another way, I’ve decided that the OSR isn’t an obscure enough niche for me. I want to push myself further and further away from what anyone else is doing, until I’m the only one who likes anything that I do.

Saving Throws

Saving throws have two basic functions within the game. First, they serve as a kind of safety net. If the players make a mistake which should result in some dire consequence, a saving throw may allow them to get off easy. Second, saves are a good way to handle attacks which bypass armor or hit points. They’re a defense against the indefensible.

For both of these functions, the game works best when a saving throw is more likely to fail than to succeed. Players should be afraid of making mistakes, or of attacks which bypass their normal defenses. Yet by level 7, about half the saves in LotFP are in the single digits.

I don’t actually see why saves should improve at all as a character levels up. Why not give each class a set of saves, which just never change from what they are at 1st level?

Not only would this better maintain the sense of danger that should come with a saving throw, but it creates an interesting opportunity. Saving throws have always been a fairly static thing, tied strictly to a character’s class, and typically improving only as they level up. Because of this, the difference between them communicates a lot about what each class is.

For example, fighters traditionally have a very good poison save, and a very bad magic save. From that you can infer that fighters are hardy, but weak minded. And, if saving throws never improve from their level 1 values, then we don’t need to give them any room to grow, and we can make the differences between them more dramatic.

All of that being said, I could see myself allowing saving throws to improve once at level 10 or so. I think it could be fun to have something to look forward to that is so far down the line.

Armor Rating

I’ve said it many times before: rolling dice is not inherently fun. We should roll dice only when all potential results of the roll will produce interesting gameplay.

The hit roll, in combat, is a good example of this. There are two results: a hit, or a miss. Hits are interesting because something gets closer to being dead. Misses are interesting because they create an opportunity for the tables to be turned. If two foes are racing to see who can deplete the other’s hit points the fastest, the winner will probably be whoever misses the least.

So the potential for any attack to miss is interesting…but it’s not that interesting. Slugging matches where two sides roll attacks back and forth are probably the most boring situation in D&D. So when both sides repeatedly miss over and over again? That’s just excruciatingly dull.

Worse yet, it’s actually pretty common. Most OSR D&D variants make it fairly easy to get a character’s armor rating up so high that only one or two results on an unmodified d20 roll will be a successful hit.

To fight this, I’ve dropped the base armor class in my game down from 12, to 8. This means the target number for a hit roll will be between 8-15, rather than the 12-19 it is in RAW.

Of all the changes I’ve been considering recently, this is the only one I’ve already implemented in my game. It would be cruel to ask my players to raise their saving throws back up, after they’ve worked so hard to get them down. This change, however, is just a flat 20% increase in the number of hits across the board. So far, everyone seems to like it.

I could even see myself pushing a little further, to a base armor rating of 6. For now, though, 8 is working out pretty well, so I’m going to stick with it.

Speaking of Armor Rating…

I have made one other modification to armor, shamelessly pilfered from a game I played with Brendan of Necropraxis.

Players may wear up to 3 pieces of armor. Each piece counts as a single encumbering item, and can be pretty much anything. A character wearing a cape, a helmet, and a codpiece would count as fully armored, even if they were otherwise naked. Of course, improvised armor (“I put the pot on my head !”) is going to come with complications. (“Okay, but you’ll need to use one hand to hold it up high enough that it doesn’t cover your eyes.”)

Armors available in the early part of the game all provide +1 to the wearer’s armor rating. This means the best you can get for awhile is +3. +4 if you use a shield.

Eventually, players may be able to afford masterwork pieces of armor, or they may find them in dungeons. Each of these grants a +2 bonus. So, once you’ve got 3 of those, you’ll have a bonus to your armor rating of +6, which is equivalent to plate armor in LotFP.

Functionally, this isn’t all that different from the way the system works in RAW. Mostly I like it because it makes encumbrance easier, and encourages more whimsy in your character’s armor.

It does have the slight drawback of making it easier to be a caster in full armor. However, I’m not terribly worried about that, because I intend to make magic users more fragile in other ways.

Hit points & Damage

Nobody loves random character generation more than I do. It’s a great way to give the player a set of tools, which they then have to learn how to use on the fly. But what if we did the opposite of that? What if hit points were not random at all?

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve rolled up my fair share of 1hp fighters, and I’ve liked it. But if you throw too many random numbers together, it starts to feel meaningless. If I roll 1d6 for my hit points, and you roll 1d6 for your damage, that’s just a straight-up 50/50 chance that I’ll live or die. A coin flip with extra steps.

What I’m thinking is that Fighters start at 8 hit points, and gain 3 each level. Specialists start at 6 hit points, and gain 2 per level. Magic Users start at 4 hit points, and gain 1 per level. And, lastly, all damage is rolled using a single d6.

Now, I’m a pretty dumb guy, but the math on this seems pretty interesting to me. In the first combat of the day, the fighter has literally 0 chance of being taken out by a single hit. They can afford to be a little bold. Specialists could be killed by a single hit, by the chance is low. So they can flirt with combat, but they shouldn’t over commit themselves. Magic users, with their measly 4 hit points, have that 50/50 chance of dying, and so will stay back out of the way.

The way hit points progress reinforces that first level experience. For every 2 levels the fighter gains, they can survive a single max damage hit. The specialist needs 3 levels to get the same. The magic user gets a little more survivability over time, but will always be in serious danger around combat. They need to get to level 4 before they can reliably survive even a single hit, and to level 10 before they could survive a second.

For the record, the cap on damage at 1d6 extends to spells as well. I had originally thought I might eliminate all damaging spells entirely from my next campaign, pushing the MU into a support role. However, I think it could be interesting to allow the MU to learn damage spells, so long as those spells obey the same damage limitation as everything else.

Ability Scores

And now for the real blasphemy: no more ability scores.

I’ve been feeling for a long while that nobody really knows what they want to do with this hallowed old mechanic. Every system seems to run them slightly differently, but in the end it always boils down to the same basic thing. They add small bonuses and penalties to a variety of actions. The only difference is in what actions those bonuses and penalties are applied to, but whatever they are, it’s always underwhelming. Unworthy of the pride of place Ability Scores have in the character creation process.

I understand the appeal of keeping them. It’s the first step in creating any new character, and so ostensibly fundamental to the game that the first words in the LotFP core book are instructions for rolling Ability Scores. For many “roll 3d6 down the line” has become a sort of secret OSR handshake. It’s emblematic of the difference between modern and OSR D&D: no fluff, no hand holding, it just is what it is.

But despite all that emotional significance, I just don’t think they earn their keep. They take time and space which could be put to better use, either with a more interesting replacement, or simply by speeding the whole character creation process up by their absence.

Of course, if you use roll under checks, you’re probably thinking I’m fuggin crazy right now. Roll under checks _do_ make ability scores work. They are an elegant little mechanic with a lot of merit to them, but I don’t use them.

As to what I’ll replace ability scores with, I haven’t got it entirely worked out yet. My thought is to make a little table of bonuses the player can have to specific tasks. Basically doing the same thing ability scores did, but with more focus, and less unused fluff.

Blogs on Tape Update

I wasn’t sure if Blogs on Tape was going to resonate with people. Turns out, you all really like it! We’ve had a ton of vocal support from all over the OSR community. As a result, we will absolutely move forward with making new episodes.

The most common request I heard was that people wanted an RSS feed for the project. So, I’ve set up a site just for Blogs on Tape, which has its own RSS feed for your blog-listening convenience. The site itself is a little bare bones, but I hope to make it into a valuable resource over time. You may also notice there are two new episodes already available. I hope you enjoy them!

I’ve also managed to get Blogs on Tape set up on iTunes, which was a surprisingly nightmarish process. Hopefully it’s stable now, but if you encounter any issues let me know.
If you’re interested in contributing to the project, there are two things we need:

Blogs that we have official permission to read from. If you have a blog, and you’re okay with us reading posts from it, please let us know.
People who can do the readings and make the recordings. If you’ve got a halfway decent microphone, a quiet environment to use it in, and the ability to speak clearly, I’d love to have your help in getting these recordings made.

Future updates for this project will be mostly show up on the Blogs on Tape website, so I recommend everyone follow that if they’re interested.

Thanks for listening!