hermetic inoculation - Buddhism / Morrowind OD&D

 taking a break from the Internet, except for writing work, blog posts, research, and music. not doing anything social. those of you who know me on the discord are aware i retreat into hermetic semi-seclusion 3-4 times a year. i probably won't be very active again outside this blog until after Halloween, potentially until after new year. we'll see how it goes. if you really want to contact me for some reason I'm sure it'll happen.

in the mean time I'm tinkering with system stuff. my goal is to set up a system which matches my playstyle, which lends itself to quick generation of game content. i prefer to rely on randomization to cut down on prep time and increase player agency, and encourage me (the GM) to take a more backseat role in guiding the game. i like each session to be as much a surprise and discovery as my players. i don't like pretending to be in control or guiding the experience.

y'know, the reason why there are so many rulesets is because, if you want to do something other than totally vanilla rules as written d&d, if you wanna do *anything* out of the ordinary, you need houserules. if you have houserules you'll need a document of some kind. then, in order to educate players as to which rules you're keeping and which you're changing, you almost end up needing to rewrite the entire rulebook to some degree. 

thus, for every campaign there's the potential for a modified rulset to take shape. since GMs spend so much time tinkering with their stuff they get attached to it, make it wanna look nice, and before you know it they've put enough work in that, heck, i might as well put it out there.

the reason there's so few adventure modules, comparatively, is that at table play tends to be a mix of published stuff, original content, and heavily edited published stuff, stuff copied from elsewhere and spliced in. most people's games are pretty ad hoc compared to their carefully articulated rulesets, they take poor notes on what happened in the game, and their keying structure is often just what they need to run the game.

so then you have it people don't release as much of their adventure material. they crossbreed other people's content with their own gibberish and slop, and so it requires much more work to go back and replace all the recycled material with OC so people don't call you a thief 

of course, you could just take honor in being a thief and publish it anyway, hint hint. don't try to make money off it. just make it zines and fan work. this is a hobby, after all 

I'm not gonna lie, i really like the idea of skill systems for taking some of the weight off. i explain what that means below. Morrowind has a nice skill system, as does Worlds Without Number. What would happen if we mixed these things with my two favorite systems, OD&D and Knave? I'll be tinkering with these ideas over the next couple seasons.

=====

Attributes

Roll 3d6 for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma

score (adj)

3 (-2)

4-7 (- 1)

8-13 (+0)

14-17( +1)

18 (+2)

Strength - Adjusts melee attacks, used for feats of strength.

Dexterity - Ranged attacks, speed, agility, reflexes

Constitution - Used to resist poison, illness, exposure. You can carry 1.5x this many slots. You can survive this many days without food.

Intelligence - You start with Int/5 languages. Languages include elements of cultural familiarity. Occultists start with Int bonus +1 spells

Wisdom - insight into karmic vicissitudes, intuition, ability to deal with spirits appropriately.

Charisma - Affability, charm, wit, leadership. Adjusts reaction rolls. You can have half your Charisma in followers.

Attribute adjustment

You may subtract 2 points from one attribute to add 1 to another.

Saving Throws

Fortitude - overcoming with strength, effort, endurance. Adjusted by the better of Strength and Constitution.

Reflex - overcoming with agility, dexterity, reflexes. Adjusted by the better of Dexterity and Charisma.

Warding - overcoming with spirituality, intelligence, esoteric science. Adjusted by the better of Intelligence and Wisdom.

Each saving throw starts at 15, adding or subtracting your best attribute adjustment for each. To make a successful save, throw d20 Equal or Over the relevant saving throw. Each level you can distribute 3 points between saving throws.

At level 2 Maghada the Wise distributes 3 points between her saving throws. Her saves are Fort 14 Reflex 15 Warding 16. She puts 2 points into Fort, reducing it to 12, and one point into Warding, reducing it to 15.

Skill System

Difficulty

Rating

Easy

7

Average

9

Difficult

11

Impossible

13

Roll 2d6 + Attribute + Skill Level

Without the appropriate skill some things are impossible, like casting magic. Other things you can still attempt, like Riding a horse in difficult conditions, but incur a -1 penalty when it's clear none of your skills or backgrounds fit the situation. Further penalties and bonuses can be applied for careful planning, appropriate or inappropriate equipment, less than ideal environments, timing, etc. this is worked out via conversation between players and GM.

Lots of people groan about skills in OSR games, so I’ve never tried using them. This system is lifted straight out of WWN. I’m wondering if it’ll take some of the guesswork out of dealing with niche situations and coming up with, and remembering, new rulings for every case. This way I can just assign a difficulty, we pick out which skill and attribute makes the most sense, and throw. In some cases, like Sneak, Speech, Perception, they’ll be rolled behind the scenes so you don’t know when you’ve failed. In some cases, different skills with both fit the situation and we’ll all have to figure out what makes the most sense. Shrug. That’s the game. If it sucks we can throw it out.

Skill List

Administer - Running an organization, handling bureaucracy, performing scribal duties, identifying incompetent or treacherous workers, analyzing records or archives. Handling anything an executive or middle manager would do.

Alchemy - Treat wounds, cure diseases, neutralize poisons, diagnose problems of body and mind. Produce potions and poisons using alchemical ingredients.

Athletics - Run, Climb, Swim, Jump, Labor for long periods. Strength, Stamina, Coordination.

Combat - Knowing the art of war, being skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Added to attack rolls. each time you take combat you put a point into blades, axes, polearms, or clubs. Warrior-types like Nomad Blades get two-for-one when they spend points in Combat.

Connect - Finding people who are useful to your purposes, know who to talk to for favors or services, calling on help or resources of an organization you belong to. Covers ability to find people you need, though convincing them to help may require more.

Craft - Craft or repair items / technology appropriate to PC’s background. GM is within their rights to prevent PC from building complex things outside their background and experience.

Dharma - Understand the fundamental cosmic underpinnings of the world, perform clerical and ritual duties, familiarity with daemons, saints, and taboos, identify iconography, understand local faiths and religious hierarchies.

Language - Speak and write in a language, understand the culture and context of native speakers.

Leadership - Inspire others to follow you and believe in your plans and goals. Manage subordinates, encourage loyalty and motivation. A successful skillcheck can prevent morale decay and route of followers.

Lore - Know matters of history, geography, natural science, zoology, and other academic fields appropriate to a scholar. Some might specialize in a specific field, otters may have a broad range of understanding.

Magic - Cast or analyze magic, know things about famous magicians or magical events. non-occultists with this only obtain intellectual benefits. there's like d8 schools of magic and you have to spend skill points for each style.

Marksman - Firing a crossbow, maintaining ranged weapons. primitive, black powder, hurlant.

Mercantile - Running a successful business, buying/selling, identifying the worth of goods/treasures, dealing with merchants, finding blackmarket, knowing smuggling law

Perception - Identify ambushes, hear distant sounds, notice small details or concealed objects, find secret doors or traps. Frequently rolled secretly as a result of PC actions.

Perform - Sing, dance, orate, perform impressively for an audience. Compose music, plays, writings, or other performance arts. Most have a field they specialize in, though polymaths may exist if PC’s background is appropriate.

Profession - Pick some mundane workaday job thing you did in your past life. Bricklaying, Blacksmith, Incense Roller, Midwife, Well Digger, whatever. Make something up or I’ll get a list.

Ride - Handling riding animals and beasts of burden, driving carts / wagons, carriage repair, judging a good horse, shoeing.

Sail - Sail or reair ship, build small craft, navigate by stars, read sea weather, manage sailors.

Speechcraft - Persuade a listener. The more implausible or repugnant the claim, the more difficult. How they act on their new conviction is up to them and their motivations, not always predictable.

Stealth - Moving silently, hiding in shadows, picking pockets, disguise, pick locks, defeat small mechanisms. Hack security bots?

Survival - hunt, fish, navigate by the stars, deal with environment, identify plants / wildlife, craft survive tools and shelter.

Technology - familiarity with hyper-advanced technology from bygone ages. may be able to identify, use, or even repair ancient relics.

Unarmed - Fighting unarmed. Pugilism, grappling.

The Use of Skills

 The function of skills is intentionally loose and open to interpretation. some of them overlap with each other to cover different bases. for instance, a character with lore and one with technology may both be able to identify an alien artifact, but the character with technology may have better odds since the specifics align more closely with his domain. on the flip side, a character with lore+4 may have better odds than a character with tech+1 for identification, history, and source of said object, but likely wouldn't know how to use or repair it, as lore is considered of a more scholarly than practical knowledge. 

Skills are intended to aid in making more consistent rulings and support diegetic play, rather than act as strict rules or replace at-table discussion. The GM is encouraged to pick the closest option and move on rather than stick a player with a -1 penalty for not having the right skill.

D20 Background (will flesh these out later)

1

Artisan

blacksmith, tanner, carpenter

2

Barbarian

savage, hermit, wildman

3

Carter

hauling goods, riding post

4

Courtesan

prostitute, geisha

5

Criminal

thief, conman, burglar

6

Hunter

trapper, recluse

7

Laborer

skilled or unskilled worker

8

Merchant

trader, peddler, shopkeeper

9

Noble

spare son, exile, black sheep

10

Nomad

raider, tribal wanderer

11

Peasant

Peasant farmer, rural laborer, serf

12

Performer

bard, dancer, singer

13

Physician

village healer, chirurgeon

14

Priest

monk, ascetic, holy hermit

15

Sailor

bargeman, fisherman, pirate

16

Scholar

Scholar sage, mage’s apprentice

17

Slave

indentured laborer, runaway

18

Soldier

bandit, mercenary, guardsman

19

Thug

ruffian, gang member, village bully

20

Wanderer

exile, explorer, traveler

though a few interesting details are nice, long character back stories are discouraged.at most a quick paragraph in broad strokes is plenty. if you need an exact number keep it at 5 sentences or less.

 the game is about facing difficult dilemmas, making the best of bad situations - more about how our values come into conflict with reality, and how the goals we achieve in the end often aren't the ones we set out after. How you change, and the world changes with you, for better or worse.

karma

a character's karma can be chaotic, neutral, or lawful. how this is interpreted is up to the player. karma has background mechanics invisible to the players which affects various situations. it's possible a PC's karma can change enough to warrant a shift in alignment, though this will likely be rare and you'll never be held accountable for sticking to an alignment designation - you're always free to change your ways at any moment. if you're unsure, just pick neutral.

Leveling up

all classes use the same XP progression. prime requisites offer extra features and better abilities rather than XP adjustments.

PCs earn XP by defeating enemies, showing mercy, upholding difficult vows, finding clever ways around obstacles, recovering valuable treasures, completing quests, restoring shrines, purifying corrupted areas, and making personal sacrifices for the benefit of strangers. 

100xp is average, though it can be more depending on the potency. XP is awarded at the end of the session. this is less about playing to your particular character concept and more about making meaningful decisions and development as a person in the world. don't ask “what would my character do?” ask “what would *I* do?”

1g = 10xp

treasure and XP is split between the entire party, including henchmen who each take a 1/2 share for themselves first, the rest divided between the players. some henchmen may make additional demands according to their personality, karma, and morale. henchmen tend to be scrupulous and may behave unreasonably if they feel cheated.

an easy way to figure this is to divide the treasure by twice the number of total people in the pot (PCs+henchmen) to get the value of a half share. multiply it by the number of hechmen to get their earnings, which is subtracted from the total pot. the remainder is divided evenly by players.

a party of 3 PCs and 5 henchmen loot 200g.

200 divided by 16 = a half share of 12.5. times 5 henchmen is 62.5 total paid to the henchmen

the remaining 137.5 is divided between the players for 45.8g each.

if you wanted henchmen to get a third share instead you could multiply the total number of party members by three and divide the treasure by that to get the henchman's share.

i used to avoid doing this because i thought math was scary, but it's a lot of fun to imagine the hechmen’s greedy faces, sticking out their tongues and rubbing their hands together, as they eagerly wait on the PC that can actually do basic math to divide the treasure.

thinking about separating class types into warrior, magician, specialist, or adventurer types, allowing them to get two-for-one when they put points in appropriate skills.

OR maybe they pick major, minor, and misc skills like in Morrowind.

whatever will be fastest. 

I'll probably come back and add some art later.

Small games for small people

 

In a funk. Peeling all the onion layers back and discarding things that complicate my life. Taking a step back from OSR and d&d in general.

Lately I've been sort of working on two video games. Both of them take heavy cues from the original Legend of Zelda.

The first one is a first person dungeon crawler made in RPG maker. You make a party of 4 characters (two classes: fighter and mage). Open world. Explore around, talk to people, trade treasure for EXP. There's no "point" to the game, no storyline. Considering adding some basic win condition like "find princess Ophelia and ask her to come back home".

The second game is a first person walking simulator made in Unity where you sometimes fight creatures. Again, no point, no story. It's more like King's Field for the PS1 but more open ended and less fighting.

Basically I'm tired of things needing to be polished, needing to eat up your time, demanding money and attention. I feel like the OSR does a lot of that stuff. I'm more interested in searching out meaningless liminal freeware crap.

I want a game that feels like being a tiny beetle with a sword checking out stuff in a garden world, like an old log surrounded with wildflowers but zoomed in microscopically. Maybe you fight a centipede or a sparrow, but the game is really just "cool a flower" "here's a piece of paper with a poem" "sweet, a blueberry +1 hp"

When I was a kid I liked to lift up rocks and gaze with wonder at the sub-world I found there. A toad, a termite and an ant nest that share a few tunnels, rolly-polies, a few sprays of purslanes.

There's magic in smallness, modesty, and quiet wonder. No need to save dragons, fight kingdoms, or rescue wizards. When you get a magic sword +1 that's the best sword in the game. Max level is 5. Your hero is adventuring not because they're a social outcast but because they're curious.

As for tabletop RPGs I'm not playing anything at the moment, but I re-read the rules for Knave and I'm enthralled all over with the idea of a game that takes 1 minute to set up a character, is so pared down that next to zero explanation is required, and still has mechanics for getting better at stuff, and has no classes. Get the boring stuff out of the way so we can crawl around in holes and sometimes get a +1 thing.

Oh yeah, I'm fine with non-descript +1 swords and gaining a level means nothing more than a few more HP and +1 stat increase. 

Instead of d100 spells what if you had like d20 spells and in order to cast them you had to collect WHISPERS. What is a whisper? It's just a bit of lore or an interesting experience. You spend a whisper to cast a spell.

You learn a new spell/knack by being taught it by someone magical (a wizard, gnome, fox, midwife)

1. Heal d6+2 HP, or heal illness.

2. Cause.d6+2 damage.

3. Create an illusion.

4. Make somebody fall asleep.

5. Hide in shadows.

6. Foil a lock.

7. Find your way.

8. Make somebody else get lost.

9. Produce a day's worth of food.

10. Talk to an animal.

11. Mend something broken.

12. Calm fear or anger.

13. Change the weather.

14. Assume a terrifying aspect.

15. Be invulnerable for a few minutes.

16. Float.

17. Breathe underwater.

18. Create a wall of stone.

19. Generate a bright light.

20. Make an enemy into a friend.

Gaming with Kids: an Introduction

 This is the first part of a series on playing tabletop roleplaying games with children. We'll cover the why's and how's, followed by specific instructions on making and running an OSR campaign for kids between the ages of 7 and 12.

Gaming with children is a unique experience for many reasons. Kids are naturally creative, their minds are unrestricted by the hard boundaries of adult rationality, and pretending imaginary worlds comes naturally to them. At the same time, as an adult, any interaction you have with a child will also be instructive. They see into you, and imitate you. It's not that they think 'I want to be like this person' and purposefully add your actions to their repertoire. It's that they naturally absorb the mannerisms and ways of being of those around them because it's how they learn.

 Children are impressionable. This is fact. They thirst to learn about the world and everything they do, from playing pretend house, to knocking over lamps, to burning an egg on the stove before you even wake up, is about learning how to be in this world. They're practicing being adults.

This is important to bear in mind when we give them media to take in. The media becomes their reality. If this media is violent, neurotic, and non-nonsensical, they will absorb this into themselves. Whatever they see is what they learn about the world, and they integrate it in a deep way that becomes the shadow-self or unconscious, that they will carry for the rest of their lives.

That is why we, as adults and caretakers, have the responsibility of screening the types of media children are allowed to consume. They don't have this ability themselves. They absorb everything they come into contact with and make it part of themselves, like sponges. If we show them a world crazed and dangerous, they come to believe, unconsciously, that the world is crazed and dangerous. If we show them a world that is gentle, and loving, and full of magic, they integrate this. Likely, through our own incompetence and oversight, they will integrate something in between.

The hope is that we give them a foundation which will raise them above the haphazard rearing we were given, so that they can carry the next generation in a better direction, and make the world better too.

It is not our jobs to teach children under the age of 12 about the dangers of the world. Children do not need to know about cruelty, irony, sarcasm, war, bitterness, and loss. These are lessons to be learned later. At a young age they are busy integrating the foundation for their psyche. They need stories that will uplift them, give them hope, give them something to model their own behavior on, and allow them to see beauty and wonder in the world.

Fairy tales, animal fables, and folklore are appropriate stories for children. They have action and adventure, but presented a way which is whole. That is to say that the verisimilitude of these self-contained stories shows a world which is self-contained, a mirror of our own, and can teach us what the world is like with the use of archetypes. These archetypes, like the hero who leaves home, the beautiful princess, the wicked step-mother, the wily fox, the ugly duckling, are fragments of the self we carry within, and when children learn these stories it helps them to unfold a part of themselves, together, with a caring adult, into thoughtful, caring adults themselves.

  Some carefully selected movies and TV shows can be appropriate in certain settings (we allow our oldest daughter to watch most Miyazaki films, and Avatar the Last Airbender, but only together with us as a family). We don't allow unrestricted, unmonitored screen time, and as a family use screens as little as we can get away with. Obviously, I'm writing this on a computer. There are simply some tasks that computers are better at. Raising your kids for you is not one of them.

Playing pretend allows children to act out the things they've witness. It gives them an opportunity to comprehend it by integrating it into their bodies. By acting out daily life in the form of pretend games, alone or with other children, they make the lessons complete and real. All pretend games children play have this instructive quality. It is their way of making sense of the world. 

Children who witness violent or confusing media without an adult present to turn to for stability frequently get stuck reliving these images, as their minds, as-of-yet unable to comprehend what they've seen, cannot integrate it. They have no basis for understanding such things, as they're still in the process of developing their worldview. Thus these confusing imagine become part of their worldview, and they spend the rest of their lives trying to understand it. Don't believe me? Go talk to anyone under the age of forty and ask what their childhood was like, and how it affected them. Go ahead, I'll wait.

On the same token, as important as it is for children to play pretend and to receive affirm, instructive stories from adults, I think it's inappropriate for adults to 'get down on their level' and play pretend games with children. Adults do not have the free imagination to do this successfully, the way children do. We are stuck in our ways, inflexible, and self-conscious, unable to truly let go and get lost in another world. Children can't help but do this. They don't need verisimilitude. They enter and live in imaginary worlds like a fish does to water.

 As adults we've already developed our inner-world, thus when we play pretend we are merely reenacting what is already integrated into us, rather than integrating something new. It is impossible for us to truly 'get down' on their level, because we are as different by nature as avocados and potatoes. We may have the same general shape, but inside and out we are not the same.

There are, however, some games which are appropriate to play with children. Adults who play pretend games with children force the children into their own adult rules-bound world. Gentle rough-hosing, peekaboo, and hide-and-seek are all games which have rules and put all players on the same footing, no matter age, ability, or cognitive preparedness. Board game, as long as they aren't the overly complicated multi-hour affair, can meet this criteria.

Likewise, I've found that Dungeons & Dragons is another type of game which can be successfully be played between adults and children. It allows the adult to enter the role of rule-holder; the Dungeon Master, who creates a sensible world governed by it's own internal logic, which is what the integrated adult mind is good at. Then, the child/children can enter as players, free to make their own choices and dream up solutions to problems, which is what young minds are good at. We can enter the game playing to each other's strengths, and imagine a world together which is creative and new, without impinging on each other's abilities. The great thing about D&D is that, unlike adults, children generally need no instruction on how to play.

When we play D&D with kids it's important that we give them scenarios that they are ready for. Overt violence, dismemberment, human sacrifice, cruelty, and the downfall of mankind are not scenarios for children. Violence can play a role if it is presented as mystical transformation, or as humans overcoming uncertainty, or as the establishment of an ordered world over a chaotic one. We don't need to reenact realistic medieval society, we need to give symbols and archetypes which can be integrated easily.

Thus D&D games based in a fairy tale-type setting are perfect. They come ready-made. We can simply drop in fairy-tale monsters, happenings, and magic and go from there.

The next post in this series will be about this.

What the fuck is a table?

I'm an utterly disorganized person. My ethereal form is a raucous tornado of collages, warping and changing and connecting in disproportionate amalgams. Scatterbrained doesn't even begin to cover it. I'm like a vulture-porcupine shedding worms in all directions, everywhere I go. If an assassin wanted to track me they'd only have to follow the inch-thick trail of bodily effluvient to my doorstep.


Tables are supposed to make a DM's life easier. You throw on a table for a random result to simulate the vagaries of life, or to stimulate creative juices in a way your mammalian brain wouldn't otherwise figure.

There's tables for everything. Everything is a table, from the scars on your face to the produce of a mushroom forest. The key of fun d&d experiences is randomness; even the DM should be surprised at what  comes out. That's what attracts me to the game to begin with--unlimited potential and endless modularity.

I never seem to have the table I want when I need it, or I can't find it amongst the pile of paper I keep my scraps in while the players are patiently staring at me for what's going to happen. Most of the time I just scribble down d12 regurgitated insults and roll a die on it, that's my table, usually the number of things on the table don't match the faces on the die. Spur of the moment. Let's try it now:

never critically fail a bushcrafting throw in my universe

Dangers of foraging in the fungal forest

1. white spore ball, oozes cyan pus when cut. Everything that gets its spores on it will grow more spore balls in d4+1 days.
2. evergrowing cornhats. straw yellow stalks w brown hates. Grows magnificently fast and tall. Tastes of blood and celery. Nourishing, but gives you horrible numbing premonitions when your body dumps adrenaline for d3 days.
3. Squat eyed maroon. Hums a geometric tune. Grows by water source. Very bouncy. Turns into slime on contact with water and begins to crawl away into a dark hole where it can sporulate. Hunks of it can be attached to wounds which will regenerate within hours. Afterwards, if the user dies, their body is taken over by the purple jelly and they run away.
4. beige skullpoppies. Shaped like yellow skulls growing out of the ground. Wizardsight gives them fleshy faces. Will talk to those touched by fey and know things that all other skullcaps in the forest see. Desire the contents of stomachs for nourishment. Eventually grows into a fullsized skeleton and begins searching for flesh.
5. Boulderbloat. Car or house sized boulder funguses, hard as rocks. Gnomes often carve their homes into them. Occassionally they grow legs and start walking around. They have a mutually beneficial relationship: Gnomes get a house and boulderbloats get wee little magical gardeners to dote on. Humans that spend too much time around boulderbloats grow spiraling glowing blue lines on their bodies and sprout antennas, eventually growing a boulderbloat out of their back and becoming one.
6. Carnagecage. Look like large ribcages filled with diseased intestines. Animals are driven to eat it. Ribcage snaps closed on anything that touches its soft inner jellies, which it digests & transforms into a budding spore stalk. The sporestalks of this fungus make a great tea which calms nerves & invigorates senses. Highly addictive
7. Pukebush. A throbbing bush-sized welt of ectoplasmic goop. Grows blue pustules that contain its spores. Contact with spores causes uncontrollable vomiting, with the possibility of vomiting forth one's intestines. If the pukebush is burned it releases a toxic smoke that enrages animals of the forest. At the core of a pukebush is a bezoar which is the main constituent of a trans-dimensional prophylactic
8. Virulant Beneficter. A human shaped mushroom, white and blue. Ingesting the virulant beneficter fills one with a sense of duty & higher purpose of the Lawful Good kind. Overwhelming desire to help those in need. Hallucinations last d20+4 hours after which ingester falls into a misanthropic stupor.

Probably a table like this will just be the names and I'll know what it does based on a flash on insight. I dunno where the insight comes from, but even just the act of writing a table sparks something.

The expressed purpose of a table is that you roll on it and interpret the result. But it's impossible to keep track of and organize a bazillion tables for every little thing, and it's silly to try. I think the real purpose of  a table is to act as a quantum cranial stimulant for moments of dire need. You're like "They rolled a crit. huh. oh yeah, that neat crit table I read once...I kind of remember a couple of result I'll throw a d6.......5? What is 5? So like, he smashes the dude's leg off with the warhammer and it goes flying and stabs another guy in the face with the broken bone okay."

I can't imagine someone actually pulling out a crit table and rolling on it to get a result. How do you keep track of all this stuff? Just make something up, something grotesque and brutal which changes the course of the fight in an unexpected way. You don't need a table for that, and the table won't give you enough information to actually go off of, you have to interpret it anyway, so just go with the fiction.

Continuing on the crit table thing, that's really what differentiates weapons in my games, since I use d6 for all damage. Axes lop off limbs, maces crush bones and armor, polearms hit first and run guys through, swords are quick, flashy and strike true, daggers are sleek and cruel, bows impale stomachs and hearts and  eye cavities. I'm more likely to give a guy wielding a sword a bonus attack on an excellent roll than a guy with an axe. I don't need a table for that, I just know it in my marrow.


Tables are better for world building. It's your day off, you chugged a bunch of coffee, you guess you can deal with the consequences of ignoring all your piling-up responsibilities for one more day while you spent 6 to 8 hours frantically kludging together a nonsense world nobody will ever see. Pile together a bunch of tables and go nuts.

but oops, I forgot to save the bookmarks for all those grade A high-falutin'  tables, or I can feel my energy waning at the thought of sifting through my megaplex of computerized folders, none of it organized, or I go searching and quickly get sidetracked into reading and dreaming about guild dogs for four hours and get nothing useful done. So, I'll just write my own fucking tables.

Vancian magic is a core aspect of d&d which I am unwilling to part with for this reason: The very act of being a DM is Vancian magic. You pull out all your tomes, all your weird books on Fortean history & bongo science & obscure mythology, all your graph papers and quill pens and crystals and Tibetan mantra spirals, all your nightmare journals and hallucinogenic teas and homemade musical instruments and you pack it all into your fucking brain. You sit there and you study this soup of gibberish it takes a borderline schizophrenic to comprehend and you pack it all into your skull until it's threatening to burst out through the seams. Then, during the game, you go and regurgitate it all and weave a world of mystery and magic.

Afterwards you forget all of it. You collapse exhausted. In order to do it next time, you have to do it all over again, and the more you do it, the better you get and the more stuff you can fit in there fore next time.

Tables are one small piece of the meta-fractal.