Pick pockets results charts!

I've been doing a spot of musing lately on what  sort of things could result when a PC thief attempts a bit of petty pocket picking on the side in between adventures. This comes up every so often, especially now we have three thieves in the party, and I'm never properly prepared for the event. Unprepared no longer!

I present my lovingly crafted pick pockets results charts! (Players in my campaign, please don't look at the charts, unless you love spoiling fun that is ;)

This is the second draft of these charts. The initial version I came up with included a lot more extreme results -- including being able to pilfer some pretty valuable items, and the accompanying possibility of severe punishment (incarceration or execution!). After some discussion with the players we decided that, while this was realistic, it wasn't much fun. So the final tables have been kind of smoothed out. Items of moderate wealth can be stolen, and moderately bad consequences of failure may occur, but nothing at either extreme.

I hope some other DM out there might also find these charts useful!

The devil is in the details - Many Fey, Some Fey

Some time ago I created (and posted) a set of tables of random racial characteristics for Dwarrow and Ratfolk characters in my campaign. Following last week's PC massacre, there have been some new character being rolled up. Among them are two Fey (not coincidentally, as the party was decimated by ghouls, and Fey are immune to their paralysis!). So this morning I came up with similar tables for Fey (including a few entries from the original Elf "Devil is in the details" article in Fight on!).

Many Fey

1. Have an unusual number of fingers (roll 1d6 + 2, re-rolling if you end up with four!).
2. Have hair which animates or changes colour depending on their mood.
3. Lie as a matter of course.
4. Are 90% resistant to sleep and charm person.
5. Guard their true name with their lives.
6. Have the attention span of a gnat.
7. Feel a great affinity to one type of animal.
8. Love games of chance.
9. Apparently sprang into existence fully formed, having no memory of a childhood or family.
10. Have an irrational hatred of one specific thing (gnomes, horses, moonlight, etc), and fly into a rage when encountering it.
11. Love all forms of art, especially pieces which other races would regard as incomprehensibly convoluted.
12. Find humans and dwarrow endlessly boring.
13. Are terrified of spirits and undead.
14. Refuse to have anything to do with cosmic powers, including acceptance of cleric spells being cast upon them.
15. Only have a 1 in 6 chance of needing to sleep each night.
16. Carry an array of small charms to protect against all manner of things.
17. Have a 30% chance of reflecting sleep or charm person back onto the caster.
18. Are prone to addiction, and start play with a penchant for: 1. alil, 2. fine spirits, 3. yellow powder, 4. exotic pipe-weed.
19. Have silver, gold, or violet hair.
20. Suffer from fits of insanity (10% chance per day, lasting one day, roll on the table in the DMG p.83).
21. Can detect subtle psychic impressions in objects, getting a feeling of the appearance and mood of the last person who touched the object.
22. Actually physically disappear when they sleep, vanishing to a dream dimension.
23. Have an imaginary friend (though of course they claim it is real) with whom they converse.
24. Find water distasteful and will only drink wine or fruit juices.
25. Can generate minor electrical shocks.
26. Have eyes of an unusual colour (violet, pure white, silver, etc).
27. Are able to cast a single 1st level spell once per day, selected from the list of fey sorcerer spells.
28. Have a deep love and respect for the ancient line of fey nobility.
29. Find humour in almost anything, even at totally inappropriate moments.
30. Are deeply superstitious, having a long list of things which are supposed to bring good or bad luck.

Some Fey

1. Have a sadistic bent.
2. Have almost no concept of self-preservation, making them completely reckless.
3. Speak to themselves in a private language which only they understand.
4. Will not die from ageing.
5. Insist on things (people, items, plans, etc) being assigned numerical values.
6. Harbour the desire to mate with a being of another (perhaps unusual) race.
7. Have detailed memories of a past life (possibly as another race).
8. Are incredibly avaricious, but only seek wealth of a very particular kind (emeralds, pearls, platinum, gold rings, etc).
9. Are completely hedonistic and do not care a whit for the future.
10. Prefer to not enter the fey dimension, for reasons of their own.
11. Have a habit of pronouncing personal names backwards, and will not reveal the reason for this.
12. Both fear and desire to know the deep places below the earth.
13. Value logic and rationality over all else.
14. Breed new animals in pursuit of a singular vision.
15. Can detect the influence of cosmic powers, as a cleric. If successful, become terrified, enraged or sick (equal chance).
16. Find books and writing to be delightful curiosities.
17. Have a twin which resulted from a spontaneous division. The two twins' personalities are usually radically at odds.
18. Refuse to use a personal name of any kind.
19. Shower friends with gifts.
20. Will only dress in a specific colour.
21. Study an ancient spiritual text which is written entirely in indecipherable code which generations of fey have failed to crack.
22. Have star-shaped pupils. The number of points on the star is deemed auspicious.
23. Are fascinated by light, and will spend long hours gazing into prisms or beams of sunlight.
24. Are strange and silent.
25. Study a complex system of astrology which can only be applied in retrospect.
26. Are unaffected by all but the most extreme changes in temperature and weather.
27. Trace their ancestry to another world.
28. Are haunted by animals of a certain species, which they believe are spies.
29. Cannot conceal their emotions.
30. Will swiftly die if imprisoned.

The devil is in the details – Some Dwarrow, Some Rat-People

Continuing on from the other day's post about "Many Dwarrow, Many Rat-People", here's the remainder of the characteristics of those races. Each PC exhibits one of these.

Some Dwarrow

1. Are completely hairless.
2. Carve hideous statues in honour of the gods of the fathomless darkness of the earth.
3. Are sickened by acts of kindness.
4. Are loyal and courageous to the point of foolhardiness.
5. Find the feel of cloth unpleasant, preferring to always wear metal.
6. Are wider than they are tall.
7. View Law and consistency as the most important virtues, even unto death.
8. Have a twisted sadistic streak, and make excellent torturers.
9. Spend one month of each year in a state of deep slumber.
10. Have more than one father.
11. Have replaced all their teeth with metal replicas.
12. Pity and try to guide other races, who are weak-willed and lacking in purpose.
13. View the giving and receiving of gifts as ultimately debasing.
14. Have the patience of a rock.
15. Become students of history, coveting scriptures and records from ancient times.
16. Have seen awful things in the deeps of the earth, which they are at once terrified of and lust after.
17. Are sterile and unable to reproduce.
18. Apparently do not age.
19. Live by an odd conception of time, often mixing up past and future.
20. Have no imagination.
21. Can detect subtle vibrations in stone, warning them of approaching or recently passed creatures.
22. Are members of a rebellious sect which proposes tenets such as “kindness”, “equality” and “generosity”.
23. Spend their whole lives preparing an elaborate crypt for themselves and their descendants
24. Play a droning, melancholic music on horns and pipes.
25. Secretly plot treason against their kin with the hope of becoming a great ruler.
26. Have one true purpose in their lives, which was determined at birth.
27. Keep their soul in a rock.
28. Feel no kinship with their own people, becoming wanderers looking for a home.
29. Are terrified of magic and those who use it.
30. Will gladly die defending their home and people.

Some Rat-People

1. Have a spiteful malicious streak.
2. Intermittently experience pre-cognitive dreams.
3. Speak in rhyme and riddle.
4. Can grip small items with their tail.
5. Have sinister red eyes.
6. Are incredibly impatient.
7. Can use their sense of smell to follow recent tracks.
8. Suffer from a hunger which is never sated, and risk become obese.
9. Refuse to eat the flesh of domesticated animals.
10. Believe in reincarnation and that all talk of an “afterlife” is a deadly spiritual trap.
11. Will only wear clothing of a specific favoured colour.
12. Memorize elaborate family histories.
13. Dream of sailing to unknown lands.
14. Find sunlight distasteful.
15. Never forget a face.
16. Follow a mysterious spiritual path of renunciation of material wealth.
17. Are captivated by the moon, often spending long hours gazing at it.
18. Feel an irresistible urge to delve into the deeps of the earth.
19. Are experts on gourmet food and fine wines.
20. Become infuriated at the sight of waste and decadence.
21. Find the touch of stone unpleasant, preferring the warmth of earth or wood.
22. Have beautiful silver fur.
23. Can live to be over 200 years old.
24. Are equally at home creeping on all fours as they are standing upright.
25. Have a lust for gems and silver which rivals that of the Dwarrow.
26. Can grip with their feet.
27. Are of the opinion that a cosy home is the highest achievement in life.
28. Experience a waxing and waning between extremes of personality.
29. Are so excitable that they can rarely sit still or sleep.
30. Give personal names to inanimate objects.

The devil is in the details – Many Dwarrow, Many Rat-People

Inspired recently by the "devil is in the details" concept developed by Kesher in Fight On!, I decided to start creating these tables of random racial features for my Old Aalia campaign. First up are two d30 tables which describe some of the most common traits of Dwarrow and Rat-People. The concept is that each newly created character of these races should roll for three of these traits.

Many Dwarrow

1. Have only three fingers.
2. Stretch their ear lobes by hanging pebbles from them.
3. Smoke a sweet smelling pipe-weed which is intoxicating to humans.
4. Find humans physically repulsive.
5. Believe that Dwarrow are the rightful possessors of all metals and stones.
6. Have no sense of taste.
7. View avarice as the highest emotion.
8. Can subsist by eating gravel alone.
9. Have thick, slow-oozing blood.
10. Worship Ogremoch, lord of the dark, cold earth, whom they view as the creator of the world.
11. Are driven mad by the sound of music.
12. Follow an ancient creed of 111 rules known as Bag-Hran.
13. Dream of conquering and ruthlessly enslaving other races.
14. Hate and fear water.
15. Eat enormous quantities of bland food, apparently without pleasure.
16. Carve likenesses of themselves in stone.
17. Do not sleep but just go still for precisely 8 hours.
18. Like to mock other races openly.
19. Become obsessed with hoarding a certain type of item.
20. Have a black tongue.
21. Practice the art of counting, internally maintaining an increasing count through their whole lives.
22. Will only sleep on bare stone.
23. Participate in ritualistic orgies.
24. Believe that one who eats a diet of gold will live forever.
25. Feel a kinship with a specific type of stone, determined by the auspices of their birth.
26. Keep a small book in which they write in code.
27. Are covered in warts and lumps, which they are secretly ashamed of.
28. Never sweat and have completely odourless bodies.
29. Are of the opinion that the human conception of the soul is a laughably childish attempt to mask the grim truth of reality.
30. Have extremely long names, and up to 17 secret names reserved for specific rituals.

Many Rat-People

1. Happily eat food which is well past its prime.
2. Are trained in a craft of spiteful pranks to be applied to the arrogant and vain (often involving needles and irritating poisons).
3. Superstitiously carve little animal figurines from bone and wood.
4. Delight in clockwork.
5. Are expert swimmers.
6. Can speak with rats.
7. Excel at poetry and riddles.
8. Abhor the concept of slavery or service.
9. Try to remain neutral in all disputes.
10. Love to keep pets, which they groom and adorn with ribbons.
11. Brew a fish-wine in odd stills made from guts.
12. Practice a unique craft, something between sculpture and smell-art.
13. Find humans' religious and philosophical opinions endlessly funny.
14. Do not view theft as a crime, seeing it rather as a joke to be played on the stupid.
15. View writing as a pointless arrogance of the “tall races”.
16. Believe that their folk descended from the moon.
17. Awake instinctively at dawn.
18. Adorn their tails with rings and bells.
19. Have no concept of marriage.
20. Love dancing to music played on pipes and flutes.
21. Protect their possessions obsessively and elaborately.
22. Cannot keep a secret.
23. Have an acute sense of smell, and make no differentiation between pleasant and foul.
24. Find humans incredibly attractive.
25. Bury valuable items.
26. Have no understanding of the concept of nobility.
27. Shave spiral patterns from their fur.
28. Have a detailed and on-going alternate life in their dreams, in which they are usually slaves.
29. Practice a wide array of fortune-telling techniques.
30. Believe that it is an honour to bestow equal favour and disfavour upon others.

3 new random tables: Stuff to do between adventures

Note: Players in my game, you'd better not read these tables!

In my Labyrinth Lord game I've wholeheartedly adopted Jeff's party like it's 999 carousing concept. My take on it has been as follows:

• After any session a character can choose to go carousing.
• The PC can spend any amount of gold they want, and gains that much XP in return. (Of course, the usual limit of not being able to gain more than one experience level in one go still applies!)
• They also roll a die (any type). If it comes up odd, then the DM rolls on the carousing results table, which indicates a noteworthy event which occurred during the character's boozing. Some of these are beneficial, some are detrimental, some are funny, and some may lead to adventures.

I've mainly adopted this rule as a means to speed up character advancement a bit. As you can see I've modified it a bit from Jeff's original version, in that there's no randomness involved in the amount of money the PC spends. It just seemed simpler this way, and the carousing results table contains enough entries forcing the PC to spend more than they intended.

In addition to using this system for carousing, I've offered PCs two more ways to turn gold into XP: by making sacrifices to cosmic powers (deities, demi-gods, devils, demons, elemental princes, etc), or by engaging in magical research. (The latter is, obviously, only open to magic-users, and probably requires a laboratory or at least a home base.)

Of course, these activities also needed some interesting tables of random results. I've just finished writing up the last one, so I thought I'd share what I've created. Here they are as PDFs:

• Carousing results
• Results of sacrifices to cosmic powers
• Magical research results
  

The carousing results table is obviously heavily inspired by Jeff's original, but I've altered some entries, and expanded the whole thing up to a d30 table.

The sacrifices table contains entries suggested by kelvingreen, anarchist and Daddy Grognard. Thanks guys!

Hope someone else finds them useful / enjoyable!

2d30

I am now the proud owner of two d30 dice. Until recently I've always been of the opinion: "well no game I own or have ever played or am ever likely to play uses a d30, so why would I buy one?". Then the other day I came to think about random tables, and how to get the most "bang for your buck", so to speak. How to make a single roll pack in the biggest possible random factor -- and of course, the (or at least one) answer is to use dice with more faces.

For example, rolling 2d10 (d%) gives 10 x 10 = 100 possible results. Rolling 2d20 gives 20 x 20 = 400 possible results. Whereas 2d30 gives 30 x 30 = 900 possible results! Now, I'm not thinking of making tables with 900 individual entries, I'm thinking rather along the lines of combinatorial tables, such as the following 2d6 table of dubious use:

Roll - Adjective - Noun
1 - Grubby - Hat
2 - Mouldy - Radish
3 - Sprightly - Warhorse
4 - Half-hearted - Willow
5 - Lounging - Minstrel
6 - Winnowed - Balustrade

That sort of thing. And those are the kind of tables where it's hardly any more difficult to think up results for 2d30 (60 entires) than it is for 2d10 (20 entries), but the resulting number of combinations is a whole world of different.

There you have it.