…Friday’s Mystery Meat…1d20 Table of Random City Encounters

~ Attention, here’s an update on tonight’s dinner. It was veal, I repeat, veal. The winner of tonight’s mystery meat contest is Jeffrey Corbin who guessed “some kind of beef.”~

Here is a table of 20 random city encounters. I want to keep expanding on this to eventually make it a 1d100 table. I actually used this table in this weeks game. This one that I am posting is slightly adjusted as I took out the specifics related to my campaign and changed them to generic information. Except for number 12. (That one I left as is, he is the hermit the party visited the last session. He is with his pet pig Penelope, who he can magically give her wings and fly away on, just like he did in the last session!) As a DM, you may need to figure some of this out on the fly as you play, but that is half the fun for me and my group. Here is the link to the table: 1d20 Random City Encounters. As always enjoy, if you end up with any crazy stories using this table, please reply and let me know! I would love to hear them and would be happy to post them here.

Friday’s Mystery Meat: Or What’s in the Crate? …another 1d100 random table.

~ Attention, here’s an update on tonight’s dinner. It was veal, I repeat, veal. The winner of tonight’s mystery meat contest is Jeffrey Corbin who guessed “some kind of beef.”~

I finally finished my random 1d100 “What’s in the Crate” table! So here it is, just click on the link to download it. “What’s in the Crate” as always enjoy.

The Final Four: Teleport Keys, Magic Teleport Doors, with Free Colorized Standee’s

So I colored the final key, door, and standee doors. The doors and keys make great player handouts, (at least for my game they do). The new black key is the only key that works on the black door, and will teleport the adventures to somewhere very, very dangerous or back to the starting black door/room. It is also the only key that will work on all the other doors, all the regular keys only go to the next teleport room. The yellow key/door teleports to the blue room/door. The blue key/door teleports to the red room/door. The red key/door teleports to the yellow room/door. The black door only goes to a very dangerous place, or back to it’s starting location. As always enjoy.

Here is the link to the door PDF.

Here is the link to the Keys PDF

Here is the link to the free Door Standees.

RIP Mark, a heroic yet sad character death in this weeks game. Link to our Death and Dismemberment House Rules

Tuesday night is our groups game night. They were in the sewers of Deepfall trying to discover the mystery of who or what tried to break through the sealed magical door to Odyssious’ Wizard Tower. Odyssious called on the party to investigate this after he had successfully defended the door which had completly drained him. The party was headed back to the tower, somewhat battered and running out of resources, as they approached the last interesection with just another hundred feet or so to get back to the magic door. With loud footsteps a massive rat ogre abomination came around the corner, lead in massive chains by six ratmen and a Corvinian priest. This was obviously the creature that had almost broken through the door, and was on the way to try it again. The party attacked with ranged weapons all trained on the abomination, this hurt it and enraged it, yanking the chains from the ratmen’s hands. It turned to face it’s attackers. The Corvinian priest began chanting up a spell in the ratmen’s language. Mark, the gnome fighter rushed up and leaped at the abomination with his bastard sword, (Scoring a natural 20) felling the abomination into the sewer, but then one of the ratmen fired his crossbow at Mark, (also scoring a natural 20) reducing Mark to zero hit points. Mark had to roll on the Death and Dismemberment charts (Our own house rules for reaching zero hit points) He rolled a 5 and only had two rounds to be saved, and only heal spells or potions would save him. Unfortunately, the Corvinian priest cast a ratmen spell, Caustic Mist, which enveloped the all the party members in the front, immobilizing them for three rounds. None of the remaing party could enter the caustic mist, so Mark died before anyone could reach him. He died after killing the abomination (which was epic and heroic) only to be felled by a ratmen’s crossbow bolt.

Here is a link to my Death and Dismemberment charts. The original inspiration was from the Dungeoncraft YouTube channel. His chart in the episode #171 video “Why D&D Charaters need to die” was what I based my chart off of. I am a dungeon master that plays old school, and I believe that reaching zero hit points should mean death, the game is best when there is a real threat of death. That said, I am also a softy, and I hate to see characters die. These charts still give the characters a chance to survive, but there could be consequences. I always roll my dice out in the open for the players to see, so there is no fudging dice in our game. We implemented the Death and Dismemberment charts to lessen the blow of death, but it can still be brutal. Now my players are as scared of rolling on these charts as they are of reaching zero hit points.

….”Friday’s Mystery Meat”….An encounter from last week’s Game.

~ Attention. Here’s an update on tonight’s dinner. It was veal. I repeat, veal. The winner of tonight’s mystery meat contest is Jeffrey Corbin who guessed “some kind of beef.”~

I felt the need to post something, and figured I would start posting “Fridaqy Mystery Meat” posts again. These posts are just for anything I feel like sharing, and or showing off.

This week’s is a small map / encounter straight out of my campaign notebook. The party is currently tracking down a mysterious force that almost broke through a strong magical door under Odyssious’s wizard tower (An NPC). Odyssious was drained trying to keep the force from breaking through the door. He called on the party to help find out what it was that almost broke through from the sewers into his tower. Being a strong ally of the party, and Marvollo the party’s wizard in particular, this was a no brainer for them.

After their first encounter in the sewers vs. some ratmen and a large rat ogre, they found a secret door that lead down some very old stairs. This was the encounter straight out of my DM’s notebook, just a picture, unedited, in all it’s ugly, messy glory. The stats and to hit numbers I use from AD&D / Osric. The centipede stats are from AD&D, I need to update it with Osric stats (Which are usually exactly the same, but once in awhile I find differences.) For example in AD&D a level one and level two fighter use the same to hit numbers, in Osric a level one fighter might hit on say a 14, while a level two hits on a 13. The orange highlighted line is what the corpse needs to hit the AC’s listed above it. The blue and green highlighted lines are what my group’s characters need to hit the animated corpse. It’s a way for me to keep all the info I need to run the encounter right there on the same page.

Random Potion Effects…1d100 Random Table

Last year I created a random potion effects table, in my campaign world, elixer makers, apothocaries, etc. always seem to have a box of failed potions in their shops. They always want to sell them dirt cheap, and the players really liked it. The random effects have a way of driving the adventure in unexpected directions, they are lots of fun. Here is the Link: Random Potion Effects.

Some more Sewer Tiles

I scanned in some more of the sewer tiles I made this weekend. I cut them out and glued them to some black foamboard, then cut those out. It was a lot faster than actually drawing them in the first place. Now I can just print them out, instead of spending all that time drawing them. I will be adding some “flats” wooden bridges, doors, barrels, crates, etc. then combine them all into a single PDF you all can download and print for yourselves. Enjoy!

Tiles I cut out, ready to be pasted on to black foam core sheets.

Just WIP picture, with the sheet of small encounter maps (which is what startedthis whole thing)

Intersection I did this weekend.

3×6 Floor Tiles

Assorted Floor Tiles.

ISO Sewers, cutting and pasting for the hell of it.

So, I had that isomorph sewer map in photo shop. Decided to do a little cutting and pasting, with a touch of editing, just for the hell of it. It was fun, I can see how I could make some basic elements then toss them all together in random combinations. Might work on that sometime. The black and white rat men I drew just so I could populate the map with an interesting visual (at least I think it’s interesting.) I love playing around with this stuff in photoshop. As always, enjoy.

The Adventurer’s Wanted Bulletin Board….

I mentioned this in the last post, here is the actual bulletin board I gave to my players. They had just arrived at Trollshire, in the Sledgemoor Swamp, after their shenanigans upon arrival they settled into Uncle Salty’s Tavern and Inn. That is when I presented the players with this bulletin board of Adventurer’s wanted notices. I made each notice up in Photoshop, with various parchment papers, fonts and images. Printed them out, and posted them with thumb tacks on a piece of black foam board. The one they picked for their next adventure (IE: Game Session) is not the one they decided to go with during the “Next game session” But I was able to wing it anyways. I liked and the the players loved this bulletin board, not only did it give them options of what to do in a brand new city, but it also gave some flavor of what the entire area is like.

The Adventurers’s Bulletin Board found in Uncle Salty’s Tavern and Inn.

Disclaimer: I did use images from The Swamp Gremlins of Malifaux on some of these notices, along with some of the text from their website. Hopefully I won’t get sued, but it is just for personal use, not for sale, not for anything else. Just using it in my campaign. Is this crossing the line? Anybody know if it is?

The thing I like best about this board and all the notices on it, is that it gives the players all the options of what they want to do. They choose what they want to do and then in the next game session, we do it. Most of the notices are quick and easy to prep for the next week’s game. Some are more involved, but as a game master I can plan them out relatively quickly and have it ready to go in a week. Hope you all enjoy the concept.

My Campaign HEX Maps with Experimental Color….

Ok, I am not proud of these two maps. I drew them a few months ago for my campaign. I needed them to run it, I wasn’t sure which way the party would head so I drew two of them. (They ended up going to the Old Fishing Village on the Tucketville Map, in search of Bob the Halfling. He is the son of Alfredo Fogwind, a member of the Raven’s Loft Gentleman’s Club in Sledgemoor. It was a test to see if they were qualified enough to go on the Slith Expedition that the Gentleman’s club is funding, they did in fact rescue Bob, and were hired for the expedition.) See the Expedition Notice below.

So as far as the hex maps go, I did them in my normal black and white line drawings, down and dirty and quick. I needed them for the game. I am not very happy with them because, there is not much detail, not enough interesting locales, the Guargant Swamp Trees are way, way, way out of scale…(One Tree Per Hex would be about the correct scale for them, as 1 Hex=1.4 Miles.) After I finish drawing them, I felt like experimenting with color, so I pulled out my big box of Crayola Colored Pencils and had fun coloring them. I am a perfectionist, so I will be re-doing these maps in the future. Normally I would not post something that is not good enough (in my opinion). I just said WTF, they are not perfect, but they are kind of pretty so I decided to post them as is. I am trying to shrug off that damned perfectionism. Perfectionism just slows you down, does no one any good, and leads to weeks, months, or (In my case) years between blog posts…..LOL….!!!! So here goes, enjoy!

The Raven’s Loft Gentleman’s Club Expedition Notice. Went on the “Adventurer’s Wanted Bulletin Board” But that is for another Post…..and it’s pretty cool…!!!

The Sledgemoor Tucketville Hex Map, with the the Guargant Swamp Trees that are way, way, way, way, way too big.

The Sledgemoor Ruins of Slith Map.

SIDE NOTE: In the previous campaign session, the party had just arrived in Trollshire. After all the various hijinks that ensued, they found the “Adventurer’s Wanted Bulletin Board” at Uncle Salty’s Tavern and Inn. As a DM I had them pick the next session’s adventure from said bulletin board, which the did. Then, when this session started, they totally ignored it and chose the “Expedition Notice” instead. I was totally unprepared for that one, but I had a printed copy of my “Moldvay Random Dungeon Experiment” which I had printed out days before. I had printed that copy thinking I might expand on it to post here, and I had it in with all my prepared adventure notes. It was my lifesaver that session!!!! (That’s why they had to rescue Bob, the halfling, it was all I had with me to use.)

The joys of running a sandbox campaign…..!!!!