How to be Creative, also Blobbins

Or at least, this is how I think I think creatively.  Your mileage may vary.

1

Keep a slush pile. This is where you put all of your incomplete ideas, or ideas that don't quite meet your criteria for quality control. Odds are good that you have tons of ideas that are aaaaalmost good enough. Sometimes you can frankenstein two sorta-good ideas into a brilliant mongrel. Sometimes you can read over an old idea and think of a way to improve it.

And don't just ignore your slush pile until you've run 100% dry of ideas.  Refer back to it often, maybe before you start thinking of anything at all.

Your slush pile can be a file on a computer or a small notebook. Maybe you're watching a movie and the people on screen realize that the stillborn calf is pregnant with something that is not a cow and you're like, “That's a fucked up idea and I like it”, then that goes into your notebook. It is the fertile, messy mulch beneath the shrubbery of your brain.

Ex: “blue goblins” + “boneless and they live in jars” = “boneless blue goblins that live in urns”

2

Use your ideas. If you use your blue, boneless goblins in a module, I guarantee you'll have some more ideas about the goblins while you are roleplaying one, or after a player asks you what's in the goblin's pockets.

Basically, you are just asking yourself "What are the implications of what I have just written?  What does this stuff imply?"

This works for writing, too. Expanding a small idea into a paragraph will usually involve answering some more questions that crop up. How do these boneless urn-goblins feel about their urns? How do they feel about skeletons, especially given that they don't have any? If you can't turn a boneless goblin into a skeletonized undead, is there a different kind of undead that you can turn them into?

Of course, if you ever find yourself writing boring facts (the average blue goblin burrow contains 20-400 individuals, who are ruled by a chieftain of level 3, blah blah blah) then you must STOP IMMEDIATELY. That sort of square noise takes 3 seconds to invent at the table, and 3 seconds to invent at the computer.  There is no need to predecide how big the average blue goblin burrow is when you can decide it during a session just as readily.

3

Don't let "creativity" just be something that you do when you sit down to fill out the rest of your 50-room dungeon. 

Constantly revisit your old ideas when you are taking a shower, taking a shit, taking a break at work, trying avoid premature ejaculation, etc. These events will give your brain a richer and more varied texture, which will inform your ideas. Like, when you're taking a shit, your brain will wrinkle up more because it smells bad. This will make you approach the whole boneless blue goblin conundrum from a different angle than if, say, you were frolicking with some baby deer and thinking about boneless blue goblins.  

Plus, if you're sculpting an idea while you are driving, walking, jogging somewhere, you'll be constantly receiving a procession of images and places. I was driving down Highway 5 and drove past Harris Ranch (like, billions of cows) and the smell alone gave me ideas.  Or maybe the methane was just getting to my brain.

When you see an interesting post on the internet, you must ask yourself "yes, but is it gamable?"  When you are chillaxing with your bros, and one of your bros tells a cool story you must also ask yourself "yes, but is it gamable?"  When your crazy uncle sends you an email about how contrails are turning all the Mexicans into lizards, you must ask yourself "yes, but is it gamable?"

4

Steal shamelessly. That awesome thing in Princess Mononoke? Steal it. Repaint it. It's yours now.

BUT also pay attention to why you like the thing in the first place, because that's the element you want to steal, not necessarily the whole enchilada. Like, when the severed wolf's head bites the giant boar, why is that so cool? Is it because it's a head? Is it because its a wolf? Is it because it was a dead body part that just attacked someone? Figure out which part of the DNA contains the awesome, and then just steal that part. It'll make it easier to recombine with the rest of your slush pile.

(Although I have bunches of inspiring pictures on my computer, I don't consider them part of my slush pile.  I try to extract the part of the picture's DNA that I really like, and add that to the slush pile.  And also, I find a bunch of brief word-concepts easier to parse than a folder with a thousand images in it.  "one eyeball shared between both sockets", "strength proportionate to colorfulness", "hot chick with huge, grafted muscle-arms", etc.)

Like, a lot of the city encounters in Vornheim are powerful good because they force players to deal with something. You could just take the kernel (the "how is this forcing a PC to deal with it?") at the center of a Vornheim entry and flesh it out yourself.  “persistent entertainers demand PCs join their cause” becomes "snake charmer guild demands that PCs assist in reclaiming/repairing the giant snake sanctuary in Central Park".

5

Stealing names can be fun. Figure out what part of the name you like the most. Is it the vowels/assonance? The consonants/alliteration? Can you transform the consonants into something similar? K=G. T=D. S=Z. P=B=V. L=R. M=N. J=CH. 'crocodile' = 'grogotyr' = 'gorgodile'. 'jerusalem' = 'cheluzaren'.

6

Turn normal animals into unlikely chimeras. This is how you shed tropes.

My favorite way to make a chimera by giving one animal the biology or lifestyle of another. Like what if there were some wolves that were 100% marine and never left the water? What would a giant land-dwelling starfish eat? What if there were people that lived like ants?

The laziest kind of chimera is just to remix body shapes. Sure, if you combine a bird with a horse you get a pegasus, and that was the pinnacle of creativity 1000 years ago. If you mix an octopus and a dog you get an octodog, and I suppose that's sort of creative, too. The laziest of this lazy method is just to make it an intelligent humanoid. Jellfish people. Kangaroo-folk. Giraffo-morphs.  Even that can sort of open up interesting avenues of thought.

(There's nothing wrong with lazy creativity like this, but if you are going to invent some kangaroo-folk, don't just stop there.  You can't smash kangaroo and Australian stereotypes together and expect to transport your players to a fantastic realm of fantasy.  If you include only the things that come easily to mind when you cross kangaroos and Australians, then your kangaroo-folk have no more surprises for your players, beyond the initial concept of kangaroo-people.  Which means you need to add more.  This is why cat-people almost always suck.  People just apply cat stereotypes (playful, curious, fierce, hunters) to a race of humanoids and call it a day.  So if you want to make cat-people that aren't boring, you need to add something else to the mix.  Columbian catnip druglords.  Ruled by black cat bad-luck warlocks and a storm giant witch.  Ecology of cuckoos.  Worshippers of Nyarlathotep but also of themselves.  Masters of engineering and fire magic.  Literally, anything but just cat tropes.  Please.)

7

Inversions are fun. You can invert tropes. Write an adventure about saving a dragon from a princess. Write about a type of fey that gives people babies instead of stealing them. Write about dwarves that hate gold. At the very least, these will get you asking questions. What's up with these dwarves? How'd they get this way?

Or just ask yourself open ended questions. What's the opposite of a dragon? What's the opposite of a bar mitzvah?  What's the opposite of sex?

Exaggerations are fun. Write about a dragon that was just way, way, way into stealing princesses, not even imprisoning them—just stealing them like princess catch-and-release. Write about fey that are so into-baby stealing that they steal bee larva and only eat baby fruits. Write about dwarves that are so rigid and uncreative that they need a king from a different race.

Reskins are fun. Reskin Lincoln assassination or the plot of Master of the Flying Guillotine. The ninja turtles are now barbarian berserkers who want you to help them fight a ninja and his demon rat. Remix and rearrange.  Your slush pile can help you with this.

Change scope. Tsunamis make sense, but why would a small pond suddenly smash the canoes and flood the town? (Big phenomenon → small.) People get pregnant all the time, but why would every woman in town suddenly get pregnant at exactly the same time? (Local phenomenon → regional.)

8

When you're writing stuff down, keep it fluid for as long as you can. Sometimes you'll write a story and you don't know what it's about until you finish it. Sometimes you'll write a dungeon and not realize what the treasure is at the center until you finish it—the it's obvious.  Write all the interesting things down first, and then fill in all the logical considerations later.

(If you write down so much cool stuff that there's no way to mesh it all together into a coherent adventure/dungeon, that's okay.  Just remove a few conflicting parts and put them back into your slush pile.  You'll use them later, and they'll be just as awesome then, too.)

Before you draw a single room in your dungeon, figure out what the theme is and then write down all of the Coolest Things Possible involving that theme. Like if your theme is “cloud castle that imprisons powerful dwarven geomancers”, sit down and brainstorm the coolest possible rooms in that dungeon. A room where terramantic criminals are forced to levitate in the center of their cells, while their jailors drag them around like balloons. Air elemental guards living inside a giant bagpipe that also doubles as the alarm system. Gaseous, floating rust monsters trained to sniff out metals and stones, because terramantic dwarven criminals can pull a Magneto. Dragnets used to harvest water out of clouds, like a trawler.

By the time you finish your idea list, you might also realize that there is also a flumph masterminding the whole thing. Or that this is actually a jail for fire elementalist elves as well, because you've been watching to much Last Airbender.  And because you've kept your outline as fluid as possible, you don't have to redraw your map or rewrite the motivations for the warden.  (Full-detail maps and necessary-but-mundane NPCs are good examples of things that you should do late in the process.)

THEN you draw out your dungeon. THEN you flesh out all the extra rooms so that the things is complete.

9

Creativity is a muscle.  There's only so much you can do in a day.  If you are frustrated, or you absolutely can't come up with anything, or you've already read through your slush pile twice and can't come up with anything--STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER and go do something else.  You can't force it.

Also, there are going to be days when your brain is going to be dry.  That's okay; don't sweat it.  Spend the time organizing your slush pile or go read some interesting stuff elsewhere.

JOESKY TAX: BLOBBINS

Blobbins are blue, boneless goblins. Each goblin lives in an urn, each exactly the size of the blobbin. They make their urns out of clay and fingernails. Parents make their baby's first urn, and then they trade up as they grow, like hermit crabs. Urns are never re-used, but are instead filled with fingernail clippings and lost teeth and then used in construction. They do this because a blobbin considers their urn to be part of their body, and crawling inside another blobbin's urn is akin to crawling inside their skin. When a blobbin dies, the body is discarded like trash (fed to cave pigs) while the urn is revered.

Blobbin graveyards are just caves filled with urns. For reasons not understood, nearly every blobbin goes on to become a pale blue ghost that resides inside their urn. Blobbin urns are sometimes filled with some amount of treasure that they valued in life, but blobbins make for vengeful ghosts. The trick to robbing blobbin urn-graves is to get the blobbin to blame someone else. The traditional method is to throw a weasel into the urn, and then replace any gold coins with an equal number of copper ones. By the time the blobbin ghost has finished shriveling the weasel, the tomb robbers are gone and the blobbin ghost is none the wiser, since they cannot tell copper from gold (at least, their ghosts cannot).

Blobbin urns also make handy weapons if thrown, since they tend to blame the nearest creature, and blobbin ghosts are furious if their urn is smashed.

When they run, it looks like a deflated tire rolling down a hill.

Blobbins revere a god called the Great Blue Smoke Monster. Blobbin clerics are easy to spot. They carry a gigantic urn on their back, painting with blue and black triangles. Inside each of these urns is a Blue Smoke Monster which obeys the cleric and is regarded as a divine manifestation of the true Great Blue Smoke Monster.

Blobbins fear skeletons. Even smiling at them will cause them to recoil in disgust from visible teeth, and even the bravest blobbins warriors will flee from an animated skeleton.

Although blobbins cannot be made into undead skeletons, they are sometime animated into highly malleable zombies. Able to squish under doors and hide themselves under saddles, blobbin zombies are feared as assassins. They prefer to strangle their prey. Necromancers are also sometimes fond of stuffing them into chests, in order to guard treasure. Additionally, Blobbin zombies can also cushion fragile materials in a chest, protecting it from bumps and bangs.

Blobbins are hunted for the rich blue dye that can be harvested from their gallbladders. It is a deep, rich blue, and is very popular. However, the price ensures that only the aristocracy will be able to afford silk dyed Blobbin Blue.

Unlike their green-skinned relatives, blobbins are very clean. They frequently wear armor made from cave tortoises or giant snails. By using their elasticity of their heads, they are able to throw spears with great accuracy and power. They favorite weapon is a short-hafted trident (very effective against the squishy bodies of fellow blobbins). 

 Their favorite forms of recreation are spear-chucking, moshing, and naknak (sort of like spoken word poetry but with lots of sound effects). They are sometimes accompanied by clay golems shaped to look like small rhinos, painted blue with white triangles. Blobbins are sometimes valued as mercenaries because of their usefulness in breaking sieges (they can survive being launched by catapult).

Stats as goblins, except that they don't take any damage from bludgeoning. Also, they value their urn as highly as their life, and so they are quite easy to blackmail/bully once a PC has their urn.

Supercharging Chargen with History, Personality

One of the cool things about Traveller is that it has a sweet character creation gauntlet. By the time you've created your character, you've already got a history. It's the product of a random process with a little bit of player input thrown in.

Can we add something like this to D&D without tacking a whole 'nother system on? I believe we can, and we can do it my modifying the system that we use to roll stats. Basically, this would replaced the sacred “3d6 in order” with a generator that describes the character's history and allows you to pin down some of your character before the game starts.

How to Use This Thing

We'll use two sections to get the familiar 3d6 to each stat. The Childhood section will add 1d6, and the Adulthood section will add 2d6.

The first section is Childhood. Kids don't have a lot of power over their own lives. For each stat, roll a 1d6, and then look at the appropriate table to see what it implies.

The Adulthood section has 3 subsections (Approach, Outlook, and Personality). Pick two of those and go through them. Each of those will ask you three questions, asking you to choose between two personality elements or ideals. For example, choosing between Emotive (WIS) or Stoic (CHA).

There are two ways to go through the Adulthood section. The statistically equivalent way is to roll 1d6 for each side, and then find out what sort of character you are getting (Roll First). The more fun method that gives you slightly more control over your character than “3d6 in order” normally does, is to pick which one of the two stats you value more, then roll 2d6, and assign the higher of the two rolls to the ability score you picked (Decide First).

Childhood

STR

1 You were picked on.

2 You preferred to stay indoors.

3 You moved from place to place.

4 You were fat.

5 You loved to climb.

6 You were a bully.

DEX

1 You always overslept.

2 You accidentally broke something precious.

3 You were trapped somewhere.

4 You stole something.

5 You ran for your life.

6 You killed an animal.

CON

1 You once caught a horrible illness when you were a kid.

2 You are an orphan.

3 You lost a parent.

4 You have a single sibling.

5 Your siblings all looked up to you. You were the leader of the gang.

6 You come from a huge family. Countless cousins.

INT

1 You never got much of an education.

2 You learned a lot, but it was from doing, not from being taught.

3 You had a secret place that no one else knew about.

4 You caught a parent doing something horrible.

5 You drew a map.

6 You kept a diary.

WIS

1 Your friends made fun of you behind your back.

2 You once embarrassed yourself in front of everyone.

3 You once got very, very lost.

4 You had a beloved pet.

5 You loved to explore. You never got lost.

6 You had many imaginary friends.

CHA

1 Your parents didn't love you. No one really did.

2 You were hurt by the one you trusted most.

3 You once received a very precious gift.

4 You thought you were going to get married. (Betrothal?)

5 You were your parents' favorite.

6 You have a trusted friend. The friendship persists, though your paths have diverged.

Adulthood

Approach

1. Loyal or No Tolerance for Bullshit

Would you stand up for a friend (CHA) even when they're wrong (DEX)?

2. Blunt or Tactful

Do you tell it how it is (INT) or smooth the ruffled feathers (CON)?

3. Impulsive or Deliberate

Do it without hesitation (STR) or wait a moment to observe and consider (WIS)?

Outlook

1. Fair or Kind

Divide the food equally (INT) or give the hungrier one a little more (WIS)?

2. Courageous or Cautious

When things look grim, do you grit your teeth and continue (STR) or get out of there, and maybe come back when you are better prepared (DEX)?

3. Loves Food or Loves Sex

Delicious food (CON) or delicious sex (CHA)?

Personality

1. Pugnacious or Relaxed

Do you do something about the annoyance (DEX) or just let it fade into the background (CON)?

2. Emotive or Stoic

Do you give hugs? Yes (CHA) or no (WIS).

3. Curious or Content

When deciding what to eat, do you try something new (STR) or order your old favorite (INT)?

Example

After childhood, I have these stats.

Str 3 I moved from place to place.

Dex 2 I accidentally broke something precious.

Con 5 My siblings all looked up to me.

Int 2 I learned a lot, but it was from doing, not being taught.

Wis 6 I had a lot of imaginary friends.

Cha 4 I thought I was going to get married.

I decide to do Approach and Outlook for adulthood. The first question for Approach asks me if I would stand up for a friend even when they're wrong. I decide "Yes, this character totally would".  So I choose "Loyal", and roll 2d6, getting a 3 and a 2. I add the 3 to Charisma and the 2 to Dexterity. This is using the “Decide First” method.

The next question asks me if I am Blunt or Tactful. I decide that I don't know. I just roll one die for Blunt (INT) and another die for Tactful (CON). I get a 4 for Blunt and a 2 for Tactful. Cool. I guess I'm Blunt then.  This is using the "Roll First" method.

I do this for four more questions. In the end, I get:

Alice the Dinosaur Hunter

Str 10

Dex 5

Con 11

Int 7

Wis 14

Cha 13

Childhood

I moved from place to place. Dad was an explorer.

I accidentally broke something precious. Sorry for sinking our ship and marooning us, Dad.

My siblings all looked up to me. Only after Dad left for help and Mom died.

I learned a lot, but it was from doing, not being taught. Books all rot in the jungle anyways.

I had a lot of imaginary friends. Most of them were dinosaurs. I killed all of them, many times.

I thought I was going to get married. But then he got eaten by a dinosaur and I swore revenge.

Adulthood

Loyal

Blunt

Deliberate

Kind

Courageous

Loves Sex

And after I decide that she's a dinosaur hunter, then I flesh out the Childhood with some carefully crafted history, and I'm done.

That wasn't as annoying to do as I thought it would be. 

Psychonauts of the Floating Realm

There is a place.

No, that's not quite right.

Let me start over.

There is a experience of place.  It is not another dimension, as some have claimed.  Nor is it merely an experience, the way meditation is.  It lies beyond the wall of sleep.

You may call it the Dreamscape, but that's not accurate.  Sleep is a doorway, not a destination.

Neither is Psychotropia an accurate name since it is not of the mind nor part of it.  You do not describe an ocean by looking at the vessel you sail on.

You may not call it Qorfu.  That is what the residents call it, and it enrages them to hear our words from our lips.

The poets call it the Floating Realm, or The Land Adrift.

The Elves, in their usual idiom, call it Dul-Vecni-Farraf, which means "Garden-Behind-the-Wall".

In fact, none of these things may be true, since it isn't a place, but merely an interface.  Like the surface of the water, where a fish swimming east may meet a bird flying west.

While we are awake, our mind is filling our brain, controlling our body.  The two mesh.  But when we sleep, our mind wanders from our body, and ventures somewhere else. . .

Some Basic Facts about the Floating Realm:

1. Dreams are smaller versions of the Floating Realm.  They are private and safe.
2. The Floating Realm is public and dangerous.
3. When people dream, they sometimes enter the Floating Realm, or touch it briefly.
4. Even animals dream, and enter it similarly.
5. These visitors leave impressions in the Floating Realm, reflecting their memories.
6. Many things in the Floating Realm are projections (extractions) from the material world.
7. Many things in the Floating Realm are natives (as far as we are concerned).
8. Psychonauts are the people who enter the Floating Realm, to communicate or gather information.
9. In the Floating Realm, you risk more than your life.
10. Time is utterly meaningless in the Floating Realm.
11. There is a limit to how much you will remember when you wake up.  No more than a couple of paragraphs, for neophyte Psychonauts.

Lady Evica

 

You'll find her in the lakeside town of Havenholt, where she lives. The easiest way to approach her is after Sunday mass, when all of the parishners gather on the lawn and patio to talk and exchange the week's news. They stand in small circles, talking with the deacon, inquiring about each other's health and the weather. They might say

“That's two masses in a row that Grocer Hammond has missed. I hope he isn't ill.”

or perhaps you will hear

“Daley, get away from the fountain. You're bothering the koi.”

She dresses conservatively, like her peers. Her long auburn hair is usually up in a bun, or in a braid beneath a headscarf. Her dress will be brown or navy, perhaps with a small carnation on the breast, and it will reach all the way down to her black leather patents.

A short veil may shade her eyes when she faces east, towards the lake and the morning sun. Her face is young, but not girlish. Her skin is flawless and her lips are full. Her jawline is a graceful, subtle curve, like the neck of a swan or the keel of a courtship canoe. Her eyes shine like sunlight on the water, and her laugh is as clear and dulcet as a bell. Her dress is bulky, but it carries a few hints of the voluptuous physique beneath it. In speech, she is modest, playful, and warm.

She is terrifyingly beautiful, but that is no surprise, since she chose the shape of her body. Shapeshifters rarely settle for the unremarkable.

Her nature is not a secret to the inhabitants of Havenholt. They have forgiven her monstrous origin.  But more than that, they love her.

OMFG Weapons

This is another post where I owe a lot to all the other rulesets that I've read and quietly assimilated.  Thank you +Wil McKinnee +Brendan S +Logan Knight +Jeff Russell +Paolo Greco and honestly like five other people that I'm forgetting.

Your blogs and discussions have guided the sulci of my misshaped brain into more potent configurations.

Weapons

Any adventurer is proficient with any weapon (except for really weird ones or improvised ones).

There are three kinds of weapons.

Quick: This includes daggers, small clubs, and pistols (if you use 'em). Little one-handed stuff. Quick weapons deal 1d6 damage. This is not modified by STR. Most can be thrown with a 10' range. You add your DEX mod to attack rolls. Additionally, daggers can be used while grappling or swallowed, and small clubs can deal non-lethal damage without any penalty (normal weapons get -2 to hit if used to attack non-lethally).

Balanced: This includes swords, maces, axes. Also 2-handed staffs. Big one-handed stuff. Shields count as Balanced weapons when you attack with them, but they also get -2 to hit.  Spears can be thrown.  Balanced Weapons deal 1d6 damage, modified by STR bonuses if it's a melee weapon. You add your DEX OR STR mod to attack rolls.

Powerful: This includes greatswords, long spears, giant hammers. Huge two-handers. Powerful Weapons deal 1d8 damage, modified by STR bonus. You add your STR mod to attack rolls.  Reach weapons let you attack over your ally's back, from the second rank, and also let you ready an attack against a charge, letting you make an automatic attack roll against a charging enemy before they reach you.

Bows deal 1d6 damage and let you add your STR mod, but crossbows deal 1d8 damage. Firearms are expensive, loud, unreliable, and rare, (think of them as magic wands that anyone can use) but pistols do 1d6 damage and rifles deal 1d10, and each bullet fired (including the first bullet) gives +1 to hit and +1 to damage, up to the magazine capacity of the gun (still only one attack roll, though). Ranged weapons can fire up to 10x their range increment (usually 20'), but they get a -4 penalty for every range increment beyond the first. You add your DEX mod to attack rolls.

Thrown weapons can be thrown up to 5x their range increment (usually 10'), but get a -4 penalty for every range increment beyond the first. You add your DEX mod to attack rolls.

Improvised Weapons like shields and frying pans all get -2 to hit, but otherwise function like whatever weapon category they are most similar to. Unarmed attacks are Improvised Weapons that deal 1d4 damage (no modifiers) that is always non-lethal.

It takes a negligible amount of time to draw a weapon from fast inventory, except for Powerful weapons and then it doesn't matter because you're walking around with them in your hands anyway. There no scabbard for a halberd. However, sheathing stuff usually requires an action.

Normal weapons don't work underwater unless they're piercing weapons (you can thrust with them), and even those get -2 to hit.

As long are you are holding a weapon (even a dagger or a stewpot) you get +1 to AC.

Design Notes:

Since strength doesn't affect quick weapon damage, weak characters with negative strength modifiers are actually better off with a dagger than with a sword. Neat. I know bows are built around a certain pull strength but fuck it.

Ranged Weapon penalties for firing at big ranges is harsh, as it should be. Note that archers can still hit groups of people at 200', they just can't hit individual ones.

The Held Weapon AC rule is sort of a compromise between LotFP base 12 AC and other systems' base 10 AC. It also gives a player another good reason to avoid fighting unarmed, and helps reflect that even a stick can help you defend yourself. Using this, a player with full plate and a shield will have 18 AC. . . yeah, that feels about right.

Your Offhand

An Empty Hand can be useful. It lets you catch thrown things and use items from your Fast Inventory, among other things.

Torches need no explaining.

Two-Handed Weapon Grip does +1 damage. Powerful Weapons require this, and therefore do 1d8+1 damage (plus Strength bonus, if applicable).

A Paired Weapon gives +1 to hit. This is either a dagger or a matching 1-handed weapon.

Shields give you +1 to AC.

You've seen these rules a dozen times elsewhere, I'm sure.

Weapon Breakage and Decay

Whenever you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, you get a Ding on the weapon.

Whenever you get a Ding on a weapon, look at the damage roll (just the naked roll; don't add any mods). If the damage roll is less than the number of Dings, the weapon gets a Break. (Any Dings remain.)

Whenever you get a Break, the weapon gets -1 to hit and does -1 damage. However, firearms become unusable as soon as they get their first Break.

After one or two Breaks, you're better off using an improvised weapon or even a crappy goblin sword or something.

Weapons can be repaired. Give it a baseline of, say, 1gp for a Ding and 10gp for Break? It'll take a couple of days, though. Keep track of Dings and Breaks by writing little “X”s and “-1”s beside your weapon.

Shitty Weapons get a Break whenenever you roll a natural 1 (all Dings become Breaks).

Masterwork Weapons only get a Ding if the damage roll is an odd number.

Magic Weapons are masterwork weapons that only get damaged when fighting demons, dragons, and other epic shit.  However, they can only be repaired by equally epic blacksmiths.

Design Note.

This is the fastest way I can think of to model weapon damage with the least work. It doesn't introduce any additional rolls, and keeps an element of chance, while at the same time, the first Ding never leads to a Break, so players always get a warning before the tip snaps off their favorite sword.

Weapon Mastery

This is a thing that only Fighters can do. With a specific weapon, (like sword serial number 283743) you must begin keeping track of your kills. This uses up one of your skill slots. Once you achieve a certain number of killing blows against challenging opponents. You get a degree of mastery with the weapon.

10 kills give you +1 damage with the weapon.

30 kills let you use a weapon's fightmaster ability (see below).

100 kills give you an additional +1 damage with the weapon.

This incentivization means that fighters will be aggressively practicing with weapons that they want to master, and fishing for killing blows. I like to keep a strict cap on damage inflation, and this is the only way for a fighter to model swifter lethality compared to a thief, short of a magic weapon. I'm also a fan of uncoupling player advancement from the strict XP/Level system when possible. Also, tracking kills is fun! So hopefully the fighter won't mind tracking the number of kills they get with each weapon, and other classes won't even have to bother with it.

Fightmaster Abilities

Fighters get additional bonuses from using weapons. The following stuff applies to fighters only, and only once they've gotten 30 kills with that unique weapon.

Swords get +1 to hit humanoids.

Axes do x3 damage rolled on a critical (instead of just doing max damage)

Bludgeons do x2 damage to prone creatures, and little flat creatures, like snakes and small turtles.

Flails ignore shields and automatically give armor a Break when they do 6 or more damage.

Staffs give you +1 to AC when wielded defensively*, and can be used like any class of weapon (quick, balanced, or powerful).

Stabby Polearms (spears, lances) let you deal 2x damage on a charge or when readied against a charge.  (Other polearms function as swords or axes with reach.  Glaives are like swords and halberds are like axes, for example.)

Shields ignore the -2 penalty to hit for non-proficiency (they become proficient in it). If you've killed 30 dudes with a shield, you can wield it as well as a rookie wields a sword.

Thrown Weapons and Ranged Weapons let you reduce all range penalties by 4 points (effectively doubling the range at which you have no penalty).

Design Note:

Weapons are designed to tempt a fighter into carrying one of each kind. Swords are good against orcs or in duels. Daggers are pretty essential. Axes are a good multipurpose weapon, but are unreliable. Big bludgeons are good if teamwork is employed and possible, and are balanced by the fact that it usually takes an ally an action to trip an opponent. Flails are good for bad guys (as they should be!) because they will absolutely shred your PC's armor. Sneaky types might want a small club to knock people out. Staffs are versatile, and can be good for fighter-caster types. Polearms have their niche, as always, and shields have their place, as well.

So while the other dudes are content with a sword and a dagger, the fighter has an incentive to hang a few more weapons on his belt. Also remember that some monsters are vulnerable/resistant to other damage types (bludgeoning/slashing/piercing).

I've tried to give each class slightly different mechanics to play with, and this is what the Fighters get.

In some cases historical usage has been sacrificed at the altar of convenience.  Apologies.

I know that some of these mechanics yield fiddly little +1 to attack/damage shit (which is usually the least interesting and significant of all proposed rules) but for main weapons the player will only have to calculate it once, and then the significance of that +1 will be magnified across hundreds of uses.

Attack Options

Available to anyone.  I'll do grappling/tricky shit in another post; this one is already too long.

Attack Aggressively: +1 to hit, -2 to AC

Attack Defensively: +1 to AC, -2 to hit

Total Defense: +2 to AC, make no attacks.

Magic Weapons

Firearms are basically magic weapons, even though they aren't magic.  Even though they're loud, rare, and unreliable, they're still better than most other weapons.  Lots of demons have auras that prevent combustion, though, which stops engines, torches, and guns.

Most magic weapons (+1 to hit and/or damage) are just non-magical weapons that have been made with exquisite craftsmanship from exotic materials.  Adamantine, chargale, alabaster black, tectoric materium, moon spittle, etc.  So they aren't really "magic" weapons, I guess.

True magic weapons are made by legendary blacksmiths possessed by demons or angels, immediately before their deaths.  You'll probably never find one.

Brynth

Part of my plan to flesh out Centerra, the setting for the Land of Flowers.  I can't show you the dungeons, but I can show you a few of the more relevant places around the Sea of Fish.

Brynth, the Land of Doglaw Nakedsword:

Brynth, and capitol city of Patra

Another Damn Skill System

It's like a big smash up of Burning Wheel, BRP, and every single skill system I've ever read, all at once and forever.

You have skill slots equal to your Intelligence score. You can pick up as many skills as you want, but once you run out of skill slots, you need to start overwriting them.

There is no skill list.  You're grown-ups.  If you want to be good at using a rope, then just write it on your character sheet.

Caveats:

• “Thievery” is too broad of a skill. Use “burglary”, “pick-pocketing”, etc.
• “Wizard knowledge” is also too broad. Use “necromancy”, “dead languages”, etc.
• There is no "diplomacy" skill.  Roleplay it and/or roll under your Cha.
• There is no "search" skill.  Tell the DM where you are looking.
• There is no "perception" or "bluff" skill either.  

There is some wiggle room. Can “mountaineering” climb a wall? Probably. Ask your DM.

Every skill you have can be represented by a number from 1 to 16, called the rank. To attempt a skill, roll a d20. If you roll on-or-under your skill rank, you succeed. If you succeed by 10 points or more, it is a critical success, and you can choose an adjective to describe exactly how you succeed, like “irreversibly”, “reversibly”, “quietly”, or “impressively”. If you roll a natural 20, you have rolled a fumble, and the DM will invent some dire consequences.

The highest you can raise a skill is 10 + character level.  Or 16.  Whichever is lower.

Assumed Skills and Untrained Ranks

You are assumed to be literate, proficient in basic physical skills (running, jumping, climbing, swimming), familiar with your own background (the culture of your social group, the geography of your homeland, and the language of your people) and anything else that makes sense. For these skills, you have an untrained rank equal to whatever the most relevant stat is.

For skills in which you are non-proficient, you have an untrained rank equal to half of whatever the most relevant stat is.

Gaining New Skills

You start the game with 2 skills at Rank 10. Roll one skill on your racial table, and another skill on your class table. Thieves roll twice on each table, and so start with 4 skills at Rank 10.

You gain new skills by announcing “I want to start learning this skill.” and then writing it down on your character sheet at a starting rank equal to your untrained rank (half the relevant stat for most skills).

You learn Int-based skills (lores) a little differently. You begin learning a lore when you start studying it in a school or library, or from a tutor. There are some exceptions to this. You can learn “wilderness lore” by living in the woods, or “goblin lore” by dissecting a lot of goblins. Use your common sense. All lores start at Rank 1.

Advancing Skills

You advance a skill by using it. When you use a skill and succeed, put a check mark next to it. When you have a few days to relax in town (usually between adventures) you can erase all three check marks and roll a d20. If that d20 roll is equal-to-or-higher than the current skill Rank, the Rank improves by 1. Note that Ranks are limited by level (Max Rank 11 at level 1, for example).

You advance a lore by studying it. You can raise a lore by 1 point when you either (a) studying a new source for a week, or (b) studying an old source for a year. A source can be a book, a library, a sage, or whatever.  New sources are much faster, and so it pays to travel to foreign libraries and seek out distant sages.

The Land of Flowers

I began enjoying world-building a lot more once I stopped trying to engineer it and starting using it as a place to just hang my monsters.

I really like learning about climate patterns and ocean currents.  I like biology so much that I went to college for it.  And I really like making maps (when I draw a good coastline, I'm happy all day).  But I don't like worrying about them.  Yeah, considering the interactions and ecologies can lead to some insights, but they might not be interesting, and your players might not care.  So, I guess my advice is to give a fuck or two fewer.

Hell yeah, I'd like to have a big awesome armoire, but awesome furniture isn't as important as the clothing inside it.  It's an honest joy to fill it up, too, because once you have it well-stocked you can start imagining all the adventures your friends can have in there as they pass from drawer to drawer.  Hopefully they'll find a way pillage the socks without getting eaten by the sweater-vests.

Zath Ko Macchen and the Poltergeist Moon

Not a Hero, Not a Villain, Not a King

Zath ko Macchen was once a warrior.  He did many great deeds, but he was was not a hero, a saint, a king, nor a villain.  Although he saved the city of Merenmeck from the slime he also absconded with their treasury and six of their fairest daughters.  He freed the Recursive Fox when it was caught in the limbs of the Ferrule Forest, but he also cut off its tail and wore it on his belt.  And when Vokrin Tsang, the Tornado Tyrant, began his windy reign of impalement, Ko Macchen was there to end him.  And although he did all these great things and more, no one liked him because he was a braggart and an ass, and the mechanical elephant he rode around on was tacky as hell.

When ko Macchen died killing the second-to-last vampire, no one mourned him.  A great deal of fighting took place over his loot, with the city of Shar getting the lion's share.  The giant clockwork elephant containing his wives and 99 children rode off into the northern wastelands and was never seen again.

The cities didn't want the body of such a powerful individual in their graveyards (since even adventurers' corpses are dangerous things), and yet their sensed that it would be dangerously disrespectful to leave his body in the wilderness to be devoured.  (Technically, his body was lying in a slab within Macchentown, but the city he founded fell apart upon his death and was largely torn to shreds by looters looking for valuables.)  A solution needed to be found.

Death and Dismemberment Upon the Table

I wrote some a Death and Dismemberment table to roll on when your PCs drop to 0.  I do this because I'm very bad at "fun" and very good at "I wanna type some numbers and roll dice in bed".

You gotta make two rolls before you find out what happens to the PC, but then again, this only happens when your PCs are dying, so hopefully it won't happen too often.

I tried to keep it simple enough that you could sorta memorize after one reading, which is good, but it also means that you miss out on all the ridiculous injuries like, "46 on a d100: your nipple is cut off and the monster chokes on it.  Roll on the Choking Chart to see how this resolves." but, eh.

Here it is ---------------> boom