Procedure vs Consensus in Mechanic Assignment

+Brendan S posted a brilliant article about Proceduralism.  I'm going to talk about it, so if you haven't read it, you should probably read that first.

Basically, what (I think) Brendan's is talking about is how task resolution is handled.  (Although, my essay may be a little flawed, since I think we're talking about two slightly different things.)

In a procedural mechanic, a player says "I want to do X." and the success/failure/effects of that attempt are resolved via procedure listed in the book.

The opposite of a procedural mechanic, then, is when a player says "I want to do X." and the success/failure/effects of that attempt are resolved via player consensus.

An example of a mechanic = "If 2d6 is higher than the monster's morale, the monster will flee".  If this mechanic came from the rulebook, it was arrived at via procedure. If this mechanic was something your group decided (or DM) invented five minutes ago, then it was arrived at via consensus.

Consensus and procedure are two different ways of getting a mechanic to resolve some action. 

I. What I Mean by Player Consensus

 Consensus is what we use when there is no listed procedure.

Sometimes we used consensus happens because the listed procedure is inapplicable.  ("Look, I just don't think that the grappling rules were meant to handle wrestling 28 squirrels.")

Sometimes we use consensus because parts of the game world are undefined.  ("Unobtanium is a metal.  All metals are conductive, right?")

Sometimes the listed procedure sucks, or it isn't appropriate for the kind of game that we want to have.

DM fiat is a type of consensus.

After all, DM is a democratically elected position.  He wields no more power than what the players agree to give him. If your DM bungles his authority, impeach 'em.

The whole table might discuss the conductivity of unobtanium, giving special authority to the materials engineer in the group, and then arrive on a ruling together (This is open discussion).  Or the DM might just say that unobtanium is a superconductor at room tempurature, duh.  (This is DM fiat).  Or more likely, a mix of fiat and discussion will occur, as the DM asks the engineer what he thinks before spitting out a ruling.  And in the end, everyone at the table is (hopefully) satisfied, because consensus.

When we talk about procedure vs consensus, we are not necessarily talking about DMs.  You can have a DM-less game run by strict procedural mechanics (40K) or by group consensus (Microscope).  And you can have a DM'ed game according to either method.

II. What Consensus is Not

Consensus doesn't mean creative, storytelling freedom.  You can have storytelling freedom in both models.  The difference is lies in mechanical freedom.

I can elaborate.

Nearly every game system has a mechanism for attacking an enemy and then determining how much closer the enemy is to being KO'd.  Those examples are trivial.

But let's look at how consensus and procedure-based mechanics handle players who are trying to do something really weird.

Consensus-based example

P: "I want to feign dying and, while falling over, knock the trashcan down the shaft, where it will hopefully smash the glass roof of the reactor core."

DM: "Hmm.  Let me think about out how likely the thugs are to see through your fake dying.  I also need to think about out if a trashcan filled with unobtanium is heavy enough to break the glass (I have no idea how much that stuff weighs).  Then the thugs can take their turn as normal."
P: "Okay."

Procedure-based example

P: "I want to feign dying and, while falling over, knock the trashcan down the shaft, where it will hopefully smash the glass roof of the reactor core."
DM: "Hmm.  That's not one of the Gambits listed in this Environment Scene.  So just roll all of your Daring dice without any modifiers to see if you can do it.  Then the thugs will take their turn as normal."
P: "Okay."

The choice between consensus and procedure is not (necessarily) a choice between freedom to attempt whatever you want or not.

But in the last example, the procedure-based mechanics were broad enough to allow wide interpretations of player's actions.  That's not always the case.  4th edition D&D, for example, had combat abilities that were only defined in a combat context.  So even though the cleric could fire lasers at-will, all day long, he couldn't use them to destroy a door.  This is an example of a procedure-based system with very clear boundaries, and doesn't tolerate actions outside those boundaries.


III. The Interesting Part of This Essay

So what we're actually comparing here is how task resolution mechanics are arrived at: whether they are pulled from the book or reached by agreement (discussion, fiat, or a mixture).

Fact: Most TTRPGs use a mixture of both procedure and consensus.

Procedural mechanics come out of the rulebook, and they are applied like boilerplate to all applicable instances.  If your system uses d20 + attack bonus vs AC to resolve the accuracy of an attack, you will use exactly that system whenever someone swings a sword at someone else.  Consensus is reached at the table.

When consensus is useful.

Consensus is useful for flexibly generating appropriate mechanics.  Yes, obviously games that allow for all sorts of rulings will be very flexible, story-wise.  If you get turned into an orca and want to know if you can throw a dead penguin onto the lich's boat, an appropriately talented DM will be able to give you a % chance that seems fair to (hopefully) everyone.  This is a trivial conclusion.

What I mean by "appropriate mechanics" refers back to the story-flexible but mechanically-rigid example in section II.  Remember the "roll all of your Daring dice" line?  You can have a system that allows for flexible storytelling (you can do anything you want) but still has a strict procedure for determining success (no matter what you attempt, it's going to involve rolling Daring dice against the same DC).  Because that system achieves flexibility+proceduralism via dissociated mechanics.

But what I mean here is that consensus allows the table to device mechanics that are both story-flexible and mechanically-appropriate.  For example, if my PC was mind-controlling an pangolin with my love, I should be able to say to my DM "I should be able to use Charisma for the pangolin's Will save, instead of the pangolin's wisdom, since it's my love that's motivating it more than anything else." And the DM might say yes.

Because this is the freedom of consensus-arrived mechanics.  The DM can assign combustion temperatures to gnomes.  The DM can invent a way to resolve climbing attempts that involves all of your stats (except Cha).  And the DM can do this on the fly.  It might not be elegant, but it resolves the action in a way that uses the numbers on your character sheet in an appropriate manner.

Consensus-based mechanics are useful for resolving actions that are too nuanced or complex for codified rules.  This is why social interaction gets defined rules less often than combat (and when social interaction does get well-codified rules, there are many complaints).

Social interaction is the big one here (many hard-to-define factors interacting in a very complex way), but there are plenty of other examples.  If you have a dragon that's just been evolved into a cerebral meta-dragon from the future and you are trying to seduce it by dancing in binary, most systems will not be able to generate a procedure for resolving that action.  It's probably going to involve consensus somewhere in there.

When procedure is useful.

Procedure-based mechanics are useful when the players can't be depended on to reach a good consensus.  Rules for player vs player duels should be strictly codified, for example, so that there won't be any whining afterward that the rulings were unfair.  This is also the case for things that could be argued about forever, such as penalties from sleep deprivation.

Procedure-based mechanics are useful when the resolution absolutely has to be fair, such as when the stakes are high.  When the stakes are high, players are uncomfortable leaving things in the hand of the DM (or in group discussion, whatever).  If my PC attempts something and dies, I will be a lot more satisfied if I know that my PC died as a result of an unlucky roll than something the DM pulled out of his ass.

This is why combat is D&D is so strictly procedural.  Roll initiative, attack rolls, damage rolls, save vs sleep.  In combat, there is little room to discuss the circumstance, because the entire circumstance is already fully described.

Correspondingly, it might also be very difficult to practice ventriloquism while drinking a glass of water, but because the stakes for ventriloquism are so low, there is little motivation to codify rules for it.  Even in a ventriloquism-heavy campaign, you are unlikely to see anyone develop rules for ventriloquism unless the stakes for ventriloquism are high.

People are also fond of saying that procedural mechanics give meaning to a game.  Because when a DM announces "okay, it's been a while, and your torch is about to go out" it feels (and is) arbitrary.  Similarly, your DM announcing that torches last for 37 minutes isn't much better.  It makes the victories feel cheaper when you know the DM could just change the rules in order to give you an edge.  And it makes the losses feel unfair for the same reason.  This is what Gary is talking about when he says "YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT."

Fairness can also be had if the DM arrives at a number by fiat but then (a) tells the player the odds and (b) gives them a chance to decide (e.g. "You have a 35% chance to pull the wings off the giant beetle if you try.  Do you still want to do that?").  Fairness, but not meaningfulness.  Does that make sense?

IV. Caveats

This is not a strict dichotomy.  Halfway between consensus and procedure there is still a way of arriving at a mechanic, e.g. adapting a procedure to a similar task.

Automatic success/failure is still derived via procedure or consensus.  We use mechanics to turn the numbers on our character sheet into a certain probability of success.  Sometimes that probability is 0% or 100%.  Whether that 0/100% was arrived at by book-derived method or DM fiat doesn't matter.

Some people are simply more comfortable with one method of resolution than the other.  Some people don't like to see the DM (or the other players) inventing rules whole cloth while the game is underway.  How can they be trusted to be impartial when they all have vested interests?  (Trust and authority will be discussed in the last section).  These people will express a preference for procedure.

Other people don't rules.  They just don't.  They like feeling like the game is organic and reactive.  They enjoy arguing for advantages, or discussing how loud the music has to be before it will affect an arrow's accuracy.  These people will express a preference for consensus.

Neither method is necessarily faster than the other (but if I had to pick one, I'd say that procedural can be faster).  Procedural play can be slowed down by looking up rules (but those eventually get learned. . .)  Consensus play can be slowed down by discussing rulings ("do onions make beholders cry?") or by enumerating options ("is there any way I can get the ogre to stand closer to the fire?").

Yes, it's very easy to point at a game like 4th edition and say that the combat takes so long because the game is very procedural.  But that's not true.  Huge HP pools on bad guys is not an innate characteristic of procedural games.  Calculating many fiddly modifiers is not an innate characteristic, either.  When it's a player's turn in 4e, they can quickly see how many options they have and calculate exactly the effect that their choices will have.  Both of those things allow for fast decision-making.

Compare that to the average OSR game, where a ton of time is spent figuring out your options and trying to figure out the consequences of each.  (Personally, I think that's the fun part, but there are people who differ.)



V. Implications for Game Design

Different games use different amounts of consensus and procedure in their design.  Moreover, they use consensus and procedure in different parts of the same game.  Some games have procedural social interaction and consensual combat.  Others are the inverse.  So what does it mean when we make a certain mode of gameplay procedural or consensus-based?  What gameplay can we expect?  What kind of players will that attract?

Look back at section III.

When a game designer chooses to make a gameplay mode procedural, they are usually saying "this is a part of the game where the stakes are high".  Combat is pretty much always procedural, with lots of mechanics for hitting and caveats for attempting trips, for example.  But things like tracking rations and torches aren't always.

So when a game omits or marginalizes rules for how long a torch burns, this is what they're really saying:

• You'll never have high stakes (life and death) come from the torchy parts of the game.  (The torchy parts of the game will not be the ones that kill you.)
• Your sense of victory or defeat will not come from the torchy parts of the game.  (The torchy parts of the game don't need to be meaningful to be enjoyable.)
• The game does not lie within the torchy parts.

This is fair.  Most people have fun worrying about whether or not the troll will kill them on its next hit.  Not everyone has fun worrying about whether or not they'll all die next turn when their torch goes out.  (Fucking grues!)

So when you're designing your heartbreaker, think about where the game is.  Is the game just the combats, while everything else just flavor and setting?  Or is the game combat + exploration?  Do you really need so many rules for tracking how long rations last in different types of hexes?

See also: Encumbrance, Tracking Food, Tracking Light, Travel Speeds, Crafting, Sanity

So the response to "YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT" should be "You can still have a meaningful campaign without strict time records, but the meaningfulness will not extend to tracking food, light, or travel speeds, since those have become more arbitrary."  

Here's a test.  Killing a dragon is obviously a meaningful feat (the players made lots of choices, rolled lots of dice, they could have died).  In your game, do you want crossing the subterranean desert to be a similar challenge, with lots of choices, dice rolling, and significant risk of death?  I mean, the DM could just say "You guys enter the the Umbral Desert.  It takes you 3 weeks, and you almost die from thirst, but you found an oasis.  Now you're out of the desert."  Do you really want to spend a session managing unruly camels and counting loaves of drow bread?  Because your ruleset will attract the kind of people who's ideas of fun mesh with yours.

I understand the appeal of striving for completeness, or wanting to emulate a certain type of game, but according to my calculations, you don't want rules for things that aren't high stakes.

My calculations:

procedures --> high-stakes --> tension --> fun via meaningfulness

(That's not 100% accurate, because fun comes from more places than just tension, but whatever.  This is meant to fuel discussion.)


VI. Implications for Dungeon Masters

The last section applies to you, too.

If your game uses sanity rules, but your PCs have no chance to go insane OR if the penalties for insanity are minor/easy to remove, stop using sanity rules.  There's little reason to keep using them.  It's just a bookkeeping burden.  Just arbitrate sanity when it comes up.  Ad hoc it.

Likewise, if a party is doing short journeys into a shallow dungeon and there is no chance that they'll be down there long enough to run out of their torches, stop tracking.

If your party has 8 bags of holding, drop encumbrance.

The mechanics for these things are better off being generated via consensus.  They can be more flexible and applicable that way.

(This section isn't 100% true either, because maybe you have fun knowing that your movement rates (300 lbs on a light arabian horse across a steppe prairie) is as historically accurate as possible.  You get the point.  Just think about what it means before you include detailed travel speed rules to your game.)

VII. Criticism

But Arnold, codified rules and pre-established procedures insulate me from bad DMs!  If we don't have well-established rules for a wide variety of situations and actions printed in the book, I could end up playing in a game that is way too hard, way too easy, or worse.  Don't we need to maximize procedure?

Why yes, Mr. Straw.  The more the rules cover every possible contingency, the less impact the DM has on the game.  This does insulate you from bad DMs (and good DMs with terrible hangovers).

If the procedural sections of the game had 100% coverage, the only task left to the DM would be to track unrevealed knowledge (where are the ninjas hidden), do funny voices, and possibly handle enemy AI.  You could practically DM yourself!

But at that point, you're merely playing a laggy video game with poor voice acting occasional glitches.  (Good AI though).  Perhaps you are only there for the social aspect, but are you sure you wouldn't be happier playing a video game instead?

But I digress.  Let's talk about how we arrive at mechanics.

You talk about insulating yourself from bad DMs, but you are also insulating yourself from good ones.
No TTRPG has procedures that cover 100% of all possible circumstances.  Sooner or later you're going to end up going off the edge of the map.  A good DM can craft a mechanic that is tailor-fit to your attempted action.  Are you trying to wrestle laser elementals inside your dreams?  Your DM can come up with a mechanism that is customized to the situation, so that your character sheet can be applied to the situation in the best possible way.

Games that depend on procedural mechanics (4e, GURPS) have an incentive to "keep you on the map".  They strive to minimize consensus-derived mechanics and DM fiat.  GURPS does this by having rules for everything.  4e does this by limiting your actions.

Also, do you really want to rely on procedural mechanics for everything?  The big one is social mechanics.

It's not fair to say that procedural = rollplaying = "I roll Diplomacy" and consensus = roleplaying = 3 minutes of silly elf voices.  Remember that we are talking about how the mechanics are arrived at, not what the mechanics are.  You could have a game where no one wants to roleplay and then the DM decides (a consensus method) that this situation is best decided with a Diplomacy roll.  Inversely, you could have a whole bunch of roleplaying, and then the DM consults his book and announces (a procedural method) that party has succeeded since they said the three magic words "princess", "love", and "please".

It is fair to say that procedural methods don't leave any room for DM interpretation.  Without any DM interpretation, you are bound by the results of the mechanic presented in the book, without any bonuses or penalties that the DM might decide are appropriate (or the whole table can decide, if you trust them).  Which is a pity, really, since roleplaying is something that is so easy to do at the table and can yield such good common-sense results.  Common-sense results that are usually so much more satisfying than whatever the procedural mechanic yields.

Plus, by my prior criteria in section III, social interaction is a good fit for a DM fiat system since the stakes are rarely as high as life or death.  Sure, you can offend the goblin king with your roleplay.  But the DM won't say "You offended the goblin king.  His guards kill you.  Give me your character sheet.".  The DM will say "Roll for initiative" and then you'll be moving into combat, the gameplay mode that everyone wants to be procedural.

But Arnold, flexibility and freedom is the one thing that makes D&D so magical!  It's the one thing that tabletop games can so better than video games and it's so rewarding!  Shouldn't we be maximizing that?

Yes, Mr. Straw, the flexibility and freedom to attempt literally anything you can think of is the great strength of D&D, but that doesn't mean we should maximize it.  We certainly want lots of it, but if we need procedural mechanics in our game to legitimize our victories and losses.

You might be cool with your DM saying "Okay, hmm.  You'll have to roll under half your Str to pull the wings off the giant beetle.  Actually, roll under 2/3 your Strength--the beetle is pretty old.", but there are people who want a mechanics that feels more legitimate.  Surely you've heard the new school gamer's lament of "If the DM is deciding the difficulty on the fly, then you only win when he wants you to win, and you lose when he wants you to lose."  That's what they're talking about.  Meaningfulness.

The sweet spot is different for each person.  For example, a wargamer can play 40K built on procedural mechanics and have a great time.  (And you can have great roleplay in a 40K game, too.  Have you ever thought about how orks would trash talk the eldar?)

But Arnold, aren't procedural and consensus this just two sides of the same coin?  One is decided by 5 guys at a table at Wizards of the Coast, the other is decided by 5 guys at a table in your grandma's basement.  What's the difference, really?

Well, Mr. Straw, it has to do with trust and authority.  Here, I'll write a section for it.



VIII. Trust and Authority

It's a good question.  What makes a book's authors so much more trustworthy than your Friendly Local DM?  In a nutshell:

• We trust the book writers to be more experienced, and have spent more time thinking about it.
• We trust the book writers to be impartial, unlike our DM who might fudge the dice for his friends as readily as go all Killer DM on those assholes who show up at his house every Saturday and drink all of his Mountain Dew.

Neither of these are necessarily true.  I've read some professionally published books with some shitty mechanics.  (Seriously, what was up with the "roll a die to figure out what die you use" stuff at the beginning of Carcosa?)  Likewise, there are companies that might intend a module to be fluffy-and-approachable or Tomb-of-Horrors-fuck-you, depending on what they're going for.  Aaaaand, there are a great deal of DMs that pride themselves at being as fair and impartial as possible (myself included).

I suspect that a lot of this is psychological.  If a jumping spider just bit you on the nose and killed you, which would you rather hear?

"Sorry, bro, but it says right here on page 24 that if you fill the pit with pterodactyls they will start moshing, and their wing buffets will kill you unless you save vs death."

vs

"Sorry, bro, but you filled the mosh pit with pterodactyls.  Of course they're going to start moshing.  I figure their wings weigh about 100 lbs each.  I think a save or die was appropriate in this case."

I also suspect that a lot of this depends on the DM.  

Some DMs are very good at devising fair and appropriate mechanics on the spot.  Others are not so much.  Other DMs don't treat their players objectively (like the pieces of meat that they are) or perhaps they don't seem to do so.

Can we extract any advice from this line of thougtht?

DMs: Consider how you measure up.  Are you good at improvising mechanics on the spot?  Do you find that the book's mechanics over-applied, inflexible, or poorly designed?  Do you like adjudicating ad hoc mechanics?  Are you well-suited for the system you are using?

Players: Consider your DM.  How much do you trust their ability to invent fair mechanics quickly?  How impartial do you think they are?  Does he kill your PC if you neglect to bring him food?

Everyone: Does your ruleset have procedural gaps (situations not covered by the procedures in the rulebook) that leave you flummoxed while you try to come up with a mechanic?  Maybe try a more comprehensive system.  (Pathfinder is very comprehensive.)

Everyone: Is the inverse true?  Are there any rules/mechanics that come up again and again that doesn't seem to be quite suitable for what their intended to do?  (These grappling rules really aren't suited for squirrels, guys.)  If the mechanic describes a life-and-death situation (grappling with squirrels) consider replacing it, or creating a more specific mechanic for your needs.  If the mechanic describes a trivial situation (petting squirrels) consider removing it and just letting the DM rule it on a case-by-case basis, or replacing the mechanic with a simpler one.

Is proceduralism the best word?  Procedure is almost a synonym for method or mechanic.  Precedent vs Arbitrated?  Established mechanics vs Invented mechanics?  What about Orthodox mechanics vs Discovered mechanics.  I like that one.  Professionally-derived mechanics vs Locally-derived mechanics?

Monsters from Synthexia (and 1 Motorcycle)

I'm perpetually sad that I haven't gotten to play Synthexia, a crowdsourced Hexcrawl started by +Jacob Hurst.  Then +Ramanan S compiled the whole thing here.  I also wrote notes for a dungeon in Synthexia previously.

It's just a hex crawl with lasers and crystals and skeledroids and space princesses.  Nothing fancy.

Anyway, instead of playing Synthexia like I want to, I decided to write about it.

Psychocycle

This is like a motorcycle, except instead of a gas tank, it has a zombified brain floating in a tank full of green liquid.  The brain tank is usually clear, so you can see the corrugated brain mean clearly through the plastic emerald shine.  

The green fluid is called necro-combustive powersoup.  It's what's used to power the combustion engine.  The necrocombustive powersoup is recycled--it is used to power the engine again and again.  The powersoup is re-energized by the insanity resonance between the zombie brain and the rider.

The more insane the rider, the faster the psychocycle goes.

For a rider with Wis 10, the psychocycle goes about as fast as a horse.  10/10 = 100% speed.

For a rider with Wis 5, the psychocycle goes about twice as fast.  10/5 = 200% speed.

For a rider with Wis 15, the psychocycle goes about 2/3 as fast.  10/15 = 67% speed.

If the rider chooses to permanently sacrifice a point of wisdom to the psychocycle, the vehicle will kick into overdrive.  Green flames will blast out the exhaust, the tires will leave green flamelets licking the trail, and the vehicle will go about 5x faster.  It will also be able to pull 5x as much.  This lasts for 1 minute.  At the beginning of the minute, the rider must save or go insane for 1d20 minutes, and endure impossible colors, vivid hallucinations, and uncontrollable impulses.

Craniac

These are the skull-faced heads of old men, about twice the dimensions of a human skull.  They fly around, biting and gnashing.  They make horrible slurping noises with their withered lips all the time.  They can also vomit forth a horde of spiders.

Craniac			XP 30
HD 1	AC 14	Mv fly 12	Frothy Kiss-bite +1 (1d6 damage + lay eggs)
Save 16+	Morale 12	Int 5	Vomit Forth, Lay Eggs, Undead
Vomit Forth: After 1d4 rounds of combat, vomit out a jumping spider swarm.
Lay Eggs: Each bite has a 25% chance to lay spider eggs in the victim.  During the incubation, the victim will get -1 to attacks from the swelling and itching.  They can be extracted by a skilled healer possessing a sharp scalpel.  The eggs will hatch in 1d3+1 days into a jumping spider swarm.

Ixian Jumping Spiders			XP 0
HD 1	AC 14	Mv 6	Nibble 1d6 (automatically hits) + poison
Save 18+	Morale 12	Int 1	Swarm
Swarm: Take minimum damage from most weapons and spells.  AoE spells (e.g. fireball, cone of cold) deal full damage.  Burning oil does full damage.  Torches deal 1d3 damage.
Poison: Save or lose 1d6 Cha as your head swells and ages grotesquely (but not the rest of you).  If this drops your Charisma to 0, your huge, wrinkled head pops from your shoulders and becomes another Craniac.

Meteor Eaters

These are sort of like flying stone dumpsters with angry faces drawn on.  They fly around in space eating minerals, picking out the tasty minerals, and then spitting out the rocks they don't like.  They look like normal meteors until you notice them changing directions in order to intercept you.  They fly around in space eating rocks and generally wrecking shit. 

They are also accompanied by flocks of void gulls (just like sea gulls except that they have inverted colors, can fly around in space, and if you look real deep in one's eyes you can reach a painful level of introspection).  The void gulls are too fast for the meteor eater to catch, and instead just eat its scraps and shit on its face.

Meteor Eater			XP 300
HD 5	AC 16	Mv 9	Bite +4 (2d6 + swallow)
Save 14+	Morale 10	Int 8/grumpy	Barf Rocks, Swallow, Calcium Hungry
Barf Rocks: 30' cone, 5d6 bludgeoning damage, save for half.  1/day.  Also ejects swallowed items.
Swallow: If the bite attack exceeds the targets AC by 5 and the dice shows a natural 17-20, the target is swallowed, and is smashed up in the rocky gullet.  They take 2d6 damage if the creature has Barfed Rocks, but only 1d6 damage if it has.  Escaping the gullet requires a successful opposed Strength check (vs Str 20).
Calcium Hungry: Meteor eaters go after humans because they want the calcium in their bones.  If they get a PC in their gullet (living or dead) they might decide to fly away and digest them, spitting out the crushed, boneless corpse later.  If presented with a human's worth of bones (or other calcium-rich material) or a suitable amount of rare earth metals, they have a 4-in-6 chance to be satisfied with that, and depart with the offering.

Spazbats

Take a hampster and increase its size to about that of a deflated basketball.  Change it's fur to a mossy blueish-purple and cover it with green lichens.  Now get rid of the limbs and face.  Give it a single, red-rimmed eyeball in the center of where its face was.  Lastly, a pair of batwings.  That's what a spazbat looks like.

They fly around being assholes.  They hunt by teleporting blood out of their prey, laughing, and then teleporting away.  If they are feeling malicious (which is often), they may teleport random items into the PCs that annoy them the most.  Killing them is messy, since they are often just furry basketballs filled with blood.

Spaz Bat			XP 40
HD 2	AC 16	Mv fly 15	None
Save 17+	Morale 6	Int 5/mean	Teleport Self, Teleport Blood, Teleport Stuff
Teleport Self: At the beginning of a turn, a Spaz Bat begins vibrating.  It teleports at the end of its turn unless it has taken damage in that interval.  Range is 1000'.
Teleport Blood: If a target in 30' fails a save, about a gallon of blood is teleported into spazbat (which then bloats appropriately).  This deals 1d6+1 Constitution damage to the target, after which the spazbat psychically laughs at them.  They usually teleport away after this.
Teleport Stuff: If a target in 30' fails a save, a small, random item is teleported from a random PC's inventory into the target's guts.  The target takes 1d6 damage.  Cutting the item out of the target usually causes the target to take 1d6 damage if attempted by an unskilled person, but medical training reduces that damage to whatever.

Unicorn Addicts

Every part of the unicorn is magical and addictive.  Even a unicorn's poop is mystical.  Eating a full unicorn patty restores 1 HP and causes a pleasant euphoria.  While powerful and gnashing warlords are accustomed to throwing unicorn feasts every year or so (or whenever they feel that their life is growing boring and wish to invite some bloody calamity to liven it up), there is a sadder victim of the unicorn's addictive juices.

They can be easily identified by the (usually curved and stunted) monohorn growing from their foreheads.  Sometimes they cover these horns up with little hats and ribbons.

Unicorn addicts follow unicorn herds around.  These are usually disheveled, unwashed, malnourished people who persist in wearing the brightest colors possible.  They sometimes kidnap virgins in order to entice unicorns closer (possible plot hoot).  They also have horrific breath, due to the constant consumption of unicorn dung.  Many of them are strange, irrational, and  unscrupulous in their desperation to be close to unicorns.

Unicorn Addict			XP 20
HD 1	AC 11	Mv 12	Quarterstaff +1 (1d6), Boomerang +1 (1d6) 50'
Save 5+	Morale 8	Int 10/zany	Pacifistic Prattle, Spell Dance, Zany
Pacifistic Prattle: No one take take any offensive actions against unicorn addicts.  This effect ends if the unicorn addict (or his allies) do anything offensive or suspicious, OR if a PC makes a save (they only get one attempt).
Spell Dance: If three or more unicorn addicts spin around in a circle while rubbing their horns, they can cast sleep.  If 20 or more unicorn addicts spin around in a circle, they can cast cure light wounds.  They can do this as many times per day as they want.
Zany: After each round of combat, roll a d10.  1 - Berserk mode.  2 - Run away.  3 - Pledge eternal loyalty (as long as they get a steady payment of unicorn dung).

Vector Skeletons

Vector Skeletons come from the Dimension 95, the information dimension (it only exists in 2D).  In fact, some say that vector skeletons are the spirits of cyber demons.  Other say that they are primitive forms of the same.  In any event, they can be found anywhere a tunneling protocol connects Dimension 95 to this one.  

They sometimes wear the skin of the last humanoid that they killed.  They're actually quite good at wearing skin.  Not realistic, but good.  The skin is stretched taught over their bodies, pulled smooth, and with all the ragged ends joined together.  The resultant creature is an angular piece of architecture reminiscent of the original.

They look like shitty wireframe models from old computer games.  But don't tell your players that.  Just just describe jagged purple lines moving of their own accord, like a cage for a man that isn't there, glittering in the harsh light from the supernovas, moving with arrhythmic animation, hissing with satanic static.

Vector Skeleton			XP 20
HD 2	AC 14	Mv 15	Cyberclaw +1 (1d10-1, min 0)
Save 19+	Morale 11	Int 1/logical	Glitch, Wall Hacks, Bashable
Glitch: At the start of every combat round, roll a d12.  The vector skeleton will glitch out in different ways. 1 - teleport 10'-60' in a random direction. 2 - get stuck in the floor, immobilized for 1d6 rounds 3 - 3 attacks this round 4 - lock up, paralysis 1d6 rounds 5 - attack allies this round 6 - explode, dealing 1d10-1 to all in 10'.  Save for half. 7-12 - no effect. If this rolling seems tedious, feel free to roll for all vector skeletons at once.  Just be cautious about rolling a 3.
Wall Hacks: Vector skeletons are not incorporeal, but they can walk through walls anyway.
Bashable: Take double damage from bludgeoning weapons.

unlike this. . . but not completely unlike this

Mooncows

THESE ARE LITERALLY JUST COWS THAT HAVE NO LEGS AND HOVER AROUND INSTEAD.  HOVER COW WITHOUT LEGS.  THEY ALSO HAVE ONLY 1 EYEBALL.  BUT ASIDE FROM THAT THEY ARE JUST LIKE NORMAL COWS.  I AM NOT GOING TO STAT THEM UP.  JUST GET USE NORMAL COW STATS FROM WHEREVER. 

eeeehhhhhh

Laser Elemental

This is what you get if you get a cellophane balloon in the shape of a man and fill it with lasers.  It's weighs a few pounds and is fully of hot bars of light.  It looks like a lightsaber orgy in there, constantly pulsing and changing color.

Laser elementals are created when a normal laser gets trapped in the prism maze of Prismax the Unblinking.  There's also a strange reification process that involves molasses, balloons, and lots of MDMA.  So basically, a wizard did it.

Although lots of people think that there is a plane of lasers, though.

Laser Elemental			XP 400
HD 6	AC 14	Mv fly 120	Fire Lasers +6/+6/+6/+6 (1d6 fire damage), 200' range
Save 14+	Morale 12	Int 2/stoic	Errata, Quick, Light-based
Errata: I just want to point out that laser elementals move 10x faster than a human.  Also, their lasers have 200' range.  Basically, their strategy is just to dance around the PCs and shoot lasers from 200' away.  This is awful outdoors, but somewhat more manageable indoors.
Quick: They don't provoke attacks when they withdraw from melee, or when they fire from melee.
Light-based: Laser elementals are light-based.  This means that you can see them clearly in dark places.  They're like neon signs.  However, this doesn't mean that they can see you.  Additionally, you can reflect their lasers with a mirror.  If they shoot their lasers at a person holding a mirror and miss, you can redirect them at whatever you want.  They are, however, immune to fire damage.

11 ULTIMATE MAGIC POWER SHIELDS

Magic shields are more difficult to invent than magic swords.  By their very nature, shields are reactive--you don't choose when you use them, your enemies do.  So, I've tried to keep that, but make it cooler.

A lot of these shields have effects that trigger when an enemy misses you with an attack.  Or they make the shield more convenient, or some some other interesting thing.

The Hungry Black Tongue

The orcs claim that the orcish hero Vogura'umak was not born of any orc, but instead emerged full grown from a tar pit.  In his left hand he held the blade called Elf Eater, and in his right hand he held the shield called Hungry Black Tongue.  In orcish, the shield is called Vogura Karakul.

From the back, the Hungry Black Tongue clearly resembles a huge tortoise shell (3') that has been made into a shield.  From the front, however, it appears as an oozing black surface of tar.  In fact, the front of the shield is believed to be an extraplanar portal to the plane of tar (if such a place exists) much like a bag of holding.

• Creatures that attack the shieldbearer with a held weapon and then miss, must then make a Strength check (roll Str or lower on a d20) or have their weapon swallowed by the shield.
• Creatures that attack the shieldbearer with part of their bodies and then miss, must then make a Strength check or become stuck to the shield.  A shield can only stick onto one creature at a time.  While a creature is stuck to the shield, both the creature and the shieldbearer get -2 to AC and hit, and cannot move away from each other.  (However, the shieldbearer can always choose to let go of the shield).  Getting unstuck requires another Strength check.
• Small creatures (goblins, halflings, etc) or smaller who are stuck to the shield for more than one round must make Strength checks to avoid being swallowed by the shield.
• To clarify, stuck creatures can take an action (instead of attacking) to escape from the shield with a Str check.  At the beginning of the shieldbearer's turn, a stuck enemy must make a Str check or be swallowed by the shield.
• With a normal attack roll, the shieldbearer can also bash enemies with the shield to automatically get them stuck to it.
• There is no known way to recover creatures or items that have been eaten by the shield.

This thing is murderous against small creatures and weak creatures attacking with weapons (e.g. goblins).  Plus, I think it's pretty awesome to just smash a mephit with your shield and watch it get eaten.

Plutus, the Titan's Coin

This shield is said to be made from one of the coins that that the titan Canachorus used to pay off his blood debt, so that he may finally abdicate his eternal throne and die in peace.  It is said to be good luck to bludgeon an enemy to death with the shield.

It resembles a gigantic coin with a brooding face on the front, surrounded by runes that have never been translated.  Although it looks like copper, it is much harder.

• The shield can be used to bash foes, dealing 1d4+Str damage on a hit.
• When shieldbearer gets a killing blow on a foe by shield-bashing it, the foe will be discovered to be carrying 2x as much money as default.
• Putting coins into the back of the shield will sort them, count them, and identify counterfeits.

It's an interesting choice for the player.  Is it worth using the more reliable sword to kill the ogre?  Or take the harder path of trying to bash it to death with your shield in order to get more money.  It tempts players into making their own combat harder in exchange for more rewards.  I like giving players more control over a battle's difficulty and rewards.

However, this is another example of a dissociated mechanic, and it does open itself up to abuse among rules-minded players.  Don't let players abuse the mechanic by stuffing a goblins pockets with gold and then killing it in order to double their money.  That's just stupid.

Chaos, the Titan's Coin

This shield is said to be made from one of the coins that that the titan Canachorus used to pay off his blood debt, so that he may finally abdicate his eternal throne and die in peace.  It is said that to bear Chaos is to invite disorder into one's life, bringing with it great luck as well as misfortune.  However, those that can learn to master Chaos can also be empowered by it.

It resembles a gigantic coin with a brooding face on the front, surrounded by runes that have never been translated.  Although it looks like copper, it is much harder.

• Whenever the shieldbearer is struck in combat by a physical, non-magical attack, they may choose to flip a coin.  Heads, they negate all damage from that attack.  Tails, they double it.
• If the shieldbearer gets three heads in a row, a miniature golden replica of the shield (coin-sized, actually) appears in their pocket.  This coin can be spent in order to make the shieldbearer's next attack automatically hit and crit.
• If the shieldbearer gets three tails in a row, a miniature leaden replica of the shield appears in their pocket.  This coin can be spent in order to take no damage from a physical, non-magical attack.
• The shieldbearer can have no more than 1 replica coin at a time.  If there is a conflict, the older coin vanishes.  Previous bearers of Chaos keep the existence of these coins secret.

Like Plutus, I have very mixed feelings about this shield.  On one hand, there are some fun tactical possibilities with this thing.  The 3-in-a-row coins are pretty nifty, since you can save them for the next fight, but is it worth the extra chaos that double-or-nothing causes?  So those are fun decisions for the player to make.

On the other hand, these are also pretty dissociated mechanics.  AND like Plutus, they also invite abuse.  Don't allow players to engineer encounters (forcing a captured goblin to fight unarmed in order to accrue heads/tails).

Pangolin Cloak

This is a cloak made from a giant desert pangolin.  It was crafted by the elves of the Dustwind.  It looks exactly as if it were taken off the back of a giant fucking pangolin.  I can't explain it any better than that.

The shield is currently is the possession of a desert elf called Viniculaf, leader of the Dustwind outriders.

• If the shield is gripped in one hand and pulled around the body, it is mechanically treated as a magic shield.  This is cool, but doesn't give any benefit a magic shield normally would.
• As an action (instead of attacking, casting a spell, or whatever) the cloakbearer can pull the clok around themselves and curl up into a ball.  This gives them 18 AC, but also makes them immobile and unable to see or do anything until they uncurl.  It also reduces damage from falls and impacts by 1d6.
• The cloakbearer can use a hill to crash into a foe.  The foe must make a save or take 3d6 damage.  Dropping onto foes from a height can be done similarly, but I'll let the DM arbitrate that.

I'm sorry.  I just love pangolins so fucking much.  You don't understand do you?  Have you seen a baby pangolin?  They have sweet little face and awesome little claws.  You just want to pick them up and nuzzle them and teach them to hunt armadillos and pay for them to get through college.

Turtle Paw

This shield looks like a turtle shell, all made from mossy greens and vibrant, iridescent panels of turquoise.  It is, in fact, a living sort of mutant turtle.  Or, a turtle-ish creature, since it is not very much like a turtle when you get down to it.  It only has two legs and no apparent head.

It is worn by shoving your arm down its throat and wearing it like a shield.  The turtle paw doesn't mind.  It will happily attempt to digest your arm with powerful acids.  That is why you must also wear the Turtle Glove when you do this.  The Turtle Glove goes up past your elbow, and is made from the intestinal lining of a similar creature.

There is only one living Turtle Paw known to remain in the world (although you can find their shells in many an armory).  It is kept by the monks of the Rigaleign Cloud Garden, and they are desperately seeking a second one to mate with theirs.

• Counts as both a shield (+1 AC) and an offhand weapon (+1 to hit), since the rear legs end in wicked claws.  +1 AC and +1 to hit.
• Can also jet around underwater, letting you swim at 3x the normal human rate.

Pangolins are also called trenggiling.  Baby pangolins have soft scales that harden and thicken as they get older.  They are insectivores, and most of them are picky enough to only eat a couple of species of insects.  

Magic Dragon Skull Power Shield

Yo this is a magic dragon skull power shield and you get them from killing magic power dragons.  It has many powers that are magical.

• Can bite people for 1d8 damage.
• Can breath fire 1/day.  15' cone.  5d6 fire damage.
• Can roar 1/day.  All creatures in 30' except shieldbearer save vs fear or flee for 1d6 rounds.

Pangolin forelegs are thick and best suited for digging, and so pangolins usually only walk on their back legs, using their heavy tails to keep their front legs a few inches of the ground (like a suspension bridge).  Their tongues are like anteater tongues, and are longer than their entire bodies.  And people have made armor from their scales before.

Brynthic Ink Shield

Popular among the high-ranking officers of Brynth, these are magical tattoos on the left forearm.  The tattoos resemble a line of four shield-bearing hoplites, shields and pikes facing outward.

The tattoos require expensive magical reagents, but they aren't for sale, except for high-ranking officers of Brynth (or perhaps those who do some great service for them).

• When the left hand is clenched into a fist and pulled inward, an mostly-transparent shield manifests on the forearm.  Treat this as a "normal" magical shield.  The hoplite tattoos assume a combat stance, shields and pikes at the ready.
• When the left hand is splayed wide and bent backward, a floating disc spell is cast at the shieldbearer's feet.  It can hold 500 lbs in a floating, invisible, shallow bowl shape.  It follows behind the tattoo-bearer's feet.
• The floating disc can also be used as, like, a sled or something.
• When the tattoo bearer is cursed, the tattoo hoplites appear to have skulls for heads.
• When the tattoo bearer dies, the tattoo hoplites on his/her arm will also appear to die.

It's a nifty effect.  And it is weightless / doesn't occupy inventory, which is nice.

Adamantine Shield Ring

This is wide, octagonal ring worn by high-ranking members of the royal family in Noth.  It has no designs save a small hawk, but is instead dense with inscriptions that describe the bloodline that the ring was originally forged for.

• The ringbearer's hand is as invincible as adamantite.  It can be dipped into fire, acid, etc without ill effect.  Most noticeably, it allows the wielder to block and parry blows with their bare hand.  In this respect, it functions as a normal shield.
• If an attacker rolls a natural 1 while attacking the ringbearer, the ringbearer may choose to make a Strength check.  Success indicated that the ringbearer has either snapped the weapon in half or disarmed it (ringbearer's choice).  The Strength check might not be appropriate for larger or magical weapons (DM's discretion).  All this is in addition to the normal penalties for rolling 1.

Honestly, the most interesting thing about this shield is that (a) it doesn't look like a shield, and (b) it lets you stick your hand into magma.

Greenbriar Shield

Certain druid-cultist-champions of God-in-the-Woods are equipped with these things.  The shields are similar to disk-like bramble bushes.  They grow in soil that is kept in special planters.  These planters are made of similarly hardened wood, and are strapped to the forearm.

• The shieldbearer can pass through mundane plants.  This lets you walk easily through thorns and underbrush, but it also lets you hide inside trees.  While hiding inside a tree, you can breath and see out if it.
• 1/day, you or any of your allies can mutter a quick prayer to the God-in-the-Woods as an action (instead of attacking or whatever).  Whoever mutters the prayer is healed for 1d6+1 HP (30' range) and bleeds milk for the rest of the day (no in-game effect).
• If the shieldbearer takes any fire damage, the greenbriar shield burns up.  It will regrow overnight, but will be useless until then.

The shield is interesting because it's a bit like an NPC healer that can heal anyone in the party.  And it lets people use their action to heal themselves, instead of asking the healer to use the healer's action, which seems fairer, in my mind.

Quicksilver Shield

This shield is a relic of the old elven kings, who perished with the fall of Eladras, the great tree whose roots grasped the moon and whose branches swayed above the mountains.  The shield is currently in possession of the Witch-King.

It resembles a small, round shield made polished to a mirror-like surface.  During full moons, glowing elven script becomes visible near the rim.  The script describe the magnificence of King Thurian, the magnificent of his sweet-scented halls, and the fierceness of his daughters.

• Whenever lycanthropes or fey make melee attacks against the shieldbearer and miss, they take 1d6 damage.  This has no effect if they use weapons instead of their bare hands.  The surface of the shield counts as silver.
• The shieldbearer has +2 AC vs arrows and crossbow bolts, which it can absorb.  Whenever an arrow or bolt is fired at the shieldbearer but misses, the arrow is absorbed into the shield.  The shield can hold up to 4 arrows or bolts.  When the shield is full of arrows, it no longer grants the +2 AC vs arrows.
• The shieldbearer can activate the shield with the words "tela vin varel", which roughly means "raindrops upon the daisies" in Elvish.  When activated, the shield ejects all of its absorbed arrows in a flurry.  Make four attack rolls against a single target with a to-hit bonus of -4.  (Base attack bonuses don't apply.  For each arrow, just roll a d20 and subtract 2 from the result.
• Arrows inside the shield cannot be otherwise interacted with in any way.
• Yes, you can shoot arrows into the shield to "load" it.

There is a small tactical decision to be made here.  Do you walk around with a fully loaded shield that you can fire for maximum efficacy, or one that's halfway full, in order to absorb more arrows.

Teramool's Bitter Heart 

This is an ancient shield that dwarves that the legendary dwarf Boriltor forged for the love of his life, Teramool.  He ostensibly crafted it to protect her when he wasn't there.  She spurned him, and eventually died a few years later.  Later, Boriltor died as well, and left no heirs.  Dwarves regard the shield as cursed (although it isn't) and most will tell you tales of the doom that it has brought to all of its bearers.

Teramool actually wasn't a bitter sort--she just wasn't that into Boriltor.  But historically dwarves have historically sided with their savior, Boriltor, and have painted a rather critical view of Teramool.  However, the shield is suffused with Boriltor's loving memories, and so the shieldbearer will eventually begin to dream of Teramool.  Dream enough of these dreams and they'll eventually paint a more generous, honest portrait of Boriltor and Teramool's relationship.

The shield is a kite shield, covered with shallow engravings of goats.  The rim is decorated with studs.

• If the shieldbearer speaks the word "tervas", the shield will extend armor all over the shieldbearer's body (as full plate).  Any mundane armor currently worn will be ruined.  The armor still retains the normal shield.
• If the shield is removed, thrown on the ground, and the word "kolostrandum" is spoken, the shield will extend the armor, but in the form of a dwarf.  The armor will be empty, but will function as a golem.  The shield golem has 5 HD, AC 18, moves a bit slower than a human, and hits at +5 for 1d8+1 damage.  Any damage that it takes must be repaired at a forge by a master blacksmith, usually at a rate of 1-2 hp per day.  The shield golem cannot understand any command more complex than a single word (must be spoken in dwarvish) accompanied by pointing at something.
• If the shieldbearer speaks the word "mishok", the armor will retract.

Potentially good for people who have a bad habit of falling into water.  The biggest drawback of plate mail is that you can't just fold it up and put it in your wallet, nor don it quickly when you want it.

Edit: This is sort of a continuation of a series.  I want to keep it going (because it's made some awesome stuff) and so I'll just leave this here.

Different Magic Swords: A Proposal by JD Jarvis

Evocative +1 Sword Replacements by Gus L.

Weird Swords and Not Swords by Arnold K.

On Magical +1 Swords by -C

Magical +1 Weapons by -C

Magic Weapons Again. Magic Weapons Again? by Arnold K.

More Magic Shields by Jürgen Mayer

On a Magic Shield by -C

Viva la blog!