So far, it draws a map (as above), with a random number of rooms (4-13) and joins them with corridors. Add a few Doors, and Voila! A Dungeon!
I’ll be writing a Contents generator for it, to add Monsters, Loot, and other features, but that may take a while.
While you’re waiting, I’ll explain a little about how the generator works:
The display is split into a Grid pattern, 60×35 (approx). This grid is held in a two-dimensional array, representing the co-ordinates. Each entry represents a “tile” in the Dungeon. These “tiles” are populated with the different features you may find:
First, Rooms. Without Rooms, a Dungeon is just a Maze, or Labyrinth. We need somewhere for the Monsters to gather, and hoard their Loot.
A simple function picks a random point on the map as the top left corner, and then picks another point to be the bottom right corner. This defines our rectangular room. This is checked against the List of Rooms, to see if it overlaps. We recreate a new room until it does not, and then this is added to the list.
Some rooms
Once we have enough rooms, they are joined together with corridors. Starting with the first room, we extend a short horizontal corridor in the direction of the next rooms, and then vertically until level with the center of the room. Another horizontal corridor takes us to the room.
The spaces to the sides of the corridors, and around the rooms are defined as Solid Rock.
This procedure is repeated until all rooms have been joined.
As we define the Rooms and Corridors, the Array is filled, each Point being set to “C” (Corridor) or “R” (Room) or “V” (Void. Undefined) or “S” (Solid Rock).
Now, we iterate over the Array, using it’s co-ordinates to draw the features. A simple “Switch/Case” statement determines which Tile is placed on the map.
A tip I picked up from Donjon was to always work on Odd numbered grids, leaving the Even numbered columns and rows as Solid Rock or Void. This ensures space between the rooms, and produces (in my opinion) a better map.
Map, with Array values overlaid
The only other tweak so far is to add doors. Each time we place a corridor, the first point is defined as a door
You will note that not all entrances seem to have doors! This is because some corridors run through rooms! In this following example, the corridor from Room 2 to Room 4 does not have a door, as it is actually a corridor from Room 3! “1 to 2” has a door as it leaves 1. “2 to 3” (the lower of the short corridors joining 2 and 3). “3 to 4” has a door as it leaves 3, and then passes through Room 2, turns, and continues to 4.
No door from 2 to 4!
In this way, we build up complex corridors and junctions from some very simple rules. The maps with more rooms have a lot more corridors, that cris-cross each other, and travel through rooms. See if you can trace each corridor in this map (not that it matters, once created. Brave Adventurers may take any route!):
Which corridor is which?
So, there we have it. The result of many long hours sweating over the keyboard, swearing and throwing things!
I will let you know when it is updated with Contents!
“Random NPC Generator” is, as its name suggests, a generator of random NPCs!
GMs, since time immemorial, have had to create characters to populate their game-worlds, often on the spur-of-the-moment. Some take easier to this task than others. I am one of the ones who does not take to it well at all. So to help my gaming, and hopefully other peoples’ as well, I wrote “Random NPC Generator”
An NPC
Now, at the click of a button, you can produce a Character, complete with Name, and a set of Traits, that can easily be used in your Fantasy Role-Playing Games!
If you don’t like any of the values, you can simply click to produce a different one!
Each Trait has many options available, and with literally Billions of combinations possible, you’ll never see the same NPC twice!
And all this available for free, to download to your Android phone!
Never be without an idea for an NPC again!
But wait, there’s more!
A Villain!
For the low, low price of just 99 of your English Pennies, you can upgrade to the PRO version!
The first added feature is Villains! Need an antagonist for your players to defeat? No problem! You can create Evil-named Villains, with Schemes, methods and Weaknesses, along with a location for their Lair!
Also included, as seen in these screenshots, is the ability to export your data! PRO version allows you to save both an image of your results, and also a text file, for easy reference later.
Just one more thing …
The other Feature that PRO brings is the chance to add your own data to the Trait tables! If there is some option that you would like to see, you can simply add it in!
So, if you struggle to know what people inhabit your World, download Random NPC Generator, and never be caught out again!
Well, the one Lucretia has been asked to run is. “Bean” gaming cafe is opening soon, and have been looking for people to run some intro games. Lucretia stepped up to the plate, and we have been discussing what to run.
Oops, wrong picture! 😉
With a proposed player-base of six 10-13yr olds, and a 1-hour time slot, I suggested to keep everything as simple as possible, and concentrate on the players’ enjoyment.
So, here is what I came up with:
System
Some dice!
Opposed rolls.
The player must beat the GMs roll. The Warrior might have a Strength of d8, and the GM rules that Moving the Fallen Tree is a d10 task (It is a BIG tree!).
Player wins: Task Completed!
Tie = Player Wins.
GM Wins: Task eventually completed, but at some cost.
Costs can be ad-libed, to suit the situation, but can include:
Lose a Health Token.
Add a Minion Token to the Final Battle, or other Encounter (to represent the task taking longer, and the Big Bad having recruited more minions).
Use a Special Token (e.g. a Mage “Spell” Token, or Elf “Nature” Token)
Add an extra Encounter.
Overall, the players WILL succeed, but they will be somehow hindered later (less Tokens to use, more Enemies to face, etc)
Characters
A set of pre-generated Archetypes. The Elf, The Mage, The Warrior, etc.
Each will have an Index Card with their abilities on it, and a space to put some Tokens (more on these later).
Abilities:
All are d6 unless noted.
Strong: Warrior has d8, Mage has d4.
Quick: Rogue has d8, Dwarf has d4.
Clever: Mage has d8
Fighting will usually be a Strong contest, but a player may come up with a way of using Quick or Clever. Losing a Fight roll means losing a Red Health Token (Minions only have 1). Especially with younger kids, fighting should never be “to the death”. Minions are knocked out (complete with stars spinning round their head), run away, or surrender.
Plot
Twirly McMustache. (Note: Evil)
The base plot-line for such a short Adventure is: Follow the clues to find and defeat the Evil “Twirly McMustache”!
The players will need a plot-hook to get them into the action. Some ideas to get kids involved:
Your dumb sibling has been kidnapped
Your Teacher has given you some Homework, but Twirly has run off with the answer sheet!
Twirly has stolen your pet’s favourite toy!
You get the idea.
Players must follow clues, overcome challenges and face T. McMustache in a Boss Fight.
Challenges/Encounters
Suggested Encounters:
Nature Challenge: A large tree blocks the path. A river or chasm must be crossed. A cliff to climb. A Twisty Forest where you might get lost.
Minions: Usually a Combat Encounter.
Puzzles: Keep to a minimum, due to time-pressures.
Cryptic Old Man: Always an annoyance! He talks in riddles, but does hold useful clues.
Boss Fight
Eventually, the Players will face the Big Boss. he will have a number of Minions, possibly boosted by previous Failed rolls.
At the start of the Encounter, Minion Tokens can be Doubled-Up to create Big Minions, that use d8 instead of d6! (They could be Ogres instead of Goblins). When these Minions lose a Fight, they lose one Token, and revert to a d6.
This should be played up for excitement. Will they defeat him? Will they be in time? Can they come up with clever, fun, interesting ideas?
There will be a load of Minions, who can get in the way, hinder the Boss as well as the PCs, and generally be used for humour value, as well as ensuring pacing (if the players are having it too easy, Minions help the Boss. If the players are struggling, have them comically hinder the Boss, allowing the Players to pull off some cool moves!).
Assuming the players Win (which they should!), give them a big cheer, a bag of sweets, and send them off with stories to tell their friends!
Also, show them the D&D 5th Edition PHB, and wonder if the more advanced players might be interested in the “real”, more complex rules.
Back to the System
I talked about a few Statistics, that can be used for Opposed Rolls.
“Health” is measured in red Tokens, Each player has 3 (Mage has 2, Dwarf has 4). When you lose a Fight Roll, you lose a Token. If you run out of Tokens, you are DOWN AND OUT (for now …)
I also envisage each Character having some Unique Powers, that they can spend their 4 Special Tokens on:
Elf: Green “Nature” Tokens. Powers: Entangle, Talk To Trees, Pass Without Trace.
Dwarf: Brown “Mountain” Tokens. Powers: Soak Damage, Dwarf Bread, Talk To Rocks.
For many a year, my old school bag served me well for transporting all of my paraphernalia to and from games. It holds a ring-binder or two, plus a box for dice (I did have one unfortunate incident while cycling home in the dark with a glass jar of dice in it … I managed to retrieve most of them …).
It also formed a useful surface for recording my travels.
More recently, we tend to play at my house, so transport is less of an issue! When I do travel to a game, I am rarely GM, so my needs are somewhat reduced.
Originally bought for my tablet, my new satchel holds most that I need for a game, and forms my all-purpose travel-bag.With two main sections, and the front pocket (all zipped) and a slip-pocket on the back, I can store my dice/pen holder, A5 paper (just!) and any other trinkets I may need.
My standard fare includes leather-bound notebook, pencils, assorted medication, a few self-promotional materials (#self-employed !) and of course diceThe stationery case opens to reveal … stationery! (and more dice!)Index cards are always useful (especially when I don’t have room for A4 pads). More pencils than I need is a necessity!
Inventory:
Notepad (essential for taking notes!)
Meds (Throat sweets and head-ache tablets. Really useful!)
Business Cards (Never leave home without them!)
Pens and Pencils, erasers. Highlighter.
Index Cards (For several uses)
DICE! 1 set haematite. 1 set Blue. Assorted D6. A bunch of D4, as a previous PC used them. My “Exalted D10” bag.
Character sheets are usually left at the Game, and rule books carried separately.
My phone doesn’t really count as “Gaming accessory”, more of my lifeline! It gets used in some games more than others. (The FWTD game I run has lots of online resources).
So, what’s in your bag?
Do you have a Standard Gaming Bag? What do you grab when you get The Call? Do you make do with an Asda Bag-For-Life stuffed with whatever you can find nearby, or do you have a Gamer’s Survival Kit that will see you through pretty much any situation this side of the Apocalypse (and possibly beyond)?
The humble d20 hails back to Roman times, but is most famous for its prominent role (!) in the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. D&D is also renowned (amongst those familiar with it) for using a variety of different dice-systems throughout.
3d6 for Character Creation. 1d6 for Searching. Percentile dice for Thieves Skills, 2d6 for Clerical Turning of Undead, the list goes on.
Other games have tried (with varying degrees of success) to limit the types of rolls that are made. Apocalypse World (and its descendants) use 2d6 exclusively. Rolemaster uses Percentile dice for everything.
But what difference do the different types of rolls make?
Swings and Spikes
The “Spikey” 3d6 curve
A term often heard when discussing dice systems is “Swingy”. Usually used in relation to 1d20 or percentile rolls, it means that the result can vary hugely, on a flat probability scale. It “swings” from one end to the other randomly.
“Spikey” rolls, on the other hand, are highly biased towards particular results, such as the bell-curve of 3d6.
While both 1d20 and 3d6 give very similar average results, the change of getting any result varies hugely.
in our current game, we decided that the 1d20 roll that the system uses was too “swingy”, and have replaced it with 2d10. This should give a more reliably-average roll, without taking Luck entirely out of the equation.
How do you Roll?
There are a few Major systems for determining the result of a dice roll:
Dice+Bonus: e.g. D&D 5e (1d20+Stat Modifier+Proficiency), Rolemaster (1d100+Skill Bonus).
Roll under Skill: e.g. GURPS (3d6), Runequest (1d100).
Dice Pools: Roll multiple Dice. each one that beats the target Number counts as a Success. Beat a “Number of Successes” to succeed. e.g. White Wolf (Vampire et al)(1d10 per “dot” of skill, looking for 7s).
(These are by no means the only systems, but do represent the most used.)
It is relatively easy to calculate the Average roll using these systems.
3d6 -> 10.5, d100 -> 50.5, 1d20 -> 10.5 etc.*
Typical Exalted Dice Roll
*White Wolf dice pools vary hugely across editions. I shall be referencing Exalted 3e, which calls for targets of 7, with a roll of “10” counting as 2 Successes. This gives an average roll of half the number of dice rolled. 6 dice -> 3 Successes. 10 dice -> 5 Successes.
We can quickly figure whether an Average result is enough to succeed:
e.g. Bob the Fighter rolls 1d20 +5, needing a 15. That’s a pretty close call (15.5 average)
Ann the Animist rolls 1d100 +30, needing a 100. Unlikely, but possible.
Carol the Caroller rolls 8d10 needing 3 Successes. Almost certain, one might think …
Far From the Average Roll
While some systems are famous (justly or unjustly) for their complexity and requirements of Advanced Mathematical Knowledge (I’m looking at you, Rolemaster!), while others are so simple it hurts, it is always useful to have a bit of a grasp on what the numbers mean.
Average Rolls are a good start, but what if you need a non-average roll?
1d20 vs 15+ is easy enough. 30% chance, about 1 in 3. (Each “pip” of a d20 is 5%. 15, 16, 17, 18 19, 20 = 6 options. 6*5% = 30%)
3d6 vs 14-? Likely, but how likely? This graph (Courtesy of AnyDice.com) shows that it is 90% likely!
3d6 Curve
The “Spikiness” of 3d6 means that if the required roll is better than 50/50, it soon becomes very favourable.
Carol (above) needs 3 successes from 8 dice … a more complex situation. We know that it is better than 50/50 (as that would be 4 successes). Thankfully, Scott Gray has created a Dice Pool Calculator to do the heavy-lifting for us! His calculations show that 3+ is a 68.5% chance. About 2 in 3.
Custom Modifications
Now we have an idea of the basic rolls, what about when they change? Is the darkness giving us a 2 point penalty on our Observation? Does our Long Stride give us a 2 point bonus on Chases? How much difference does this make?
On a “flat” dice, such as 1d20 (or almost any “single dice” system), a set modifier gives a set change to our chances. On 1d20, every shift is equal to a 5% change. +2 is +10%. -3 is -15%.
On 3d6, it depends where on the curve you are! The difference between 6- and 9- (a 3 point bonus) is the difference between 9% (say 1 in 10) and 37% (say 1 in 3, or 3 in 10). That’s +30%!
But 3d6 needing 12-, with a 3 point bonus (so 15-) only shifts from 74% to 95% (+20%)!
With a “spiky” roll, it makes a big difference whether you can get enough Bonuses to move the “spike” across the required roll!
Once more, for the hard-of-rolling:
Some systems have a way of re-rolling a result (or part of it).
Exalted 3 has several Charms that allow you to take dice of a certain value and roll them again (e.g. Excellent Strike: “Attacks gain one automatic success, and 1s are rerolled until they no longer appear“).
D&D 5 has included “Advantage” (Roll 2 dice and take the better roll) and “Disadvantage (Roll twice and take the worse roll)
A method I have seen, but don’t recall where from, is a way of changing a “swingy” roll into a “spikey” one. Instead of rolling 1 die, you roll 3, and take the middle one! This moves the expected result strongly towards the middle of the range, and makes the extreme rolls very rare indeed! (To roll a “1” on 3d20-middle requires all 3 dice to turn up “1”, a 0.0125 percent chance, rather than a 5%!
Sorry, you lost me …
Don’t worry! The only thing you really need to know is which dice to roll, and what number you need. Knowing the average, and therefore roughly how likely you are to succeed is useful, and quickly learned.
If you are interested in the probabilities, and the shapes of particular curves, anydice.com has some very useful tools.
Summary
There are many different rolling methods, but so long as you can get to grips with the one that is used in your game, you are set!
Always keep a supply of several dice-types, in case they are needed, and don’t be afraid to switch out poor dice!
The Dice Shop Online ran a Facebook promotion, asking us to mention any funny RPG names we had come across, with three Random winners receiving a Dice Cup and three Dice.
I mentioned an old D&D character from back when the Aliens were building pyramids to scare the dinosaurs: Gemini. I forget his original name, but after a Rodent of Unusual Size gnawed out one of his eyes, he had a precious stone implanted in the socket, and renamed himself “Gem-in-Eye”! 😀
I was picked as one of the lucky winners, and today received my prize!
Review
Dice Cup, with Hand for scale
The cup is made from a sturdy leather (ah, that new leather smell!), and laced together with leather thongs. Metal pins hold the cap in place, and the Dice Shop logo is embossed onto the side. Small enough to easily fit on my hand, it will comfortably hold a few dice, but may struggle with larger ones (My trusty plus-sized d20 almost fills the base of it!). The website notes that these Cups (which come in a variety of designs; obviously this promotional one features the Dice Shop logo!) are made by a small supplier who sells exclusively to The Dice Shop.
So, is it any good?
Dice Cup, and Dice
The leather, as mentioned is sturdy, a good 3mm thick, and held together with solid threads. The metal pins that hold the cap seem very secure, with no wobble.
The embossing is nicely done; it looks like a patterned punch has been used to recess the areas around the logo, and then the leather dyed, leaving the shop’s name clearly displayed. The dragon logo they use is a simple affair, but this keeps it recognisable. It is also replicated on the “6” side of the dice.
Dice Cup, Open.
The underside of the lid features a rim to hold it in place, ensuring that it does not slip in transit, or during shaking! It also means that the flexible leather will hold its shape, as the open Cup does have a tendency to move under a heavy grip! With this rim in place, the Cup forms back to its original shape, and is difficult to malform when closed.
As the pins hold the lid secure, it will make a good travel-case for my dice, getting them used to the leathery environment, before the game. They can then be emptied out, and the Cup used as needed.
Three Little Dice
The three dice that came with the Cup are a good representation of The Dice Shop’s range. 15mm across, they are a mottled purple with gold pips (and Dragon logo on the “6”). I often do not like colourful dice, as they can be hard to read, but the colours chosen here are good, and the mottling is subtle enough not to break up the display. I would be happy to use these in a game!
As I’ve only just received it, I have not had chance to test the Dice Cup’s rolling ability, but I look forward to rolling a lot more Critical Hits!
If you have enjoyed hearing about this Dice Cup, why not check out their other designs! Crowns, Stags, Dragons, Skulls and other images feature in their nearly-100-strong range!
It has been brought to my attention that my previous article was more about House Rules than Home Brew, so in an effort to redress the balance, I give you:
HOME BREW:
Home Brew
At its heart home brew is building your own system from scratch, rather than using a published system.
There are many reasons for doing this, including being unable to find a system that suits your needs, to wanting to try your hand at Game design.
Often Home Brew systems are the outcome of a long set of House Rules, gradually altering a system, bit by bit, until it no longer resembles the original. (Rolemaster by I.C.E. was originally presented as a modular system to replace parts of D&D, until they packaged it and sold it as a single, unified set!)
In other cases, people come up with a Game Setting that does not seem to fit with an existing set of Rules, and so write their own, customised to the needs of the Setting.
Pros:
A well-written Home Brew system will be custom-designed to the needs of the Setting it is meant for, and the players who are expected to be involved. It is quite common for the Writer to know (or at least have an idea) of who will be playing, and build the World and the Rules around this expectation.
The GM can feel much more in control of a System that they have written, with the rules reflecting the expected behaviour of the World. They are not beholden to some Tome of Rules that they have been presented with, but can write the Rues to reflect the stories, themes, and atmosphere that they wish to portray.
Cons:
You have to write your own rules! To some, this is not a great problem. Some people enjoy poring over rules, producing test-cases, creating characters and situations, and seeing how the rules handle them.
Leave it to the professionals! Published Game Designers, who do this for a living, have access to time and resources that the hobbyist does not. Time and Players for play-testing, multiple other systems to compare and contrast against. Why re-invent the wheel, when decades of devout designers have refined Rule Systems to a pinnacle of perfection?
Case Studies:
The Chronicles of Ishar
The Chronicles of Ishar
Written and run by a friend of Lucretia, I joined this game in its mid-stage, with other players already familiar with the System, and the Setting, and had to find my feet quickly! Playing Mighty Heroes attempting to save The World from Imminent Destruction, we were encouraged to play high-powered, exciting characters.
The base system was similar to Savage Worlds, with higher Skill Ranks meaning rolling larger dice (d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10, etc), adding the relevant Statistic, to reach Target Numbers depending upon Difficulty (with some Tasks opposed by the Opponent’s roll).
My Seraphim Technomancer put all of their points into Tech and Lore, leaving irrelevant Stats such as Dex and Stamina (for the game used quite a traditional stat-line) at very low levels (I imagined this as being only semi-corporeal, being a Divine Being).
Each Class had a Web of Special Abilities, with each Node leading to bigger and better powers, giving us choices over which area to specialise in.
The game was run very loosely, with player skill being as relevant as Character abilities (We had several ‘Occasion’ Sessions, such as Hallowe’en and Xmas, where we had to solve word puzzles, play Charades, and other Parlour Games!).
Character Progression was handled in two ways:
We gained individual XP for completing tasks, and reaching milestones, with bonuses for good play. To avoid any one PC racing ahead, when anyone was 2 levels above anyone else, the lower level PC was automatically “dragged” up to one level below them! This still gave people incentive to gain XP, but made sure no-one was left behind.
Every time a Skill was rolled, it was logged by the GM, and after a certain number of uses (low levels requiring few, higher levels needing more), it automatically raised.
When an XP threshold was reached, you went up a level (as is traditional), and you gained a set of Points to spend freely, so frequently used skills would progress,and you could push these areas, but also had the option to broaden.
Balance was thrown to the winds, which was highlighted when some of our characters were possessed, and we attacked each other. Luckily, I faced off against our Healer, and we whiffed and wafted at each other, struggling to reach 5 points of damage, while the Amazon Warrior was calling Double Criticals on each attack, and could have killed me several times over in a single round (minimum of 50 damage!, probably treble that!)! Luckily, our Automaton could take this beating, and we survived the encounter.
Overall, the system did as required of it: gave us some rough numbers to work with, and moved out of the way when we wanted it to! This was partly down to the GM/Author using the System as he saw fit, and also off-loading a lot of the player-based side of things, for us to keep track of.
Fates Worse Than The Apocalypse
Fates Worse Than Death
Apocalypse World has been hacked to more settings than I can count (at least 4!), so I jumped on the bandwagon, and found a way to convert it to my current favourite setting, Fates Worse Than Death.
Playbooks were easy to formalise: each gang gets their own, with Moves based upon the areas that they usually have low Skill Costs for.
‘Full’ details are available here, but to summarise, I found converting the base mechanics very easy. What I did struggle with was the “Ask the players, accept their answers” ethos, as both myself and my players are used to the GM designing the Setting, and the Players not being able to Define it.
This is always a problem with converting a System. You may be able to make parts of it work, but other parts need some serious effort to fit them in.
Heart Breakers
From the earliest days of D&D, through to the latest releases, people have tried to write their own games. Some have been very successful (in relative terms), such as the aforementioned RoleMaster, and also RuneQuest. Both are examples of how to write “Not D&D” properly. Many others have not been done as well …
“Fantasy Heartbreakers” has become an accepted term for games that try to emulate D&D, but with their own special twist, or a “new take” on certain parts of the Rules. The pertinent point being that they never became successful (usually due to being too derivative), and broke their creator’s heart.
I posit that most Home Brew systems would fit into this category, if they were to be published in earnest. If your pitch (to the RPG industry) starts “It’s like D&D, but …” then unless you follow up with a VERY impressive idea, it will be a Heart Breaker.
Check out BoardGameGeek for some examples, including Fifth Cycle, Legendary Lives and NeverWorld.
Keeping it Real
LARP (Live Action Role play), or “dressing up and hitting each other with rubber swords”, has always been the red-headed step-child of TTRPG, but occasionally produces some interesting ideas.
Our local group produced its own Rules and Setting: “Dead Oasis“*. Set in an isolated City (the “Oasis”), it had an interesting Skill Progression system, that nods to the AD&D Monk and Druid ranks.
You could move through the main Ranks (Novice, Journeyman, Professional, Master) by spending your XP, but there was only ever ONE Grand Master of each Skill in the Oasis. To reach this Rank, you had to challenge the existing Grand Master, and defeat them (knocking them down to Master, and taking their place).
LARP is a difficult area to work with, as the constant conflict between “Staying in Character” and “adjudicating the Rules” can be major problem.
Summary
The main difference between Published Rules Systems and Home Brew is the “Published” bit. 99% of Home Brew content never makes it as far as the local club, never mind wider access. And this is probably for the good. Those pieces that do make it out into the wild will rise or fall depending upon many factors, of which only one is Quality (although there is a lower-bar, that if it doesn’t reach, it will never succeed).
*unfortunately, very little evidence survives of Dead Oasis. I believe my house-mate has a treeware version of the rules somewhere …
There is a lot of talk about running games “RAW” (Rules-as-Written), and while there is certainly a time and place for such things (the D&D Adventurers’ League, for example), there is also a time and place for taking a big red pen to the rulebook, and writing your own replacements.
For public clubs, where players may drop in and out, and there are people with varying experiences of games, it can be a good idea to be able to say “I’m running D&D 3.5”, or “Who’s up for some Shadowrun?” and people will know what to expect. But even then, there may be discussion over which supplements are being used, what extra publications are allowed, etc. Not all GMs are fully up to date with every expansion, and even if they are, they may not agree to use them (our club was split over the “Chrome Books” for Cyberpunk 2020. Some people loved the extra equipment, others saw it as rapidly-increasing power-creep).
Some campaigns call for limiting the beginning choices players have over what characters to play (our current game has everyone all be in the same Street gang, which is their Character Class). An early WHFRP scenario didn’t exactly outlaw Dwarves, but made it quite clear that they would not be very welcome!
From minor adjustments through to writing your own complete systems, there is a whole spectrum of house-rules/homebrew.
Why We ‘Brew
Rip Up The Rules
Sometimes, a rule-set is almost right, but doesn’t quite capture the flavour of the intended setting. One of our group used to use RoleMaster to run a game set in Middle Earth. Removing any Elemental spells seemed to work for the subtle magics that Tolkien seemed to favour.
Other times, a particular rule doesn’t gel with a particular group. Some people don’t like the fragility of 1st level D&D characters, and rule “Everyone gets Max HP at 1st level”, or replace the usual dice rolls for stats with one that gives a higher average (4d6, drop lowest, 2d6+6, roll 3 sets and choose, and many, many more!).
A player might pitch a character concept that the rules don’t currently cater for, and the Group can work to find a way of building some rules that can fit it into the game.
Oft times, the GM just doesn’t like some section of the rules, and replaces them with their own “better” version. One area that seems very prevalent is Order of Combat Actions (“Initiative”). Do you roll every turn? Do you roll at all, or does the PC with the highest DEX/AGY/SPD always go first? Do you go round the table, with no regard for Character abilities? Some tables prefer different ways of doing this, for “accuracy”, balance, ease of play, and other reasons. In some games, getting the 1st go is very important, others less so, so it can make a difference what style of game you want.
To try to avoid a classic situation of low level PCs specialising to a degree that they can out-do any NPC in their area, I ruled in our latest game that PCs could only start with Rank 3 in each skill (out of 5 Ranks), and only progress at 1 Rank per Level. While this has still allowed them to reach the heights, it has forced them to consider a longer term view, as they can’t suddenly buy 3 Ranks in a skill if they find it useful. I have seen games where the reverse is done, where PCs may not have more Ranks than their level, they may buy from Rank 0 to Rank 5 all at once, if they have the XP.
The Undiscovered Country
Unexplored areas: Not the unmapped Dungeons, or uncharted star-systems that the Players will venture forth into, but rule concepts that the Designer did not include. How long will it take our party to build a trebuchet? Can we utilise our Media Contacts to set up a propaganda campaign? Some of this is termed “Rulings” rather than “Rules”, but if it becomes a repeated action, it can become worth formalising a system for it.
A lot of games include what has been termed the “Rule Zero” section, essentially letting the reader know that the Rules are merely Guidelines, and should be altered to fit your own way of playing. This became epitomised in our early games, where the most-quoted section of the rulebook was the section saying “Do Not Quote The Rulebook”!
How to Brew
There are several factors to take into consideration when introducing House Rules. The first, and possibly most important is the very fact that you are departing from RAW. Once the precedent has been set that Rules are merely Guidelines, expect to face a tirade of players demanding that the “obviously unbalanced and unfair” sections of the rules that apply to their character should be changed to something “much more realistic and appropriate” (transl.: Moar Powah!).
This leads to the next consideration: Balance.
Usually, Games Designers have put a fair amount of work into their Systems, and tried to make sure that no single class out-shines any other (unless that is a conceit of the setting. See: Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard). Changing around even seemingly-innocuous rules can have unforeseen consequences on this delicate balance.
Effort/Reward: Is it worth the hassle of poring over rule changes, judging how it will affect the game, who will benefit and who will lose out, when you could just say “No”? Some players are very good at skimming over things, with a “Whatever. Lets get to the good bit!” attitude, where others find their enjoyment reduced by apparent lack of verisimilitude.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
One of the long-lasting house-rules we use is the Good/Bad/Ugly Contacts for Character Creation. Everyone notes 3 people that their PC knows. One is a “Good” Contact, generally friendly and amenable. Another is “Bad”. Hostile. A rival or enemy. The third is “Ugly”. Complicated. Not reliable. This seems to work in pretty much any game we run, to help keep the players, and their PCs, attached to the World.
My Table:
My Rules!
At our Game, we have a long-term group of players, and tend to play ongoing campaigns. The latest has just hit the 52-session mark (just over a year of Weekly play, with a few gaps).
Fates Worse Than Death
As mentioned, I put a few restriction in place at character creation (All the same Gang/Class, no Skills over Rank 3), and the stipulation that all PCs should be “rays of light in the darkness”, and at least try to get along together (D&D translation: Good alignment). Being a gutterpunk/cyberpunk game, they WILL be using underhanded tactics, and they are part of a particularly nasty Street Gang who use their Blood-based Psionics to leverage power over people’s minds, but at least try to do things for the right reasons!
As the game has progressed, I have been asked to make several Rulings on things that the Rule Book does not make clear, and usually I come down on the side of the players.
One area that was always going to be needing House Rules was the fact that one of the Antagonists is a Voodoo Sect that I have invented new Psychic Powers for. The party is made up of two Powerful Psychers, a Psychic Researcher and a Lost Soul looking for direction. Obviously, they have all jumped on this as something to learn for themselves, and so I am tasked with producing not just some effects that NPCs can call in a narrative manner, but a fully-fledged, robust skill system for the players to interact with! The Psychic Researcher is also developing new Powers in areas I did not imagine, so I also need to figure these out.
The plus side is that I only have a small group, and do not need to worry about wider concerns. So long as it works for this campaign, it does not matter if there are knock-on effects outside the Groups purview.
“What if the Immortals get hold of these powers?”, “How will this interact with the Animalists’ situation?” – Not a big part of this campaign. I’m not going to worry about it. And next campaign, I will probably rule that no-one can play a Bleeder, and so can’t have these powers!
I do need to keep some semblance of balance across the party. The powers developed by the Psychic Researcher should be better/easier-to-learn than the stuff knocked together by the Psychers, without overshadowing them. What we’re really talking about here is Spotlight Time. Do each of the Players think they are getting a fair deal, are their efforts paying off?
And this is the aim of all Home Brew, I feel. Keep the players interested. Adapt to their wants and needs, while preserving the World they are playing in. We very much play as “GM builds the World, Players play in it”, rather than some of the more player-based systems/styles out there, but player-input is still very important in what the GM builds.
Summary
There are several reasons to alter the Rules of your System, but it should be done towards one main Aim: Improving the Fun for Everyone!
Do you Home Brew/House Rule? Why? What are your favourites?
We have hit Session 51 of our Weekly Game of Fates Worse Than Death, so here is a bit of a Summary. It will be a bit rambling, but bear with me:
The State of Play
As detailed in our Game Summaries on The Mute Point forum, the PCs are now quite powerful (Level Five! The book suggests that this is better than 90% of the populace).
Although Vinnie still struggles for cash, the group as a whole have enough folding money to live comfortably, and purchase any special equipment they need (Mack and Dr Watt spent their “big score” on a cryo-chamber, so that their Blood Samples do not decay).
The group have quite few Minions at their disposal, Mack and Vinnie are carving out their own little sections of Turf, and Dr Watt has a Secret Laboratory! Grendel is building a Voodoo Temple behind her Martial Arts dojo.
Politically, the PCs have played a good game (mainly at Mack’s pushing), and are well placed to ask for favours from Masters. They are also in a position to have favours asked of them!
Voodoo-Power is building up. Mack and Vinnie are bastardising the Faith-Powers into Blood-Based powers, and Grendel is insinuating herself as Voodoo liaison.
External Relations are still a bit stilted.
Psionics/Blood-Magic
Blood Sampling skill, combined with Blood Memory, is VERY powerful.
Blood Sampling allows one to taste a person’s blood, and gain access to their higher-level skills (depending upon how good your Sampling skill is).
Normally, a Blood Sample can only be used to fuel a Psychic Power whilst it is being tasted (a round or two), but Blood Memory allows that to be boosted to an hour (Vinnie can only manage a few extra rounds, but still useful).
As the players have access to Blood Samples for most skills (either directly, through their Minions/Contacts, or buying from other Bleeders), they can be effective in any area they choose!
Belief Attacks are useful as they can implant a Belief in a subject, but only if there is an “attack vector”. What actually happens is that the subject believes what they are currently experiencing, so using during your own Preaching, or arranging for Tannoy Announcements, can be useful!
Emotion Attacks are unpredictable. Firstly, the Psycher must be experiencing the Emotion, to be able to transmit it (I have been generous with this, and Vinnie has played cautiously), and it does not determine Actions. If someone is “Very Sad”, will they attack, run away, hide, call for friends?
We have ruled that Psychic Sensory skills (Mind Reading) cannot be directly blocked. A target may notice the Psychic intrusion, but cannot “shunt them out of my head!”. But usually, only surface-thoughts can be read, so singing a popular tune, or reciting a Mantra can hide any important information. (There are other defences, such as the Math Addicts’ predilection for thinking in Equations. It can be read, but not understood, and ranking Humankalorie have learned Alien ways of thinking, rendering them immune)
Individuals
The premise of the game was “We are all individuals”. Everyone plays members of the same gang (which translates to the same Character Class in other systems), to see what would happen*.
We chose a Gang that has a Generic skill-base, not as focused as the Technophiles, or the Runners, or Roofers, allowing players to choose a few Merits in their specialised areas.
We have ended up with four VERY different characters (even though Vinnie and Mack overlap in certain key Skill areas). To be honest, I think we still would if they had all been given the same Character Sheet! My players see things in very different ways (Not so different that it makes the game untenable, thankfully).
Where Next?
Despite my natural instincts, I want the players to succeed, and they are in a position to do so.
I would like them to continue to combine Voodoo and Bleeder, and come up with the “Game-Changer” power that has been predicted.
This will, of course, lead to them being blocked, attacked, and otherwise hindered!
I would like to leave the City in a state that I could run more adventures there. If this new City is controlled by a small sect of Powerful Bleeders, who demand blood-tithes, I can work with that! There is still the matter of the Skin Borgs, though, who wear advanced armour that needles cannot pierce!
So, lots still to do!
*I would still like to see the game we considered playing: Bin Men! In a dystopian future, someone still needs to empty the trash!
Building Random Lists turned out to be a simple procedure. Buttons to choose which Category. Pick Lists (and grammar). Display in Recycler View.
I added a few extras, such as One Button to choose “Furniture”, with a sub-menu for Kitchen, Lounge, Bedroom etc. Quests included a Reward built from the Treasure Lists. Shops called from the Names Lists.
For the Pay Versions, I added some extra Features:
NPCs. Names became clickable, and built a random Person, with Traits pulled from other Lists. Personality, Valued Possession (Treasure), Mundane Items (new List), etc.
Add Data. This was a tricky one. I added the capability to add to the existing Lists. This data is stored in Text Files on the user’s phone, and added to the Array when the App draws up the Lists. I had quite a job figuring out where these files are stored, how to call them, and how to add them to the Array. In the end it worked though.
But we’re just calling Lists, and combining results.
Rome Wasn’t Built In a Day
And neither were my Apps!
But I did build a City-Builder. Not, unfortunately, a map-creator, although I am working on that. This is another Random Lists app that call up traits and features for a Fantasy City, such as Government Type, Local Features, Main Export, etc.
A Random City
Again, each Feature was called from a List (still working with XML String-Arrays). Some used combined-lists (such as Renown). The Export facility was also included, and as can be seen from this picture, Exporting also saves a screen-shot.
A new feature for this App was to allow the User to “re-roll” a Trait. Clicking on one of the results will call up a new Trait.
The City is an “Object” (or “Class”) that holds information about each Trait, and when a Trait is re-rolled, the Class is updated with the new information. (Only one City is held at any time. Creating a new one over-writes the old one).
The City Names are created from two sections. One is a list of predetermined Names, and the other a prefix-suffix combo. Here we see “Pen” + “dale”. It could have produced “Pen”+”wood”, “Pen”+”ford”, etc. (As an aside, I am working on a Planet Creator, and those names can pull from an algorithm similar to the one used in Elite, that combines some syllables to form a real-sounding word. The Starport names draw from combos that include a “mixer” between the prefix and suffix. “Hadley’s Hope” might be “Hadley’s New Hope”, or Hadley’s Last Hope”).
Next …
I am reaching the limits of my imagination, and what can be done with Random Lists. While there are many more “skins” I could put on them (Dungeon, Modern City, Monsters, Furniture, you name it …), I need something to allow me to learn more about programming. One area I have been meaning to investigate is Databases. While I did some simple work on them for my RPG pages, I need to know how to fit them into Android!
An idea soon brews up: Random Loots! D&D has always included random Treasure Tables, so I could write something inspired by the latest version, saving all the raw data in in tables, and calling it as needed!
It turns out that the worst part of this is typing in all of the data! As with all of these apps, there is a lot of information that needs storing.
The main structure of the database was easy enough to build, using “DB Browser for SQLite“, although I did have to keep adding more columns as I realised what code I needed.
There are two types of Treasure: Individuals and Hoard. Individuals just carry Cash, which is easy to define the range (dependant upon Challenge Level) and roll some dice. Hoards can include Gems or Artworks, and the chance of Magical Items (OOooh!!). Roll on the Table to determine what sort of thing is in the Loot Pile, and then on each sub-table to find the details.
A section of the Random Treasure Tables from the Dungeon Master’s Guide
There are sub-tables for each Value of Gems and Artworks, and (as noted) multiple Magic Item tables. These are all easy to produce.
More difficult was deciding how much detail to display! Do the players want to know the full details of each gemstone, its exact value (for I introduced a randomiser for that!), what cut it has, etc, or just a Total Value for selling? I decided to include both! The App presents a Total, and clicks to present a list of details (using the previously-mentioned Recycler View).
New addition for Magic Item details was the Pop-Up window. This does not change what Activity you are in, but adds a new display over the top of it. Here I included Maker, Minor Power, and Quirks that the Item may have.
Loot!
Finally the Export Code was added. Again, I used the Screenshot, but also looked at Formatting the Exported Text, so that it was easier to read. This mainly meant iterating the Treasure List and adding a few Line Breaks, with Section Titles.
With the addition of a few details to prettify the App (background Picture, Icons, nice buttons), it was ready to publish!
Finally
It may sound like a lot of this went smoothly, but I spent an inordinate amount of time struggling with sections of code, hunting typos, retyping functions and searching Google/StackOverflow for error-messages. Eventually, I have some workable Apps! You can download them here.
If you would like more detail about the actual Code I ended up with, or if you have ideas for new Apps you would like to see, ytou can contact me at:
