What happens when you end the session in the Mega Dungeon

Staying in any megadungeon when playing a drop-in game is a risky enterprise (cuz sheeeet, I dunno if you are gonna show to play in a week or three months sometimes, ya crazy IRL players). Your character has to try and find their way safe and sound back to base.

Roll a die based on the judge’s surmization* of what the party make-up is looking like. Rolling low is good.

Party is fine, they have a well-thought route back: d16     
Party is a little worn down, deep, or laden: d20    
Party is low on HP or supplies, is carrying heavy junk, or lost: d24

Party is ragged, hunted, or pissed off the gods: d30

So when it is time for you to roll, roll once and compare that roll to your ability scores. If half or more of your scores were rolled at/under with the die, then you are fine. If the majority of your scores were not rolled at/under, we got a problem. 

Determine randomly among the failed-against scores, what will be your downfall and consult the below table:

Failed score            Problem (fumbles are rolling the highest number on the die)

• STR                Nearly starved on your way out. Ration needs doubled next outing. 
  
  Fumble: d4 STR dmg too, hungry Hank. 
  
  
  
• DEX                You dropped something, determined at random, down a hole. Fumble: whole pack! 
  
  Fumble: An arch-enemy came across it.
  
  
  
• CON               Dungeon crud; start the next outing down half HP. 
  
  Fumble: Very bad crud. Save or die!
  
  
  
• INT                 You got lost in the dungeon. Each room entered has a 10% chance of having your PC (your responsibility to check; play a backup PC while searching). We have [your lost PC's level] sessions to find you. 
  
  Fumble: You are stuck in a trap, enslaved, or jailed and will have to be broken out.
  
  
  
• WIZ                You were robbed of something while unawares. A monster has it now. If it was your lucre, you don’t get XP for treasure until you get it back.
  
  Fumble: You also take the result of one more ability score failure, determined at random.
  
  
  
• CHA               You managed to piss off a faction. They know what you look like. 
  
  Fumble: Fatwa!

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*Look, maybe surmization is not a word, but surmise sounds weird as a noun, cromulent tho it may be, and judgement would have been redundant sounding in that sentence. I could have reworded it, but here we are.
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Introducing Shremlane Hexcrawl

I’ve had a few groups visit Shremlane over the years, and have been tinkering with it since like 2012. It’s basically a misery crawl, but hopefully the odd encounters keep the players coming back. I’m trying to iron out the procedures for the latest foray. Those groping trees are really stressful!

Procedures:

Enter new hex or get to midway point→Roll 2d6

• Sides add to seven→Underworld entrance spotted! Permanent find; mark it.
• Sides are adjacent numbers→Trail spotted. Trails are not permanent. The trees are dicks.
• Sides match→Encounter! Roll a d20 the first time, d30 the second, and d60 the third+ time.

Travel times & stress cost: 

Always confirm the times to start a day, add extra time for incidentals, rations should be consumed every six hours (stress if you skip meals).

• king’s road: On hour per ½ hex/Two hours per hex. No stress
• trail: Two hours per ½ hex/Four hours per hex. One stress point
• no trail or road: Three hours per ½ hex/Six hours per hex. Three stress points

Background:

Shremlane forest is a cursed place. A generation or so in the past, it was host to a group of peace-loving humans called the Shmisdanis. Then, as always seems to happen, barbarians invaded from the north, sacked the stronghold of the Shmisdanis which was also the heart of the forest, and then went on their way. People say that the barbarians were after the treasure of the Shmisdanis. Others say the Shmisdanis failed to keep up the accords they had created with nature and the forest, thus letting the barbarians slip in as punishment. No doubt more blood than sap was shed that day.

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Rolling all saves to escape the megadungeon (DCC or any other three-saves D&D)

If you end the session still in the megadungeon, as opposed to civilization,  roll a single d20 + your Fort, Dex, and Will separately. For instance, if you roll an 11 and have  Fort+1, Dex-1, Will+3, you end up with 12, 10, and 14.

Of course you may burn Luck on this roll.

There will be a DC set by the game judge. An easy way for them to set it is to make the DC be 10+dungeon level*. Any of the three numbers you rolled that failed to meet this DC spell out your travails as you try to leave.

• Failed Fort? d6 exploding damage; you may die on your way out.
• Failed Ref? Lost an important item somewhere in the dungeon; 10% chance it is in a given area you visit next time.
• Failed Will? You are lost in the dungeon! There is a 10% chance per area entered that another party finds your PC. If you aren't found in a number of sessions equal to your level you are lost forever!

Failures are cumulative, so if you failed Fort and Will and were found, you would be d6 or more damage down and maybe they find your moldering corpse. If you were a baddie, you definitely are an undead thing that needs to be put down.

A DCC way to do random encounters

You enter a few spaces, take some time searching for secret doors, or make a lotta noise busting down a door. Time to make a check, but you are playing DCC, so let's put some mustard on that check.

Game judge, ask the Luck score of the PC that made that choice (go for the lowest luck if multiple people are about to find out).

Roll a d20. This is one of the times you are allowed to roll secretly in DCC, but you must swear to Bobugbubilz that you will not fudge the results unless things are getting boring. If it rolled that PC's Luck or less, frown, ask if they have gloves or if their mother is still alive or if they brushed their teeth this morning, but there is no random encounter.

Maybe throw spoor at the PCs if the roll just squeaked by.

If it failed, there will be an encounter (or anything else from hunger to lantern oil being used up). If you think the party is getting desperate, maybe say, "Would you like to burn some luck?"

Can they know how much? Nope. If they opt in, they have to pay the difference between the roll and their Luck score, but the bad thing does not happen. This time.

If they roll a natural 20, bring out something that could really wreck their shit. It won't necessarily want to kill them (what care have giants for ants?), but say the immortal words, "Roll for initiative."

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I've made this post in anticipation of venturing into Tegel Manor once again using DCC RAW. Would you like to join the dead? Click on this link to Dungeoncrawlers Discord, which expires in seven days.
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Oracular Kanji Card Improv for Elfgames

Sometimes a DM has no idea what to do. One trick you could try is turning to a random page in a book and finding a random word to inspire you. But I usually have kanji study cards at hand.

Example from a recent game. The players got interested in the fact that there were itinerant barbarians in town and wanted to hire one, so I had to come up with a guy on the fly. The card I drew had the kanji 介, which triggered the word 介護 for me, which can be used for care-giving. 

One English word I associate with that is nurse, because care-givers for the elderly are often called that. So I came up with a nurse-barbarian. He is into taking care of the wounded. For his name, I took the reading of the kanji, kai, and made him Kai the nursebarian.

In the same session, I let the players world-wank up some rumors about the house they were going to rumble. One player was like, "I dunno, I got nothing," and I assured them it was fine to pass on the question, but I also showed them the next kanji card in my box which was the kanji for other, and that got some creative-release.

You could use kanji to answer many kinds of questions. What does the prophesy say? What kind of trick is in this room? If you don't feel joy sparking, go to the next card in the box.

I looked a bit for some online random kanji generators, but frankly I like these cards (translations are on the back side) much better, as the example combo words are really what gets the juices flowing, and a kanji without a friend is often a half-baked idea--unless you happen to know a good wago word that uses it.介 is not such a kanji, so yeah, the card is helpful.

You could try a random English word generator, of course.

Like I said, there are a million ways to randomize ideas, like dictionaries. Sometimes, when I need a treasure, I turn to the kanji cards, but often I turn to a copy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's catalogue.
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Pregame Warmup Worldwanking

I’m pretty particular when it comes to the demihumans of my world, but besides that, I think maybe my group could really get into the game setting and roleplaying mindset if they had a hand in describing some of the other features and rumors of it. So here’s what I’m gonna try:

At game start, I recap the last session with Spencer Crittenden music. Then I pose a question such as:

• What dangers await in the purple hills?
• What factions vie for control of the wastes?
• It is said that a miracle occurred in Gropecuntelane. What is it?

I do not ask any one person in particular. I tell the group to think for just a second, while I have them roll initiative. The person at the top of initiative gets the first game turn, which consists of them saying something their character heard, and how they heard it--if they want. The second person does this as well, spouting their own take on the answer. After these two, I then ask if anyone heard a different tale or rumor about the thing.

That’s it, that’s the process. I as the GM have to decide which answer is true, if any of them are, and to what degree. If I’m not sure, I could consult a die to see which is the rumor I want to focus on and its veracity. d6: 1) this answer is spot on, 2~5) this answer is somewhat true, 6) this answer is ironically quite false.

Addendum:
Those cheesy scripts that started WEG Star Wars modules? That was the only time I got a certain player to speak in any sort of accent or funny voice. Those things may bear some revisiting by GMs and designers.

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Trauma Conquering System for dealing with sanity in an elf game

This is a refresh of a post I previously made. I’m trying to make it simple to adjudicate.

A ghost touches your soul. An elder evil's face is glimpsed. Your whole family dies. So you had a bad day, and now you are not in your right mind.

When you fail to save vs insanity, take a condition. While you have a condition, you cannot gain XP, though exorcising your inner demons may come with a cathartic XP bonus. The good news is you cannot gain more than one condition at a time.

All the conditions' mechanical effects and XP nullification will go away once their requirements have been satisfied, but these should prompt lingering role-playing issues. You were broken, and like a kintsugi bowl, you will beautiful, but never the same.

One rule: Give these in secret to your players. They should keep their insanity secrect (act, it's a freakin RPG) and their motives mysterious.

1d12 Broken PC Conditions:

1. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?!†: You're certain that a random ally or NPC has a secret, and you must find it out by any means necessary (the secret doesn't have to be true, but your character must be satisfied with the confession).
   • I hate the smell of honey, don't you? Anyways, best tell me where you hid the baby.
   • If you don't admit right now, by Mitra, what is in your pocket, I will drop this puppy.
   • This is potent wine, isn't it? You might slip and let me know anything and I would never tell a soul!
   
   
2. HIDE YOUR SOUL!: You must change your current, true name (use ceremonial methods) and hide it in a Matryoshka doll in a box in a chest within the pits of ______ (the DM can decide how to get you the name of the place).
   
   
3. I NEED TO TAKE HIM DOWN A PEG: You must secretly or suddenly set up a situation harmful to an NPC. This should expose them to significant loss of reputation. Tripping a guy in the street is not enough; you need this person to be shunned by their peers. If they get jailed or killed, well, they deserved it, right?!
   • Lady Chattery's brooch is missing? What is that dangling from Lord Tashertorn's boot?
   • Ha, little does the acolyte know that I gave him a scroll of explosive runes to take back to Sandelstin the Imperious.
   
   
4. I NEED THE POWER AND CONTROL: You must gain an office or station with sway over no less than 10×level sapient beings.
   • Some of you may die, but that is a risk I am willing to take.
   • I have received a revelation, and have been directed to marry all three sisters, brother Hyrum. As the humble representative of Xenu, I must obey.
   • Too long have orcs lived in the shadows!
   
   
5. PUZZLES ARE THE KEY TO REALITY: You have to solve one adventure puzzle or riddle on your own. If anyone tries to help you, not only is the chance to end this condition ruined, but you also have the Resentment condition (3) from above towards that character too!
   • Shut up, I know how knights move on the board!
   • All these squares make a circle...
   
   
6. MONSTERPHILIA: you have to woo one monster. Consummate the relationship somehow before regaining your wits. Oh lord, I hope your game has safety tools.
   • I roll to seduce the dragon.
   
   
7. GOLDFEVER: You need to collect at least 100 gold coins (no sharing!), then roll a (DC 15-1 for every 100 gold hoarded since you got unwell) Will save, or you still have this condition.
   • I need, like enough to swim in.
   
   
8. CRAVENNESS: Hire a body guard and cower during fights as long as the body guard lives. After they die, you reluctantly start taking care of business again.
   • Brave, brave sir Robin! You tell them, my henchman.
   
   
9. MY OATH WILL KEEP ME PURE: Chose a quest/mission/objective you have yet to fulfill (even if it is a really old one you kinda forgot), or throw yourself at the mercy of the DM and they will make up one for you. If possible, drop any other current objectives and single-mindedly pursue that one to completion.
   • I will not rest until the level one goblin chieftain is dead.
   
   
10. FAY-PRIMITIVISM: You abhor worked metal of any kind, and seize up with imagined allergic reactions at the touch of such. This condition ends once a foe has pierced you with such an implement and you survive.
    • It burnses us!
    
    
11. WATCH THE WORLD BURN: You must set some structures (occupants quite optional) ablaze. The amount of floors or burned structures must equal or exceed your current level.
    • Warms the soul.
    • Anyone know where I could get a fiddle?
    
    
12. I NEED A TOME TO HELP ME MAKE MY CREEPY NOTEBOOK: You become obsessed with finding esoteric information (of your choice) that you are convinced is to be found in the tome of ____ and won't be sane until you have studied it for a number of weeks numbering (roll until you roll under your Int). You must do some research to find the name of the tome, as well as clues to where it might be.  

†: This one is almost directly ripped from a False Machine post that started this idea for me.
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here's one I rejected for not being questy enough and overlong:
Body issues: You must (1d3) 1: loose 1d20 pounds, 2: gain 1d20 pounds of fat, or 3: gain 1d10 pounds of muscle. It will take 1 day of fasting to lose any 1 pound (roll over Con to confirm), and 1 week to gain any (roll under Str or Con to confirm). If you lose or gain fat, also lose or gain a point of Con when you reach your goal weight. If you gain the muscle, gain a point of Str, but you must eat double rations to maintain your body image/gained score.
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A Psionics Sytem Using Playing Cards for Old School D&Ds and BRPs

Zener cards

First, you gotta see if you are psychic. You must roll a d100 at or under your mind stats (one chance per each stat. So in D&D you would roll three times, once each vs your INT, WIZ, and CHA.

Since the average score for an ability is around 10 if you are doing 3d6, you overall end up with about a 27% chance of being psychic in this system, so DMs gotta be aware that it won't be rare if they adopt this rule.

Let's get to the actual meat of the post. The brain meat. If your GM has access to those psychic guessing cards from Ghostbusters, use those. Most tables will have to use tarot or playing cards tho. Do magicians shops have Zener cards?

Anyhoo, to do a psionic thing, negotiate the potential effects this the ref and then guess a card (Zener) or a suit. If you guess right, you did the thing without issue. If you guess wrong, you take a consequence in accordance with how hardcore you pulsated your temple-veins.

when she goes
for closing the
gate at the end
of a season,
that is a
high stakes risk

For instance, if you tried to scanners a guy's noggin to pulp. The game Judge may simply say, "you're dead." But I say if you are trying to splode a simple mook's pituitary, the stakes are still low. If the stakes are low, I think it is more appropriate to have a psychic nosebleed.

You take damage from the nosebleed equal to the number that appears on the card (face cards make you pass out). Since Zener cards don't have obvious numbers, count the lines on them (a circle has 1 line, an star has 5).

See, now that you know they are more forgiving, you are going to buy the game facilitator a deck of these Zener things.

One parting bit of consideration: as a PC gains experience, perhaps they should get a little bit better at doing the dramatic stuff. Maybe once you get seasoned, stuff that used to be dramatic, like picking up a whole semi truck, are not quite as risky for you as they used to be. Or maybe you get to draw two cards and take the best for something that is now a tried and true power for you. The world is your Ψ-oyster.

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The Seventh Ability Score is Gold

Sometimes the seventh score is Luck, and that is a useful one to have, but this post is about starting gold. Many D&Dalikes have you roll 3d6*10 for starting gold. And many DnDs let you swap ability scores around or lower one score to raise another. In our Black Pudding game, I have let the players consider gold to be a score that these options are applicable to. Can't afford that helm? Maybe you can sacrifice your CON of 11 to get a little extra cash up front.

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A less tedious way to do prime requisits

The tired-sauce way.

I've actually done this in a couple campaigns now, and it worked pretty fine, though this is the simplest iteration of the rule: Your prime requisite score is applied as a percentile reduction to the XP you need to level up.

Simple example: A Wizard with INT 10 needs 100XP to reach level 2. She only really needs 90XP to level up. Easy peasy, wizard-squeezy. 

Aw, I started my example on the high road to really drive home that the glass-ceiling was being burst, but ended it creepy.

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Let Them Find the Secret Door

Lately, I have not been asking for many search-type checks. Sometimes I have asked everybody to roll a d6 and hope for a 1. Sometimes we are playing Dragonbane and I want to reward having that skill. But really tho, I have found straight up success, especially at finding doors, to be good for the feels of the game. 

Each time the PCs devote time to searching for doors or whatever, they're gonna find them, but I am going to loudly roll encounter dice (or happenings dice). Players know there is a risk. That's fun. They find the things and that's fun too.

Now then, finding a secret door does not mean you know how to open it. I usually have a super-dooper simple trick to opening it in mind. In a library: notice the floor marks from the swinging shelf, but you have to find a likely book and pull it to open the latch holding it closed. Looking at baas-relief dwarven carvings? You find one with a hammer shaft that has to be worked to open the way.

Have you tried poking its eye?

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Teeny tinly adventure generator

 

So, I've been working on a little RPG, as I often do, when I'm not fanslating JTRPGs. I'll link it below. But anyway, put a little adventure generator into it. Thought I'd share that to inspire you.

3d6s    Go to                Threat                       Why

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1    underworld             human/iod                retrieve/filch

2    fane/manse             beast/men                enshrine/replace

3    foreign land            demons                    escort/catalog

4    city/hamlet             aberrants                  kill/seal away

5    tower/fort               creations                  report/spy

6    roll twice                roll twice                 roll twice

The DM chooses any details, including which of the Why results or even both of them. 

Then the DM rolls a twist secretly from the following on a d6: 1) betrayal, 2) red herring, 3) rivals, 4) god machinations, 5) destination is not final part of journey, 6) roll twice, but if you roll any more sixes, there is no twist.

 
A few rolls on that later and I had envisioned a mission for the PCs to escort a vestal virgin's holy entourage to enshrine the Egg of Cooter within a temple a few days away, but the twist is that other people from the caravan are going missing each night, and the virgin is a false suspect. 

Link to the little devil of an RPG itself: Blessed with Dungeons.
 

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Stars and Wishes to feel good in your britches

You may know about stars and wishes. At the end of the elf-game sesh, players say what they liked about the session and what they hope happens next time.

My group was already doing MVP votes to end games, with the winner getting a Luck-bennie to use in the next get-together. Goes all chef-kiss. But I wanted to try S&WS as we played some S&W.

I realized stars often stroke the GM's ego. So, when we adopted S&Ws, I decided we will have the star be your MVP vote for a PC player, and the wish be as per usual. And I retained my title as humblest bestest DM.

MVP really is a good way to bond the crew. Try it out, even if there is no reward. Slay strong, people!

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There's a d6 Chance in Hell

Was recently running that edgelord RPG about princesses and it may have been the first time I had, because I wanted to adjucate a check, but realized I didn't have any way spelled out to do so in the actual rules. This is probably very intentional. Old school game; rulings not rules.

What it does have is the x-in-6-chance-to-do-things type of skills for just a few specific actions that hearken back to 0e D&D. I'd like to adapt that to kinda keep things consistent. After all, if I did the d20 at/under ability score thing, some things would feel too competent or incompetent when compared to d6 skills and rolling d20 high to hit but d20 low to do everything else will confuse my players every damn time.

In the following system, you don't even have to say if they are rolling high or low or what number to roll. You can even roll your own meaningless DM dice behind the shield to so as to be extra mysterious. Click-clack!

So, before they ask for a d6 roll, the GM secretly rules what the base percent chance to do a thing is, considering the action doer's class, level, species, and ability scores (you could add numbers on top or whatever). This ad hoc figure is then converted using the table below:

1 in 6: 1~16%

2 in 6: 17~33%

3 in 6: 34~50%

4 in 6: 51~66%

5 in 6: 67~83%

If the secret chance is higher that 83%, ask the player to roll anyway, just to be a little dramatic. 

Example: Percy wants her warrior to climb a wall. The Judge thinks most people would have a 40% chance of doing this. Warriors are good at using their bodies, so +5%. Lvl 8? +8%. A dwarf? stubby arms and heavy ass is -5%. Net of 48% is a 3 in 6 chance. Percy rolls a 5, and the judge rolls three dice just for dramatic effect. Percy didn't pass, but her girlfriend just broke up with her. She needs this. The judge sighs in high-maudlin, then grins, "You got lucky this time." That's right, the judge fudged it. 

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Filcho, Drayno, and Wizzo Enter a Bar

I had a sads when I saw how the Twitter algorythm treated my last post. I shouted, “WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY BOY?” Here's a play example to get those rookie numbers up, cuz I’m telling you, the post had some good ideas.

So the titular trio waltz into a watering hole and scope the seats. Filcho and Drayno decide they want to jump into the game of Groat my Gryphon they see at one of the tables, introduce themselves under fake names, and sit down. Meanwhile Wizzo spies a trollop at the bar that doesn’t look too expensive. Oh, you thought Wizzo was a dude and I’m being sexist? Pfft. No, Wizzo is a lady, so that’s on you and thousands of years of patriarchy. 

Filcho and Drayno, rogues that they are, both decide to cheat. Filcho is 3rd level thief, so he has a 3 in 6 chance of thieving. Drayno is a 4th level fighter, and so only has a 1 in 6 chance. Guess who is going to screw this up.

Meanwhile, Wizzo find her own hair in her drink right in the middle of a line about how the Gamete Hills are beautiful this time of year. What the hell? She uses her wizard eyes—she’s 2nd level— to try to find out if magic is afoot. She has a 2 in 6 chance. The player rolls a success. Ah, the culprit is a toxically possessive leprechaun on the whore’s lap. “I see you! Time to taste my Ensquirrelating Beam!”

But just then, a brawl breaks out behind Wizzo. Drayno has fumbled his cheating roll. He attacks an angry gambler with his club. The attack doesn’t hit, but the club damage roll is a 1, so Drayno’s player announces that he kicks the table up on its side to give some cover. 

Filcho wants to do a ambush with his blackjack, and so waits for someone to poke their head around the side. He rolls an attack and hits, but his damage die rolls a 6, so he doesn’t get any extra damage.

Wizzo is like, I just want to get out of here, and runs for the exit. 1 in 6 chance for that, as a wizard. She rolls a 3 though, so someone intercepts her--NO! The DM just had a better idea. Leprechaun chicanery has tied her boot laces together. She takes a pitch forward.

That was round one. Their adventures will continue, but I think I’ve shown how the system can work.

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Thief-like skills for all

First, the D&D old school thief needs a quick fix. Instead of lousy percentile skills, give the thief a 2 in 6 chance to do thiefy things at first level (non thieves will have a 1 in 6 chance), and raise that chance by 1 for every two levels gained. All “skill” chances for all classes will max out at 5, BTW.

The Fighters and Magicers get skills now too though. They also start with a 2 in x chance (not necessarily 2 in 6, as you will see) to their idiomatics, and other classes get 1 in x.

Fighter skills are always checked for as part of an attack. When you roll the weapon’s damage (roll it at the same time as yer d20), the die used for that doubles as a skill check (only use the first die in cases where a weapon does multiple dice). The fighter’s player announces what they intend their skill to be after a successful roll. For instance, a called shot is a common skill. A cleave is another. Maybe use an ax to pull away a foe’s shield, making their AC or damage reduction retroactively lower. Basically, if your attack hit, you probably announce some inimical effect on the foe. If not, maybe you do a fancy stunt.

So now low damage weapons are more accurate, if you want to use them.  Incidentally, I would have backstab be allowed to thieves or fighters.

So magic-using guys. I think the game judge can adjudicate whether they are doing is using a class skill or not. A wizard is probably good at spouting lore or alchemy. A cleric probably knows who that demon lord mentioned by the scroll is. 

Maybe use the skills for bending the rules as written for spells. You want to cast hold person on a dragon? Okay, if you make your skill check, it happens. Wanna use Turn Undead on rabbits? Skill check, but only if they are really evil rabbits.

Incidentally, I just found this old post with a similar idea that some wizard wrote. 

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DCC & FAGE hit boxes

Typing out loud about trying to make combat even faster in DCC. Lessee... 

Let's count damage as hits by counting it in chunks of five. So 1~5dmg= 1 hit, 6~10= 2 hits, &c. 

Group monsters take one or two hits. Like if there are a few bandits, give them two hits, but if there are ten, give them only one. 

Solo monsters can take HP/10 hits if they have listed HP, or 1 to 3 hits per HD. Give high AC monsters fewer hits, and low AC ones up to three. 

Let's pull a couple monsters out of the book and consider them as solos: 

• An Elder Brain has 10HD and AC 16. The AC is slightly high, so two hits per HD=20 hits. 
• A Giant Centipede has 3HD and AC 14. Also, it has a cool poison type, so you want to see it bite at least one PC. Three hits per HD= 9 hits.

Lately I'm running FAGE. Would this work for that? I think so. Lots of Fantasy age monsters take one or two points of damage from a weak hit though, due to the nature of soak armor in that game. Now that I think about it, all HP is divisible by 5 in that game, so each monster can take HP/5 hits. Easy, but better for solos and the like as your standard goblin will take 3 hits, so for true goblin cannon fodder flavor, use the group monsters idea outlined above.

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Choose the form of the traveler

Been thinking about dungeon events a lot recently as I work on my megadungeon Shmégel Manor. The other day Turn came out. It was a good little thing. Just picked up my copy of RND issue 4, which I got back in 2017 when I contributed a couple pieces of art to it, and the last page was also inspirational. So I'mma spitball a thing. Based around trusting your players to make their PCs suffer.

If you want to see another take on abstract timekeeping to work on dungeon resources, I like my own post here. 

For the happenings determination in the first place, the old 1 on a d6 method is fine. I'm partial to rolling 2d6 and checking for doubles. The bottom table could be rolled on with a d30, d50, or d60 to consolidate encounter chance with results (any result not 1 thru 12 would be that nothing special happens).

d12    Result

1         Ask a player, what song is flitting through their character's mind right now.

2         Ask a player what they are searching their pack for that seems to be missing.

3         Ask a player what the tracks they just found seem to be.

4         Ask a player how they are going to deal with their fatigue.

5         Ask a player what they are running out of.

6         Ask a player what they see shambling out of the darkness.

7         Ask a player what just grabbed their ankle.

8         Ask a player who the familiar person they see is and what is wrong with them. 

9         Ask a player what rumor or legend is fleeting across the back of their mind.

10       Ask a player who they are thinking of from their past.

11       Ask a player what sound the party hears echoing through the halls.

12       Ask a player what kind of trap the one they just triggered is.

 

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Retroactive theivin' in elfgames

You don't want to narrate tapping sticks throughout the whole tomb of horrors

 

This is not going to be a long post. It's just a little tip.

The following is usually my default rule. Instead of having the player declare that they are checking for traps, I just wait until a trap is sprung and have the PCs roll retroactively to see if they noticed the trap ahead of time and so were able to dodge it, roll to disarm it, &c.

When I notice that PC paranoia is slowing things too much, I often restate this procedure for the players.

This procedure is best for trapped chests, nefarious doors, cursed treasure, Arduinian hallways, and the like. It's probably good to have obviously dangerous areas in most situations. For instance, a swinging scythes hallway is something to solve, not to detect. Give big ol' clues. Players will die in entertaining ways anyhow, and it won't be the DM's fault.

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2d6 Carcosan encounters

These follow the rules laid out in a previous post. I'll recapitulate that the intention is to not roll for a chance of an ancounter, but to see what the inevitable encounter is. Once done, that cell of the table is empty, resulting in nothing if rolled again. 

If you want a pretty version that is easy to modify, follow the link in this post. And let me also share my Carcosa hack RPG while we're at it! 

2

Yig

An aspect of Yig. 30 hit dice. If it is not autumn, he will likely pause and lift his ophidian head to wait for worship. If non-such is coming, he will probably not be pleased. Yig also won't brook the torture of serpents. If it is autumn, Yig will be hungry, but may possibly be driven off by drumming.

3

Greys

The greys are driving a tank with a clone-beam. The tank ignores all damage below a threashold of 12. If a PC is hit with a clone-beam, they will spend three rounds splitting into two-beings, 90 scifi Poison Ivy style, and their clothes/armor will be ruined. One of them is an NPC that attempts to kill the other.

4.1

A sorceress

She has an entorage of slaves, all of whom she has seduced thanks to the Roofies of Relore. She will trade a ritual for one she doesn't know.

4.2

A mercenary band

The Crimson Company is camping. They really want a strong, crimson leader, if the party happens to know any. They are otherwise only interested in work for hire.

5.1

Carnosaur

The carnosaur ate a party with some fun equipment and treasure last week. Search its poop and you will find these.

5.2

Apatosaurus vs Brachiosaurus vs Brontosaurus

The impossible fight is happening!

6.1

A robot

Buckaroo bob. Buckaroo is a personality downloaded from a parallel timeline, where Carcosa is a pleasure planet divided into zones called worlds. Buckaroo is from Wild West World. He resembles a human, but has silver eyes. He has a pistol with exploding damage, and shoots very fast, doing three attacks per turn.

6.2

A robot

A humanoid with crab-like legs. Its percieved function is to skin people, so it has a giant carrot-peeler-like appendage that looks kind of like a scorpion's tail. Its lair, filled with rotting skin, is nearby.

6.3

Itenerate people

Roll a d13 to find their hue. These are simple hunter-gatherers. They worship Yig and other such beings, and will give info to nice parties: Yig can be driven off by drumming.

7.1

Spoor

Spoor from a spawn or robot that the party has yet to meet. If they party is smart enough to try and avoid the encounter after that, they won't meet it. The party could find cowbody costumes, skinned bodies, a body with a hole in the back of its head, a glowing rock that causes headaches, etc.

7.2

Pilgrims of Yig

These mysterious verdent-hued people have serpentine mutations. One has snakes for arms. One has a hingeless jaw. One has scales. One is a sorceror who can summon five 8HD snakes per day. If the party is cordual, they may give a mission to go into a nearby cave system and search for a sperpentine torque they believe is down there, among the White Guardians and cave mummies.

7.3

Rainbow Mastodons

The buck of the heard can shoot rainbows out of its trunk that drain 2d4 exploding stamina and change your hue to a random one.

7.4

Travelling Caravan

The caravan enjoys the protection of the Rainbow-coalition, a group of mercenaries of all hues, and twenty in number. The RC has three ray guns, which they point at the PCs at all times from the central cart's tower. They will mention that a ruined city is nearby and offer to pay well for any valuable baubles that can be brought back from it.

8.1

A spawn

Glovorosto, she of many migranes. There is a 1 in 6 chance that Glovorosto is suffering a migrane when encountered. If so, the PCs will feel her pain to the point that the largest die they can use to attack or make checks will be one step worse. Glovorost looks like a giant brain with septiginal-radial simitry and fish tails jutting out of her skirt of phlem. Her touch will cause scanners-style head explosions unless the toucher rolls a d20 OVER thier INT score.

8.2

A spawn

This unnamed being takes up  habitation in shadows. What can be seen of it is its tendrils, which jut out of everyone's shadows. If a tendril is hit, the owner of the shadow where that tendril is found takes equal damage. The spawn is in the shade of a baobab tree when first encountered. If knocked to 1 HP, the spawn will rest for three days in someone's shadow, which takes on an ulfire hue.

8.3

A spawn

The puppeteer. It curretly resides in the brain stems of ten zombie-like azure people, who wander towards any movement or light they spy. These people have nails that are tipped with hollow needles, like hypodermics. If they scratch someone, that person needs to make a save or become possessed too.

9.1

Lotus dealer

Skeeve has three arms and robot bodyguard. Skeeve has a pouch of death-lotus dust (he is immune) and his robot has a dart-gun, the darts of which are loaded with death-lotus. Skeeve will be cool if you are.

9.2

Robo-wolves

Each one has been modified by a cyber-virus and has a little satellite-reciever dish sticking out of its head. Their eyes have been replaced by cylon-visors. Their legs end in spikes. They emit a field that neutralizes all lasers, beams, and plasmas within 60 feet.

10.1

Land-porpoises

They have jack-rabbit-like legs instead of fins. There is a 30% chance that some animal or people are tracking them and will also be along shortly, hoping for sweet dolphin meat.

10.2

Perpriatic hologram

The hologram is projected from within by a light-bee. It is cordial, changes its appearance to mimic whoever it is talking to. It will tell people about where to find one of the terrible carcosan items found in the core book, but wants a taste of exotic beam weaponry shot into it in exchange. There might be some such guns on that caravan it saw the other day.

11

A Cyborgess

Botness has a purple hue and is looking for adventurers to accompany her on a little mission to free someone's soul from torment (find Obregon's Dishonor somewhere if you can, or make up an adventure).

12

Geoffery  Mckinney

A mad man with glasses and stone-washed jean-shorts. He claims to have dreamed up this world. He has a set of plastic polyhedra on him. He has a 10 to 90% chance of remembering the answer to any question regarding the setting, provided the Carcosa Master hasn't already changed a detail or two (he doesn't know anything about this encounter table).

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