Mongolian Adventure Update: Pre-gen NPCs Download

I'm doing the best I can to stay focused on finishing up my thoughts for William's Mongolian Adventure Design Contest at his Ramblings of a Great Khan blog. I think my thoughts are getting too domain-level for my own good. In trying to help myself focus, I created a page of NPC fighters (levels 1-6) to use as support material. I thought maybe if I gave myself some characters to work from, I could focus story. No such luck yet. I'm going ahead and making it downloadable here for whoever thinks it might help them as well.

Click here to download a free PDF of these Pre-generated NPC Fighters of the Steppe from MediaFire.

Just What the World Needs... Another BX/LL Character Record Sheet

My ADD (not AD&D) seemed to get the better of me again today. Combine that with some extra time on my hands because my wife decided to sleep in, and you've got this... yet another character record sheet. There's nothing particularly new in the arrangement of the elements or how the elements are treated. But I'm happy with the overall look/design/aesthetics. And you can't argue with free PDFs of CRSs. You may, however, choose to ignore them.

Click here if you'd like to download
yet another free BX/LL CRS PDF.

d30 DM Companion Update 2: Character and Monster Sections Done!

Here's what I've got so far...

CHARACTER GENERATION SECTION
Classed NPC Geneator: Creates 900 Oe/1e base types (about 450 BX)
The “Complete” NPC: Creates 27,000 combinations of traits/personality/quirks
Non-classed NPC Generator: 27,000 variants of Merchants, Traders & Misc.
Added Skills: 30 secondary skills to create more “well-rounded”/unique NPCs
Attribute Generator: quick attribute generation for classed/non-classed NPCs
Character Motivations: 30 character motivations for freelance adventurers

EXAMPLE CLASSED NPC ROLL-UP (Took less than 1 minute)
CL: Druid | R: Elf | S: Female | AL: Neutral | L: 4TH
STR: 15 | WIS: 16 | INT: 10 | CON: 10 | DEX: 13 | CHA: 16
Physical Trait: Scarred | Personality: Mysterious | Quirks: Pyromaniac | Motivation: Duty, Group
The fact that she's a druid, scarred, mysterious and pyromaniac gives me a real sense of who she might be. From the profile, I'd guess that she has the spell Produce Flame but maybe not Protect from Flame. I'm also guessing she belongs to some sort of weird cult (given her background and motivation.)

MONSTER ENCOUNTERS
Monster Encounters Overview: includes a d30-based bell-curved chart for # App.
Monster Encounter Tables: Tables for Monster Encounters by Level (1-9)
Monster Encounter Descriptions: Basic Stats (HD, AC, etc.) for 140+ Monsters and 14 Human/Humanoid types (includes table of monsters listed that appear only in specific rules editions)

Next up... TRAPS & TREASURE
I've already got the traps page done and a couple of pages of treasure, but have plans to continue to flesh this out with the goal being "as much depth and detail as possible in as few rolls as possible." Let's face it, when you're at the table and you need something quick, you need something quick. Am I right?

d30 Mechanic of the Week: 1E Class Ability Score "Slot" Generation Method

This week's d30 Feature is a d30-based method for generating D&D character class ability scores. It's based on my class attribute score generation method from Magic, Man, Mutants & Machines, the d30-based RPG I've been working on.

I'll admit, this is a tad unbalanced as it tends to generate attribute scores of average and above, but should be comparable to methods like "roll multiple times for each and keeping the highest score for each," and the like. More importantly it bypasses the extraneous dice rolling in those methods.

To download a free PDF of today's chart/mechanic from MediaFire, click here.

d30-based RPG Update! (or "Some Old-school Love for the King of Polyhedrals") and "The Nice Price!"

Okay... I know that's a lot to absorb in one blog post title, but I've got a lot to cover, so let's get to it!

First, some old-school love...

So for any of you who read my post on Friday, you know that I mentioned making a great leap forward on my d30-based RPG. I'd been toying around with a form of that mechanic in furtherance of the idea that most pulp heroes are just that... heroes, able to quickly vanquish hirelings and henchmen, and performing most tasks with larger than life artistry and aptitude.

As part of another blog post, I was working on a set of 1E-inspired tables to create "Mutant Humanoids" (hawkmen, crocodile-men, rat-men, et al.) akin to that beloved Saturday-morning cartoon of "savagery, super-science, and sorcery." Now... combine those two thoughts (a d30-based pulp RPG and an OSR approach to that Saturday morning cartoon), and you get "Magic, Men, Mutants & Machines: The d30 RPG of the Mutant Fantasy Future."

And now, the d30-based RPG update...

The game is tentatively retitled Magic, Men, Mutants & Machines (or MMM&M for short, or 4M for shorter. FYI, in the book I use MMM&M as it seems much more tongue-in-cheek.)

The introduction and the character sections are done. There are six character classes: 1. barbarians (men only); 2. Amazons (women only); 3. sorcerers/sorceresses (that's a mouthful); 4. technologians (aka "super-scientists); 5. Stonians (muscle-bound rockmen); and 6. Florm (amorphous utilitarian shape-changers.)

At this point, I expect the combat, magic and technology sections to be simplified/modified pickups/reworks of some the Starmasters* and The System: Expanded content, and I'm hoping to have a beta playtest version in a couple of weeks. (I'm still debating whether to include psionics rules, but I'm leaning towards "no" as they seem out of place in this setting for some reason.)

*On a side note, my co-conspirator David Welborn has been leading the charge on playtesting the Starmasters character and combat rules and it seems to be coming along nicely.

And finally, THE NICE PRICE!!!

I've sized the book a bit smaller than letter size so that it can be printed at Ka-Blam!. I'm planning on selling it at just a fraction above the hard costs, which means you should be able to get a 36-40 page rulebook (and that's a fairly dense copy layout; see the image above) with a B&W white cover for $3.50! If you want the color cover version, it will cost you $5 (+S/H in both cases.) Now, when's the last time you bought a printed RPG rulebook for five bucks? Hell, that's what the original Holmes D&D Blue Book (48 pp. + cover) cost when it came out in 1977! (To keep it truly old-school, I'm considering not releasing a PDF version. Thoughts?)

Quick Character Generator PDF

This 11"x17" PDF features tables to quickly generate Animé characters but can be easily adapted for use in fantasy, superhero and sci-fi genres for both PCs and NPCs. No ratings or points are assigned, only generalities for the following: 1) body type, 2) personality, 3) skills, and 4) powers/origin of powers.

This chart was developed as part of an early incarnation of StoryCode AG, when character generation was randomly determined rather than an extension of an archetype/pt. build system.

Note: This chart uses a d4, d6, d8 and d10; it does NOT use a d30. (Sorry to disappoint the d30 fans out there; maybe I'll adapt it for d30 use in the coming weeks.)

To download the PDF from MediaFire, click here.