31 Nights of Halloween: Kamara, the Monkey King for Basic Roleplaying

KAMARA (THE MONKEY KING) for Basic Roleplaying

STR 40, DEX 18, POW 20, SIZ 20, MOV 10,
Damage Modifier +1D6, Hit Points 30, Armor 10 point hide

Attacks: Bite 65%, 1D8+1+dm; Claw 60%, 1D6+1+dm

Skills: Climb 75%, Dodge 50%, Jump 55%, Listen 60%, Spot 75%, Stealth 80%.

Abilities:

• Shape Change: If he spends a round looking at a target he can make a POW vs. POW roll to change his shape to become their greatest fear.

A RuneQuest Playtest

Last week, Chaosium revealed they were working on a new RuneQuest Project. The way Mike Mearls explained it is that it was like Pulp Cthulhu in relation to Call of Cthulhu. Soon after they opened up playtesting for those interested in it.

Here is the link for the announcement.

Here is the link to sign up for the playtest.

I'm very excited for this development.

B/X D&D x BRP Version 2

I've worked a Version 2 of my B/X D&D X Basic Roleplaying Mashup. It goes off on its own but I think it's more streamlined this way. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

PDF is here.

B/X Roleplaying: B/X D&D X Basic Roleplaying

I remember when I first encountered Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system in Call of Cthulhu 4th Edition. I was amazed at how simple it was to make a character and how elegant and easy the system performed. Years later, I encountered RuneQuest 3rd Edition and was blown away at all the things BRP could do and how ingenious many of its designers were.

I've been trying to nail down an OSR game that used B/X DnD's "skills" as the basis for a BRP style game for a bit and this is my current rough draft.

I love many editions and clones of DnD but after working with a lot of first time players I've come to lean toward a skill-based solution with a percentile chance of success. Telling someone they have a Difficulty of 18 and a +6 to their d20 roll certainly isn't hard, but if you are new to RPGs and you are a bit scared of math I think having a 45% of success can ease some of that anxiety.

Leather armor has an AC of 60%; Chainmail has an AC of 70%; Plate has an AC of 80%; and a Shield adds 10% to that value.

When in combat the attacker rolls their weapons skill and the defender rolls their AC and if both succeed the highest roll wins.

Any feedback is great appreciated.

Here is a link to download BX RP Character Creation PDF.

BXRP: Conflict Resolution

As I work on BXRP I'm torn on which combat system I want to use. I've been planning to use the system where a Character's Chance to Hit is rolled and if it is successful their target's Armor Class would then be rolled as well. If the AC roll was also successful, the highest roll would win, unless Critical were involved (rolling doubles). However, in using BX DnD as an engine I keep thinking about letting a target's AC be the base chance to hit and modify it with a the Attackers Chance to Hit--essentially using the Ascending AC system that has been in place since DnD 3E.

I do think that which ever way that I go I will present the alternate version in an Appendix.

At the moment I think the latter approach is winning since it sticks with a foundational piece of modern BX retroclones, but I like the attack vs. defense element that BRP's D100 system employs.

If you have a strong opinion either way then please share it with me.

BXRP: A Fighter and an Orc

As part of my job running a comic and game store I teach a lot of people how to play Dungeons and Dragons and I've been contemplating this alteration to B/X DnD, Basic Fantasy, and Old School Essentials for some time. It simply changes the core mechanic from a d20 to a d100 roll low system. Its not mind blowing and I'm sure there will be people who might as "what is the point?"

The point is trying to demystify our hobby even further and overcome the "fear of math" that I encounter quite a bit in new players of all ages. Percentiles, obviously, are really easy to understand and explain and I just want to expand my toolbox for helping people find a hobby they love.

When a contested roll occurs, such as combat, the attack succeeds if their roll is equal to or less than Attack percentage and any doubles that are less than that score a critical successes, while any doubles greater than that score are critical failures. When attacked a creature rolls its Armor Class percentage and the attack misses if they succeed on their roll and in case of both attack and defender succeeding the winner is the highest successful roll unless critical are involved.

Constance Attacks the Orc Raider and she rolls a 32 while his AC roll is a 45, since his roll succeeds with the higher roll Constance misses the Raider.

Constance and the Or Raider are presented below.

Constance the Red

Strength 16 [80%] (+10%/+2)

Intelligence 13 [65%]

Wisdom 17 [85%] (+10%)

Dexterity 8 [40%] (-5%)

Constitution 15 [75%] (+5%/+1)

Charisma 10 [50%]

Hit Points 9

Melee Attack 65%

Ranged Attack 50%

Armour Class 70% (Chainmail)

Weapons Sword 1d8+2

Gear Backpack

Gold 75gp

Background Skill Baker

Appearance Malodorous, Snobbish

Personality Curious, Foolhardy

Misfortune Pursued

Languages Chaotic, Common

Death 45%

Wands 40%

Paralysis 35%

Breath 30%

Spells 30%

Orc Raider

AC 65%, HD 1 (4hp), Att 1 × weapon (1d6 or by weapon), Attack 55%, MV 120’ (40’), SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (1), ML 6, AL Chaotic, XP 10, NA 1d8 (3d6), TT D 

Destined: Flash Mob

I've been waiting for Destined from The Design Mechanism for the Mythras system for awhile and was very excited when it released last week. It has exceed my already high expectations and I hope to get to do something with it soon. I was able to make Flash Mob in about 30 minutes but did use the Quick Character Method included in the book. Destined is a complete RPG in one book and does not need Mythras, however I cannot recommend The Design Mechanism enough. Their work is exceptional and prolific, something I feel that Chaosium still hasn't figured out how to do. Additionally, they offer a simple licensing situation which is very attractive especially compared to Chaosium's Basic Role Play SRD.

Flash Mob for Destined and Mythras

POWER LEVEL: Epic

ORIGIN: Experimentation

STR:      13

CON:     15

SIZE:     10 

DEX:     14   

INT:       15

POW:     12      

CHA:      11

ACTION POINTS:              3

DAMAGE MODIFIER:     +0

HEALING RATE:                3

INITIATIVE BONUS:        14

LUCK POINTS:                    2

POWER POINTS:                12    

MOVEMENT RATE:            6m

1d20              Location       AP/HP

1-3                Right Leg        2/9

4-6                Left Leg          2/9

7-9                Abdomen        4/10

8-12              Chest               4/11

13-15            Right Arm       4/8

16-18.           Left Arm         4/8

19-20.           Head               6/9

Skills

Athletics 63%, Brawn 43%, Combat Style (ECHELON Training) 33%, Computers 40%, Conceal 36%, Deceit 26%, Drive 36%, Endurance 70%, Evade 48%, First Aid 29%, Influence 32%, Insight 47%, Medicine 72%, Perception 37%, Research 47%, Science 90%, Stealth 29%, Streetwise 23%, Unarmed 68%, Willpower 64%

Passions

All you have is family 53%

Make a better world 67%

Map the polyverse 47%

Powers

Duplication

   Boosts: Additional Duplicate, Army of One, Human Target

   Parallel Lives

Durability

Enhanced Strength

Combat Style & Weapons

Unarmed

ECHELON Training

Weapon        Size/Force     Reach      Damage         AP/HP    

Unarmed             L                 S          1d3+1d8        As for Arm         

Doctor Jon Martin Cooper Jr. is the oldest son of Jon Martin Cooper Sr. and Dr. Lena Cooper.  His parents met while going to college at Texas State University in Houston.  After graduating, they married and moved to San Diego, California with Lena becoming a biochemist at Future Perfect and Jon Sr. becoming an guidance counselor at Sizemore High School.

Jon Jr. or JJ's science and math scores were off the chart and after graduating high school at 15, he was offered a full scholarship from Future Perfect in exchange for a 3 year contract upon graduation.

JJ, only 19 when he gained his PhD in Biotechnology, took a position on a Future Perfect team in Abilene, TX led by his Mom's best friend, Dr. Jill Chandler.  Jill's team was working on several solutions to help veteran's that had lost limbs and they were given access to material from Project Apogee which lead to the creation of the first Minuteman, the speedster who helped pacify Iraq in a matter of hours during the first Gulf War. Unknown to JJ one of his co-workers botched opening the container housing the extraterrestrial Isotope X that was used to create Minuteman and the whole team was exposed to it.

JJ woke up 22 days later to find that he, Jill, and Dr. Ajax Zang were the only survivors of the breach. Within hours after waking he was interviewed by the the U.S. Defense Department and the United Nation's anti-metahuman task force, ECHELON, with both organizations seeking to put him through a barrage of tests to determine if he was a metahuman.

He chose to work with ECHELON as they also had an interest in his biotechnology background in their quest to trace illegal derivatives of Isotope X such as Summit and Apotheosis. On the second day of testing they discovered that he could create duplicates of himself and he eventually chose the codename Flash Mob. He has inquired about Dr. Chandlers and Zang's fate but has been told that information is classified at this time.

For ECHELON he is part of King Savage's INDIGO team with Headstrong, Jumpjet, and Operator.

Solomon Kane: Undead of Engazi for Mythras

Undead of Engazi for Mythras

STR: 3d6 (11)                  ACTION POINTS            1

CON: 3d6 (11)                 DAMAGE MODIFIER     +1d4

SIZE: 2d6+6 (13)            MAGIC POINTS              0

DEX: 2d6 (7)                    MOVEMENT                   4m      

INT: 2d6 (7)                     INITIATIVE BONUS      7

POW: 1d6 (4)                   ARMOUR                       Natural

                                          ABILITIES                    Undead

                                          MAGIC                           None

1d20              Location       AP/HP

1-3                Right Leg        2/5

4-6                Left Leg          2/5

7-9                Abdomen        4/6

8-12              Chest               4/7

13-15            Right Arm       4/4

16-18.           Left Arm         4/4

19-20.           Head               6/5

Skills

Athletics 18%, Brawn 64%, Endurance 72%, Evade 14%, Perception 41%, Stealth 64%, Unarmed 58%, Willpower 48%

Passions

Feed on Souls

Combat Style & Weapons

Unarmed

Weapon    Size/Force     Reach      Damage         AP/HP    

Bite                 S                 T             2d4        As for Head         

Claw               S                 S          1d4+1d6   As for Arm

My Quest

My first RPG was Champions which allowed a neophyte like me to build anything I could imagine once I learned the language of the HERO System. However, I still had a wandering eye that led me to Heroes Unlimited, to TSR's Marvel Super Heroes, and on and on. I don't know if I realized it at first, but part of my Gaming ADD was looking for that perfect system. For a long, long time I thought that was what made a long-term campaign work, clear, concise, and unified rules. The OSR would eventually teach me otherwise and I now know that what makes a long-term campaign work is a DM who can stay focused and roll with the punches and a group who buys into the game. That is it, in my opinion.

But I still own a ton of RPGs and I still have a yearning for that "perfect system". I've been a big fan of Pinnacle Entertainment Group since Deadlands was published and when they launched Savage Worlds I thought it would be my answer for all further campaigns. It was, however, not the answer and that is mainly because I prefer Hit Points and it lacks them. It's also not quite as fast for my tastes as it advertises. I love PEG and I adore the idea of SW, but not the execution.

However, when I took SW for a spin about two years ago I picked up Chaosium's Down Darker Trails and I realized how much I love the Basic Role-Playing System that powers Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and the forthcoming Rivers of London RPG. I've been thinking about running a BRP game for the last six months or so, but BRP wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

Meanwhile, I've fallen in love with The Design Mechanisms' Mythras RPG (it was RuneQuest 6th Edition for a while) and I really appreciate how many settings and sourcebooks they publish. As a Chaosium fan the release schedule often leaves a lot to be desired. However, Mythras is more fiddly than I like in my D100 games as I don't care for Strike Ranks or Hit Locations.

On top of all of this is a game engine I've been tinkering with for years and is inspired by Mike Pondsmith's Castle Falkenstein. In that game, there are Ability scores just skills and you default to Average in any Skill you have not assigned otherwise.

What I'm getting too is I took Castle Falkenstein's basic Skill premise, plus a D100 resolution system, and pyramid style Skill allocation system that borrows from the World of Darkness, Hero Wars/HeroQuest/QuestWorlds, Chaosium's Magic World, FATE/FUDGE, and the Mythras Companion.

HEre is the set up. 

Your Hit Points equal 12+2d6.

You assign the following values to your Skills: 80, 70%, two at 60%, two at 50%, four at 45%, and two at 40%. Any Skill you don't have defaults to a 33% chance of success.

I borrow weapons and equipment from BRP, Mythras, or Delta Green.

I started using this to run another Star Wars game. This time the Imperial Navy, now led by Grand Moff Kaine, wants to remove Darth Vader for his failure at Battle of Yavin. The Grand Moff has an elite unit of the Navy comprised of Force-Sensitive operatives and he has been given the blessing to train them and deploy them to hunt down any surviving Jedi or bring in any Force-Sensitives that they become aware.

The Players are that squad and their first assignment was to retrieve Talon Karrde from the prison planet Eisen alive if at all possible.

We've played two sessions and I'm having a blast. For me, the percentile resolution system is darn easy for online play and I truly appreciate it.

I plan on developing and previewing the system further on here.

Stay warm and stay well.

Spotlight on Magic World

I remember the first time I encountered an RPG system using percentiles. It was so clear and easy to understand: I have a 60% to Climb, 55% to shoot a Bow, 45% to Dodge. It just made sense.

The first Chaosium game I owned was Stormbringer as it was given to me as a gift and I had never read Moorcock (I grew up on comic books, cartoons, and action movies) and the game grabbed me. Unfortunately, the Demon Summoning magic system wasn't my cup of tea (I'm a mid-western Catholic boy and its hard to let that go when you are a young lad), but it led me to the Eternal Champion and it led me to other Chaosium gems, including Magic World.

While RuneQuest and Glorantha are cool, neither is my cup of tea. I'm not a big fan of Hit Locations and Glorantha just doesn't grab me. However, I'm a huge fan of the Basic Role Playing Big Gold Book and that led me to check out Magic World.

What I like about it is that it is closer to Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer's version of the BRP and not so close to RuneQuest/Mythras. It's more straight forward in my opinion, yes, it might make sense that Climb defaults to your Dexterity + Strength as a Percentage chance of success, but I'm cool with handwaving it at 40% as the default.

While Magic World isn't Dungeons and Dragons it does take all the cool bits of Stormbringer, RuneQuest, and decades worth of BRP and finely tunes them to heroic fantasy without classes.

Even though you probably know how to play a BRP game most take one or two things here and there and make them their own.

One of the things that caught me about Magic World is that while you can have a pool of points to spend amongst Skills you also have the option of assigning fixed percentages to a fixed number of Skill which helps to make sure that your character is competent in the things they want to do best instead of falling into the trap of a bunch of Skills at 40%. This same idea was used in Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition and I think it's just brilliant.

Another cool idea is that if your Power attribute is 15 or higher you can cast spells and have Power Points to fuel Sorcery. Basically, you ready spells in memory and then you spend the appropriate amount of Power Points and the spell is cast. If the spell can be resisted there is a contest between the Caster and the Target. The spells aren't as destructive as DnD, but they work and fit with the more subtle nature of Magic World. There are also other Magic Systems in the Advanced Sorcery supplement.

I can't say when the next time I run Magic World will be, but I think it could a nice change from the Class and Levels of DnD and other OSR games. Chaosium makes good stuff and Ben Monroe who edited MW did a great job. He took all the various parts from some very talented designers and worked them into a cohesive and appealing whole. Its a shame that Chaosium doesn't have plans to support it as several supplements were in production at one time.

If you are looking for a different fantasy game, please think about giving Magic World a try.

Chaosium hosts a free Quick-Start here.

Percentile Systems

For the record, I loathe the Zocchihedron.

I'm not sure if the first time I encountered a Percentile system was FASA's Star Trek or Call of Cthulhu. I do know that when I saw how clear my odds of success were I was kind of gobsmacked (I was equally transformed upon learning Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.'s mechanics). No probabilities to work out on a d20, 2d6, or 3d6 -- just a flat percentage.

Sadly, for many years, I avoided them because I felt many Percentile systems had a fairly low chance of success even though analysis of other games like D&D shared similar probabilities that were merely camouflaged. Additionally, you shouldn't have to roll your Drive of 40% skill whenever your character gets behind the wheel, but you have to learn that as a player and game master.

I will say that Chaosium's Magic World and Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition's option of assigning a certain number of percentages to skills in a similar fashion to FATE's skill pyramid helped me look past that flaw. I'd always enjoyed assigning points to skills but I often would only assign a 40 or 50% chance of success in my most important skills so I literally ignored the probabilities even as naked as they were.

Over the last few years, I've also been working out my own twist to Percentage systems. Its basically a riff on the D20 system in that the GM assigns a Difficulty (generally 30, 50, or 70%) and the Character's skill (say between +10 & +30%) alters the Difficulty. E.G. Earl wants to climb a wall at night to get past some armed sentries to steal some important data for ESCHELON. Earl's Climb is +15% and the GM sets the difficulty at 40% so Earl has an adjusted Difficulty of 55%.

I'd like to do something with this but so far haven't mustered the gumption to get it done.

If my group needs a One-Shot in the next few months, I'm thinking about running the Storm Trooper game with this system.

I've often been torn over wether I like a game system with some neat dice tricks like 13th Age, Unknown Armies, and Fantas AGE or ones that just get out of the way like D20, Unisystem, or Basic Role Play. My answer changes depending on the hour, but I find myself looking for simpler options as I get older. Additionally, with such a large number of newer and younger players in my stores I feel that teaching a Percentile system is pretty straightforward and can let you get into the action fairly quickly. Especially, if you play around with a

Mythras Imperative Superheroes

I've been on a D100 system kick for a bit now, mostly due to my ideas to develop a variant D100 system. While looking over what is available, I was very pleased to see that The Design Mechanism, whose RuneQuest 6th Edition became Mythras, have a pretty good collection of settings available. They are chugging along quite nicely and honestly, I'm not that used to such a schedule from D100 game publishers.

They released an adventure, Agony and Ecstasy, which focuses on modern superheroes and must have been a bit of a test for a forthcoming full superhero game using Mythras.

For those who have not purchased Agony and Ecstasy, the free Mythras Imperative has been updated with Magic and Super Power rules. The rules are abbreviated, but they work quite nicely.

One of my dissatisfactions with superhero games are that, generally, buckets of dice are required for damage. I love Champions but you have to roll buckets of dice AND count them for Stun, Body, and Knockback. When I was 19 I had time to do that. Even at 35, I could make the time. At 47? Naw, leave it to the whipper-snappers.

As an example, the Mythras Imperative superhero rules for Energy Blast default to 1d6 to 1d12, depending on a character's POW, but the character may spend 2 Power Points boost the Energy Blast by an additional die.

It's EXACTLY what I have been looking for. Or at least, based on these rules it is.

I'm really looking forward to this project, which at this time is being called Destined.

I've been rereading my own copy of Mythras recently and I'm pretty psyched.

Hopefully this project will be out before the end of 2020.

Brainstorming for a Fill-In

In a couple weeks, our DM will miss a session and I've already volunteered to fill in. Part of me would like to take another spin at the D100 system I've been working on. 

Although, in working on it, I've also developed a hankering for Call of Cthulhu 7E, which looks delightful. 

Additionally, I've also been jonesing for some OSR goodness with either Labyrinth Lord/Old School Essentials/Adventurer Conqueror King. 

And finally, my favorite goto Shadow of the Demon Lord--and that could allow me to run PostApocalyptic.

Decisions, decisions.

I'll probably just start brainstorming the setting and that will dictate which direction I choose.

I had my Gamer ADD under a great deal of control for a ;ong period of time, but not so much right now.

P.S.- I forgot about superheroes using Guardians, Triumphant, or Vigilante City.

OpenQuest: Stagsqatch

Stagsqatch
In upper Michigan, near the town of Clio, a horrid monster prowls the forests. Local lores says it's a Native American shaman who was corrupted by dealing with spirits that served the Great Old Ones. Several tribes from the area speak of Keewoenotay, the Traitor. The creature is hairy like the Sasquatch, but has antlers and the skull visage of a stag with six glowing red eyes.

Characteristics
STR 5D6+12 (29) 
DEX 2D6+6 (12) 
CON 3D6+6 (16) 
SIZ 3D6+6 (16) 
INT 3D6 (11) 
POW 3D6 (11) 
CHA 1D6 (4)

Attributes
Hit Points 16
Major Wound 8Damage Modifier +1D6Movement Rate 20m
Armour Tough hide (AP 3) 
Plunder Factor 1

Skills
Resistances
Dodge 40%, Persistence 30%, Resilience 30% 
Knowledge
Nature Lore 50%
Practical
Athletics 60%
Perception 45%
Combat
Unarmed Combat 60%
Antlers (1D6+1D6)
Fist (1d4+1d6)

D100: Forget Me Not

Our regular DM wasn't available this week, so I volunteered to run a one-shot. Most of the week I was torn between a Cypher System Supers game or using an adventure for Call of Cthulhu with my homebrewed d100 game.

I chose the D100 game.

I had four players and character creation took 10-15 minutes. I ended up using a Vampire: the Masquerade character sheet for it's Abilities list and for three Attributes (Physical, Mental, Social).

The core mechanic is that the Game Master sets a Difficulty for a task, anywhere from 1% to 99% (a roll of 100 is always a failure), then the Player adds the appropriate Ability bonus, if any, and they must roll that amount or lowers on percentile dice. If Lee is researching folklore of Michigan the Difficulty is set at 30% and if he has a Academics bonus of +15% then he has a 45% to succeed.
If doubles are rolled on a success, it becomes a critical success. And if doubles are rolled on a failure, it becomes a critical failure.

Each player assigned one Ability at +30%, two Abilities at +25%, three Abilities at +20%, four Abilities at +15%, and five Abilities at +10%.

Then three points were assigned between the three Attributes however the player preferred. Each point could be used for an automatic success of the appropriate type, a player is trying to fast-talk a security guard, they would normally have to make a Subterfuge roll, but if they had unspent points in Social, they could spend one point to automatically succeed. They are designed to refresh after 7 hours of sleep.

Finally each player started with 12+1d6 Hit Points and 40+4d10 Sanity.

That's it.

I was running an adventure that was recommended to me by the Call of Cthulhu Facebook Group, Forget Me Not within the pages of The Thing We Leave Behind supplement.

The players were fantastic and the adventure is excellent. The rundown is that they all wake up, coated in mud, in a van that has run off the road, in a raging thunderstorm. They figure out who they are by their I.D.s and determine they are part of a TV show called the The Supernatural Files. By using Google, they find some episodes for Season 3 and learn that Lee is a Researcher, Agnela is the Producer and married to the Lead Investigator, Peter. The Director is a man named Clint and they realize they have a Tech Specialist named Susan who is not among them. Additionally, each has a key from the nearby Hathaway Inn, Peter and Angela have Room1, Clint has Room 3, Lee has Room 4. They search their equipment and some of it is missing and they find out they were filming Episode 6 of Season 4, A Creepy Thing Happened at the Cooper House in Clio, MI. 

A married couple driving by find them, after the group has called AAA, and offer for them to stay with them at their house just down the road. After arriving there and drying off, eating, and warming up, the AAA tow truck driver calls and says a nearby bridge is washed out and he doesn't know how long it will take him to arrive. 
They then call the Hathaway Inn and find out that a blond woman did arrive with them and she left with them and has not returned.

Angela asks the couple if they know anything about the Cooper house and notices that Aarron says "No", but his body language says "Yes".  The team split the couple up and Peter gets Aarron to reveal that as a young teenager he and some of his buddies went there on a dare. They moved through the bottom floor of the old home and while they were in the kitchen, Aarron says a mouth literally opened out of nowhere and a giant, horned silhouette stepped out of it. All of the kids booked it out of the kitchen door, but Aarron fell down and saw that the monster had six red eyes.

After a bit, the group decides to call the Sheriff and report that Susan is missing. The Sheriff says they have to wait 48 hours, but Clint points out that isn't true and they force the Sheriff to open an investigation and he promises to send over his Deputy.

Deputy Sharon Brooks arrives and reveals she's amateur cryptozoologist and a huge fan of the show. Since the rain has abated Clint steps outside and Angela follows him. He reveals that he has some intimate texts and photos of Susan and assumes they were in a relationship. He then notices a strange shape about 200 yards away on a low hill. Angela gets a video camera and zooms into see it using the ultraviolet setting. She clearly sees a large figure with cloven hooves, a muscular body with dark fur and the head of stag with a huge rack of antlers and six red eyes. At this point her camera catches fire and she burns her hand saving it's SD card. When she and Clint look again it is gone.

The go inside and are glad the couple has an SD card reader and show the footage off to the rest of the group. Angela goes to treat her burns while Lee plays the footage. When it zooms in on the creature's face, all six eyes glow red even though the footage is in the green of the UV mode.

It's at this point that everyone in the room is filled with a sour, rotting stench and a strange sound of something scraping on the ceiling. Everyone turns around and the six-eyed monster is amongst them and immediately grabs Deputy Brooks and rips her head from her body with blood fountaining everywhere.  Aarron confronted by his worst fear faints. Clint and Lee, who have handguns, open up and while their bullets stagger the monster, it doesn't leave any visible wounds. Peter just loses it and runs out of the room. Angel, hearing the screams runs to the doorway and uses a protective rite she had learned and is amazed to see the monster disappear from the room after its use.

The group is stunned and Lee has the good sense to call the Sheriff and report Brooks' murder and request more law enforcement and an ambulance. The Sheriff says he'll be right there, but the local Hospital is 35 miles away and it will take some time.

And that's where we left things for the evening. Unfortunately, my one-shots seem to take two sessions and hopefully our DM won't mind me finishing the adventure next week.

My D100 System

This coming friday, our regular Dungeon Master, AJ (who runs a great game and stepped up when I had to take a break) will be out of town. I volunteered to run a short adventure. I haven't run anything since April, so I'm hoping it goes well (even after almost 30 years as a DM, I still get butterflies).

At the moment, I'm trying to decide if I want to us the D100 rules I've been working on.

First you need a character sheet, Basic Role Play or Call of Cthulhu will work.

The way the rules work is that the Game Master sets the difficulty of a task, generally 30%, 50%, or 70% which is then modified by the Character's bonus, if any, in the appropriate Skill.  

Let's say I have the Spot Hidden skill at +10% and I'm looking around a darkened room. The difficulty is 20% which is added to my Spot Hidden skill of +10% for a total of 30%.  

Another example is that I'm trying to punch a cultist, the difficulty is 50% and my Brawl skill of +20% is added together for a total of 70%.  Doubles are critical failures or successes. I'm anxious to try this out because I like Percentile systems but am often unhappy with the default values of certain Skills.

Character creation would involve choosing 5 Skills with a +10% bonus, 4 Skills with a +15% bonus, 3 Skills with a +20% bonus, 2 Skills with a +25% bonus, and 1 Skill with a +30% Bonus (this was inspired by an option in the excellent Mythras Companion).

At the moment, I'm not using Characteristics so Hit Points would be equal to 12 + 1d6. While Sanity is equal to 40 + 4d10.

I'm really anxious to try this out.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.