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February 22, 2021 thinking adventures invective theory

The Principles of Thinking Adventures

  1. Systems (as in ‘combat system’ not ‘system matters’) offer a trade - your freedom in exchange for something else.
  2. This trade is not always in your favour.
  3. Ask yourself why anyone would, or should, incentivize behaviour.
  4. Spit in their eye if they try it.
  5. Try and be brave.
  6. Game systems should define parameters not outcomes.
  7. Tools are preferable to mechanisms.
  8. Game content should be more meaningful than game systems. If it is not, the content is weak or the system domineering.
  9. ACAB
  10. Your loyalty is to your players, then yourself. No others.
  11. Non serviam.
  12. Justification is always required.
  13. No defaults.
  14. If you meet Luke Gearing on the road, kill him.
February 16, 2021 odnd monster mmm

Kobolds

Wounds in the
earth multiply
and gape.

Infection lingers
each injury a womb
children unbidden.

Teem in stone.

HD 1-1 / AC as Armour / Damage as Weapon

Expanded, revised & collected:

US itch

February 8, 2021 odnd rules

Wealth is What You See

Remove XP gain. Instead, your level is determined by the wealth you carry/are accompanied by. Obviously, this quickly becomes impossible if it’s all in coins. Instead, buy shit.

  • Engraved and bejewelled weapons.
  • The finest clothes from the fanciest cloth.
  • Horses of the noblest pedigree (despite having no mechanical advantage).
  • Your own band singing your praises.
  • A really extravagant hat.
  • So many rings.
  • Capes.
  • Perfume.

Alternatively, this can be another form of carousing. I think a Thinking Adventure * system with a large body of XP gaining activity is interesting - I really don’t like Milestone XP but broadening out the scope of the game could still have value - players all vote for 5 mechanisms for XP gain out of a set of 20 or something.

*OSR if you’re boring.

A reminder that “comments” are just a Discord server - link up top.

January 20, 2021 product

New Game Released - The Laudanum Drinkers

The Laudanum Drinkers

A game about resisting the Empire in the realm of Dream.

January 17, 2021 magic items odnd

Two Magic Items

I hate magic items.

Mosquito Cloak

Clothed in wing and leg, seeking proboscis fastens the garment tight. Insects are unhappy to swarm this closely, and make this distaste known in the insistent buzzing. One wearing the Mosquito Cloak is either cursed or has set aside comfort in their pursuit of something beyond the human. The fact they wear any garment at all reveals how far they have to go before crossing the threshold.

The wearer is protected equivalent to plate, but with none of the disadvantages.
Unless they have augmented their senses, they are unable to see details or hear anything quiet through the linked swarm.

Worthless - anyone who wants it would just kill you for it instead.

Wisdom Teeth

A cloth bag, filled with 1d4-1 dirty, yellowed teeth. They are only recognisable as such from the material - the shapes are wrong, the ridges inconsistent. Holding them in your hand, they are always warm.
Through dentistry, one could try and force one into their mouth, needing to remove 1d4 teeth to make space. Human gums are too eager to accept these visitors - healing only takes a week, spent spitting blood. Each tooth has a random effect, usable once a day.

d8 Effect
1 Speak to vermin, as defined by the culture of the host.
2 Spit a venom which causes bloody vomiting for several days before recovery. A mouthful is enough to taint a village well.
3 Unerringly know where the nearest sacrificial altar is.
4 By tasting a mouthful of soil, knows who has passed over it in the past 24 hours, and in which direction.
5 By hyperventilating to the point of collapse, induce a thick fog in the local area.
6 Command candles and torches to extinguish themselves. The princely lantern and haughty fireplace refuse.
7 Knowledge where and when the next lightning bolt will strike in the area.
8 An authority amongst the spirits of wild places - enough to demand an audience, not enough to guarantee safety after that.

One with these teeth in their mouth is sure to be burnt as a witch, if discovered. Despite this, worth 2500sp each to jaded nobles and furtive practitioners.

January 13, 2021 troika weird war

Weird War - Mission Generation

For use with this
A soundtrack suggestion

Roll 1d6. On a 1-3, the mission is Behind the Lines. On a 4+, you are being sent to the Front. The Psychogeography haunts both.

Behind the Lines

The safety of trenches and occupied manors, barely haunted these days. The liberated villages and towns, filled with locals inured to grief, soldiers and bombs.
Trucks and bicycles.
Railways and guns.

Objectives

1d6 Objectives
1 Gather 10d6 Provisions
2 Rescue a Friendly Group from Location or Local Group or Psychogeographical Feature
3-4 Investigate a Location, Local Group or Psychogeographical Feature
5 Infiltrate a Local Group, based in Location
6 Recruit 2d6 ‘Volunteers’

Friendly Groups

1d6 Group
1 Royal Propaganda Core
2 Her Majesties Foreign Intelligence Service
3 High Command Catering and Hospitality Core
4 Ordinance Psychogeographical Survey, Minor Talents Division
5 Volunteer Battalion Under 16s
6 London Philharmonic Orchestra

Locations Behind the Lines

d6 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Forgetting Club Redeployed Factory Inexplicable shipwreck Ghost-trenches Smuggler Cache Finishing School
2 Bombed Out Druid Grove Camouflaged Officers Club Unharmed Church Book-pile Smuggler Route Locked Orphanage
3 Bullet-holed Theatre School for Debutantes and Female Companions Ancient Fortification Brothel of Poets Race-track Burial-Mounds
4 Town cinders Onion Farm Immobilised convoy-turned-settlement Refugee Camp Looted Aristocratic Tombs Not-So-Ancient Guillotine
5 Dairy-turned-abattoir Looted Orchard Airfield Crashed Enemy Plane Empty Deserter Camp Aristocratic Household
6 Druggists Office Double-stacked Graveyard Vineyard Hidden Resistance Cache Deserter Camp Billeted Aristocratic Household

Local Groups

Some are friendly.
Most are not. They appreciate liberation, but resent you for being the liberators.

d6 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Piano-Farmers Oilmouth Cult Luxury Smugglers Local Ruling Aristocratic Family Wandering Penitent Band Journalists
2 Plane Tamers Ink-thief Band Food Smugglers Camp Followers Literature Society Nationalists
3 Art Brawlers Belligerent Resistance Band Clothes Smugglers Rogue Vintner and Crew Bullet-Chewers Dog Collectors
4 Narrators Guild Chapter Word Hunters Sleep Smugglers Defeated General and Entourage Walking Dreamers Barefoot Infantry
5 Nunnery Psychogeographic Explorers Book Smugglers Urchin Gang Contents of Asylum Shadow Aristocracy
6 Monastery Left-behind Enemy Soldiers Hired Killers Horse Thieves Flour-Baron’s Men Papal Agents

Psychogeographical Features

Unless deliberately revisited, these should be replaced after use.

d6 Features
1 A snaking-snake legion slithers amongst the hills, in Southern Steel and iron and marked with Eagles and a crushing grip. A wake of fire follows, searing beyond this War.
2 The Old Palace, all crystal stained red, red, red, the soil all liberated heads singing the old songs. Perhaps the Royal Family are in, heads crowned and lap-borne.
3 A crawling plane, core burnt out, dead pilots pulled behind on ejector umbilicals. Smoke filled with the lethal bullets.
4 A maw in the earth filled with the soft soil of human history - barely a snack. The maw has forests for hair, dolmens for teeth. Kings once knew it’s name.
5 An impossible beach, wooden vessels hungry for soldiers. Smoke from a not-so distant shore. Home to you, perhaps.
6 A gloaming descending from above and bleeding out of the land. The wretched history of the continent reaching towards unimagined futures, echoes of the now forever.

Encounters

To be checked once per reasonable unit of time. Roll d66 and consult the table below.
All may be spies - on a d66 roll of 11, they are working for the Enemy. They may be dangerous agents, view themselves as patriots, mercenaries or just simply hate you.

d6 Encounter
11 2d6 Civilian Refugees, looking for lost animals/children/wealth.
12 1d6 Friendly Soldiers, on assignment/dodging an assignment/off-duty.
13 1d6 Local Civilians, seemingly very interested in you and your mission.
14 1d6 Local Civilians, interested in you but trying not to show it.
15 4d6 Wounded Soldiers, moving away from the front.
16 Rogue farm animals, huddled together as if for protection. They smell like fear.
21 Officers car on the prowl.
22 Newspaper crew, plying soldiers with liquor and cigarettes.
23 A Civilian Witch.
24 Smell of vinegar - overturned wine cart, left in the heat and rain.
25 Planes sluggishly crawl across the sky - friendly, by the lack of munitions.
26 Wild artillery shell explosion near enough to deafen. No way to tell where it came from.
31+ No notable encounter.

The Front

Fire has scraped clean the earth. The soil bleeds only poison - our weapons have left the wound infected.
You have already seen scores of friends die, limbs dangling from barbed wire.

Safety is a dark hole and a mask.

1d6 Objectives
1 Trench Duty. 12 Days.
2 Rescuing someone from no-mans land.
3 Moving to cut enemy telephone lines.
4 Called up to support as we go Over the Top. Wait for the whistle.
5 Night raid against an enemy trench.
6 Rebuilding trenches and defences.

Encounters

To be checked once a day when waiting, hourly during active movement. Roll a d66 and consult the table below.
Where Soldiers are not specified as Friendly, they may be in the employ of the Other Powers.

d66 Encounter
11-12 1d6 Dying Soldiers, gassed.
13-14 1d6 Dying Soldiers, shot.
15-16 1d6 Dying Soldiers, shelled.
21 Sniper fire - player with least Luck tests it to avoid.
22 Screaming of Shells - test Luck or relevant Skill to get in cover in time.
23 Laughter of Machine-Guns - hit the deck or take 1d6 hits.
24 Animal-Whine of a plane - grenades dropped into the trench, elsewhere.
25 Broken rasp of a rattle - gas attack inbound.
26 Sergeant Inspection - challenging the troops to show some bravery - now.
31 Friendly Soldier, holding a boot to his chest. The boot still has his foot in it.
32 Starving mule, eyes wider than dinner plates, rampant amongst the trench. Kept alive as a good luck charm.
33 Friendly artillery falls short. Test Luck to avoid.
34 Soldiers sing for their dead friend.
35 4d6 Enemy Soldiers on a trench-raid, crawling over the parapet right now.
36 Screams in no-mans land. Closer than usual.
41-56 Residual stink of rotting flesh, munitions. Distant cackle of gunfire. Low roar of shells. Dog-ends of cigarettes burning the lips of the soldiers. Whispered jokes. Stifled laughs.
61-66 The Psychogeography boils up from the ground, and drowns the trench. All are swept into this new landscape.

The Psychogeography

The horrors of The Front are only amplified by in the Psychogeography.

d6 Psychogeographical Location
1-2 Trench labyrinth, miles of wet earth packed with bodies, liberated hands grasping from the walls, poison gas snaking and moving - a predator on the hunt. Anything other than a half-crouch is death, bullets roaming in flocks, looking for any revealing themselves.
3-4 Blasted-ruin-splinters of a town eaten, consumed, turned to memory by the carnivorous no-mans-land. The War is the egg, and that blasted dead toxic earth is the Child, industry and nations the parents.
5-6 The open field. The killing ground. Behind are demon-officers, ready to execute, jeering. Ahead, machine-gunners. All must walk forward, regardless of nationality in the other world.

The Deep Psychogeography

The shallows of the Psychogeography heighten and make the metaphorical literal.
The deep of the Psychogeography presents the alien vistas and wrinkles forgotten yet carried within. The obscene truth-trending-toward-fiction.
It can only be found with determined investigation and either the latest in para-scientific devices or the most ancient of religious practices.

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