Showing posts with label system neutral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label system neutral. Show all posts

Spellbook Traps

1. Alarm
2. Explosive Runes
3. Contingency (To trigger any spell)
4. Symbol
5. Dusty pages (spores, disease)
6. Contact poison
7. Twisted spells (harmful spells unless the caster knows the code or key)
8. Ink Golems
9. Cloud of a million papercuts (Targeting eyes, nose, and mouth.)
10. Something that looks like a linking book, but actually triggers an Imprisoment spell
11. Mimics
12. A book with the same words on every page, with the spells coded into ink, or texture / material of the pages
13. Beartraps
14. Cursed (Polymorph for anyone reading the book who isn't the caster
15. Superglue
16. Touching spellbook triggers a teleport trap
17. Spellbook has teeth
18. Touching spell triggers electric shock
19. When turning to a certain page (say 341) the book sucks the reader into it.
20. If anyone other than the owner holds it, it appears to be full of vile acts
21. Snake Sigil
22. Forcecage combined with monster summoning
23. Magic mouth (annoyance can cause a penalty to learn)
24. A book of random spells, one you turn a page, the previous page is changed.
25. Actual traditional (poison needle on lock) traps on the cover.
26. Pages made of flammable, acidic,or poisonous material when exposed to air.
27. Have some pages be explosive when exposed to air, and the cover be metal for shrapnel damage.
28. Animate object, causing the book to attack.
29. Trapped with a poverty geas
30. Yellow mold dust
31. Analine ink
32. Trap the soul in an object in a 'cutout'
33. Dimensional portal
34. A book bomb.
35. A book poison container
36. Cause feeblemind
37. A deadly creature inside a hollow cutout.
38. Animate object on nearby objects (clothing of the person who opens the book)
39. A book that leeches something from the user
40. A book that alters the user mentally in some way
A) gain a emnity to monster/race/class
B) gain a phobia
C) gain a mental quirk
D) gain an insanity
41. Book opens to a page that scrys on a location that shows a mirror of opposition or soul trapping.
42. Pages with razor edges
43. Fire trap
44. Something is bound to guard the book
45. Arcane mark would allow you to locate the stolen book.
46. Have some green slime or a black pudding permanently 'phantasmal forced' to look like a spellbook.
47. Have the spellbook located inside a safe (like a prismatic sphere)
48. Illusory script
49. Arcane lock on a mundane lock
50. A lock lurker
51. Disguise it using 'item' and 'magic aura'
52. Spells scribed incorrectly to fail or backfire

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On a Generator of Missions

I've run many, many games. No matter the game, the party gains access to a commerce hub and immediately begins asking about work. Here is a tool to help you generate missions and their complications. Links to the enhanced/illustrated downloadable version of this are at the bottom of the post. 

  1. Assault/Raid
    1. Fortress
    2. Town
    3. Ship
    4. Ambush
    5. Skirmish
  2. Extraction (Voluntary/Involuntary)
    1. Jail
    2. Prison camp
    3. Private prison
    4. Prisoner of war
    5. From employment (corporation/crown)
    6. Natural Disaster
    7. From hostile forces
      1. Tower
      2. Dungeon
      3. Jail
      4. Camp
      5. Building
  3. Theft
    1. Caravan
    2. Individual
    3. Building
    4. Hijacking
    5. Kidnapping
    6. Piracy (Tranfer of goods between vehicles)
    7. Salvage
  4. Bounty
    1. Monster
    2. Individual
    3. Posse
    4. Pest-Control
    5. Hunting (Safari-style)
    6. Hunting (Commercial gain)
      1. Any of the above may be Dead or Alive
  5. Escort
    1. Caravan
      1. Commercial
      2. Pilgrimage
    2. Animal (Cattle)
    3. Object/Transport
    4. Message/Parcel
    5. Personnel
    6. Smuggling
      1. Goods
      2. Weapons
      3. People/Items
  6. Coup d'etat
  7. Duel/Contest
    1. Sport
    2. Weapons
    3. One vs. One
    4. Team vs. Team
    5. Tournament+
    6. Brawl
  8. Assassination
  9. Sabotage
    1. Arson
    2. Destruction
    3. Planting evidence
    4. Forgery
  10. Exploration
    1. Area
      1. Mapping
      2. Trailblazing
    2. Spying
      1. Armies
      2. Governments
      3. Populations
  11. Mysteries
    1. Murder
    2. Disappearance
    3. Riddle/Puzzle
  12. Skill (Cooking/Leatherworking, etc.)
    1. Labor (Farmhand, General Labor)
    2. White Collar (Appraiser, Scribe)
    3. Black Market (Forger, Lockpicker)
    4. Service (Armor Tester, Waiter, Usher, Etc.)
Any mission above may be given by the Authority, an Individual (such as a Merchant, Noble, Wizard/Scientist/Alchemist, Politician, Public Servant), Rebels, Feuding families or groups, or a Faction. Any of the above may come with an "Obstacle Course" or test before employment. Any of the above may also be just a preface for a different actual task.

The actual adventure comes in the twist however. Common permutations of the above options are listed below. This is your VALUE-ADD.

  • Assault/Raid: 
    • You must attack and kill/retrieve a macguffin
    • You must defend a structure that someone is planning to attack
    • You attack the structure, but the 'victims' welcome you
    • You attack the structure and the victims welcome you, but then try to kill you
    • There are long term consequences of the Assault
  • Extraction:
    • You must recover or retrieve the macguffin
    • You must insert or place the macguffin in the target area
    • You are the macguffin to be retrieved
    • You go to the macguffin and they want to stay or you see a reason retrieving it would be bad
    • You go to the macguffin and they want to stay because they just wanted to expose weaknesses where they are (or some other method via they help their captors)
    • You go to the macguffin and decide retrieving it would be bad, but really it's bad to not retrieve it because you were misinformed
    • There is no macguffin and never was
    • The maguffin is surprisingly difficult to retrieve
  • Theft:
    • You must steal a macguffin
    • You must protect the macguffin from theft
    • When you go to steal the macguffin it's not their or is not what you expected
    • As above, except it secretly is (illusion, secret compartment)
    • You go to steal the item and discover the owners are glad to part with it or the macguffin wants to be stolen
    • There is no treasure to steal
  • Bounty:
    • You get paid for killing a creature
    • You get paid for preventing people from poaching or killing a creature
    • The bounty is on your head
    • The creature or the reward is fictional
    • No one believes the creature still exists but it does
    • The bounty on a creature is very high, after killing many of them, the effects on the ecosystem become known
  • Escort:
    • You must accompany a macguffin to a destination
    • You are the person to be escorted
    • Something has affected the destination that makes completion of the mission impossible
    • The macguffin is not what it appears, making delivery impossible
  • Coup d'eat:
    • You must unseat a person in power
    • You are the person in power someone is attempting to unseat
    • The person in power is actually the one who should be
    • The person in power is the one who hired you to depose him
    • You don't need to unseat the person in power because of their new position
    • Performing the Coup d'eat destablizes the region and the fallout changes the shape of the campaign
  • Duel/Contest:
    • You must defeat an opponent
    • Someone is trying to stop or defeat you
    • Your opponent throws the match
    • Your opponent loses, meanwhile he's accomplishing his goal while you're tied up with him
    • The contest is called on account of weather
    • The contest doesn't need to occur because of other developments that put you and your opponent on the same side
  • Assassination:
    • You must kill a target
    • People have taken a contract out on your life
    • The person is paying you to kill them
    • The person is paying you to kill them, but is actually under the control of the players enemies
    • When you go to kill them, they are removed in another way as an obstacle (or perhaps they leave the prime material) meaning it is no longer necessary to kill them
    • Assassinating your target causes more problems then it solves
  • Sabotage:
    • You must sabotage a target
    • You must protect a target from being sabotaged
    • There is a non-functional device that must be repaired
    • The target you set out to sabotage is already non-functional
    • The non-functional target is actually just a ruse, the real danger is coming from another foreshadowed source
    • The target due for sabotage fails of its own accord for entirly seperate reasons
    • Sabotaging the target actually makes your own goals more difficult to achieve
  • Exploration:
    • You must explore an area
    • You must prevent a group from finding out about an area
    • You set out to explore an area only to discover it is already well mapped
    • You discover a well mapped out area that you set out to explore but find that all the maps are very inaccurate
  • Mysteries:
    • You must solve a mystery
    • You must prevent someone from discovering what you have done
    • You set out to solve a mystery, but the solution is easily found. Knowing it causes a whole new set of problems
    • Something happened with an obvious solution, a close examination will show that perhaps the obvious solution isn't correct
    • Something that appears to be a mystery is clearly not when examined
  • Skill:
    • Your skill or work is tested
    • You are needing to hire people for a project
    • You set out to do a job, but it turns out there are bigger problems
    • The bigger problems require a different skill you have
    • It turns out that a skilled person wasn't needed at all


Originally published on September 24th, 2013. An enhanced version is available in digital form on Patreon and for free  on DTRPG. 
For other works, be sure and check out the Directory.
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On Never Being Able to Find a Table When You Need One

So, this blog is a resource for me (blog roll, links, etc.) with stuff for other people just being a side benefit. Traditionally I run 1st edition, hence why there's a big psionicist writeup for 1st edition on the right (putting all the rules in one place, etc.)

I see lots of awesome tables and such on various blogs - but never quite where I need them. I'm going to use this post to collect them in one place whenever I run across them.  You can find many of my own random tables in my Treasure (many random treasure & good types) and Artifces, Deceptions & Dilemmas (100 things found in pits, 100 interesting corridors, infinite magical fountains and more!) .

Making this list, I'm considering organizing them by theme.


Interesting stairways (62 options, Sham's Grog 'n Blog)
100 Interesting Character Traits (100 options, Sham's Grog 'n Blog)
Carousing Mishaps (20 options, Jeff's Gameblog)
What's the Orc Got In His Pockets? (20 options, Jeff's Gameblog)
Corridor Materials (57 options, d100, Jeff's Gameblog)
Ceiling Materials (57 options, d100, Jeff's Gameblog)
Floor Materials (57 options, d100, Jeff's Gameblog)
Other Materials (37 options, d100, Jeff's Gameblog)
Random Tables (A Character for Every Game)
Random Randomness (12 options (of random tables!), A Character for Every Game)
Contains:
Dungeoneer Cache (51 options, Aeons & Augauries)
Random Curses (Tiered Table, 48 options, A Character for Every Game)
Peasants with Magical Weapons (12 options, Blog of Holding) 
Lady (or Dude) of the Night - The Morning After. (20 options, ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog)
What Happens When A Spellbook Dies? (10 options, Dungeons & Digressions)
Superstitious Dungeoneers (30 options, Dungeons & Digressions)
Taxes, Tariff's & Fines (30 options, Dungeons & Digressions)
Random City Events (30 options, Dungeons & Digressions)
Random Hirelings (10 options, Planet Agol)
Random Mercenary (10 options, Planet Agol)
Mind Wizard & Assassin Traits (20 options each, Planet Agol)
NPC Traits (Tiered Table, Planet Agol)
Pulpy Planetary Romance Generator (Tiered Table,  Savage Swords of Athanor)
Random Drug creation (Tiered Table,  Monsters & Manuals)
Chaos Patrons (Tiered Table, Monsters & Manuals)
Hireling Background (12 options, Monsters & Manuals)
What's in the Hole? (100 options, Beyond the Black Gate)
Random Megadungeon Area Name Generator (Tiered Table, Beyond the Black Gate)
Random Trap Disarming Table (100 options, Beyond the Black Gate)
Quick and Dirty Weather Tables (Tiered Table, The Mule Abides)
Dragon Generator (Tiered Table, Old Guard Gaming Accouterments)
Humanoid Trait Tables (Tiered Table, A Hamsterish Hoard of Dungeons & Dragons)
Random City Encounters (30 options, RetroRPG)
Wilderness Dressing (50 options, Greyhack Grognard)
Dungeon Motivations (100 entries, Dungeonskull Mountain)
What are those wandering monsters doing? (11 entries, 1d8)
Death Experience (20 entries, Underworld Kingdom)
I Make A Pass At The Tavern Wench (30 entries, Underdark Gazette)
Random Angel Generator (Various, Underdark Gazette)
99 Rites of Fairy Creatures (100 entries, Blog of Holding)
Appearance of Underworld forests (Various, Underworld Kingdom)
Giant Slug Properties (Various, Underworld Kingdom)
Disturbing Standards (6 entries, Underworld Kingdom)
Wizard Obsessions (20 entries, Rolang's Creeping Doom)
Random Hermit Generator (various, Rolang's Creeping Doom) 
Random God Generator (various, Rolang's Creeping Doom)
The Dungeon Dozen (all)
100 Random Impedimentia (100 entries, d4 caltrops)
Mundane Items table (pdf download, Swords & Dorkery)
Who the Hell is This Jerk Henchman (100 entries, the only successful one) 
100 Endings to Conversations (100 entries, Kobold Quarterly)
18 Common Hireling Motivations (18 entries, Rolang's Creeping Doom)
20 Wilderness Situations (20 entries, Magician's Manse)
28 Random Domain Events (28 entries, Land of Nod)
100 Peculiarities (50 entries, A Dandy in the Underworld)
20 Ossuary Finds (20 entries, Underworld Kingdom)
Random Building Contents (100 entries, Beyond the Black Gate)
Random Castle Leader and Minions (Jeff's Gameblog)
Random Castle Leader and Minions (Planet Agol)
50 Ring Types (Papers & Pencils)
Strange Gang Motivations and Descriptions (Monster Manual Sewn From Pants)
Gonzo Magic Weapon History Tables (A Wizard's Kiss)
Portals. Seriously lots of portals (Lost Pages)
Random Graffiti (Tired table, Tower of the Archmage)
Never-Ending Stairs (20 options, Tower of the Archmage)
Unleash Hounds (50 dogs, Swordfish Islands)
Magic Item Curses (30 entries, Roles, Rules, and Rolls)
Signs of Other Parties in the Dungeon (20 entries, Dungeon of Signs)
Weird Taboo Generator (Blessings of the Dice Gods)
Job/Mission Generator (Blessings of the Dice Gods)
Hireling Orientation (Blessings of the Dice Gods)
What's Up With These Undead? (A mind-blowingly good table from Deep Delving)
Some Potions (Deep Delving)
Gads of Goblin Goodies (The Land of Nod)
List of Monster Names (Monster Manual Sewn from Pants)
The best Random Hamlet Name Generator on the Web (Jeff's Gameblog)
Dungeon and Ruin random environmental hazards (Aeon's and Auguries)
100 Dungeon Concepts (Mines of Khunmar)
Pool of Visions (Nine and 30 Kingdoms)
Trick Tome of Knowledge (Nine and 30 Kingdoms)
d20 Curses (Goblin Punch)
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On Tricks, Empty Rooms, and Basic Trap Design

I can't figure out why I did this!

Inside its thirty pages you'll find:

  • A way to randomly determine over 105 empty room types, each defined and given a basic list of what items they contain!
  • The differences between a room and a chamber!
  • Ways in which empty rooms may be interesting!
  • A comprehensive listing of things that a room may contain!
  • 17 different categories of tricks!
  • A comprehensive listing of trick types!
  • Almost 100 example tricks!
  • Basic old school trap design, including triggers, special effects, duration, resets, and different categories!
  • Randomly generate thousands of different doors and a listing of over 60 door tricks!
  • Over 40 different surface tricks!
  • Randomly generate hundreds of thousands of different magical fountain effects!
  • 69 different interesting curses!
  • 100 different things that can be found in pits!
  • 100 strange and interesting things that can be found in corridors!
  • Randomly generate a nearly infinite number of traps!
  • 16 sample riddles and guidelines for creating your own riddles and puzzles!
  • Free!
Get it here.

It's companion piece is Treasure, a document allowing you to generate different interesting kinds of Treasure and it can be found here.

So, yeah, enjoy.
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