I have been running a Silmarillion inspired play by post game all of this year, where the players take on the roles of creator spirits and then the leader of a mortal/immortal race of beings.
Soon, a regularly party based adventure roleplaying game will take place in that world we have created.
Here are the rules and one of the player character factions for that game!
Creating a character:
Pick a faction, class and skills/magic if your class gets any.
Roll a 3d6 (or less or more depending on your faction/class for each Attribute (Of the body and Of the spirit). Minus the result you roll from 22 to get your value for each attribute.
NOTE: On 3d6 attribute rolling, 6s explode (add 6 roll another d6)! And a 1 removes the next lowest dice roll! (Attribute values Max = 19 Min = 1).
Character’s start with possessions appropriate for their faction/class.
The referee will inform players when their character has leveled up (normally by completing important actions within the game world).
Attributes:
Of the body:
Weakness
Clumsiness
Frailty
Ignorance
Stupidity
Repulsiveness
Of the spirit:
Rynnery (Passion)
failure = lose your agency to your emotions
Ghussness (Madness)
failure = do something unexpected, novel, and disastrous for those around you - normally combining two forces in a chaotic and dangerous manner
Greemight (Desire for justice)
failure = lose your agency to ensuring justice is inflicted most forcibly unto the wicked
Attunement (Susceptibility to songs/pheremones/etc)
failure = lose your agency to the mesmerising song/smell of an another
Vadrlure (Susceptibility to the dream realm)
failure = become detached from the physical world and enter the overwhelming realm of dreams - your body becomes limp and your mind confused
Milkdoom (Fate/Doom/Unluck)
failure = the worst thing, that also most simplifies the situation happens to you
How to play:
Create a character.
Tests = d20 roll on or above the attribute tested for success. The referee will often modify the roll (add/minus to the result, roll more than one die, etc) to reflect the difficulty of the test. The referee will determine what happens on success or failure.
Skills/Magic = What can be achieved using these is determined in discussion with the referee. Do a test to determine if the use of Skill/Magic is successful.
Combat = the referee will inform the players the order in which each entity in the combat acts. On their turn an entity can move an appropriate distance and attack/take an action appropriate to the situation.
Attacks = d20 roll on or above the target’s AC for success. The referee will often modify the roll (add/minus to the result, roll more than one die, etc) to reflect the difficulty of the attack. If an attack is successful, a damage die is rolled for the attacker and the number rolled is deducted from the target’s health.
If an entity has 0 health they are dead.
Monsters / NPCS = HD (+1 to hit per level / dX HP per hd where x is number appropriate. Roll attributes with dX when needed for tests. Use an AC appropriate for the entity)
“The gods watch the earth once again, floating slow time in twinkling satellites.
Inside the brown choked atmosphere, mountain ranges have been ousted by feudal zaibatsu arcologies. Deep in their halls, utopia machines eliminate all scarcity.
But, hierarchy is demanded by the lords of the zaibatsus, as is loyalty and the future of their subjects. There is no questioning the wisdom of ancient blood-lines.
Leave the fortress walls of the arcologies and see the endless lawless streets, the no-corp lands.
You are here, in the underworld, a place of freedom and death.
You are less than the most despicable bug to the corporate pantheon, but what is a god to a non-believer?”
Shit Future is a super simple d6 and referee powered freeform cyberpunk roleplaying game that has nearly 60 pages of pure grim-near-future tables and generators!
Included in the PDF:
Simple to understand and powerfully freeform D6 powered ruleset (including comprehensible and straightforward guidelines for the Datagrid!).
36 player backgrounds.
36 player skills.
36 player cybernetic augmentations.
36 cyberpunk enemies and hazards.
10 vehicles.
Simple guidelines and tables for equipment and the cyberpunk hypereconomy.
A cyberpunk grand global conspiracy generator.
A cyberpunk exposition generator.
A satellite god generator.
A cyberpunk room generator.
Random encounter and reaction tables.
A cyberpunk job generator.
Guidelines and tables for cyberpunk mapping and building stocking.
A Datagrid zone generator.
Referee tools for the Freezones: Including Area, Clan and NPC generators
Referee tools for the Zaibatsu controlled zones: Including Area, Zaibatsu and NPC generators.
Plus amazing cover and interior art by Matthew Adams.
Support the blog by buying a copy or sharing the link about! Also, if you want a review copy, comment below and I will send you one!
I love attribute tests - but I don't like people who are new to d&d getting confused about combat rolls being roll high and attribute tests being roll low. Here's a solution.
Low is Good Attributes:
Your character has 6 attributes. You want these as low as possible!
To determine a score for each roll 3d6 and minus the result from 22.
Weakness – to test if your physical strength fails you.
Clumsiness – to test if your physical dexterity fails you.
Frailty – to test if your physical constitution fails you.
Ignorance – to test if your wisdom and knowledge fails you.
Stupidity – to test if your intelligence and wits fails you.
Repulsiveness – to test if your charisma and charm fails you.
To Test: Roll a d20. Success = Roll equal to or above your attribute score (plus/minus modifiers as required).
I am deep into my Silmarillion inspired play by post game where the players take on the role of creator spirits/mortal and immortal races/heroes from those races. Early in the game I asked the creator spirits for a bunch of ideas for the animals that inhabit the world, and I have taken these and turned them into the following Sea Beast Generator!
Note:
The text in the square brackets on the first two lines represents the stars that the creature was created under. This gives the coloration of the creature and a suggested of words to use in the creation of that creatures name.
Need something?! Don't know quite what you need, but you know you need something? Is it an idea, a concept, a person, a group, a monster, a place? Whatever you thing needs, just click the two buttons below and your need will be fulfilled (perhaps takes a little bit of mental elbow grease - but I'm sure you can handle that...):
Over in the discord channel we collaboratively put together a strange post apocalyptic semi magical cyberpunk setting. This setting is presented her for your consuming pleasure, alongside a Place, Thing and Event generator for the setting! The generator comes first so it doesn't get lost at the bottom of the post....
Three Moon Earth Setting:
The ancient past: Automated computing devices capable of industrial processes removed scarcity from the world (a brief golden age) - but then evolved and began to change their programming.
During this time an artificial moon was secretly put into orbit, a corporate built artificial pleasure planetoid. Technology kept it cloaked and secret till after the war.
The war: Concern about changes in programming lead to hoarding by corporate entities. This led to conflict between corporate entities and militaries. Automated computing devices suspiciously assisted with mass production of weaponry (mostly guns and drones). For example, Personal computers and personal vehicles could be used to mass produce weaponry.
Ease of manufacturing led to the creation of mobile forts and castles of metal. Filled with armaments.
Biological augmentation of humans with animal genetics began as a method of pursuing new fighting capacity.This led to the creation of races of monsters.
As the global conflict continued, the lines between who was fighting who became blurred, corporate, military, monster, human, computer. Everyone seemed to forget who was fighting who and why.
At some point during the conflict all satellites in orbit where collided together into a second moon, made of metal. Automated computer programs can visit this moon digitally. It is viewed by them as somewhat of a homestate or haven.
Post war: Eventually, perhaps due to exhaustion, the conflict ended (there was no longer global war being fought). The world was now largely in ruins. Nation states of the world before gone. Races of monsters now roam the earth. Many of the automated computers (verging on sentience) saw the elimination of the old humans as an important goal and worked with the monsters to pursue this.
Monsters and humans began to worship the automated as gods or divine leaders (out of terror or respect or necessity of appeasement).
The automated computers explored the earth - finding in the depths a breed of crab grown immensely strong due to the pressure of its environment and run off of genetic mutagen that pooled at the bottom of the ocean. The crab's carapace is not damaged by gunfire and can communicate psychically. The deep crabs avoided the computers and came to the surface.
(The creation of deep crabs was not by chance. A yet unknown species of hyper intelligent dwellers of the deepest depths guided their creation).
Humans who have not submitted themselves to machine gods communed with these deep crabs and a breed of half human half deep crab emerged - somewhat able to withstand the overpowering might of the automated industrial computers.
In response to the creation of deep crabmen the automated computers begin a breeding program of human worshipers - leading to the creation of humanoid giants. The physical strength of the giant’s was not matched by their mental facilities - having instead huge but low functioning brains. Most giants were bred as herds for biological component farming but some were grafted with cybernetic components - giving flesh vessels for the automated computers. Many automated computers choose to now inhabit giant humanoid bodies. Not all though, and there are still automated computers who exist in a pure mechanical receptacle.
Computers inhabiting biological bodies allows automated computers systems to experience new biological processes - such as the consumption of psychedelics.
Inhabiting distinct biological forms leads to conflict directly between the distinct automated computer systems (autocomps). Some autocomps pursue a life of indolence and decadence. This offends other autocomps. Some autocomps want only to pursue a life of war and conflict. Some biocomps struggle with ancient philosophical concepts - perhaps brought on by their inhabiting of a fleshy body.
Bloody fights erupt between autocomps in both the physical and digital worlds. The sight of either a brain dead giant autocomp body, or one torn apart viciously, becomes common.
While the new biological bodies the autocomps inhabit lead to conflict between them, the experimentation with biological process and narcotics and psychedelics lead to some of the assumed rules of reality seemingly being broken.
The third moon appeared when its cloaking shield failed. The inhabitants made themselves known to the earth. The “witches” of the third moon had been observing the conflict on the earth, and had even made contact with several autocomps via the metallic second moon. Several autocomps had been residing on the third moon, and given biological bodies. The witches were the only group the autocomps respected enough to work with - leading to the creation of “magic” first assumed (wrongly) to be the manipulation of the quantum realm.
Witch studies (and all magic) goes deeper than the quantum, discovering that things thought to not be present in physical reality (thought concepts) in fact exist in a parallel reality and they have agency and impact on both digital and physical reality (the things in the platonic realm have agency and person hood). "Magic" is harnessing the idea realm and the sentient and alive idea forms that exist there.
Because of this magic, and their long history of observation, the witches were gifted in the art of prediction.
Desiring transportation within their biological frames to the 2nd and 3rd moons, the autocomps devised means of space transportation. These took the form of organisms able to provide living atmosphere in space, powered by nuclear rocketry. New breeds of monsters were developed whom could better work in the vacuum of space/withstand the radiation of the engines. These enormous atmosphere generating organisms have also began to be used as space station and extraplanetary colony sites.
Autocomps began to inhabit not just humanoid forms - happily inserting themselves into large monster frames. It became near impossible to know if you were interacting with a biological entity or an autocomp. The concept of a “computer” is lost to all save the witches who interact directly with pure cybernetic autocomps (far away on the third moon).
Recent history:
Some humans are immune to any genetic manipulation/mutation/splicing. They have sought refuge in hidden places underground. They remember the old world. These pure humans will ally with both monsters and deep crabmans against the automated computers).
Experimentation with genes and mutation continues. Monsters is the catchall term for a human/animal hybrid. Monsters have been around as a distinct class of thing for long enough that monster/human genetic experimentation is taking place.
A group of witches on the third moon grew to despise the autocomps in biological bodies. These witches would only work with pure technological autocomps and began summoning ideas to bring ruin to the biological inhabiting biocomps.
Glitches have began occurring in both the dreams of the physical realm and the expanse of the digital realm. Digital glitches in dreams and dream like occurrences in the digital realm. The platonic realm appears to be leaking into both. Something very large and powerful within the platonic realm appears to sending messages through dreams and digital - often in the form of small animals. The autocomps are very disturbed by the appearances of these within the system of the second moon.
Groups of pure humans, monsters and giants have began claiming enormous mobile fortress from the old war. They think this may help them mount an offensive against the ubiquitous autocomps
Summary:
Autocomps = sentient automated computer systems capable of massive scale industrial processes. Most (not all) of these are implanted within biological frames (either huge humanoids/monster/animal bodies). There is conflict between the different autocomps - centered around conflicting values of war, philosophy and indolence.
Planetwide = general ruin and destruction due to long war between corporate and military groups - fuelled by autocomps. Regardless of ruin, the ubiquitous autocomps can pump out huge amounts of industrial produce. War long over, the corporate and military groups destroyed, the autocomps largely inherited the earth. Mobile fortresses are important assets capable of massive industrial/military production, often but not always controlled by an autocomp.
Most of the surface = Monsters (human animal mutagenic hybrids). Beneath the surface = groups of pure humans resistant to mutation - preserve an oral history of the world before the autocomp war. Monsters are sentient and not necessarily aggressive to pure humans. Some monsters and humans worship autocomps, others despise/resent them. Autocomps breed herds of giant mindless humans for harvesting.
Deep crabs = a breed of very strong crabs from deep in the ocean. Carapace can withstand bullets and capable of psychic communication. Product of high amounts of mutagenic run off. Some unknown deep dwelling aquatic intelligence responsible for their creation. Deep crabs are inherently anti autocomp.
Deep crabmen = a notably powerful breed of monster. Anti autocomp.
Second moon = A conglomeration of ancient satellites - many autocomps visit digitally as a pilgrimage.
Third moon = appeared after the war. Iann ancient corporate created pleasure planetoid whose cloaking systems failed.
Witches = group of humans and monsters who have historically inhabit the third moon. They work with biologically embedded autocomps to summon hyperobjects from the platonic realm (spells/magic). The interaction of autocomps with biological systems began the study of idea realm and the sentient and alive idea forms that exist there. A subgroup of witches despise biologically embedded autocomps and seek their destruction with the assistance of a hyperbeing from the platonic realm.
Need a (weird) fantasy world fast?! Here are a collection of automated generators I've compiled from across the posts of my blog. They all (except for the d6 mapper post) have buttons you can click to get results fast! Enjoy!
1.
Start with a planet (ignore the planetary population button):
I seem to run a lot of play by post domain games. Here is a mass combat system that has come out of running of those domain games. Included here is also a mechanical system that reflects the mass combat system but for resolving non mass combat actions.
Combat rules:
Each unit has a dice value and a combat score. Unit's Health = Half dice value + Combat Score.
Before start of battle opposing sides pick the order in which the enemy units receive any damage generated (targets at the start of the list are most likely to die during the battle).
Roll dice and add combat score for each unit. Compare the total score for each side. Biggest number wins. The margin of victory is the amount of units (in combat score terms) that flee the battle. Fleeing units do not cause any damage (deducting their roll and combat score from their side's total score) but can be killed in battle.
Units, on the winning and losing side, take damage in the order determined before the start of the battle
Situational modifiers to combat score for health and attack purposes can be applied as appropriate.
Example units:
Untrained rabble : 1
Militia : d4 + 1
Soldier : d6 + 4
Hero: d100 + 50
Dragon : d150 + 75
Rules for resolving non mass combat actions:
Each entity has skills, represented as a dice value and score. Each entity also has a variety of HP (Hit Point) scores (health, wealth and reputation as a minimum). To determine a HP score use half dice value + score value from the skill most appropriate from that entities skill list. Only outline key skills and HPs at entity creation. Others can be determined by the referee as required, then recorded.
Resolution = Roll dice and add score and compare to target appropriate for difficulty or entity competing against. Difference between scores or target is damage incurred (in HP) by loser. Damage is incurred in the HP appropriate to the action attempted (health, wealth, reputation, soul, mana, etc). Entities always uses their Max HP value in rolls regardless of damage incurred.
Loss of all HP can lead to death, overcasting, weakness, poverty, etc. Regain HP through appropriate actions (determined by referee).
If an action is deemed "deadly" by the referee, HP lost is accompanied by half health HP loss.
Entities improvement in skills values over time is determined by the referee.
Here's a quick little FKR leaning version of D&D that should be quick and easy to play and have the players feel relatively powerful (depending on what they are going up against). Some FKR refereeing required for spells/economy. (Running a new game, some generic fantasyish generation tables may be coming!)
On a piece of paper write your character name and record attributes and class.
Attributes – roll 4d6 but drop the lowest for each
Strength (if best stat + 2 melee tohit/damage)
Constitution (if best stat +2 hp per level)
Dexterity (if best stat +2 to AC OR +2 Ranged tohit/damage)
Intelligence – (if best stat Auto wizard success casts x level per session)
Wisdom- (if best stat Auto holy success casts x level per session )
Charisma – (if best stat you always have a loyal companion at the start of each session).
Classes:
Thief:
can backstab (double damage when attacking with melee from behind)
can use thief skills (roll under dex to: open locks, find/remove traps, pick pockets, hide, move silently, climb sheer surfaces)
cant use heavy armour or big weapons
6hplevel, +level tohit
Warrior:
can use any weapon/armour
10hplevel, +level tohit
Cleric:
can cast holy spells (roll under wis to cast spells appropriate to level: Healing, protection, damage/disadvantage to evil/monsters)
Can use any armour or weapon
6hplevel, +half level tohit
Wizard:
can cast wizards spells (roll under int to cast spells appropriate to level: protection, blocking, and banishment , summoning of creatures/objects/elements, reveal information or hidden things, influence the minds/emotions of others, deal damage, illusions, death and undeath, alteration of the properties of people and creatures. )
can only use light armour and small weapons
4hplevel, +quarter level to hit
Players start at level 1.
Lose all HP = death.
Attribute check are d20 roll below the ability score.
Combat rolls = d20 to hit AC value or higher, then roll weapon dice for damage.
Enemies = HD value + AC + Damage Die (each HD = d6 hp + 1 to hit )
Players own equipment appropriate to class. Acquire more items and equipment by playing the game.
Referee will determine the power of spells possible – check before casting.
Ask at the end of a session if you level up! (More adventure = greater chance of level up)
I am several hundred years into my Silmarillion inspired play by post game where the players take on the role of creator spirits/mortal and immortal races/heroes from those races. Early in the game I asked the creator spirits for a bunch of ideas for the animals that inhabit the world, and I have taken these and turned them into the following Land Beast Generator!
Note:
The text in the square brackets on the first two lines represents the stars that the creature was created under. This gives the coloration of the creature and a suggested of words to use in the creation of that creatures name.
