d100 Crimes you May Have Committed

This list is intended to replace Occupations in a 0-level DCC funnel involving a prison break, but who knows, it might have other uses too. The "Confiscated Evidence" column replaces trade goods and can be retrieved during the escape. Your trained weapon may also be retrieved.

It is up to you whether your character is guilty, justified, or has simply been framed.

d%	Crime	Trained Weapon	Confiscated Evidence
1	Abandonment of Post	Longsword	Insignia
2	Adulteration of Goods	Rolling pin (as club)	Sack of starch
3	Armed Robbery	Longsword	Balaclava mask
4	Arson	Firewood (as club)	Flint-lighter
5	Assassination	Dagger	Phial of random poison
6	Assault (Armed)	Knife (as dagger)	Coinpurse of 1d12 cp
7	Assault (Magical)	Staff	Black Grimoire
8	Assault (Unarmed)	Drawstring (as garrote)	Sack
9	Attempted Murder	Hatchet	Shovel
10	Banditry	Shortsword	Rope (100')
11	Begging	Stick (as club)	Beggar's bowl
12	Brandishing	Longsword	Buckler
13	Bribery	Blackjack	1d12 sp
14	Blasphemy	Staff	Holy symbol
15	Breaking and Entering	Hammer	Crowbar
16	Burglary	Dagger	Lockpicks
17	Coercion	Blackjack	Quality cloak
18	Counterfeiting	Dagger	1d20 counterfeit gp
19	Cursing (Magical)	Staff	Hex doll
20	Cursing (Obscenity)	Sling	Tablet with offensive carvings
21	Dangerous Use of Magic	Staff	Burnt hair
22	Deception by Magic	Staff	Phial of weird fluid
23	Demonic Bargaining	Dagger	Demonic symbol
24	Desecration of a Holy Site	Stick (as club)	Sack of nightsoil
25	Desertion	Spear	Hide armor
26	Destruction of Crops	Pitchfork (as spear)	Flask of oil
27	Dissidence	Quill pen (as dart)	Parchment and ink
28	Disturbing the Peace	Cudgel (as staff)	Sack of potatoes
29	Drunkenness	Tankard (as club)	Keg of ale (half-empty)
30	Embezzlement	Quill pen (as dart)	Coffer (emptied)
31	Excessive Noise	Club	Horn
32	Extortion	Blackjack	Silver band (10 sp)
33	False Confession	Club	Incriminating note, signed by you
34	Fencing of Stolen Goods	Dagger	Gems worth 2d10 sp
35	Fraud	Quill pen (as dart)	Falsified document
36	Forgery	Quill pen (as dart)	Falsified wax stamp
37	Game Fixing	Blackjack	Loaded dice
38	Gossip	Knife (as dagger)	Slanderous letter
39	Grand Larceny	Shortsword	Wagon of stolen goods
40	Grand Theft Equine	Staff	Bridle
41	Graverobbing	Shovel (as staff)	Trowel
42	Harbouring a Fugitive	Shortsword	1 fugitive (additional 0-level PC)
43	Hoarding	Pitchfork (as spear)	1 month's rations
44	Horseplay	Club	Pigskin ball
45	Imitation	Hammer	Low-quality copper ingots
46	Impersonation (Animal)	Skinner (as dagger)	Horse hide
47	Impersonation (Clergy)	Scepter (as mace)	Cassock
48	Impersonation (Guard)	Longsword	Crested heater shield
49	Impersonation (Nobility)	Dagger	Signet ring
50	Inciting Rebellion	Longsword	Facepaint
51	Inciting Fear	Wood stake (as dagger)	Garlic
52	Inciting Violence	Protest sign (as club)	1d12 rotten tomatoes
53	Insubordination	Spear	Brigandine armor
54	Interfering with Fey	Trowel (as dagger)	Suspicious mushrooms
55	Kidnapping	Blackjack	Sack with drawstring
56	Loitering	none	none
57	Mind-Altering Magicks	Stirrer (as club)	Pouch of magical herbs
58	Mugging	Knife (as dagger)	Fistwraps
59	Murder	Hatchet	Shovel
60	Murder-by-Proxy	Staff	Phial of poison
61	Necromancy	Dagger	1d12 human bones
62	Obstruction of Justice	Shortsword	Mysterious locked chest
63	Perjury	Gavel (as hammer)	Roll again for a different crime
64	Petty Theft	Club	1d4 cp
65	Pickpocketing	Dagger	Coinpurse (1d20 cp)
66	Piracy	Cutlass (as shortsword)	1 pirated RPG book
67	Public Nudity	Club	Fine suit of clothes
68	Poaching	Shortbow	Deerhide
69	Possession	Staff	Crystal ball (10sp)
70	Prison-break	Shiv (as dagger)	Sheets tied together (50')
71	Property Damage	Hammer	Broken cart
72	Racketeering	Blackjack	Shards of a broken window
73	Resisting Arrest	Club	Manacles
74	Reckless Discharge of a Missile	Shortbow	Apple with an arrow in it
75	Riot	Pitchfork (as spear)	Torch
76	Robbery of the Treasury	Dagger	Marked banknotes
77	Rustling	Crook (as staff)	1d3 sheep
78	Slander	Quill pen (as dart)	Roll of newspapers
79	Smuggling	Longsword	Illicit "salts"
80	Soliciting	Dagger	Sexy chainmail (as chainmail)
81	Swindling	Longsword	Snake oil
82	Squatting	Plank (as club)	Bedroll
83	Tax Evasion	Dagger	Golden ingot
84	Theft	Dagger	Loaf of bread
85	Torture	Hammer	Pliers
86	Treason	Longsword	Cake
87	Trespass	Hatchet	Tent
88	Unlawful Patronage	Staff	Goat marked for sacrifice
89	Unlawful Worship	Dagger	Illegal holy symbol
90	Unsanctioned Dueling	Longsword	Expensive gloves (5 gp)
91	Unsanctioned use of Magic	Staff	Pile of ashes
92	Usury	Cudgel (as staff)	Jewelry worth 10gp
93	Vagrancy	Staff	Bindle
94	Witchcraft	Broom (as staff)	Black cat
95	Wrongful Imprisonment	Club	Chain (10')
96	Wrongly Accused of [re-roll]	Take re-roll result	Take re-roll result
97	“Wrongly” Accused of [re-roll]*	Take re-roll result	Take re-roll result
98	[re-roll] and [roll again]	Take both results	Take both results
99	Conspiracy to [re-roll]	Take re-roll result	Take re-roll result
100	Serial [re-roll]	Take re-roll result	2d4 times re-roll result

*this result doesn't make you guilty, but absolutely nobody believes you

Note: Some crimes have been intentionally omitted from this list due to their particularly sensitive nature. Some heinous acts would make it very difficult to play a likeable character. Additionally, some players may feel uncomfortable playing in a game where certain freedoms are considered a crime (even if such a thing might be historically realistic). The judge may adjust the list but is encouraged to know their audience and treat serious topics with due respect.

The Great Divide - Splitting Race and Class

There have been a lot of attempts at converting DCC's race-as-class into race-and-class. Now, I am an enthusiastic proponent of race-as-class. If you're reading this in the first place, it's probably not a hard sell for you. It makes non-human races special and it makes humans special too because they're the ones that can specialize. The hacks and homebrews I have been able to find for DCC fall short of this, instead ending up more like the race-and-class we see in modern RPGs, pejoratively referred to as "humans with masks". This is an attempt at splitting race and class, while maintaining the best part of DCC's races-as-classes.

∗ ∗ ∗

Skip to the rules.

∗ ∗ ∗

Design Points

1. Avoid synergy yet recognize that by giving players options it can't be entirely eliminated.
2. Encourage races to play differently as classes do by giving tools instead of bonuses.
3. Make race significant, so that a demi-human Warrior (for instance) feels different to a human Warrior.
4. Tie racial abilities to culture, such that it is impossible for a character's species to not affect their characterisation.

Points 1 and 2 are related, and points 2, 3 and 4 are all related.

Identifying the problem

A small bonus here and there is a quick and easy solution if you already like the way That Popular Fantasy Game handles it but - as you may have guessed - I don't. Distributing Ability Score bonuses across races immediately encourages minmaxing, because why wouldn't you pick the race with a bonus to your primary stat if you know what class you're playing? And if you don't yet know what class you're playing, why wouldn't you pick one that suits your race?

But that's only the start of it. "Humans with masks" comes from the fact that none of this encourages you to play - much less roleplay - in particular way based on your race. There's nothing to make an elf feel elfy. You don't end up with an interesting character because of their race in contrast to the rest of the party, you get a Barbarian like any other except "oh I'm a Goliath by the way". Someone encountering your character might not care or literally even notice, because you're travelling alongside a gnome, a kenku, some sort of robot, and a partridge in a pear tree - all of whom are just regular guys like yourself. What does being a Goliath do for your character? It makes him a better Barbarian, that's about it. At least, that's the only part we pay attention to.

Is it crazy to think that your species - quite literally what you are - should have a bigger impact on your life, character, and capabilities than a +2 and darkvision? I happen to think that my pets being a cat and a rabbit notably distinguishes them from the other members of my household, and this would hold true if they spoke Common and wielded a pitchfork (as spear) like the rest of us mortals.

My cat and rabbit are a Neutral Thief and Chaotic Wizard respectively.

Race-as-class

These issues are more or less addressed by race-as-class systems. A Halfling is now totally different from a human, no matter what class the human chooses. They may on the surface be similar to Thieves, but they have different scope, flavour and mechanics. Their abilities inform playstyle, but also character. Elves take a little more work to reach this point (the book doesn’t spell it out but leaning into Patrons and a long lifespan helps) and I wouldn't be the only one to say Dwarves are lacking (I like to add dwarfy rune magicks), but the general approach works. Give them their own entire class, and race is now as important as class.

However, even after having been converted to the old-school ways of race-as-class, I still can't help but feel it's kind of... clunky? Over-gamified? Unintuitive? It's hard to pin down. I still have somewhat of an involuntary visceral reaction to the suggestion of race-as-class, even with it being one of the reasons DCC is my system of choice. Despite my trepidations it seems to produce what we want it to at the table.

It feels, intuitively, like race and class shouldn't be the same category. They aren't the same kind of thing. If you're to think of it in wargaming terms however, each class (or race) is a certain kind of unit that can do certain things. It makes a bit more sense from this perspective, and it helps to explain why races become distinct when they are also a separate class. Perhaps it's the clash between Class as a game mechanic and Race as a character trait (in the narrative sense) that doesn't sit right with me. When answering "Class" with "Halfling" it sounds like a category error. It wouldn't if you asked for a "unit type" instead, but class and race are more than that. They serve roleplaying purposes, not just tactical gaming purposes.

As a final point (though maybe the weakest) having the ability to combine races and classes opens up more variety in player choices. I think this holds true even with demihumans being rare and randomly selected, since now the Elf player has a choice about what kind of Elf. In fact, this might be the simple answer to minmaxing, since Elves are already considered by some to be "Wizards but better" and it isn't generally a problem for DCC. You don't simply get to choose an Elf over a Wizard.

I still want to try to avoid obvious optimizations though, because if all Elves are going to be Wizards this entire exercise is pointless.

How else to do it?

If treating race as class is what makes race equally important to class, how can we achieve that while splitting them?

Multi-classing. Well, not exactly. Half-classes, or something like it. These multi-classing rules already achieve the possibility of combining a race and a class, albeit in a bit of a messy way where the character levels up their race separately from their class and gets a boatload of abilities because DCC's classes are all loaded with stuff. I still think these multi-classing rules are very good, it's just a bit strange for the same nebulous reason race-as-class feels strange.

When splitting race and class, I would make each race essentially the same thing as a class, but now you pick one of each. Races are given abilities much like class abilities; the kinds of things that define gameplay and provide options, not just +2 Strength and sniffing out gold.

If we instead gave each class only their defining abilities, and each race some abilities as a class, the player could now combine both without being too overloaded. For instance, a Halfling Warrior might gain both Mighty Deeds and Good Luck Charm, and both of those level up as the character does. Interestingly, this has the potential for anti-synergy where you don't want to choose a Dwarven Warrior, Elven Wizard, or Halfling Thief because you already have some of the abilities of the class - as such, it'll be necessary to pick and choose which abilities each class and race retains so that there isn't any blatant redundancy.

Hit Dice would be determined by the class but have the potential to be modified by the race. This threatens to become synergistic, so I'd limit it to one step up or down the dice chain. I don't think that can be particularly game-breaking. Alternatively, one could alternate between using the Class Hit Die or the Race Hit Die each level. That actually sounds better.

Action Dice, Crit Tables and Saves will receive similar treatment, probably just coming straight from the Class.

Luck Bonus is an interesting problem - I want to keep it for both races and classes because it can provide some nice flavour. Perhaps the player can pick from either the race's bonus or the class's bonus, although I have said before how odd I find that sort of design.

Then we have the classic problem of humans. What makes them so special? Being able to choose any class is no longer a human trait, but I want to lean into that affinity for specialization. I can think of two options. Each class could have one extra ability that is only granted to a human, making humans the best at each class while demihumans get their own unique niches on the side. 

Come to think of it, Luck Bonus could be a strictly human ability and depend on the class chosen, thus functioning as the human's ability to specialize. This feels dangerously like giving +2 to an ability score of the player's choice but it also makes humans feel like the chosen race of the Gods if you subscribe to that interpretation of Luck. It also lends well to the "new kids on the block" interpretation of humans by showing how they outcompete the other races while still being the normal, plain, generic race.

But having different stats makes sense!

You're right! I agree. I think we can do it while retaining the randomness and without introducing (much) race-class synergy. Instead of having a bonus, races will each get one stat they get to re-roll and take the higher of the two results. This keeps the same possible range and maintains a bell curve but pushes the curve ahead such that there are slightly more 18's and way less 3's, with only a slightly higher average.

Humans, being special of course, get to choose which stat they re-roll at level 1 instead of having it predetermined at level 0. This assists with the specialization motif. Humans don't all excel in one area, but they can excel in anything. They only get one chance at the re-roll though, and don't get to change their Class choice if their stats don't turn out as nicely as they wanted.

∗ ∗ ∗

Split Race and Class for DCC

Races

Race is determined randomly at character creation, as per the DCC core rules. Each race gets the listed abilities below, and one Ability Score which they re-roll and take the better result.

Human

Ability Score re-roll: Chosen by player at level 1 after deciding Class.

Humans add their Luck modifier to:

• Their Turn Unholy checks as a Cleric
• A favoured Thief Skill as a Thief (chosen at level 1)
• A favoured Weapon as a Warrior (chosen at level 1)
• Corruption and Mercurial Magic rolls as a Wizard.

Note that by implication other races do not get these Luck modifiers.

Hit Dice: Humans have the Hit Die granted by their chosen Class.

Dwarf

Ability Score re-roll: Stamina

Underground skills, Runetracing Deeds*, Shield Bash, Infravision

*Seen in Goodman Games Yearbook 8 and Gongfarmer's Almanac 2021 Vol. 7 but you can easily make your own. Just let a dwarf character learn rune words and make up magical Deed-ish effects for them. You're already adjudicating regular Mighty Deeds, you can handle this too.

Elf

Ability Score re-roll: Intelligence

Patron Bond and Invoke Patron at level 1 (cast these as Wizard, regardless of class), allergic to iron, access to one set of mithril gear at price of iron, Infravision, Heightened Senses

Halfling

Ability Score re-roll: Luck

Two-weapon Fighting, Good Luck Charm, Infravision

Classes

Class is chosen at level 1, with the only real difference being that all races can choose a class. They get the listed abilities below along with all of their racial abilities.

Cleric

Cleric casting and spells, Lay on Hands, Divine Aid

Thief

Thief Skill bonuses, Luck and Wits

Warrior

Mighty Deeds, Critical Threat Range, +CL to Initiative

Wizard

Wizard casting and spells, Spellburn, Languages

For all Races and Classes

Hit Dice

Odd levels use Class Hit Dice, even levels use Race Hit Dice.

Attack Bonus, Action Dice, Crit Table, Saving Throws

As per table for Class (not Race).

Stacking Abilities

As a general rule, abilities that do the same thing do not stack but you get the better of the two. Halfling Thieves regenerate 1 Luck per level, not 2. If a Deed Die rolls lower than your Attack Bonus, you get your Attack Bonus as the better result. If a Halfling Thief rolls a 1 on a Luck Die, they get 2 as a Halfling instead of 1 as a Thief.

∗ ∗ ∗

I don't consider this to be entirely complete or polished - I will definitely have to revisit it at some point - but I think it's playable. I've had less time to sit down and get into the nitty-gritty of this stuff lately (why did nobody tell me having a baby would be time-consuming?). At the very least, I hope this provides a framework for allowing any choice of race/class combination without losing the uniqueness that race-as-class systems provide. Ideally, demihumans should still feel special and unique, and there should still be a reason to be a human too. So let each of those keep what makes them unique.

6 Kinds of Dark

I recently came across this post about a dark entity on Goblin Punch and the post that inspired it on False Machine. I think they're brilliant. The idea of the darkness itself as a living, breathing, existential threat is a compelling one, and the idea that there are different species of it that I can catalogue for myself while my players might not even figure out they are two different things gives me a unique kind of joy.

The False Machine descriptions are evocative and inspiring, but emotion and metaphor doesn't leave much to actually use at the table. Its descriptions of darkness are often vague and amorphous as shadows themselves. I don't know how to present my players an encounter with a "contemptible dark" or one that "appreciates glass".

The Goblin Punch rules are generally quite good for darkness as a monster - dark must surround a light source before snuffing it and takes at least one Round per light source to do so (more for larger sources like campfires).  Fires aren't extinguished, just darkened. Lights can be "healed" by another light. Being swallowed by the dark deals damage per Round and escalating odds of random table effects occurring.

So here's a bunch of darks that look, feel, and smell different. Any of them can be:

• A monster you can't stab
• A puzzle in a room
• Just how the shadows work in this dungeon, nobody knows why
• What exists below the Underearth, the fragile foundation on which The Mundane World rests
• A spell for a particularly edgy caster

Hey...

∗ ∗ ∗

One

Description: This dark is thick and oily. It fills the cracks in the floor first as it encroaches on the light. The thinner parts at its edges have a rainbow sheen like slicked water. It is cool (but not cold) to the touch. Once it has surrounded you and your torch, it will submerge you from the bottom up. It makes you feel like you need to hold your breath, as if you just dived into a pool.

Properties: This dark cannot mix with water. Spilling water will slow it down, a misty spray or fog will halt it until the mist dissipates. Holy water will cause it to recede and can be used to create a path through the dark.

Two

Description: A misty black fog that smells like a putrid, deathly miasma. You feel a sense of impending doom in your chest when you breathe it in. It gets thicker, reducing your range of vision until you can no longer see the torch you're holding.

Properties: This dark has a chance of infecting you with a disease, and can be dispelled by magic which cures disease.

Three

Description: Your shadow dances as the torchlight flickers but something is wrong. You almost didn't notice. Instead of stretching outward across the floor and against the walls like your compatriots' shadows, yours reaches toward the torchbearer. You feel as though your own shadow is mocking you. It grasps with a dim hand to smother the flame.

Properties: Though this shadow defies your control, it is still your shadow. It cannot stretch out longer than a few times your own height, so keeping distance from your party's torchbearer will thwart its plans to grasp the torch. You can also crouch or go prone to shorten the shadow. Moving another light source to the opposite side of the light it's attempting to reach will turn it into a regular shadow of that opposing light - the dark can then attempt to possess a different person's or object's shadow.

Four

Description: Dark emanates as if from a black sun, leaving lit un-shadows where people and objects block its path. The source of the un-light is visible as a deep darkness that hurts the eye as your pupils dilate to take it in.

Properties: Standing in direct un-light for too long can cause searing-cold burns to the skin. You can simply block the un-light, but much as throwing a cloth on a fire would cause it to burn, attempting to cover the source with a cloth would freeze it to the point of brittleness.

Five

Description: A dark, flickering flame emits the warmth of a hearth, but does not consume the matter on which it burns. Those lit by the flame will feel no pain - instead they will feel at home and no longer be compelled to move. They will stand comfortably in place until they can stand no longer, slipping into a comfortable sleep. The flame burns until their body rots. The flame is predatory - it burns a person's soul and keeps the soul from passing over until there is no physical body left to hold the flame.

Properties: The black flame spreads across organic (living or dead) matter but does not burn it. Water will not put this flame out, but a regular flame will. Yes, this means setting your friend on fire. Each round the black flame deals damage to a character's Personality (in DCC; in other games, use the nearest thing to "willpower") and when it reaches zero that character loses all will. Instead of a DC 10 Reflex save, a DC 15 Willpower save is required to "stop drop and roll" the flame out.

It doesn't take much imagination to see how this flame might be useful to necromancers and disastrous to forests.

Six

Description: When you light your torch to stave off the shadows, you notice it takes longer than normal. Not to light the torch or feel the heat of the flame. It takes longer for the light. The flame burns for a few seconds before the light hits the walls and floor. Your shadow struggles to catch up to you. Curious, you snuff out your torch. This time it takes a moment for the light to leave. As you attempt to relight your torch, a sense of dread enters you. It's taking much longer this time. Let's not test it further. 

Properties: Any changes in lighting conditions take 1 Round to take effect. Each round, there is a 1-in-6 chance a torch inside this dark goes out and must be relit. For each light that goes out within or near this dark, both the number of Rounds delay and the chance in 6 go up by 1.

The maximum speed you can move through this dark without overtaking your own light is 30' initially and goes down by 5' with each light it consumes.

Note: The math almost certainly doesn't check out on the movement speed and it gets squirrely when considering different radii of light and move speeds. It's just intended to be usable and feel "wrong" - let's not start calculating redshift at the gaming table.

More to come.

Elder Scrolls Flavoured Birth Augurs

The Warrior

Birth augurs are a neat idea. They help give each character a little more uniqueness. In the end they're just a simple numerical modifier but they can really shape a character by shining a spotlight on a particular trait. They have the right flavour for a Luck-based bonus too - we all have little superstitions about people having luck in certain areas of their life but not others. Some characters feel destined for a certain class just because of their birth augur.

What's even better is the player in my campaign who chose to play a Thief with a negative to all Thief skills. I love that. Despite Luck being totally against him, he has chosen his own destiny. That alone has made him a fun character to play with.

The thing that I find lacking with birth augurs, however, is any consistent theme or cohesion. I can't even tell what they're supposed to be. They come across as something like zodiac signs and yet they clearly aren't - one of them is "Lucky Sign" which more explicitly calls out a star sign but another is "survived a spider bite". I'm not the only one who has raised an eyebrow at that. 1 in 30 people have been bitten by a spider and that's the most interesting thing about their luck?

That's not even an augur of one's birth!

I get the feeling that the designers intentionally veered away from being specific here. Defining a bunch of star signs would have implications about the cosmology and the setting, which DCC intentionally leaves blank. Unfortunately the result is a table that has very little flavour and feels uninspired. In much the same way DCC encourages creating custom Mercurial Magic tables to flavour magic to different kinds of Wizards, custom Birth Augur tables can give some flair to your world and its cosmology. At the very least, you can do more with it than the original.

The Inspiration (Morrowind and Oblivion)

The Mage (interestingly the file is named "The Wizard")

Videogames were my main pastime growing up, and if I recall correctly Morrowind was the game that taught me to use the keyboard and a mouse simultaneously. It's no surprise then that the Elder Scrolls series has had a massive influence on my taste in RPGs, both digital and analog. Oblivion I didn't play until much later, but it kept the same system.

During character creation you are asked to choose a star sign from a list. From a mechanical standpoint you're just choosing a perk, but the existence of the star signs has implications for the world and your character is immediately tied to the world. This has deep personal implications for a character, likely influencing their path through life via the grand direction of the cosmos.

That sounds kinda like a Birth Augur.

The Lore (The Firmament)

The Thief

The real reason I'm doing this is because the lore of the constellations in The Elder Scrolls is weird and cool. Things that are weird and cool should be stolen entirely used as inspiration.

There are thirteen starsigns. If you played Skyrim, you'll know them as the Standing Stones, which are just the same thing further gamified.

Three of them are the Warrior, Mage and Thief. These guys clearly come from the big three archetypes in RPGs and that cements this trio as a real concept within the world rather than just a game mechanic. They're known as the Guardians.

Each of them has three constellations as their Charges.

The thirteenth constellation is the Serpent, who wanders the sky unpredictably. The Serpent is usually threatening one of the Charges, and the Guardians' job is to defend them. Those born under the Serpent are "the most blessed and the most cursed".

The very sky itself is alive and in conflict. It has personalities within it, those personalities are meaningful to both the world and the game, and it affects characters both mechanically and in-universe. There is a fair bit more to the cosmology and it's also implied that the phases of the two moons affect these, but the game simply lists these 13 options to choose from and that's more than enough for us to make something cool out of it. 

∗ ∗ ∗

The Table

Roll a d12 and d14. The d12 represents the season of your birth, and the d14 represents the Serpent's activity during the season. If you roll doubles, the Serpent was threatening your constellation at the time of your birth and you take the relevant Serpent augur instead.

d12	Birthsign	Standard Augur	Serpent Augur
1	The Warrior	Melee attack rolls	Melee damage rolls
2	The Lady	Wil. saves	Armor Class
3	The Steed	Speed	Initiative
4	The Lord	Fort. saves	Hit Points
5	The Mage	Corruption rolls	Spell damage
6	The Apprentice	Number of languages	Spell checks
7	The Atronach*	Spell checks x2, negative corruption	Spell damage x2, negative corruption
8	The Ritual	Turn unholy checks	Magical healing
9	The Thief	Ref. Saves	Thief skills
10	The Lover	Personality checks with hirelings	Critical hits
11	The Shadow	Sneak and hide checks	Backstabs
12	The Tower	Find secret doors, find traps	Lockpick, disable traps

*The Atronach starsign has double the effect on spell checks (or damage, if Serpent) but a negative effect on corruption rolls. This is to thematically suit the Atronach as it exists in the Elder Scrolls games: great power at a cost.

∗ ∗ ∗

All the effects on here were either taken directly from the DCC core book or this awesome extended Birth Augur table, with one obvious exception. There are less results than the original table and it isn't evenly distributed because you need to roll doubles to get the Serpent augurs. The probabilities of this might actually be a problem - you'll get even more doubles, which still happens often with a d30. The Serpent results are designed to feel more significant, as "those born under the serpent are more blessed and more cursed". Whether it's a blessing or curse obviously depends on your Luck modifier.

If we wanted to go crazy with this we could potentially double the number of signs by creating variations depending on the moon phases as Morrowind implies - one for each with the "Prime Aspect of Masser" or "Prime Aspect of Secunda".

The Takeaway

Custom Birth Augur tables can inform what kinds of individuals exist in your world and how they tie in to the cosmos. The Elder Scrolls' magic is vastly different in flavour to DCC's magic, and that shines through when looking at the differences between DCC's Birth Augur table and Elder Scrolls' birthsigns. Notably there isn't a clear Cleric archetype because magical healing is basically a wizarding school, so there were no Cleric-focused signs to port directly over.

This got me thinking about creating custom Birth Augur tables per setting, just the same way someone might create custom Occupation tables to better suit what kinds of people are expected to come out of character generation, or Mercurial tables for certain kinds of Wizards. It's easy and it's fun.

I wonder about taking this a step further down the cosmic route and tying Augurs in with Alignments...

Mighty Deeds for non-Mighty Folk

Mighty Deeds, as per the book, allow a Warrior to blind, disarm, pushback, trip, rally, and make defensive maneuvers and precise shots. Well, they allow a Warrior to basically attempt anything they want as part of an attack action, but these are the ones defined (suggested) by the book.

The question seems to come up often though: what if a non-Warrior wants to trip or pushback an opponent? This isn't something you need special powers to be able to do. You can trip or push someone easily in real life, if you like (this is not legal advice). There are two common answers to this question and I think one of those is the obvious correct answer.

One answer frequently given is that you do not let other characters attempt these actions, because they are the specialty of the Warrior. I think we can all agree Mighty Deeds are what makes Warriors in DCC awesome. They're the reason to pick Warrior over other classes. We don't want to take away what makes them special, or there's no longer a reason to pick Warriors, which in turn means there are no Warriors because nobody wants to be one. The thing is, Mighty Deeds aren't really about pushing or tripping - they encompass everything a Warrior could attempt as part of their attack action! To restrict non-Warriors from attempting these actions means to restrict them from doing anything other than hit or cast. That is obviously silly, I can't imagine saying "you can't trip people over because you're a Thief".

The other frequently suggested option is that PCs are still allowed to use their action dice to perform skill checks, so just do that instead. They could, for instance, attempt a contested Strength check to pushback or a contested Agility check to trip. Some checks may be done trained or untrained. They just can't do it as a Mighty Deed using a Deed Die (which also gives greater odds and varying degrees of success compared to flat skill checks). This is a huge tradeoff when compared directly to a Warrior, who gets to simultaneously attack and basically attempt a whole other action for free. It keeps the game open and means the Judge doesn't have to step in and say no to entirely reasonable actions, while maintaining the awesomeness of Mighty Deeds.

There is no action that can be a Mighty Deed that can't simply be treated as a different kind of action - the Mighty Deed is just a bonus opportunity to do an extra action as part of an attack. The Warrior can hit the demon and shove it back into the portal; the Cleric can shove the demon through the portal, but not while he's busy attacking or casting. The Wizard can swing from the chandelier, but it takes an Agility check, which costs him a chance to cast Fireball.

Codifying this as a rule:

Anything a Warrior could do with a Deed Die result of 3+, any other character can attempt as a DC 15 check. Each point higher the Deed result required, the DC increases by 3. This action is not an attack and thus does not deal damage - attempting something like "Blinding Attack" can achieve the blinding effect but not deal damage.

This requires significant adjudication (especially if players are being creative instead of using listed Deeds), but then so do Mighty Deeds in the first place. Really all this rule is doing is drawing a rough parallel between DC and Deed Die results. DC 15 is "a feat of derring-do" and some of the example Mighty Deed results at 3, 4 and 5 seem like they should be achievable with some luck. Beyond that it becomes very hard or even impossible without moving up the dice chain, making these the domain of true Mighty Deeds by true Warriors.

You See Two Doors: What do you do?

I go left... no, right!

The question posed in the title is essentially meaningless. I imagine we've all been in this situation though, whether as a player or a Judge. Which door do you take? Well, what's the difference between a door and a door? You might as well flip a coin. The result will be the same, as far as you know. This isn't a choice, it's the illusion of one.

This isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes it's just a symptom of a freely explorable environment. If you're in a large enough dungeon, there are bound to be choices of which direction you will explore next, and you're not likely to have information about those choices until you explore them. That's kind of why you're exploring.

The problem of Quantum Ogres is well known and much discussed. These are related problems, because in order to have Quantum Ogres you must first give the players a decision they don't have the information to answer. If you want the ogre to be behind whichever door they choose first, you can't tell them the left door has ogre-prints leading up to it or they'll feel cheated when the right door has an ogre behind it. No, you have to have presented them with two seemingly ogre-less doors.

I would suggest that, wherever possible, you shouldn't pose a question like the title's to begin with. Now, this isn't always reasonable; sometimes there really are just two doors. But as Judges we generally have the capacity to make something known about those doors before you open them.

The Swamp in the Portal

The Portal Under The Stars presents exactly this kind of choice (don't get me wrong, the module is a great start and this really is a nitpick). After making it through the traps guarding the entrance, the players are literally faced with a choice between three doors. Yes, the module has determined what is behind each of those doors, but the players don't know anything about any of them. It may not be a Quantum Ogre behind those doors, but it's the perfect habitat for a Quantum Ogre - which I suppose would be a Vacuum Swamp.

The point is, the players wouldn't notice if you shuffled all three of those doors' destinations around as they opened them. You could easily decide on the fly that they will explore the other two rooms before heading to the final chamber, because you don't want them to miss that content.

I don't think you should even give yourself that opportunity.

When I ran The Portal Under The Stars for my group, I figured I should give the players something to base their decision on. I didn't give them much, just this: 

• The door to the burial chamber had a funeral mask mounted on it to match the ones inside.
• The door to the gazing pool had a faint blue glow shining through the crack underneath.
• The door to the hallway leading to the scrying chamber was left just slightly ajar letting them see the hallway into the darkness beyond.

The ajar door was intended to be tempting - both because I wanted the players to go there and because the demon-snake did too. He's a cheeky li'l fella. It worked, but it would've been totally fine if it hadn't too.

None of this was much information to go by. The players still aren't completely deciding "do I go to the burial chamber, or do I go to the chamber guarded by a demonic snake?" - they don't know that yet. There's still discovery involved, now with the possibility of a minor "aha!" moment when the players find out where that blue glow came from, or realize they were led down the dark hallway as a trap.

Why does it matter?

This is a totally different experience than just being given three doors to the Vacuum Swamp. There's now a real decision being made (if still an uncertain one) and a connective thread linking the decision to the consequential discovery. Comparatively, choosing a door at random (and if you have no information, it is random) might as well be drawing from some sort of location lootbox at best, and indeed, Quantum Ogres at worst.

And the worst thing is, players cannot tell the difference. Some Judges see this as a good thing, an opportunity to direct the journey.

After all, why shouldn't I use all my prepared content?

Well, for one, they can totally tell the difference. They can also reason that there is no purpose to giving them a meaningless choice unless you are trying to sell them an illusion. Realizing this kills not only the illusion you were attempting to sell, but the entire illusion that this game matters in the first place.

Some players don't mind, but for others the game means nothing when you do this. I like to foster trust between my players and myself, such that when I do need to do something sneaky in the interest of a fun surprise or reveal they know I'm not doing it to be unfair. They know I'm not just choosing the path for them in advance. And for that trust to grow, I need to be honest.

Not only do I need to let their decisions matter, but I need to make sure the information they have allows for decision-making in the first place. That way they know in advance that their decision matters. They know I follow rules too. These tiny hints and connective threads are proof that their decision mattered all along. It may seem like I'm taking this too seriously, and maybe I am, but nobody can come out of one of my sessions wondering whether I pulled a switcheroo behind the screen. I like that. It makes me feel like I'm playing fair.

Sometimes there are just two doors.

The more complex the layout of an environment, the harder this will be. A dungeon with multiple entrances makes this pretty difficult; now you have twice as many clues to lay out for rooms you can hit from multiple directions. Does every entrance to every room need a hint as to what the room is? Does a hallway with 6 doors lined down the sides need something special for every single door, to give a choice to make?

No. These aren't Vacuum Swamps, for a few reasons.

The more complex the layout of the dungeon, the more expected it is that there will be some meandering around and creeping into unknown rooms to progress. The layout of the dungeon will be informed by its purpose and its place in the world. If your game involves drawing or revealing a map as you go, the world itself provides clues. If you've got a map of the place, it becomes harder - but not impossible - to fake it. And on top of that, if the players have a ton of options, it becomes overwhelming quickly. Those 6 doors will just end up being opened sequentially no matter what you do, because nobody is weighing up that many options before deciding where to go. Either that, or the players will convince themselves it must be a puzzle, there's no way you'd give them something that complicated otherwise!

The Portal Under The Stars is an example of a tightly controlled space. This is what makes it stand out to me. The intention is clearly to give players a choice after reaching this room (up until then it has been linear) and yet the choice they are given is not a choice at all. It's not an open-ended question like exploring a megadungeon, it's a multiple-choice question that simply asks you "1, 2, or 3?". You might as well just roll a d3.

Bizarre Mishaps Table for PCs with zero Luck

You have cheated death one too many times and now you're going to get Final Destination'd. Or you have cheated on Death and now he's throwing all your belongings out the second-floor window. Either way, your favour with the Gods has dwindled to nil, so now there's a divine target on your back.

DCC RPG (p. 96) states that a character who reaches zero luck suffers such constant, bizarre mishaps that they are effectively unable to get anything done. It's worth noting that falling to zero in any other stat effectively incapacitates a character entirely. Falling unconscious or becoming a babbling mess might as well be a death sentence under any circumstances where you're likely to take that ability score damage to begin with. In this spirit, it seems entirely fair that if a character falls to zero Luck the consequences are just as bad.

On the flip side, this is a situation a player chooses to get into. Not in the same way that someone chooses their death by making poor decisions that lead to taking damage. Players would generally need to actively choose to burn their Luck down to zero. At first glance, this seems like further justification for the consequences to be deadly. It's your own fault, don't do it if you don't want to die. You are literally out of Luck, after all.

The problem is, that's a choice nobody will ever take, which makes it a boring choice. It's really a non-decision - nobody is going to just press the suicide button. Burning Luck is for getting out of a jam. As such, the consequences for reaching zero Luck should be really bad but not guaranteed death. To further encourage it, it should have an element of fun. I recommend using a random table of bizarre occurrences that frequently hassle the PC until they make it up to the Gods they've offended by restoring at least 1 point of Luck - however that happens at your table. Some results should be potentially deadly, some should be relatively harmless but funny.

It doesn't need to be a huge table, because it shouldn't come up often and shouldn't last very long - in fact, increasing the likelihood of being struck by lightning three times in a row will only drive home just how unlucky this character is. Plus it's hard to come up with unlucky events that aren't just total bullshit.

∗ ∗ ∗

When a player's Luck score hits zero, the Judge rolls on this table at least once per in-game day. If the party is actively adventuring, such as in a dungeon, increase this to every six exploration Turns (1 in-game hour). These rolls are to continue each day/hour until the character returns their Luck to 1 or greater. The first roll should be made immediately when zero Luck is achieved. The Judge should keep the result a surprise until it occurs, as the surprise is part of the fun with these unfortunate events.

If the event is a singular occurrence without a specified condition or timing, the Judge may determine its timing randomly throughout the day/hour or simply choose an inopportune time for it to happen. If it cannot happen at that moment (for instance, lightning striking while underground) it happens instantly at the first possible opportunity.

Bizarre Mishaps (d12):

1. At the beginning of your next combat, you drop your weapon and it lands 5' away from you.
2. At the beginning of your next combat, your armor comes unfastened and falls off. It takes at least a Turn to reequip it and make sure it is fastened such that it won't happen a second time.
3. You are surprised in your next combat, even if you snuck up on them. They saw it coming.
4. You slept wrong (or if mid-adventure, an action or attack triggers this), and a twinge in your shoulder forces you to attack at -1d for 1d3 days. This can stack.
5. You can't find the next item you try to use. Later you will realize it was exactly where you left it all along.
6. An arrow falls from above, from an unknown source. 1d6 damage.
7. A Wizard's failed teleport causes him to land directly on you, knocking you prone. He quickly apologizes, dusts himself off, and teleports away.
8. Spontaneous combustion. Take 1d6 fire damage per round until you succeed on a DC 10 Reflex save.
9. Struck by lightning. Take 1d12 damage and have a 50% chance of catching fire.
10. A meteor falls from the sky and lands on you, and only you. Take 4d8 damage and be knocked prone.
11. Stepped on a snake - subject to randomly selected snake poison from Appendix P (p. 446), 1d4: (1) adder, (2) asp, (3) cobra, (4) viper
12. It rains on you and only you for several hours.

And don't forget that when enemies are unsure who to target, the character with the lowest Luck is first in line!