DCC across the 2 Axes of Abstraction

Murkdice wrote about what games are about based on what they have rules for and what they don't have rules for. It's an interesting ludological article, though I'm somewhat skeptical of the suggestion that anyone seriously claims 5e isn't about combat specifically because most of its rules are for combat, though. There were some cool four-sector charts in there so I wanted to do one for DCC, and in the process I had a few thoughts of my own about what the axes of abstraction actually tell us.

Go check out the original article. There's more charts!

It's a bit more cluttered than Murkdice's examples but the point of that post wasn't to deep dive into any one game, it was to demonstrate an overall point about what games tell us they are about.

When you illustrate the point like this, it becomes clear that the things the game is about are the things it expects to become complex. This is true across the entire coded-free spectrum. DCC goes to great lengths to tell you about all the things it wants you to do but doesn't have specific rules for, so it's really a perfect demonstration of this.

DCC is about unpredictable magic because it has a lot of rules and charts to follow (making it complex), and DCC is about Questing For It because it leaves the quest-and-reward process open and free (making it complex). You can entirely throw away the axis of codedness and find that the number of rules a game has about a particular thing actually has no correlation to what the game is about.

It turns out a game is actually about what you spend time focusing on while you play it.

The Ten Foot Pole Store

Read this post as if it's a goofy merchant character trying to sell you something. Prices are given in ten-foot-pole-equivalents.

Ten-foot poles:

Ten-foot pole - 1 - it's a pole, about ten feet long. Cumbersome but useful.

Decempeda - 1.5 - it's a pole, exactly ten feet long. Perfect for precise measuring, still cumbersome.

Jointed ten-foot pole - 2 - Unscrews at three points so it can fit in a pack or something. Can be separated into four 2.5 foot poles. Takes a minute or so to set up and pack up. If you buy multiple you can construct a longer pole with the parts! But the ends only have one joint, so you only get 5 extra feet per additional pole.

Folding ten-foot pole - 2 - Folds up in a zig-zaggy pattern with joints that lock. Quicker to fold and unfold than the standard jointed model, but can't be separated into four 2.5 foot poles.

Telescoping ten-foot pole - 4 - Very quick and easy to extend, but a bit flimsy. You can swing it to open it and you will look very cool.

Elastic ten-foot pole - 10 - Can be bent all the way round so that it touches end-to-end and still spring back into shape. Could be considered a minor magic item, as the material it is made of is fantastical in nature.

Other ten-foot products:

Ten-foot ladder - 1.5 - Two ten-foot poles connected by a bunch of rungs. Probably useless, to be honest.

Ten-foot rope - 2 - An amazing pole that can twist and bend in any direction!

Ten-foot chain - 20 - Like the ten-foot rope but metal!

Ten feet - 1 - From rabbits. Very lucky. Enough to share.

Magical ten-foot items:

He probably doesn't have all of these on hand - maybe the ones he doesn't have are legends he is seeking.

Staff of Ten-Footness - 100 - Once per day, a successful DC 15 spell check makes anything shorter than ten feet expand to ten feet long. Now I know what you're thinking, and I will not be liable for any damages!

Immoveable ten-foot pole - 250 - The infamous immoveable rod but ten feet long. Very dangerous.

Sun's Pole - 3000 - Extends and contracts at the will of the holder, but is very heavy. Has seemingly no upper limit on length.

Platonic ideal potions

Alchemists of old used to work with materials. They tried to turn iron into gold and find cures for ailments. These are still valid pursuits, of course, though medicine these days is left to the apothecaries and creating valuables from trash tends to require more magical capability than most are willing to sell their soul for.

Modern alchemy focuses instead on the abstract. Rather than distilling and modifying things, the art has moved on to distilling capital "T" Things. The ideas and concepts of our world rather than mere substances that exist within it. Ask a carpenter if you want a chair. Ask an alchemist if you want the very essence of chairness.

What's in this health potion? Why, health, of course.

A potion is the purified, liquified, and conveniently bottled essence of a concept. Drinking a strength potion simply makes the imbiber become more like the concept of "strength". A love potion makes a person love, and a health potion makes a person healthy. It is that simple. It's not always necessary to drink the potion - a bottle smashed open to quickly coat a substance can have the desired effect. This is a much more practical use for a potion of burning than drinking it. Trust me.

Potions of water breathing are often actually potions of fish. It is imperative not to screw up the dosage on that one.

It is even possible to brew a death potion - a substance which will kill, but will not show any signs of poisoning or any discernible cause of death. The drinker simply becomes dead. Equally possible and significantly more horrifying (or hilarious, depending on your perspective) are the results of drinking a potion of chairness.

The very same mechanism that allows potions to work is also what makes them so dangerous. Typically, ideals will come from a variety of ingredients and must be carefully distilled. Any number of other ontological contaminants can distort the effects, giving the appearance of chaotic unreliability. In reality, the reason your luck potion accidentally melted the person who drank it was because water is a primary ingredient, and wateriness was the concept that ended up being distilled. Honestly, it was an amateur mistake to even attempt to distill luck.

You can use a list of random concepts such as the one I threw together for freeform magic to come up with endless ideas for potions.

The Make Potion spell (DCC RPG p. 223) is one method of distilling concepts into liquid, though as with all magic, many of those casters of the spell do not understand what it is truly doing.

Making Immortals more DCC-ish

I've written before about my fascination with Immortals from early editions of D&D and a little of my own vision of them. While there is a lot I do enjoy about them, there's also a lot of room to improve. Here are some things about the original versions of Immortals that don't quite fit the DCC vibe, and how I might use some of DCC's design principles for Immortals in my own games and worlds.

All Immortals are the same

When one becomes an Immortal, they gain a bunch of the same powers as the other Immortals all at once and their old life becomes suddenly irrelevant (besides, apparently, the Immortal's personality and some fond memories). Immortals are not all identical, of course, but there is a core set of abilities that they all just have. These abilities are largely unrelated to each other besides being the kinds of things you expect godly figures to be able to do.

What if each ability critical to being an immortal had to be gained independently, and thus not all Immortals have all powers? The first step is, obviously, immortality itself. Bringing yourself to a state in which your death is no longer a guarantee. From there, all the other powers are just a matter of time - after all, you have endless years to achieve them. Characters could undertake multiple quests to gain the powers of divine spellcasting (truly creating their own spells, rather than borrowing them as Clerics and Wizards), various forms including ethereality and mortal avatars, teleportation, planar creation and dominion, and resistance to magical effects. Each and every one of these powers that is simply granted upon ascension could be an entire story of its own. Quest for it.

To be fair, it makes sense for Immortals to be so similar because there is only...

One road to Immortality

You might argue that there are multiple listed paths, but in the end they all amounted to finding an Immortal sponsor and doing some grand test or display of power to get your sponsor to grant you the gift of Immortality. This implies that you could draw a family tree of all Immortals, from the first of all time right down to the player characters. This set of powers is a gift that has been passed down.

This is way too straightforward and structured.

Being granted immortality by a higher being should be but one possible path toward immortality, let alone capital "I" Immortality. Perhaps it's the appropriate path for a Cleric to follow, the ultimate reward from their deity for acting as their Chosen, but here are some alternate ways to become immortal:

• Lichdom. Sure, this isn't complete immortality, but "immortality, unless..." is more fun anyway. Have players attempt to pull shenanigans like Voldemorting themselves into 7 phylacteries or dropping their phylactery into a black hole to make it inaccessible.
• Reincarnation. Give your soul some way to move bodies after your death and you even get fun new forms every lifetime.
• Discovering or creating the Philosopher's Stone.
• Regenerative immortality. Develop some magic, tech, or mutation which allows you to recover from any injury, given enough time and energy.
• Rewrite the annals of time such that your death is no longer destined, or that your existence is a universal constant.
• Pledge your soul to multiple afterlives and they'll use their power to keep you alive so they can avoid going to cosmic court over custody. This will piss your patrons off for sure.
• De-age yourself every couple decades. Magically, medically, whatever.

Some of these are even almost possible using spells in the core rules.

Immortals totally aren't Gods

To any peasant, even the weakest of Immortals would seem like a god. The original version of Immortals simply doesn't bring up the elephant in the room with this one. Gods presumably exist, as Clerics regularly receive divine intervention. In fact, Clerics will serve Immortals, so the reasonable conclusion seems to be that Immortals are in fact gods. But BECMI simply doesn't bring up gods at all, and the particular lack of any mention of particular aspects of religion appears to be a result of the backlash received by D&D during the Satanic Panic. Can't blame the publishers for not wanting to pour fuel on the fire there.

In DCC, it's not entirely clear what deities are exactly. Among the suggested Clerical deities in DCC RPG are proper gods, a demigod, an Old One, a demon prince and a demon lord. From this I would suppose that a deity in DCC is any being powerful enough to grant a Cleric their power. Any one of those creatures are likely immortal and thus classify as an Immortal.

It's not so much that they are gods necessarily, but they may as well be because who even knows what a god is anyway?

Immortality follows a clear and structured hierarchy

I'm not sure whether it turned out this way for the sake of game mechanics or whether the authors fell into the design traps many of us do while world-building - that old human obsession with labelling things and putting them neatly into a box. Whatever the reason, the Immortals set goes well out of its way to tell you exactly how many Immortals there are at which levels. To reach those levels, you specifically have to compete with and usurp existing Immortals.

A lot of mystery and variety is removed by this structured approach. On top of that, it bakes a lot of cosmic world-building into the mechanics of the game, leaving little (if any) room for the Judge and players to do their own thing. I have my own ideas about what the cosmos looks like with Immortals in it but it's very freeform and would likely be different in a different campaign world. BECMI gives you one version of the cosmos to play with, and it's not a very mysterious one. There's little to explore, which is odd given that exploring the secrets of the universe is supposed to be what Immortals do. I guess the authors thought that meant there needed to be answers.

How this all ties together

If we these things about Immortals, we end up with something that looks a little more appropriate for a DCC campaign. The advice given in the core book includes keeping things mysterious and unknown, having variety, and achieving great power through questing. That's all totally possible at the cosmic hero tier of play too.

I guess the next step is to create that tier of play.

Blog Graveyard vol X: Appendix M

I was inspired by this post to write my own entry to the Blog Graveyard.

The subject of today's eulogy is Appendix M, whose last sighting was the 28th of January, 2020. Appendix M was started by bygrinstow as a way to get back into drawing by publicizing their practice. Art being a worthwhile endeavour on its own, this had the very respectable side effect of providing us all with a ton of creative creatures to steal for our own purposes. Thanks from the future, bygrinstow.

Bygrinstow, by the way, also brought us the brilliant Monster Extractor series, which has inspired me before.

What does Appendix M offer us? Monsters! More than you can swing your sword at! You could choose an article at random from this blog and be almost guaranteed to land on a post containing a monster you'll want to throw at your players. If you didn't, it's because you happened to land on one of the few posts that doesn't contain a monster.

Testing this theory myself, I got the Dirt Diver, the House Beetle, the Forgotten Soldier, and Nearly People. Surely one of those names makes you want to go check it out for yourself. In amongst these original creations are well-trodden monsters such as Kobolds, Mermaids, and rival adventuring parties, but these sit between the more unusual beasts like whatever a "SCARLSNIPE" is, and gelatinous shapes that aren't cubes.

The absolute highlight for me personally is DRYAD, TRUE, which helped me to ease my players (and myself, as a new Judge) from module content to homebrew sandbox-style content by being the subject of the hook at the end of Portal Under the Stars. According to Appendix M, the dryad is like the forest's immune system. She comes into existence to protect it from evil, and attacks intruders with the remembered mental anguish of victims of evil. The sister monster to this is the DRYAD, FALSE - something the locals might think is a dryad but truly is just a monster.

If it's not monsters you're looking for though, there is a handful of other content such as the MURDER HOBO class - a class that manages to capture the flavour of the murderhobo concept while actually being something I'd potentially allow at my table. It might even be fun to run a whole party of these guys as a chaotic one-shot or campaign.

Whether you're looking for stats for a monster so you don't have to do them yourself, an interesting twist on a known monster, or something entirely new and bizarre to throw at your players, it's worth casting Consult Spirit to commune with this dead blog and retrieve some of its wisdom.

The Vacuum Swamp

A while back I was talking about meaningful choices and referred to uninformed decisions as vacuum swamps, in that they are the perfect habitat for a quantum ogre. Here is that idea made manifest.

Vacuum Swamp

The vacuum swamp exists along whichever path the players choose. Their choice never mattered, you were always going to use this. You spent all that time preparing it and your players will love it.

When your players pick a path to travel or a door to enter, there is a 1% chance that it leads to the vacuum swamp instead of its natural destination. The vacuum swamp is a small demiplane consisting of an oozy swamp with a rickety wooden shack. If you entered the swamp through a door, you exit from the shack and the door is your only way back. If you entered along a path, this shack's door can lead to any other door (Judge's choice).

The ooze is green and bubbling. The bubbles float a few feet up into the air before imploding with a loud crack. Will o' wisps and other creatures which lead travelers off the path are common here. Straying too far from the path will lead to the edge of the demiplanar boundary - whether this leads to an empty space, a magical barrier, or the astral plane depends on established cosmology and is up to the Judge's discretion. The Judge may always roll a d3 to decide: (1) vacuum, (2) magical barrier, (3) astral plane.

If the players enter a vacuum swamp, they are guaranteed to encounter a quantum ogre.

Quantum Ogre

The quantum ogre occupies any number of spaces in the world at once, becoming tangible and real the moment it is observed. Until such a time, it is impossible to determine the true state or position of the quantum ogre.

Its natural habitat is the vacuum swamp. In a vacuum swamp, quantum ogres can materialize spontaneously.

Initiative: +2;
Attack: slam +5 melee (1d6+6) or great mace +5 melee (1d8+6);
AC: 17; HD: 6d8+4 (32 HP);
Movement: 20', Action Dice: 1d20 per duplicate (see quantum superposition);
Special: quantum entanglement, quantum superposition;
Alignment: Chaotic;

Saves: Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +1;

Quantum superposition: There is one duplicate ogre for each creature the quantum ogre is fighting, all sharing the same HP pool. They make their moves on the same initiative rank in any order they choose but no two can attack the same target in the same round. If any duplicate ogre successfully lands an attack or performs some other interaction with the world, the waveform collapses and that ogre becomes real while other duplicates become unreal. The real ogre is the one that must be attacked in order for the quantum ogre to take damage.

Attacks and spells against an unreal ogre are ineffective but make it become the real ogre.

Quantum entanglement: If the quantum ogre deals damage to a creature, it can automatically deal the same amount of damage to another creature that one of its duplicates is within striking range of. This duplicate does not become the real ogre.

Balancing Spells is Futile

This post was going to be a reference sheet for spell effects in DCC. It was intended for use with Freeform Magic to make rulings about power on the fly without entirely making things up as you go, but it would also have made a useful reference when creating new spells. It would also provide the player some reasonable expectations if they wish to research and create their own spell as a Wizard.

That didn't happen, and now this post is about why I stopped instead.

∗ ∗ ∗

Let's start with showing, rather than telling. Here is a chart I began to develop. It's a simple chart, all it shows is the average damage of damaging spells by level and spell check result. I started here because damage is something that is straightforward to quantify and therefore easy to theoretically balance.

Result	1st level	2nd level
1st	1, 2, 3.5-35	11.5-20.5
2nd	3.5, 3.5-12.5	12.5-21.5
3rd	4.5-13.5, 3.5-12.5(x2.5)	13.5-22.5(x2)
4th	4.5-13.5(x3), 4.5-13.5(x4.5)	14.5-23.5(x3)
5th	8-17(x3), 27-36	14.5-23.5(1,600ft²)
6th	11.5-20.5(300ft²), 5.5-14.5(x6.5)	18.5-27.5(x12)+6.5(1,257ft²)
7th	11.5-20.5(600ft²), 5.5-14.5(x8)	20.5-29.5(x12)+10.5(2,827ft²)
8th	23-32(5,027ft²), 6.5-15.5(x7)	71-80, 50-59(x5), 27.5-36.5(x10), 18.5-27.5(x30), 14.5-23.5(x50), 11.5(x100), 10.5(314,159ft²)

What the hell is all that?

You might notice I only made it to second-level spells, and there aren't even many damaging spells to get through. Despite that, I ended up with a chart that looks like an excerpt from a math textbook and needed five bullet points of explanation to interpret. Even if you look at just the first result of first-level spells you find a wildly unhelpful range of numbers: 1 damage at range, 1d3 damage melee, or 1d6 damage per Caster Level with a range that also increases per CL (Force Manipulation is a bloody good spell).

If you want to interpret the chart, here are those bullet points (feel free to skip):

• Results from different spells (or different options for the same spell) are separated by commas.
• Results showing a range are spells that scale with Caster Level. The range shows level 1 to level 10. These are NOT random variation; randomness is all averaged.
• Number of targets is shown in brackets rather than simply multiplied into one damage value because the difference between dealing 500 damage to one target and 5 damage to two targets is significant.
• Number of targets is also represented as an average, since some of these also use dice.
• Fire is assumed to deal its damage twice (usually equal to 7). Real numbers vary based on enemy Ref saves, among practical considerations such as length of battle and enemies putting themselves out.

With the help of those notes you might be able to make sense of the results of the chart. Don't bother. The chart's only there because otherwise I wasted all that time making it. Don't get me wrong, this was still an exercise that was worth doing; the lesson was just something other than "here's how to balance spells".

∗ ∗ ∗

After having tackled the most straightforwardly quantifiable type of spell and failing, I then had to face the reality that most spells are not quantifiable and not directly comparable with other spells. This was something I already knew, of course, but I thought I could categorize these things and use them to provide rough reference points. Buffs and debuffs are somewhat measurable, and incapacitating spells like Sleep and Paralysis can be compared.

First-level spells at the lowest successful spell check allow you to, among other things, create a simple visual effect, become 10% larger, read a language for 10 minutes, or temporarily fix something. The differences only get starker as spell effects become more complex and varied, through both level and check result. When the reference table for damaging spells - the ones that are literally just numbers - totally fell apart, I decided it wasn't worth it to go further. It honestly should have been clear before I started, but balancing spells in DCC is genuinely not that important. It actually does not matter. Writing the numbers down helped me to see that. The core game's spells are far from balanced and I have not seen one person complain about it.

Instead of those charts I wanted to make, I'm going to leave you with something else right out of a math textbook: Balancing spells is trivial and left as an exercise to the reader.

Duels, but not the Wizard kind

Il Fior di Battaglia (public domain)

A one-on-one showdown should be treated differently than the standard tactical group combat we see most often. Standard RPG combat often suffers the complaint that players and foes alike end up fixed in place, repeatedly chipping away at a pool of hit points until one side eventually and suddenly keels over. Now this isn't always the case, but nowhere is this more true than a single-opponent melee face-off. I mean, what are you supposed to do other than hit each other?

A duel deserves the spotlight and a closer focus. It deserves to feel like a choreographed swordfight rather than just another battle scene. In fact, as part of a combat it can be incredibly satisfying to switch between these two modes of play each turn, the duel occurring within the larger combat.

Here is a system for dueling in DCC based on spell duels and the Feint/Parry/Push system over at Cavegirl's Game Stuff. It's supposed to be pretty intense and swingy, and to snowball after a few rounds. It's also intended to be a little complex and crunchy, like spell duels.

∗ ∗ ∗

Dueling Basics

A duel begins when two combatants agree to one-on-one combat. At the beginning of the duel, each duelist places down a d20 with the 10 face-up. This is the momentum tracker.

In each Round of combat while a duel is active, both duelists act simultaneously on whichever of their initiatives is first. At the beginning of the Round, they each secretly decide and write down (or use a face down card, or some other secret method) whether their tactic for the turn will be Aggressive, Defensive, or Deceptive. These are revealed and compared in a rock-paper-scissors style triangle.

Aggressive > Defensive > Deceptive > Aggressive

If you chose the winning tactic, you gain the following listed bonus and your momentum increases by 1. If you both chose the same tactic, you both gain the bonus and both lose 1 momentum.

• Aggressive grants +1d6 to damage (or just +1d3 for unarmed or improvised attacks)
• Defensive grants +3 to AC.
• Deceptive grants +1d to your attack roll.

Both duelists now attack and deal damage simultaneously, the difference between their momenta modifying each attack roll. It is entirely possible for them both to kill each other if they both strike.

Striking the opponent increases your momentum by 1. Being struck decreases your momentum by 1. 

The duel ends when one duelist accepts the other's yield, a duelist is incapacitated, or the duel is interrupted.

Movement

The combatants are locked within melee range of each other. Whichever combatant wins the first tactic has positional advantage during the round and may move both themselves and their interlocutor up to half of their movement speeds. This may be used to move and rotate the duel at will. Being forced into direct danger can be prevented with a Reflex save, DC equal to the first attack roll.

Multiple Attacks

Skilled combatants are capable of much more tactical complexity. Each attack during a Round is also a chance to change tactic, performing more complex maneuvers such as a deceptive strike followed by an aggressive attack to the opening. Each successful tactic's bonus remains until the end of the Round, applying to all remaining attacks. Bonuses stack.

The pace is set by the character with the most actions, so the slower character must decide (at Round start) which of those attacks to respond to with their own attacks. For instance, in a duel between characters with 3 and 2 attacks respectively, the duelist with 2 attacks must choose which two "sub-Rounds" they make their attacks/tactical changes on. The first tactic always applies from the beginning of the Round.

Clashing

If two duelists roll the exact same result on a simultaneous attack, they Clash. Both attacks miss (unless otherwise specified), but an additional effect occurs. Roll 1d6.

1. Weapons shatter. If one weapon is of a clearly weaker material than the other, it is sundered and the attack passes through it, hitting. If the two weapons are of comparable material, they are both shattered in the hands of the duelists. If a weapon is magic, instead of shattering, a burst of magical energy emanates from it dealing 1d6 damage to anyone within 5' (including both duelists). This may have special effects based on the nature of the magic weapon.
2. Bind. The duelists' weapons interlock and the combatants are forced into a contest, each attempting to manipulate the other's weapons with their own. Roll a contested check, with the ability used depending on the tactic (Aggressive:Strength, Defensive:Stamina, Deceptive:Agility). The winner of the contest rolls 1d3: (1) strike opponent, (2) disarm opponent, (3) knock opponent prone.
3. CLANG. A resonant sound echoes from your weapons as an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. All creatures within 60' must make a DC 15 Will save or be distracted, startled, or awestruck, taking a -1d penalty to any checks for the rest of the Round and having a 50% chance of dropping their weapon. It does not matter what the weapons are made of - even bare fists colliding produces a supernatural sonic blast.
4. Overbalanced and entangled. The combatants collide, both becoming prone and getting stuck in a grapple with each other. A Strength contest determines who has hold of the other.
5. Collateral damage. The momentum of battle forces the combatants to move up to half movement speed, into melee range of a nearby target. One of you hits them. Decide randomly who hits (and who gets hit, if applicable).
6. Swords dance. Your weapons bounce and both parties attempt to take advantage of the opening. In the adrenaline and intense focus of the battle, both combatants get 1d4 (roll once, both use same result) additional dueling attacks.

Clerics as Wizards

Ah, it's been a while since I argued we don't need X or Y class. I've defended the Cleric before and while I stand by what I said about Clerics being a distinct and important class unto their own, today I look at it from a different angle. While I personally like the Cleric in DCC, I'm also a big supporter of having as many different ways to run the game as there are people to play the game. Don't think of this as me pooh-poohing the Cleric, but rather exploring different ways to run them.

In the post linked above, I mention having seen other Judges' discussion of Clerics being replaced by Wizards, but never have I seen a proper how-to. So here's how to do it. Each heading below provides both the Cleric concept being converted and the Wizard concept it maps to. The resulting Cleric is one that is more of a pure caster than the hybrid fighter-caster we usually see - more suitable for a priest than a paladin.

∗ ∗ ∗

Conventions for Clerics as Wizards

The Cleric class is no longer a distinct class of its own. Instead, the Wizard has broader access to spells and patrons which allow for the flavouring of a Wizard as a servant of a divine power. Many of the features given to Clerics have a lot of functional crossover with those of Wizards even if they do not use the exact same mechanics, so much of the conversion here is fairly direct.

Deities / Patrons

Bobugbubilz and Azi Dahaka are already offered as both Cleric deities and Wizard patrons, both of whom seem more like a powerful entity within the universe than a deific entity from beyond. Incidentally, they are also both demonic (hardly relevant, just interesting). A world with Clerics of slightly more grounded powers than literal Gods might make more sense with patron relationships such as these instead of strictly faithful worship.

The rule here is simple: A Cleric is a Wizard who has taken a godly figure as a patron. All godly figures are now potential patrons. If a player plays their Wizard character as a worshiper of a deity in the world, the Judge should allow an opportunity to gain patronage and treat their power as if it comes from that deity (or through faith itself).

Canticles / Patron Spells

The DCC Annual already gets bloody close to patron spells with the inclusion of canticles for deities. If your Cleric-Wizard chooses a deity from this list, most of the work is already done (although higher level spell checks may need to be written, as many canticles are basic single-level effects). Beyond that, it's no harder for the Judge to create these than it is to create regular patron spells.

A godly patron's patron spells should follow the usual format for patron spells and effectively replace any canticles.

Divine Aid / Invoke Patron

Divine Aid is effectively replaced by Invoke Patron. This doesn't really do the same thing, but it is the result of you calling upon your patron for help in a time of need. An Invoke Patron spell can be written that works thematically for divine aid from a particular god. Spellburn can replace the disapproval as a downside.

Disapproval / Patron Taint

Disapproval tables will need to be shrunk down to create a patron taint table and the more permanent options are the ones that should be retained to achieve the patron taint style. Don't keep the one where you have to pray for 10 minutes, do keep the one where Pelagia gives the character bulbous fishy eyes.

Lay on Hands and Turn Unholy / Spells

Treat these two abilities as spells on the spell list. They essentially already have a spell effect table with simpler formatting. And on the note of accessible spells...

Cleric Spells / Wizard Spells

There is no longer any delineation between Cleric and Wizard spells. Any and all spells of the appropriate levels can be selected from in the usual ways (randomly on advancement, discovered through adventuring, granted by a patron, research).

∗ ∗ ∗

And that's it. You know, I didn't expect it to be quite that simple. It's fairly easy to make the argument against Clerics after having written down how each of their mechanics map to each other, one-to-one. Clerics start to feel like alt-Wizards, and it's entirely possible using the conventions above to run them as exactly that.

I'll Run It One Day - [blog100] pt. 9, q. 82

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled an 82.

∗ ∗ ∗

82. What Idea or Concept are you "Saving" for a Future Game/Campaign?

It's common advice to use your ideas now rather than saving them for later. Here's the problem: I have more ideas than time to play. I think many of us do. I can't use them all, some things are going to have to wait. Some will be saved for later and some will be saved for never. It's just how it is.

Furthermore, not all things fit into the campaign I'm currently running. This blog is 90% about DCC because that's the campaign I actually do run, but there are a lot of other games I want to run too. Here are three campaigns I want to run that don't gel with my current campaign world, each one totally different.

Guild of Dragonologists (5e)

That's right, a 5e game. I'm not a big 5e fan and I've made that no secret, but it's good at one thing: being the current standard for high-fantasy. You want to run a world that has every fantastical thing you can think of splattered everywhere you can look? 5e can handle it perfectly. I'm talking about wizard high-school shit. Nary a human to be found in the nearest tavern and nobody bats an eye at people casting spells and flying past on broomsticks.

The original concept came from a joke among friends that rarely in D&D do we ever go into dungeons, let alone encounter dragons. I thought I'd lean right into that and make it all about dragons from the very first level. Enter, The Guild of Dragonologists.

The Guild is, as it says right in the name, dedicated to the study of dragons, which in 5e are very categorized and classified. They're territorial and the chromatics are at odds with the metallics. The Guild began early on as cartographers, mapping the territories of the dragons. They found that if one overlays a map of chromatic territories on a map of metallic territories, the lands of 4 chromatic and 4 metallic dragons converge at a single point. This is where the Guildhall was built, with immediate access to 8 common varieties to study, and plenty of chromatic/metallic crossover to observe.

The players play as new recruits who've joined the Guild as Hunters - think Monster Hunter style, where the Hunters are sent on missions to "control the population" for conservation efforts or whatever. You're not there to eradicate dragonkind, just keep them in check and protect the Guild. There's also some mystery going on with the convergence of territories and probably the Platinum Dragon.

As It Was Written (OD&D with Chainmail)

I've been diving into the Little Brown Books recently and I'm finding myself fascinated. There is so much in here that appears bizarre and arcane from a modern perspective but actually makes a lot of sense when you consider what they were doing and what they were trying to do. I've found myself wanting to give OD&D a go on its own terms, right down as close to RAW as I can do.

Those of you who are familiar with the original edition know that this isn't exactly a straightforward task - I've found myself comparing and rewriting parts of the various books to organize it in a way that works better for me. There are rewrites out there, but none of them do it my way while simultaneously remaining purely vanilla (which, to be fair, is a big ask).

What's become even more fascinating to me is the implied setting of OD&D. Reading through the encounter tables alone I noticed that the world it expects you to play in is absolute bizarre - by standards both modern and contemporary. It is a pseudo-Arthurian post-civilization frontier centered upon a megadungeon that defies the laws of physics simply to spite the adventurers who are propping up the economy around it. This frontier is horribly infested with lycanthropes (for some reason) and peppered with lost-world swamps and alien deserts (the little green man kind of alien - seriously!).

On top of that, the use of Chainmail's multiple combat systems (rather than the "alternate" that became the default) to resolve different kinds of battles with varying tactical depth is very cool and a topic I'll be revisiting.

I don't know what it was like to play in Gygax's games but it sure as hell sounds like a blast to try and recreate it from his writings. What'll be hard is stopping myself from houseruling!

Paleolithic Campaign (DCC Homebrew)

And we're back to DCC - kind of. This one is a Dinosaur Crawl Classics inspired stone-age campaign featuring low tech, less magic, and prehistoric monsters. Thieves, Wizards and Clerics won't be present, at least in the same form - magic will be the domain of an animist Shaman class with ancestral patrons. Hunters might take a combined warrior-thief role for a third class. All classes will get wilderness skills, hailing from tribal communities that live off the land.

The tricky part here is figuring out any kind of long-term story. This is one setting where I don't want to have advanced tech showing up from aliens or ancient civilizations. From a stone age perspective, even a castle is advanced. Dungeons will probably be lairs rather than old human structures (a perfect excuse to use another thing I've been saving - a humanoid ant race in an ant-mound dungeon). I can only take a campaign so far with a big bad being a particularly disruptive T-Rex.

A possible theme to wrestle with in this campaign is the discovery of agriculture, with a nearby developing civilization threatening to permanently disrupt the PCs' way of life. But again, I can only take that arc so far before it simply runs its course and there is no more story left to tell. I'd still like to give this setting a go for a short campaign run at least.

∗ ∗ ∗

Here is where I'll link your blog if you join me on this 100-post journey through 100 questions.

Arbitrary Half-Races

This has been on my list of mechanics to work out for quite a while now. Recently, I realized I essentially already did the legwork when I split race and class. The whole idea there was to use races as a sort of half-class and mix-and-match. This post builds on that. Using that as a baseline, you can create half-races of any playable races by allowing a race/race combination instead of a race/class one.

∗ ∗ ∗

Skip my rambling and get to the rules.

∗ ∗ ∗

Why do this?

In short: it's just like, my opinion, man.

The way half-races are handled in fantasy has always bothered me a little bit. Half-elves and half-orcs are the common ones, almost to the point of being an iconic inclusion in and of themselves. As far as I can tell, half-elves grew out of a misunderstanding of Tolkein and half-orcs came out of a desire to play as orcs in a setting where orcs were a monster or always evil - the latter has implications that I'd personally like to avoid discussing over the gaming table. Either way, these two half-races have stuck around and one of the first questions that comes to my mind is why aren't there elf-orcs? Is it just humans who can interbreed, and for some reason the races they can interbreed with can't also interbreed among themselves?

Furthermore, given it's a fantasy setting, why aren't there half-dwarves, half-gnomes and half-halflings? If cross-species procreation is something you're going to say is possible in your world, there's suddenly a lot of variation you have to account for. In a game with distinct, discrete races (or even more problematically, race-as-class) you have a lot of work to do. Unless you're going to say these specific half-human hybrids are possible but not other combinations. You can do that, I just always find myself wondering - why just elves? Even then, if elves and half-elves are distinct races/classes... what happens to their offspring? Is it a spectrum, or are they all half-elves from that point onward? Why haven't half-elves taken over?

You can, of course, handwave this by saying "genetic similarity" but that just doesn't quite jive with me. Most worlds seem to have things like chimeras which are made up of combined creatures dramatically different from each other. There are probably half-demons or half-elementals of some kind - they're not even from the same universe! In a fantasy setting where interspecies stuff clearly exists I find it more believable that it'd happen in all sorts of combinations. Especially if you consider your world "gonzo". Why does genetics suddenly matter now? Don't even ask about centaurs.

All in all it's just kind of weird to allow some specific half-races but not any others. Either humans and demihumans can interbreed or they can't. Go all or nothing.

Half-races from core races

Lineage	Human	Dwarf	Elf	Halfling
Human	Human	Half-dwarf	Half-elf	Quarterling*
Dwarf	Half-dwarf	Dwarf	Dwelf	Dwarfling
Elf	Half-elf	Dwelf	Elf	Elfling
Halfling	Quarterling*	Dwarfling	Elfling	Halfling

*Quarterling may sound incorrect, but it comes from the Halfling culture where your Halfling-half is the important half.

Rules for Mixed Ancestries

This is fairly straightforward if you are already using my split race and class rules. The process is as follows:

1. Choose (or rather, roll: 1-in-10 demihumans have a random second ancestry*) your two races. You get all abilities and bonuses from each, including both Ability Score re-rolls.
2. You do not choose a class. Your mixed ancestry is your class (for now).
3. When determining Hit Dice, use the largest-die race for odd levels and the smallest-die race for even levels. In the case of half-humans, this means always using your other race's Hit Die.
4. When determining saving throws, use the race with the largest Hit Die. In the case of half-humans, this means simply using the other race's saving throws.
5. It is recommended to allow multi-classing rules to give mixed ancestry characters the option to gain a true class, but be aware this means only reaching 1st-level in a class at character level 3. This lack of specialization is the trade-off to having multiple racial advantages.

*A character can (and realistically, probably does, somewhere in their long ancestry) have more than just two lineages but only the two majority lines are significant enough to grant class abilities. If you want to play a human-dwarf-elf-halfling that is fine, but your parents only passed down their dominant features.

It's okay to be underprepared - [blog100] pt. 8, q. 84

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled an 84.

∗ ∗ ∗

84. What is a Ruling you Regret or wish you would have handled differently?

The first game I ran was The Portal Under the Stars. I don't just mean the first game of DCC, I mean the first I ever ran at all. I was incredibly nervous (not just for running the game, but I only really knew one of the players!), but I thought hey, I've gone over the module twice and re-written it as my own notes - surely by this point I could just run the module as is and it'll be fine. I did have one question though: what will the players do when they figure out that the solution to the entrance puzzle is to wait?

Well, I predicted they'd want to go to town for a couple of hours to kill time... and yet I did not prepare for that. The end result was me deciding, on the fly, that the town was just slightly too far away from the dungeon location for them to get there and back in time. I admitted to them that I wasn't prepared to run the town, but now I wish I'd let them do it.

What stopped me from prepping a town, if I had predicted they'd try to go there? You'd be right to think that was pretty foolish of me. To be honest, the prep just felt like too big of a task.

That's where I went wrong. Perhaps now that I've got experience under my belt I'm looking at this in a way that is unrealistic to expect of my first-time-Judge self, but it would have been totally fine to just wing it. Even the stuff that I later prepared for the town, I really could have just handwaved in the moment and fleshed the details out as necessary later.

Prepping a town wasn't too big of a task - I was expecting too much of myself. I could have done minimal prep. One tavern. That's probably the only place that's open at night anyway. Player characters' homes? They're all peasants, they're already carrying their best gear anyway. Your home has like, a straw bed and one chair. You brought all the good gear with you. Just answer the questions the players ask, there was no need to build the entire town.

All the prep I did later for the town? I made that up too. I could've done it at the table. Instead, I said no.

Saying yes can be nerve-wracking when the question was something you weren't prepared for, and yet I've found Judging to be a much easier task since I committed to doing that. That's not to say I don't still prep, I don't still feel underprepared, and I don't still feel the compulsive need to over-prep. I do. I just know now that it'll be fine if I wing it. The goal is a fun night, not a perfect game.

You'll be fine.

∗ ∗ ∗

Here is where I'll link your blog if you join me on this 100-post journey through 100 questions.

Extended Dice Chain

d3 – d4 – d5 – d6 – d7 – d8 – d10 – d12 – d14 – d16 – d20 – d24 – d30

I've been thinking a lot about Mercurial Magic lately (and there's certainly more where this post came from - watch this space) and something struck me about a handful of the results, namely 96 and 98 which improve the die used to cast the spell. The Dice Chain is an awesome way to give DCC's equivalent of "advantage" and "disadvantage" and can theoretically stack bonuses, but there is an explicit limit of d30, "the largest die that can be used" -p. 17.

Well, that's kind of a bummer for those with Mercurial Magic result 98 who are already using a d30. Why would they bother using extra spell components, ritual casting, or some other method of improving their cast? This inadvertently locks out (or at least makes less meaningful) some roleplay options for Wizards in the games of those Judges who like to give out +1d bonuses for this sort of extra creativity and preparation. It even stunts Arcane Affinity, which also works on the Dice Chain.

Here's an extended version, and you don't need additional dice beyond the DCC funky dice. The math shouldn't come up frequently enough to significantly slow down your game. Note that I've also included additions to the lower end for stacking penalties - I can't see either extreme coming up often if ever, but hey, that's perfectly on brand here.

0 – 1 – d2 – d3 – d4 – d5 – d6 – d7 – d8 – d10 – d12 – d14 – d16 – d20 – d24 – d30 – d36 – d42 – d50 – d60 – d70 – d80 – d100 – d120

How to roll the other dice:

0, 1: Flat results with no roll. Modifiers still apply.

d2: Three methods, pick your favourite.

1. Coin flip: tails is 1 and heads is 2.

2. Any even-sided die: odds are 1 and evens are 2.

3. Any even-sided die: lower half is 1 and upper half is 2.

d36: Two methods, pick your favourite. It's also worth noting that this die really exists and that inspired this extension.

1. Two d6, what some call the "d66" roll. Acts kind of like a percentile roll, in that the first die counts for multiples of six instead of multiples of ten. 1=0, 2=6, 3=12, 4=18, 5=24, 6=30.

2. A d3 and a d12, where the d3 counts for multiples of 12. 1=0, 2=12, 3=24

d42: A d7 and a d6, where the d7 counts for multiples of six. See the first d36 method, except 7=36.

d50: Two methods, pick your favourite.
1. d100 but subtract 50 if the result is in the upper half.

2. d100 divided by two, round down.

d60 - d80 and d120: A d6/d7/d8/d12 and a d10, the same way you'd roll percentile but with the lower die being the tens digit. It's also worth noting that this die really exists and that's actually the only reason I extended the chain past d100 (but you don't need it).

Types of Undead and How they Work - [blog100] pt. 7, q. 23

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled a 23.

∗ ∗ ∗

23. How are Skeletons Made? Ghouls? Why haven't Wraiths/Vampires taken over?

Skeletons are not just one thing. There are a variety of different undead which look like a skeleton and play the xylophone like a skeleton. Some of these are no more than a pile of bones which has been animated to look like a humanoid again. Some are the remains of a corpse with a soul still attached - either through usual ghostly means or being bound by a wizard. This variety may even be sentient or able to speak (despite the lack of requisite mouthflaps). Some are simply summoned out of the earth and nobody knows where they came from or who they were. And finally, some skeletons simply exist because of the unexplainable and magickal way the mythic underworld works. Skeletons are simply a fact of life (or death).

A variant of skeleton which does have a specific method of creation is Fleshbones, which happens when a wizard gets too big for his britches and uses spells in ways they weren't intended. It arguably isn't a skeleton?

Ghouls are cursed while they are still alive. The curse makes them unnaturally resistant to death, and they become ghouls when they are injured enough that a normal man should be killed (or simply by age). Death refusing to arrive when it should drives the curse-bearer insane. They lose most of their mental faculties, sometimes to the point of no longer feeling pain or fear. They haven't taken over because of two factors: they don't wander much and they eat most of their kills, so the curse doesn't spread far. They are ravenously hungry and will eat to the point of physically distending themselves to injury. They don't care, they are basically dead anyway.

The aforementioned ghoul-by-old-age is the most common cause of ghoul plagues - a curse-bearer surviving to insanity and then mauling their neighbours and loved ones is a sinister threat from within that is hard to predict or prevent. Towns have fallen and districts have been quarantined to ghoul plagues.

My world's vampires are based on Into the Wyrd and Wild's Vampylfs and Archade's DCC Vampires. In short, vampirism is a bastardization of a curse spread by an immortal bat-like beast, and each strain of the curse comes with unique advantages and disadvantages. A logical conclusion of this is that different vampire clans are not compatible with each other, so there is competition between them. This drives them into hiding and limits the population, as other vampire clans would surely collaborate to drive them out if one power become too great a threat. The larger a clan becomes, the harder it is to hide their secrets, including their weaknesses. In extreme cases vampire clans might rat out larger vampire clans to humanity, and they cannot win that fight on all fronts - this is the vampire's equivalent of the nuclear option.

Wraiths haven't been touched upon in my games yet, but I imagine them as spirits of decay. Decay is something with which the universe is in eternal struggle. Wraiths are a ghost that is an agent of chaos, looking to drag you down with it. One might think of them as the ghouls of the Ethereal world, with their soul damaged and unable to pass over.

Undeath is a complicated thing. I wrote a little about ghosts in a previous part of this series: What happens when you die?

∗ ∗ ∗

This week, Scrolls from the Toaster talked about snacks at the table and ended up with a very different, more meaningful post than my own on that topic.

DCC Wizard Spell: Recapitate

Sorcerers tend to make a lot of enemies. Two highly sought-after spells for this purpose are Stop Heart and Decapitate. It is still uncertain whether a Stop Heart spell exists, but many have come to the conclusion that the universe did not deem it necessary to create the Decapitate spell, for such an action is not only achievable through mundane means but also a savage method of termination. Such a spell would be beneath the gods who wrote our magic.

It's very hard to entirely disprove something's existence. The evidence cited by wizards that Decapitate does not exist is rather the conclusion drawn from these facts: spells can have reversed counterparts, and the spell Recapitate exists. Yet so far, the only known method of magical decapitation is to cast Recapitate in reverse. A true counterpart has mysteriously not been found.

∗ ∗ ∗

Recapitate

Level: 3

Range: Varies

Duration: Varies

Casting Time: 1 round

Save: N/A for standard casting, Fort vs. spell check for reversed casting.

General: This necromantic spell attaches a head to a body. A reversed version of the spell can be cast but not learned, thus the reversed version must always be cast with a -1d penalty. Furthermore, casting in reverse requires at least 1 point of spellburn.

Performing this on the same body or head more than once risks provoking the ire of the gods of death - not to mention the potential damage done to both the body and mind.

Manifestation: For standard casting, roll 1d4: (1) an animated needle sews the head to the body, (2) a jolt of lightning from the wizard's hands revitalizes the corpse, (3) a ghostly spirit enters the body and possesses it, (4) tendrils from within the head grasp the body and control it

For reversed casting, roll 1d3: (1) a shadowy blade appears to decapitate the target, (2) the head rapidly twists and breaks off, (3) the head simply falls off

Corruption: Roll 1d8: (1) the caster's head is replaced with the target head, but their mind is retained (2) the caster's head is attached to the target body, (3) the caster randomly steals a feature from the head or body which replaces their own (1d8: eyes, nose, hair, teeth, ears, arms, legs, skin), (4-5) minor, (6), major, (7-8) greater

Misfire: Roll 1d4: (1) as result 18-21 but the head attaches backwards and the creature has -1 penalty to all checks, (2) the head explodes, (3) the wounds close over, making further attempts impossible, (4) the head comes to life but does not attach to the body, and it is very angry about it.

	Standard casting	Reversed casting (-1d)
1	Lost, failure, and worse!	Lost, failure, and worse!
2-11	Lost. Failure.	Lost. Failure.
12-15	Failure, but spell is not lost.	Failure, but spell is not lost.
16-17	The head is attached to the body. If they were both dead, they remain dead.	A creature you can touch with 1HP or less is decapitated if it fails a Fort save.
18-21	The head is attached to the body, which is now able to move and act for 1d6 rounds before dying. It has 2 of its original Hit Dice and is of sub-animal intelligence. It is considered undead.	One target creature within 20' with 1d12 HP or less is decapitated if it fails a Fort save. It takes no damage if its current HP is higher than the rolled number.
22-23	The head is attached to the body, which is now able to move and act for 1d6 turns before dying. It has up to 3 of its original Hit Dice and is of sub-human intelligence, making it able to understand basic commands but not effectively reason. It is considered undead.	One target creature within 20' with 2d12 HP or less is decapitated if it fails a Fort save. It takes no damage if its current HP is higher than the rolled number.
24-26	The head is attached to the body, which is now able to move and act for 1d6 hours before dying. It has up to 4 of its original Hit Dice and is of the head's original intelligence, retaining its memories. It is considered undead.	The wizard can choose up to three creatures they can see within 40'. After selecting their targets, roll 5d12. If the targets' total HP are below the rolled total, each target must make a Fort save or be decapitated.
27-31	The head is attached to the body, which is now able to move and act for 1d6 days before dying. It has up to 6 of its original Hit Dice and is of any intelligence up to the head's original intelligence, at random. Roll 1d4 for its intelligence level: (1) zombie, (2) animal, (3) original, (4) humanoid-level. If spellburn was used, this roll can be adjusted up or down by that many points. It is considered undead.	All chosen creatures in a 30' radius centered on a point the wizard can see each roll 4d12. If each creature's HP is below that roll, they must make a Fort save or be decapitated.
32-33	The head is attached to the body, which is now able to move and act for 1d6 weeks before dying. It has up to 8 of its original Hit Dice and is of any intelligence up to the head's original intelligence, at the wizard's choosing. The wizard can make the recapitated individual dumber (useful to make intelligent beings subservient) but not smarter. It is considered undead.	The wizard can choose up to five creatures they can see within 60'. After selecting their targets, roll 7d12. If the targets' total HP are below the rolled total, each target must make a Fort save or be decapitated.
34-35	The head is attached to the body, which is now able to move and act. It can live until either the head or body would die of old age. It has all its original Hit Dice and is of great intelligence, but it is fiercely loyal even if it was the wizard's enemy before. It is not considered undead, though it is now a monstrosity. Only one creature brought to life by this result may be alive at a time unless the wizard chooses for the creature to permanently occupy a spell slot. If ever two of these creatures are alive and the wizard has not done this, roll 1d3: (1) the first dies, (2) the second dies, (3) they both die	The wizard can choose any number of creatures they can see within 90'. After selecting their targets, roll 10d12. If the targets' total HP are below the rolled total, each target must make a Fort save or be decapitated.
36+	Any number of bodies within 5' per CL are recapitated as result 18-21, except they can live for up to 1d6 months before dying. If this result is achieved while previous recapitants are still alive, each of them has 60% minus the caster's Luck score chance of dying on the spot. For large armies, that percentage of the total die.	One target creature within 90' is decapitated.

The Lantern Tree - [blog100] pt. 6, q. 95

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled a 95.

∗ ∗ ∗

95. Where does Lamp Oil come from/how is it made?

Now that is an interesting question. I've never thought about it for my setting so it just comes from the general store for 2 silvers. Let's come up with something more interesting - where does it really come from? I mean, the stuff doesn't just grow on trees...

Lantern Tree

The Lantern Tree is one of many sources of the myth of will-o'-the-wisps. It is a willow tree found in swamps and marshes, usually just far enough from a rowable river to be barely visible to travelers. From its leaves hang transparent ghostly lanterns, though approaching during the day you'd find but a regular tree.

These lanterns are what remains of those who strayed too close during the night.

Initiative: -2;
Attack: branch +5 melee (2d8), throw lantern +2 missile fire (1d6 plus fire, range 50');
AC: 18; HD: 5d10 (27 HP);
Movement: 0', Action Dice: 1d20, additional 1d20 to throw lantern;
Special: embrace, throw lantern, oil-sap;
Alignment: Neutral;

Saves: Fort +6, Ref -2, Will +0;

Embrace: Standing too close to the trunk of the tree will cause its roots to come up from the ground behind you and attempt to entangle you. Noticing this in the dark is nigh impossible with the distracting light of the lanterns, though someone behind you has ample time to give warning. Dodging the roots' grasp requires a DC 5 Ref save and escaping it requires a contested strength check against the tree's strength of 20 (+5). Once grasped, the tree will take three rounds to open a maw in its trunk and engulf you. Inside the tree, you suffocate and are digested.

The roots can be attacked (same AC and HP pool as tree) and dealing damage will lower their strength check -1d.

AI generated, I am not an artist.

Throw lantern: The tree will only throw its lanterns if it is desperate to drive off an attacker, as doing so costs valuable souls. When the lanterns hit their target, they spill oil and set fire to any creature in a 5' radius (1d6 damage each round until DC 10 Fort save). If they miss their target, the lantern lands randomly just outside this radius. The ghostly flames do not harm the tree.

On death it will throw lanterns at the 1d4 lowest-Luck targets within range.

Oil-sap: Takes double damage from fire, though killing the tree this way destroys any of the valuable oil that could be collected.

∗ ∗ ∗

When I began writing this, I didn't expect the answer to be "the corpses of other adventurers who've had their souls trapped in a swamp" but there you go. Presumably, there are many potential sources of oil in the world and this is just one of them. Whaling is another sufficiently gruesome answer.

Next time you light a lantern or toss a flask of oil to burn, ask yourself this: where did this oil come from, and has anyone tested whether or not it's still sentient?

∗ ∗ ∗

Here is where I'll link your blog if you join me on this 100-post journey through 100 questions.

The Pipeline - An Alternative to the Funnel

I ran some friends through The Portal Under the Stars and one of them didn't like it. Like, really didn't like it. The primary complaint was not feeling any sense of attachment to the characters because they were randomized rather than created or chosen. They ended up with one survivor, and it was a character they didn't like and didn't really want to play.

I wonder if we can keep the qualities we like about the funnel but alleviate this problem.

3d6 down the line, the classic method of determining your ability scores. Since the beginning, people have been trying to exert some influence on the pure randomness of the results this gives. Early revisions of The Big RPG Everyone Plays allow various ways to adjust stats after generation, recent editions take a rather extreme approach and generate higher averages and let you choose which scores the higher and lower numbers go into. In modern gaming, there is more choice than randomness in character generation.

It's safe to say this friend of mine is a modern gamer. That isn't a derisive term; it's understandable that you'd feel cheated if you're used to having so much control and the rug gets pulled out from under you. If you generate a character with all -1 and 0 modifiers, you really feel like you deserve a re-roll.

Hold on... if a character dies you roll up a new one, right? Why don't we just do that? We can explicitly tell our players that this is in fact an option. Let players get their guys killed and effectively get to re-roll their stats. This is the idea behind the Pipeline.

In a funnel, it's common wisdom that if your party starts to run low on members you have them come across reinforcements one way or another. If they completely wipe, the B-team shows up to come looking for them. In a way we're already kind of doing this; there will always be more shmucks to replace you, so the key difference between a funnel and a pipeline is party size. For instance, in a funnel you start with 16 and end with 4, in a pipeline you start with 4 and end with 4.

There are some design changes that come with this. Pipeline adventures will have to look more like 1st level adventures than meat-grinder funnels - though death is still expected, players don't have 4 actions per turn to overrun threats with. In essence, you are effectively running a normal adventure but with two minor changes: you start at 0-level, and you are going in expecting to roll up new PCs mid-game.

∗ ∗ ∗

There are some obvious and seemingly problematic conclusions to draw from this which need to be addressed. Let's strawman address them.

Won't the players just get endless attempts, throwing peasants at the problem until it's solved?

Funnels aren't designed to be failed - as mentioned above, common wisdom tells you to give the players another chance with reinforcements. This extra chance is usually more than enough to complete a funnel, so what's the difference? The fact that players keep getting new guys until they get one they like is a feature, not a bug. The trick is then keeping that peasant alive.

But that means they get endless rerolls of their stats. They'll come out more powerful.

They do and they might, but it's not at zero cost. I'll address that again below.

Alright, so what about the fact that they can spawn in endless weapons and trade goods by sending in new peasants?

Keep track. Make them track their inventory and then let them fill up every slot with garbage if they want to. Not only that, but keep track of every death, and have those deaths affect the town - losing 30 residents including 6 farmers to a violent incident in one night is going to have a huge impact on even a city, let alone a small village.

So you expect the players to spend the time sitting there and rolling new characters mid-game?

Yes. That's the punishment for death. That's the aforementioned cost. Everyone else plays on while they do this, and the new character shows up when the player finishes generating them rather than instantaneously when their predecessor dies. You've only got so much time in a night, so they player who gets 8 characters killed either misses a lot or gets real good at rolling them up quickly. DCC characters are easy, you can create a 0-level in five minutes.

How does this help your friend enjoy DCC?

Maybe it won't but they get to re-roll as much as they feel is worth their time (hopefully alleviating that they didn't end up with any that they liked), and they get a more intimate experience with one character at a time instead of a squad of 4. It's closer to the current modern experience, while still letting you retain that first-session "death is cheap" feeling and keeping randomized characters.

Are Clerical Holy Symbols Required? - [blog100] pt. 5, q. 77

This post is part of a series where I put forth a challenge for bloggers to answer all 100 questions on this table by d4 Caltrops. This week I rolled a 77.

∗ ∗ ∗

77. What do your Cleric's Holy Symbols Look like? Are they needed for Turning?

Let's see what DCC RPG has to say about this.

"A cleric wields his holy symbol to turn away abominations." - p. 30

"By wielding his holy symbol and uttering holy words, a cleric can turn away the enemies of his faith." - p. 96

Furthermore, Divine Aid and a handful of Cleric spells mention wielding holy symbols as part of the casting process. It seems that the intent of the rules here is, yes, a holy symbol is needed not just for Turn Unholy but for casting (except Lay on Hands) in general.

But that's not really the question. What do I personally do at my table? I follow those rules, and here's why.

First and foremost, it's something that'll hardly ever come up. There are exactly two instances where this can be relevant. At level 1, just after the player chooses the Cleric class without having started with a holy symbol; or the holy symbol gets lost through in-game events - stolen, sacrificed, etc.

The former is less of an issue than the Warrior starting without a sword. Your PCs likely come out of the funnel with treasure enough to afford one. In my campaign, it actually created a fun roleplaying moment where the brand-new Cleric approached the priestess of the local chapter to simply ask for one. It set up the character as an established acolyte in the world and, even better, came with obligations.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you don't handwave things. It creates choices, writes stories and builds characters when your players have to go out of their way to play the game on the gameworld's terms.

The latter option (holy symbol gets lost) is the kind of thing that only comes up as a consequence of failure, so it should only happen when it makes sense as the result of a risk taken or as part of the narrative. Like that trope where players are captured and need to escape. This is something the Judge generally has control over and should assess whether it's the kind of thing players will enjoy. Taking things away from players is a whole discussion on its own.

As for what they look like, well, it varies from Cleric to Cleric. The specific Cleric mentioned above has a scepter with a handle that looks like a bee's stinger. It's a bee god.

∗ ∗ ∗

Here is where I'll link your blog if you join me on this 100-post journey through 100 questions.

Mercurial Schools of Magic: Pyromancy

"Consider creating your own custom mercurial magic tables that align with the schools of magic in your own campaign." - DCC RPG p. 320

∗ ∗ ∗

Upon casting Arcane Affinity (p. 162), a caster's mercurial magic results are all rerolled as the wizard becomes attuned to their chosen school of magic. Roll 1d24 modified by the caster's Luck modifier (do not multiply by 10 as when rolling on the original d100 table). Note that 0 and 25 are only achievable with a Luck modifier. These results are largely based on the core game's tables, selected and flavoured to be appropriate to the school of magic, though there are also additional entirely original effects.

⛤denotes entire or partial effects from the vanilla table

⛧denotes effects based on vanilla results but altered to suit
☿ denotes entirely new effects

Pyromancy

0. ⛧At great cost. Every time the wizard casts the spell, they make a Luck check. If they fail, someone they know bursts into flame and burns to ash (judge's choice).
1. ☿ Self-immolation. When the wizard casts this spell, the wizard catches fire and takes 1d6 damage each round until they can make a successful DC 10 Reflex save.
2. ☿ Spark. A random item of flammable material within 30' catches fire.
3. ⛧Dehydration. A great thirst causes the wizard to take 1d3 points of Stamina damage (before any spellburn is applied).
4. ⛧Ignition. The wizard must produce a spark or small flame, such as from a match or flint, to be able to cast the spell.
5. ⛧Stifling warmth. A 30' radius around the wizard feels uncomfortably warm for 1d4 rounds and everyone within it suffers -2 to all rolls.
6. ⛧Planar rift. Casting the spell tears open a wormhole to the plane of elemental fire, which remains open for 1d4 rounds. There is a cumulative 1% chance each cast that a fire elemental with HD equal to the caster's level + 5 exits the rift. Randomly determine whether it is hostile, friendly, or neutral toward the caster.
7. ☿ Solar power. A flaming beam from the sun powers this spell. The wizard gets +1d for spell checks when in sunlight and -1d when they are not.
8. ☿ Ring of fire. When successfully casting this spell, a ring of fire with a radius of 1d6 x 10' appears around the caster for 1d4 turns. Any creatures attempting to cross this line or starting their turn standing on it must make a DC 10 Reflex save to avoid catching fire.
9. ⛤Flash casting. A bright flash of flame and a loud whoosh accompany the casting of this spell, revealing the wizard's position to all within sight of him. This likely draws both attention and arrows. 
10. ☿ Flash sweat. The caster's skin and clothes become wet, halving any damage from fire for a turn.
11. ☿ Am I missing an eyebrow? One of the wizard's eyebrows singes when casting. If they have none, hair from elsewhere singes.
12. ⛧Candle. A spectral light hovers around the caster, providing 25' of light.
13. ☿ Boil over. Any and all water within 5' of the wizard heats up and begins to boil. Up to a pint of water will completely evaporate.
14. ☿ Torchburn. As part of casting this spell, the wizard burns at least one torch they are holding to cinders. Each torch burned this way counts as one point of spellburn, giving +1 to the spell check.
15. ⛧Fearsome flames. The wizard's eyes glow with flame, granting +1d to any attempts to intimidate or cause fear.
16. ☿ Spontaneous combustion. When the wizard casts this spell, the target of the spell catches fire and takes 1d6 damage each round until they can make a successful DC 10 Reflex save.
17. ⛤Energy burst. When successfully casting this spell, the wizard is surrounded by wreathes of flame, which do not affect the wizard but ignite flammable objects within 5' and cause 1d6 damage to melee opponents.
18. ☿ Fire within. When successfully casting this spell, the wizard temporarily gains 1d8 Strength for one turn. This temporary Strength cannot be spellburned.
19. ☿ Fire funnel. Any fire within 100' of the caster is transported from its source (which is effectively doused) to then be jetted from the caster. Roll 1d4 to determine where it jets from: (1) palms, (2) eyes, (3) mouth, (4) ears.
20. ⛧Phoenix. After casting this spell, the wizard bursts into flame and crumbles to ash. They will then rise from the ashes 2d4 rounds later. Their items are generally not damaged, though there is a 1% chance their clothes burn leaving the reborn wizard nude.
21. ☿ Smoke cloud. A cloud of smoke with radius 1d3 x 10' obscures vision for 1d6 rounds. Roll 1d3 to determine where the smoke is centered: (1) the caster, (2) the target, (3) aimed somewhere within the spell's range.
22. ☿ Heat metal. When casting this spell, the wizard also heats a metal object of their choice within 30' to a painfully hot degree. Anyone touching, holding, or wearing this object suffers 1d6 damage each round. Choosing to continue holding it requires a DC 15 Fort save. The object cools in 1d12 rounds.
23. ⛧Rain of fire. Casting this spell sparks a tempest of tiny meteors that fall in a 30' diameter centered on the caster. All within the area must make a DC 10 Ref save. Failing the save means the character has been hit by a small fireball, taking 1d6 damage and having a 1-in-3 chance of catching fire.
24. ⛤Tide of ash. All living vegetative matter within 10' per spell level is reduced to ash. Vegetative creatures caught within this radius take 1d14 points of damage per spell level. Dead vegetative matter is unaffected.
25. ⛤Roll again twice.