Classes for the magical girl game

The classes for the game are named after the suits of a standard deck of cards. At character  creation you decide to be either a heart, diamond, club, or spade.

Hearts are the healers. Diamonds are the support. Clubs are the dps. Spades are chaos. 

Each one has an ability that is unique to them that can affect the card battle aspect off the game.

And along with these abilities, as the players level up they get to choose other abilities to supplement their starting ability.

Perhaps when you level up you get to choose between three things. You get either a.) a heart, b.) a new card, or c.) an ability. Leveling up happens after each episode, so after a Lich, or a nightmare is defeated. 

Or, instead of the class giving you the starting ability, the class chooses your starting card, then you can choose an ability that represents your character.

Some ideas for abilities include:

Wish - the Madoka one. You make a wish as  you become a magical girl and it effects the world/game. 

Thrill seeker - Putting yourself in danger is favorable for you. Any time you put yourself in a position to lose a heart, you gain advantage to your success roll. 

Masochist - Any time you take at least a heart's worth of damage, you gain advantage on your next success roll.

Sadist - Any time you deal at least a heart's worth of damage, you can discard a card to draw a new one.

Knight - You make a promise. This can be to anyone or anything. When in service of this promise you gain advantage to a roll. If you break this promise you lose your powers.

Princess - You gain a familiar.

Druid - You have an animal form that you can access 1/day

Alcoholic - Taking a shot of alcohol grants you advantage to your next roll

Those are some ideas. All can be used in and out of combat, with some of them leaning more towards one or the other. 

This idea might work with the numenera system. I am a adjective noun who verbs. But maybe it'll just be "I am a adjective class." Like, I am a masochist heart, or a diamond heart, or something like that. 

balancing act

So this is to be a Deck Building RPG. I don't know if there's many of those. There is a market of card building board games, but the difference between a board game and an RPG is longevity. The rules I've been presenting are definitely meant for a more "one-shot" environment. There's a single deck and everyone draws from it.

RPGs are about progress. Characters starting at a weak point and growing to a strong point. Building a deck based on your battles feels intense.

The desired effect of this game: to add the story/rpg elements of dungeon world/dnd with the deck building aspects of games like MtG or Yugioh.

How to do this? It's simple on paper. The combat is handled with cards, and the rest is handled with dice. But how to make those systems work together? Or is that even necessary?

(This lets PvP be something that is built into the game. Friends build decks to play with each other. Giving this a RPG benefit/consequence will make just playing cards part of the game.)

I think the secret is to have each aspect of the game influence the other, not work together. In Magical Girl anime there's a disconnect between the magical girl powers and their real life, but they both influence each other. A trope of these series is the balancing act of being a normal girl and a magical girl. Perhaps there will be detriments for neglecting either aspect of the game,  adding a sort of balancing act to the two major systems in play.

I was thinking about classes today, and how they are integral to an RPG. There is already a basic class system built into a deck of cards (the suits). And in basic DnD there are 3-4 classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, rogue).

The idea will be to build a deck of cards that you can draw from in battle. Instead of the randomness of dice being rolled that is present in RPGs, the randomness will be presented by the shuffling of the deck and the drawing of cards. The goal will be to choose your class, to choose your playstyle, and try to collect the cards you need to stack your deck for success.

The course of adventuring will build your arsenal from just one card to an entire deck that you can use.

My goal for myself, my thing to accomplish before even playtesting this, is to have a standard deck of cards named and prepared.

I need to think about the system that I've already presented. If the cards all mean something at different intervals, does that make for an unfair game? What does that even mean?

I'm thinking that the start of each game will be drawing 5 cards, and if you only have 1 card, you just draw that 1 card. That will allow players to choose the suit they want to play (when they have more than 1 card).

Okay, but how do you get cards?

Defeating monsters (I think they're called Liches).

Buying card packs? This can be something for the RPG side of the game. It'll be like a carousing table. You spend the money (much like you spend the gp in dnd) to "carouse" and there will be a list of things that can happen or something. Maybe the cards that they use in battle are special, and it's possible to get them in standard trading card packs. Like Wixoss.

Playing against each other. Players can challenge each other for cards? Idk how this will work because cards won't be added, just traded. Perhaps they give up something from the RPG side, like health or something, to create a card that they then have to play to see who gets.

Going on adventures. Players can opt out of their daily life to go look for cards. They are a power and thus exist like treasure in the DnD world. This would be in detriment to your normal life and consequences will follow.

What benefits could the normal life give to the card battle life? Perhaps different normal life things can give you money to buy cards. I'm really not sure yet.

Going back to class though (I know I'm jumping around a lot), I'm thinking of what system to base it around. I like the Numenera system, or the PbtA system. I need to examine both more closely, but I know that their approach to story gaming, or narrative gaming, is what I want to do more so than DnD's approach.

There's a lot to think about. I tend to do my thinking by asking myself questions, as if in a faux-interview. Maybe I'll do one of those and write another post.

Further Card Battle Detail/Rules

Turn 1
Everyone draws a card
This determines your SET
The Sets are as follows:

Hearts - Healing
Clubs - Damage
Diamonds - Wards/Auras
Spades - Chaos

Your actions:
Roll for a success
Success means the effect goes through, discard card
Failure means it does not, take the failure effect of the suit
Choose to fail
Take the failure effect of the suit

Turn 2
Everyone draws a card
Determine set for all successes
Effect compounds for all failures
Second suit drawn creates a new effect (16 possible)
Hearts Hearts
Hearts Clubs
Hearts Diamonds
Hearts Spades
Clubs Hearts
Clubs Clubs
Clubs Diamonds
Clubs Spades
Diamonds Hearts
Diamonds Clubs
Diamonds Diamonds
Diamonds Spades
Spades Hearts
Spades Clubs
Spades Diamonds
Spades Spades

Your actions:
Same as turn one
Failure effects for the dual-suites are different and more dangerous
Success means discard both cards

Turn 3
Everyone draws a card
Determine set for all successes
Effect compounds for all failure
Suit doesn't matter for third card in hand
What matters is if it's a number or royalty
Every suit has a branching pattern here
Royalty will be high risk, high reward (risky bet)
Numbered will be low risk, low reward (safe bet)

Your actions:
Same as turn one
Failure effects for 3 card hands are deadly
Success means discard all 3 cards

Turn 4
Everyone draws a card
Determine set for all successes
Wild Card round for compounded failures
Effects stop compounding here, your hand is almost complete
Each card has a specified effect, ranging from 2-Ace
Choose any of the four cards and roll for a success
You must take that failure if you fail
Success means discarding THAT card, retain the other 3

Turn 5
Everyone draws a card
Do all the other shit
Full Hand round for compounded failures
The only thing that matters at this junction is if you have a "winning hand"
Winning hands are:
Royal Flush
Straight Flush
Full House
Flush
Straight
Four of a Kind
Three of a Kind
Two Pair
Pair
The enemy will have a full hand at this point
You place a bet with the monster which they must match*
Better hand wins

*Standard bet would be for hearts, or life for a life, but bets can be anything as long as the monster agrees. It's very much a poker-bluff. You can bet for cards, another player's life, etc. The monster can choose to fold, which means they surrender and you get the treasure/xp/whatever.

Card Battle RPG

Rules for an (unfinished) card battle rpg system.

The things you need for this system are a D20 and a standard deck of cards.

Everything outside of combat is handled by the players, narrative style.

Some sub rules of this narrative system would be things like:
1. To get something you must give something
2. Bargaining with the DM is fun
3. Saying something convincing is fun
4. Singing a song is an auto success (because I like it)

Combat is where the cards and the dice come in, because combat is dangerous.

Much like the Magical Girl RPG system, Health is based on Successes. Imagine the little heart health bar that Link has. Maybe it'll just be that. Different attacks deal 1/4, 1/2, and 1 or more hearts. Something like that.

When combat starts everyone draws a card. Monsters and opponents will have set abilities so they won't draw cards. The cards are for the players.

The SET your card is in determines the ability.
1. Hearts = health, healing, life
2. Clubs = pure damage
3. Diamonds = auras, wards, AOEs
4. Spades = chaos, strange magics

Then, on your turn, you roll your dice aiming to get a success (this will depend on the dice used, I'm considering using 2d12 just because they aren't used often. Success would be anything over a 10, maybe a 12. This is still to be determined).

A success means you spend the card, put it in the discard pile, and do the thing.
1. Hearts = heal one heart, or grant someone (including yourself) an additional heart
2. Clubs = deal a heart of damage
3. Diamonds = prevent the next attack on a target (including weird monster effects)
4. Spades = roll a d10 on the chaos chart

If you begin a turn with no cards in your hand, draw a card.

If you do not get a success, you fail and draw a card at the beginning of the next turn.

The card you draws adds on to the suit you drew first, compounding the effect. The effects will be based on whether you drew a numbered card or a royalty card. (this might get pushed back and maybe the second suit will determine something).

On your turn you roll. A success means you do the new effect and discard both cards.

If you do not get a success, you fail and draw a card at the beginning of the next turn.

The effects compound until you have 5 cards. If you've failed five times you'll have a FULL HAND. Full hands will be powerful if you land a success and traumatizing if you fail.

Full hand effects will show the full effect of magic.

The hands of POKER would be the most powerful effects.
Royal Flush
Straight Flush
Full House
Flush
Straight

Including things like:
Four of a kind
Three of a kind
Two Pair
Pair

Combat will be dangerous and stressful. Monsters will be tough and/or numerous.

Not sure how leveling/class will work, or if it will be present at all. Cards will be collectible. Different monsters will have different treasure, and different cards collected will have effects on combat and outside of combat.

Cards will be separated into common, uncommon, rare, ultra-rare. They'll be based around the standard card deck, but given lore-based names.

There's a lot still missing from this, but I'm thinking it might be the combat system for the magical girl system.

Magical Girl RPG

Rules for a (unfinished) Magical Girl RPG

• Everyone is a person in this world.
• You can choose to either start at a higher level or start as a normal person.
• Starting at a higher level means that you have made your wish and those consequences are at a stage.
• Starting as a normal person means you have to make a wish in order to get your magical powers.
• Magic works using 2d6.
• Name the spell, describe it and give your intended effect. Roll 2d6. On an 8+, choose 3. On a 6-7 choose 2.
• There is very little blow-back
• It has roughly the intended effect
• Nothing unbelievably weird happens
• There is no damage to your memory
• There is no HP, health is measured in successes and failures. Tougher creatures require a higher degree of success.
• Witches are the only enemy. They can arrive at any time and are limited only by the DM's imagination.
• All Magical Girls become Witches when they die. Their health is equal to the amount of successes they rolled (or maybe the amount of Witches they killed). 
• Everyone has 1 health, which means one success is enough to kill them.
• Only Magical Girls (and Witches) can have more than 1 health.
• When becoming a Magical Girl, the player gets a wish. There are no limits, only consequences.
• Upon the granting of this wish, the Magical Girl rolls for a random super power/special weapon.
• A Magical Girl's body is immortal as long as her Soul Gem is intact.
• A Soul Gem cracks and shatters after its "health" is removed.
• Removal of a Soul Gem from a Magical Girl renders the Magical Girl's body lifeless. 
• Defeating Witches is the only way for a Magical Girl to grow stronger.
• Each defeated Witch grants the Magical Girl 1 additional health.
• Damage is dealt by Witches but also by over-extending.
• When unbelievably weird things happen you can take damage, same with blow-back from a spell, or damage to your memory

• This game is meant to be quick and brutal. Magical Girls will be cycled through with little effort. 

Treasure Hunting Module

Would it be ridiculous to make a module like this?

Follow the main road to the T and take a left

Small house on the right, gather salt from field, watch for scarecrows

Cut through field till small creek

DO NOT DRINK FROM THE CREEK IT SEES YOU

Follow the for thirty paces and cross on the brown rocks

You're now in the Burrow-Woods

Moss on trees indicates fairies, stop

Find cave nearby, collect green flowers near slumbering red panther

(these ward fairies)

Go back to the exact spot you crossed the creek and recross it twice (you're now back in the Burrow-Woods)

Follow a deer path until pond, drink from pond

One person (ONLY ONE) swims to bottom to retrieve obsidian clam

REST OF PARTY!!! Watch for bat-owls in the trees, they attack after clam is touched

Remove pearl from clam (obsidian clams can only be opened with diamond-tipped tools)

Climb tallest tree and hold pearl in the sun all day

At night, light from pearl will make path, follow it

Do not follow the green path that comes just before dawn, massive treasure but guarded by assassins

Reach house at sunrise, give guardian an offering from a bloodied god and she will let you pass

Read the oldest book in the house to learn forgotten spell, fight the lawful spirit that tries to steal your identity

Follow path outside of house, take a right, then a left, then another right

Go around village up ahead (full of demons)

Watch for assassins

Hire the caravan at the crossroads, if you reach Embersmarch you've gone too far

They'll ask if you want to go to Bethammer, say yes but slip fifty gold to driver and say "but first let's go to grandma's house"

Trip takes several days, contemplate life, wonder on the emptiness that led you here

When wagon goes off road, do not sleep

At the base of mountain, sacrifice the scapegoat (you did bring one right?) and cast the forgotten spell

Trapped demon will possess goat

In exchange for a favor, goat will pull cart up the mountain.

Griffon-masked men live in the mountain, avoid at all costs (they can't fly but they fight on horseback with whips, you'll know you're too close when you see bodies handing from the cliffs from vine-nooses)

Treasure is located near cave around peak, cave is fake, scrape the paint from the mountain side to reveal vault door, put the obsidian clam's pearl in the third slot from the top right

Gather the lost treasure of Drake Vayoom, sky pirate

Humans fit in the tiny places...

Entire civilizations die out in the hilt of a giant's sword. Battles are wages in their footprints. Their corpses are continents. Their eyes are moons. Out of their orbicular sockets spill the milky space that holds everything in its cold yawn. We are but a stretched version of their truth; a minuscule reflection of their form. They stride the globe and we wait in a hole, too afraid to march out and face the Massive.

If an ant crawls on your arm you may stop and look at it for a moment before flicking it off. That is our entire history. Crawling on the backs of beasts that have no regard for us. All of humanities knowledge could fit in the palm of a giant's hand and there would still be enough room for the giant to coddle its child and fight with a spear.

Then what good are we? We have no voice in their struggles. We have no sword in their fight. At times when our wars are like bird migrations in a winter sky, the giants might stop and stare, viewing us a beautiful little accident in nature. When they fuck, our worlds are broken and remixed into bloody variants. A fist fight is an apocalypse.

Well, humans fit in the tiny places.

When you are large, doorways are tight, beds sag, the mundane is uncomfortable, and a tight slip become impossible. We don't squeeze our heads in rat holes. We don't climb down ant hills. And the giant's world is full of metaphorical rat holes and ant hills. The ruins of one of their civilizations makes mountains that reach to our physical limits. A war of theirs leaves enough hidden to keep us busy for all of our history.

We go where they can't. They hire us to do this. They created currency to support this.

Adventurers like yourself can do one of these quests and live forever on the rewards. But they are hard to come by. Fatal. These quests change humans.

But giants die. They kill each other in wars all the time, creating new dungeons and dropping currency into the world. Gold is not a monopoly. It is buried under death and eons every day. Delve a cave and you'll find something. Climb a mountain. Same thing. We fit in the tiny places. Whats lost is only found by us.

Otherville

Otherville is tall and leaning in a beautiful way.
Even though it exists in the farming region of the world, there are no farms, only personal gardens that are judged every season (winners are celebrated like pop-stars).
The coal mines went deeper.
They found something down there.
It wasn't gold, but it was mysterious.
Steel mines of the Dwarven metal-gears.
Instead of exploring they just  keep digging.
Coal mine ridges that go down miles.
Mountains made from displaced earth.
A once-flat landscape rendered treacherous by constant landslides and long rains.
Gold-rush-style town turned into micro-metropolis, two miles long, a mile tall.
Train tracks laid instead of paved roads.
Travel by minecart is the norm.
Large forest grown out of control, surrounds edges of town, constantly swallowed by mile deep mines.
No one questions why the Dwarves are gone.
One day digging reveals monster hives.
Monsters are hungry for flesh and have hides made of steel.
They lay traps like spiders and travel in packs.
Years in the mines make them sensitive to sunlight, retreat to mines in the day.
Town attacked nightly by these creatures.
Watch is formed. The Shooting Star.
Miners become skilled in killing.
Many die.
People travel from all over the region for a chance to dig and fight.
Many more die.
Alcohol consumption sky rockets.
Personal breweries sprout up using fruit from personal gardens.
Every house is a bar with specialized beer that give special properties to the drinker.
Some get big, some die out.
All empty space in town is filled with new occupants looking to strike rich.
Shooting Star grows larger and polices town with brutality.
Tyrannical grip on mayor and the streets.
Crime is dealt with swift punishment.
No death penalty, but people are sent into the mines.
Sometimes they return, but not really.
They seem normal for several days but then they lash out.
When they are struck down they turn into gelatinous masses.
No explanation is given.
Many many more die.
Some mines collapse in on themselves after heavy rain or a misplaced stick of TNT.
Some mines purposefully collapsed to bury bodies, or hide things better left unseen.
Dark magics discovered deeper in the mines.
Literal dark magics. Things seeping dark matter.
This dark matter warps things, the earth, the holder.
It's undetectable in the darkness of the mines.
Crude electric lamps and moonboxes grow dull near these objects.
Outside in the sun, in a radius equal to the strength of its magics, vision is as if wearing sunglasses.
These objects are complicated, like rubix cubes made of valves and nozzles.
They are sold for high prices to strange men in gold armor.
Some are activated and things happen.
These "things" are hard to write in any other words than--
Many, many, many more die,
Technology isn't medieval, or modern. It's rail-punk.
Coal-punk.
Lots of coal-burning fire.
Lots of coal-burning electricity.
Huge smoke stacks stand from tall buildings.
Large dungeon-like coal burning facility pumps clouds into the air and is run by ancient war machines left by the dwarves.
These war machines break down sometimes.
No one really knows how they get built.
But I do.
They build themselves.
At nights they go into the mines and mine.
Inside the facility, they smelt minerals into metals and build machines using coal-based power.
No one goes inside the facility until the power goes out.
Then adventurers go in and the power comes back on.
They come back covered in blood and oil.

Magic Users

I've always had a problem with magic users in 5e and it started back when I played 3.5. Even though the newest edition of dnd tries to differentiate the magic users by giving them some fluff and such, there isn't that much of a different between interacting with the world as a warlock or a sorcerer. You can put this up to fluff vs. crunch, but I think a powerful tool in the world building of a class is how the crunch of it is used. The mix of fluff and crunch is what creates a compelling class and helps spur the inspiration of the player choosing that class.

So what makes an interesting class? There are two things:

1.) The tools that the class gets allow it to interact with the game world in a way other classes don't already do. Fighters get to beat people down, clerics get to heal, thieves get to sneak attack, all magic users cast spells. 5e tries to alleviate this with sorcerer bloodlines, warlock patrons, and wizards school specialty, and does a decent job, but these things are left to the player to make important. A sorcerers bloodline might never affect the game, a warlock's patron may never be heard from, a wizard might still be boring. I say push these things into the face of the game.

2.) They need to be fun.

Easier said than done, but I think I'm getting close, at least for my own campaign.

There are several magic users to choose from: wizard, witch/warlock, sorcerer, shaman.

Wizards study magic by taking on (or being stuck with) a familiar. These are based on GoblinPunch's popular post. YOU'RE DOING FAMILIARS ALL WRONG. Familiars are mysterious, powerful, and creepy figures that come from somewhere and have a direct connection to magic. Are they demons? No. That's laughable to them. Demons are so petty. Are they gods? Depending on what you worship. They know the secrets of magic, and how to wield it without fault. They are willing to teach in exchange for favors.

Why is this fun? It gives the player something to interact with. The tables that Arnold has in his post are fuel for the imagination. I want to expand on them and make familiars a tool for DMs and players to interact with magic.

Witches and Warlocks (the only spellcaster to have feminine and masculine nouns because it is in ancient practice) are dabblers in the diabolic. They wield dangerous magic because it's the magic of demons. Unlike a wizard they have no familiar to conduct this magic through. They just try to store it in their brains.

These spellcaster learn spells based on the book Wonder & Wickedness and follow Zak S's level up tables for wizards/witches. They can gain spells by reading from others spellbooks and attempting to copy them down in their own (which can cause a catastrophe), and by eating the brains of other spellcasters.

Why is this fun? It's chaotic. It's random. It's dangerous. You have to eat a brain to gain a level. Why is your character okay with this? It raises questions a player has to answer.

Shaman's are based on False Machine's Shaman. They learn their spells daily by hunting beasts in their dreams. My tables are slightly different and more random. A shaman can choose to hunt any creature they choose, the bigger they are the more powerful of spell they hold. Failing is much easier if you're hunting spells outside of your level and failing is dangerous.

Why is this fun? Hunting spirits in your dreams. I'm sold.

Sorcerers are ones I'm working on, but I'm basing them off of Magica Madoka. Sorcerers make a pact with a being (I haven't figure it out yet, but let's just say it's the little bastard from the anime). They make this pact in exchange for a wish. So yes, at the beginning of a campaign a sorcerer makes a wish, like the spell, and this wish comes true. It's not some bullshit wish that gets turned on its head. It's a  true wish. It happens,  and then the game begins.

In exchange for this wish, the being gives the Sorcerer access to magic to fight evil (or whatever the being perceives as evil, probably Liches). Sorcerers cast magic based on False Machine's article here: Narrativist Spellcaster. Also, much like in Madoka, when a sorcerer finally dies they cannot be resurrected. They become a Lich. This is how all Liches are made.

Why is this fun? The wish. The consequences of any wish happening are enough character development to last an entire campaign or more. Plus the fear of becoming a Lich.

'Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, a long time ago, the Chinese wiped out a tribe few people have heard of. Most of history is like this.' - Matthew White, in his book "Atrocitology"

Your party is standing somewhere. Where did you leave them? A lair? Village? Their own homebase?

What was there before them? No, before that. Before they were born. Before man was civilized. Before man was man.

There was something there. A being, a culture, a war.

If you were in Westeros, you could roll on this table and find out:

What stood here before you?

1. A village of the first men
2. A forest filled with horse-sized spiders
3. A cult of Children of the Forest
4. A battlefield of first men and Children of the Forest
5. A White Walker massacre
6. Dragons

Or, if you were in the Everwood, my world, you could roll on this table to find out:

1. Tribe of Elephant Men
2. One of the ancient Druid circles
3. Giant the size of a skyscraper
4. Building site of a Moon elevator
5. Elves before they were cursed
6. Lonely witch with her archaic spells

Think about it. This is another thing to think about when your players are in a place. Any place.

What was there before? Make a table of the possibilities. Why? Because the more times you roll it, the more you have to think about it. Like say you're like me and you write "sentient elephant" on your table and you end up rolling it like six times in a row you might make up this Elephant Men thing and have a deeper understanding of your world.

I'm a firm believer in Stephen King's writing advice when he says that he doesn't make his stories, he discovers them. They are already in his head and he is excavating them. These random tables are a tool to help dig.

So do it. Come up with 6 things that were in your world before adventurers. Make them weird. Make them things you don't fully understand. Then roll every time your players go somewhere new. See what you dig up.

Creating the world

I don't know a thing about poetry. I don't think there's anything to learn about it. Art and language go together in a way that even the wrong things can be right. Most times I think in images, pictures. And it's hard for me to put a thousand words for each picture because I see so many. So poetry makes sense. Poetry is just images, I think.

Anyways, this is what I thought about when I took a shit this morning.

The world gawks at me
it forms crippled words that limp from page
into my head
half-formed ideas
half-life thoughts
I graverob from gods
illicit help from mind thiefs
steal the words of others
I frankenstien a thing to life with
lightning trapped in bottle
a word sparked by insanity

Time

“Game time is of utmost importance. Failure to keep careful track of time expenditure by player characters will result in many anomalies in the game. The stricture of time is what makes recovery of hit points meaningful. Likewise, the time spent adventuring in wilderness areas removes concerned characters from their bases of operations – be they rented chambers or battlemented strongholds. Certainly the most important time strictures pertains to the manufacturing of magic items, for during the period of such activity no adventuring can be done. Time is also considered in gaining levels and learning new languages and more. All of these demands upon game time force choices upon player characters and likewise number their days of game life…YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.” - Gary Gygax

I like this. I read it and I think "yeah, that's how I feel". But I've never done it. I've never done a lot of things that I want to do in campaigns. I think it's because I never know if they're going to last. I've only planned out one campaign (my campaign last summer) and it was some of the most fun I've had. I had a map, which is something I never do, and I mapped out dungeons, something I never really do. But I didn't track time. Only abstractly.

It's because I don't like difficulty. Or, I don't like the kind of difficulty that seems like ego-stroking. Like many dungeon master, I take pride in my world, but when I look at calendar systems that other DMs have made, they always make it complicated. They don't treat time like the tool that it is. It is only there to show the passage of time. It's a ruler laid under the campaign that shows progress and change. It should be THAT first, and then it can be used to add to the world, to the lore.

How to make it an easy tool though?

Just look at Stardew Valley. Sun-Sat, 4 weeks to a month, one month to a season. Simple. I'm sold already. 

What do I like about this?

1. It's easy to understand and to grasp. Anyone can look at this and be like "okay, yeah, I get it."

2. It's easy to manipulate. You can make it 12 months like our year, you can switch it to two summer months, two winter months, keep the world in a perpetual spring, whatever.

3. It makes me think about tracking weather and stuff like that. Give each season a small table of weather with some results for wacky weather in each and you're done. Automate it with lastgasp's generators and you're ready to go with the click of a button.

4. There's a chance of making variable encounters based on weather/seasons. Maybe dragons sleep in the winter and the forest is safer then? Maybe manticores migrate in the spring and are extra horny so more likely to be vicious? Stuff of that sort.

5. It lets the party track their own time. Give them a blank map (or a map with some stuff on it, like festivals, migration dates, etc) and let them mark days off and write down special events of their own.

6. BIRTHDAYS! Let the party roll randomly (or just choose) their birthday on the calendar, and there will be a little sub-table of birthday surprises that can happen on that day. Things like: your mother sends you a plate of cookies and eating them heals 1d6 hp, you gain advantage on one roll today, for some reason you feel like you cannot die (if you were to drop to 0, drop to 1hp instead. Thinkg like that.

I'm going to start working on these things right now. So the next few posts will probably be the tables and weather and shit like that. Or maybe I'll finish my map. I'm excited for my map.

Monsters or Man?

I had an idea for a kung-fu campaign a while back. It was going to be DnD but there would be no monsters. The Monster Manual was the Fighting Guide. Each monster was actually a family, or a gang, or a dojo. The goblin dojo is numerous and weak, while the dragons are the toughest warriors in the land. All attacks are the names of their special attacks. When fighting the ten-fisted beholders, watch out for their disintegration palm, or the paralysis knee drop. The Great Red Wyrm has a fearsome spin kick that is so fast it burns the flesh from bone. Shit like that.

I think of that idea often. 

My journey through Zak S.'s blog is complete too. There's a few things I passed up (mainly the art history lessons because that is not my wheelhouse) but I learned a lot. There are three things I learned and they are all related.

1.) Learning to think differently. About everything, but mainly the game and my position in it. I thought about what I like about the game and how I want to play the game. My view of the game was very basic, vanilla. It was the player's handbook, the monster manual, and the DMG. And while I don't like everything about OSR, I do like the mindset, the ingenuity. My favorite moments in any game have been moments where death was at the door and the party pulls it through (most of the way).

2.) Learning to embrace the weird. Zak is a weird guy. The things he's created are weird. And I love it. I think consistently about the gold machine in Maze of the Blue Medusa (which I know was written by both Patrick Stuart and Zak S.). The idea that you can do that really blew my mind. Of course you can do that. You can do anything. It's just playing pretend. Zak showed me that side of my imagination.

3.) Random Tables. Never made them. Never used them. My entire D&D career as DM has been improvised based on the player's choices. I would dream up interesting openings to campaigns and then let the players run wild. They wouldn't all work, but the ones that did were unforgettable. Random Tables are my tool now to have the randomness of improvisation but still have it all adhere to my world.

Speaking of my world, I'm still trying to figure it out. I don't feel like I have it right yet. I know I'll have it when I feel it, and I feel so close. Going through these blogs and learning the way other people do their worlds is helping me discover (and steal) ideas about what the world inside my head is. 

So far I've really only figured out a few things, well figured out one thing and have other things I want in it. 

There's an Endless Forest and a place called the Only City, also known as Aberdeen. The forest is full of demons and mutants and strange villages. This is where my party is right now. This is where my energy has been. 

Other things I've talked about are dungeons in people's minds. I still think there's something there, but I'm not sure what or where it fits. But this post is not about this.

This post is about the fact that I finished Zak S., learned some things, and I'm moving on to Patrick Stuart and his blog "False Machine". Already thinking about a lot. Mainly his post about the Kenku. 

It relates to my campaign idea mentioned before about how there are no monsters. And it's got me thinking about how many monsters are in my campaign world. I know there are Elves. They're cursed. I know there are Dwarves, they came from the center of the Earth. I know there are dragons, demons, devils. But what else? 

I think I'm going to go through the Monster Manual and redo it all, figuring out which monsters are actual monsters, and which ones are just man that has been pushed too far. 

The Fog

Stand at the edge of the Ocean and look out into it. It goes on and on for as far as your eyes can see. It's still but it's moving, it's not human but it's alive. It rolls and tumbles and pushes and pulls, but still retains its shape. The brave sail it, the lazy die in it, and in the darkness are mysteries the human eye has yet to see. Entire ecosystems buried beneath shadows. Shark eyes in a murky cloud of breathless life.

Stand at the edge and look out and know that you're from that place. No matter what you believe, no matter the book you take your meaning from, you know, in that moment, that you are from that place. You were once a lurking mound in the wrinkles of history. You came from there and are now here, looking upon it with wonder, fear, and even excitement. Why? Because you know that you'll return to it someday. As will all things.

Now imagine instead of blue, it is green. That instead of water it is made of leaves, ancient, moss-ridden trunks, timber as old and dusty as time itself. It's a forest, the Wood. Beneath the green canopy is an ecosystem made of instinct; kill or be killed. Apex predatory, prey. On or off. It's very simple and easy to understand. It's that idea we like to call "common sense".

Step inside it and find a world owned by nature. Layer upon layer of human settlements stolen by the forest and turned into ruin. Graveyards of progress. Monuments set upon the hills of misfortune. But still people poke their heads in to see what's going on, and they feel a sense of returning, the guardian gaze of homecoming. It's not a feeling of being watched, it's a feeling of nurture, of destiny. It doesn't feel good, only natural. The Forest knew you would come, and now that you're here, it doesn't want you to leave.

We call it the Fog, because that's what we see when it happens. At some point in your journey in the Wood, you may find something or experience something that causes you to want to leave. You may find the gold needed to retire. You may get the call to return to Aberdeen. Regardless, you will turn around and will to leave the forest. That's when you'll see the Fog.

It will spill into the trees from above and descend upon you. It wants you to come further into the Wood. There is something in there, something so far in and lost, and it wants to be found. It will attack the party in three steps: 1) it seperates, 2) it confuses, 3) it destroys.

Step 1: Locked arms are enough to keep you together, but even inches apart can be stretched to days. Horses detached from their caravans wind up in Druid stews, and comrades are jumbled and scattered like flicks of paper in a hurricane. Anyone seperated from the group, or not attached to one another by some mean, or not touching something, must roll a percentile to determine where the Fog puts them.

Step 2: The Only Road becomes one of many splitting paths made to confuse and muddle the journey. The first time the fog hits, it's four paths, the second time it's six, and the third time it's eight. Roll the dice needed to determine what the right path is, then let the party make their choice. If they choose wrong, roll the percentile to see where they are. The important thing here is, if they are off the Road, they are lost.

Step 3: Creatures that only exist in the Fog come from the Fog to maim and drag those who would leave the Wood, deeper into the Wood. These creatures come in a variety of forms, all of which are familiar to the person they are attacking. Roll to determine: 1) an old friend, 2) a parent, 3) a party member, 4) a sibling, 5) childhood pet, 6) monster from your nightmares. This creature has the same HD as you, the same attack bonus as you, and deals the same damage as you. The second time you meet these creature they have +1 to all of those, third time it's +2.

When does the Fog come for you? It only occurs when you attempt to leave. This is more a state of mind than a location or a destination. Traversing the Forest in any direction is not part of the variable. It is the will to leave that brings the Fog. It comes for you the first day after you begin to return, and through each layer of the Woods as well. Some say it even follows those who make it out.

Bibliography from the year 2030

1. The Everwood: a Guide to Episodic Play

2. 100 Floor Dungeon - published 1 floor at a time then combined at the end in a nice package.

3. The One Module That's a Fully Loaded Village, Easy to Pick Up and Drop Into Any Campaign World With Ease, and With Enough Stuff in it to Run an Entire Campaign With Just That Book (think Stardew Valley)

4. Aberdeen: The City That's Trying to Kill You

5. Time Loop Adventure - it would be simple in set up and design, made for open interpretation by DMs. Think of it as a list of details that happen over a 3-day period, fully detailed. After those 3 days the world is destroyed and the PCs reset with the knowledge, items, and xp they gained those 3 days. Rinse repeat until they defeat the evil or give up.

6. Haven's Throne - think Gothic Disney.

7. Atli's Academy of the Arts - a ruined school that was attacked by a dragon. Basically a "get-in-and-get-out-before-the-dragon-sees-you" adventure.

8. The Metal Gear Solid Module, basically a sandbox filled with tools and warring factions. The fun of this one would be choosing sides and getting the factions to kill each other.

9. The Death Star is a Mega Dungeon

10. That Thing My Party Wants to do That I Never Really Thought of...

THIS IS JUST MY RUMOR TABLE

10 rumors for each village/area

1-3. NPC

4. Plot Hook

5. Monster

6. Lookout Bounty

7. Keep

8. Druid Circle

9. Spirit

10. Demon