... now with 35% more arrogance!

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

OSRBA Random Topics Table

My first act as president of the OSR Blogowners Association is to tackle the problem of stale topics. There are certain topics which get repeated endlessly and regularly, generally every 3 to 6 months. we all know the topics: ascending vs. descending armor class, race as class, skill systems, meaning of hit points, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with rehashing old standards, but they are being rehashed too frequently.

This is a clear indication that we need a central topic authority.

Therefore, as president of the non-rabbit-centric OSRBA, I am instituting a weekly, mandatory Topic Tuesday for all OSR bloggers. Every Tuesday morning, the president will randomly select a topic that everyone must write at least one post about. The topic will be posted here and on Google+, to make it easily available. The procedure will be to roll a d12, d4, and d8 and consult the following table to create a two-word phrase:

roll d12 d4+d8
1 Creating (n/a)
2 Exploring Wilderness
3 Tricking Traps
4 Fighting Followers
5 Looting Villages
6 Studying Spells
7 Magical Monsters
8 Hiding Hoards
9 Negotiating Nuisances
10 Recovering Resources
11 Controlling Artifacts
12 Wandering Dungeons

Next, the results of the d12 and d8 rolled above will be added and used on the following table to look up a prepositional phrase to modify the main two-word phrase:

d12+d8 of/for/in/with …
2 Weirdness
3 Random Tables
4 Fire
5 Vices
6 Secrets
7 Pleasure
8 Heaven or Hell
9 Gods
10 Robots
11 Disembodied Brains
12 Wood
13 Jokes
14 Fantasy or Illusion
15 Villains
16 Space or the Stars
17 Madness
18 Knighthood
19 Nature
20 Reason

If a rolled topic is a repeat of a topic already used in the last six months, the two-word phrase will be kept, but the d12 and d8 will be re-rolled to select a different prepositional phrase. If the second attempt is also a repeat, a Topic Amnesty Period will be declared, during which anything goes.

All blogowners will have 1d6 days to post something on the randomly selected topic or be fined 3d6 zorkmids.
Written with StackEdit.

8 comments:

  1. thank you for taking the bull by the horns, El Presidente!

    ReplyDelete
  2. But what if I want to write about descending ac in wilderness negotiations? I mean trees say they aren't out to get us, but I'm not convinced.

    ReplyDelete
  3. some of these topics come up because people are blogging about here own house rules and developing a complete dnd version bit by bit - im most down on "look what i just got", nostalgia for an old product and my personal life and gaming stuff which bloghops are full of - they could have new ideas but mostly dont - i feel bad for gaming more than writing thus producing
    descriptions of games instead of d100 tables every day...
    I have a long list of things to do

    ReplyDelete
  4. The New OSR: Fewer dungeons; less weirdness; more wood!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Glad to see you're getting comfy in your oval office.

    As this post seems to be more of a mandate than a rant, you might want to consider creating a separate icon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Can I still do my "trees as class" discussion?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In addition to the topic I'm posting tomorrow? Have at it!

      Delete