Last-Minute d6 Dungeons: Map Glyphs

I’m looking at the Last-Minute d6 Dungeons series (links below) and wanting to simplify it some more… but also, wanting to make it more readable.

Here’s what I mean: I plan on creating customizable dungeon maps that use these techniques. It would help people a lot if I could put an instruction right on the map, so that the GM using it wouldn’t need to turn back to an instructions page. Instead, the introduction would give a couple simple icons and how to interpret them.

Example A: Side Passages

The glyph for this shows three boxes, each representing a d6. The position of each door or doorway along the main corridor is the position of each d6, in order.

Look for the lowest d6 roll first.

• If it is Odd, the exits start on the North or West side of the corridor.
• If it is Even, the exits start on the South or East side of the corridor.

If the second or third exits exist, it will be on the same side as the first exit if the d6 that represents it is odd, or the opposite side if the d6 is even.

(There would, of course, be another glyph for tunnels that run vertical on the map instead of horizontal, but I didn’t make one yet. It would look like the above glyph, but rotated 90 degrees.)

Example B: Tunnel Junctions

Same 3d6 roll as for Side Passages, but the position of each d6 is the order of branches or exits clockwise around the compass. (This is what the curved “triangle” represents.)

• If two of the dice match, the d6 that doesn’t match tells you which direction to skip (left, middle, right.) Branches or exits will be in the other two directions, in clockwise order.
• If all the dice match, roll another d6 and check the result: 1-2 = turn left, 3-4 = middle or straight, 5-6 = turn right.

In either Example A or Example B, the number of matches tells which table to use to look up the d6 result (loose, doubles, or triples,) as per the Drop Dice Exits post.

Links to Last-Minute d6 Dungeons series:

1. Tunnels
2. Tunnels update
3. Exits
4. Drop Dice Exits
5. Side Exits Update

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Last-Minute d6 Dungeons: Side Exits from Tunnels

Readers may have noticed that the Wednesday installment of the Last-Minute d6 Dungeons (links at end of post) reduced everything down to one (semi-) drop dice method to determining exits, but there was something missing. When rolling for side exits from tunnels, the drop dice method only tells you how far along the tunnel section each exit is, but doesn’t tell you which side of the tunnel it is.

I was aware of this, but left it out for a reason: I wasn’t happy with the methods I came up with. There’s basically four obvious methods of dealing with it.

1. Roll 1d6 or flip a coin for each exit to determine which side.
2. Don’t roll again. Just pick the side that makes the most sense (no connecting back to already-mapped areas, for example.)
3. Make the exit roll do double duty. If d6 result is odd, exit is on North or West side of tunnel, whichever makes sense. If d6 is even, exit is on South or East.
4. Same as #3, but only for first exit in tunnel section. Second exit will be on the side alternate, and third exit will be on the same side as first exit.

Method #1 adds extra dice rolls, right after we trimmed some out, so it’s no good.

Method #2 is fine as a general principal to modify random results where needed, but the whole point is to make a random generator.

Method #3 is a bit predictable. For example, a loose (no match) d6 result of 1 is a side tunnel, but under this rule, all side tunnels would be on the same side of a tunnel. Method #4 fixes this a little, but still could be more random.

But since we are also rolling dice of different colors (two light-colored, one dark-colored,) we could make use of that to modify Method #4.

5. If the dark d6 result is odd, the first exit is on the North or West side of the tunnel. If the dark d6 is even, the first exit is on the South or East. Second exit will be on the opposite side, and third exit will be on the same side as the first. Modify any result that would lead back into already-mapped areas.

If we really feel the need for more randomness, flip the second or third exit to the alternate side if the d6 result is the “opposite” of the dark d6. In other words, if the dark d6 is even but the d6 for the 2nd exit is odd, that exit is on the same side of the tunnel as the first exit.

Links to Last-Minute d6 Dungeons series:

1. Tunnels
2. Tunnels update
3. Exits
4. Drop Dice Exits

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Last-Minute d6 Dungeons: Drop Dice Version

I did some testing for the Last-Minute d6 Dungeons series (d6 Dungeons 1, d6 Dungeons 2, and d6 Dungeons 3,) and decided the ratio of rooms to tunnels was too low (Oops! All tunnels!) The problem is the Side Exits roll, which works fine in its original iteration for the semi-random dungeons pamphlets, but that is because that version only has a 42% chance of at least one tunnel, instead of a 97% chance.

One solution would be to replace the Side Exits roll with the Exit Destination roll, but treat it as a freeform drop-dice roll.

1. Roll 3d6 for each tunnel.
2. The position of each d6 is the position of each door or doorway (read left to right as West to East for horizontal tunnels, North to South for vertical tunnels.)
3. For dice that match, only use the position of the first d6.
4. Read the d6 result from the appropriate Exits subtable below, depending on whether its a triple, a double, or a loose d6 with no match.

d6	Loose d6 Result
1	Simple Corridor
2	Minor Debris
3	Missing Ceiling/Floor
4	Well or Fountain
5	Staircase or Ladder
6	Statue/Monument

d6	Doubles Result
1	Animal Pens
2	Storage (roll 1d6 again)
3	Jail Cell(s)
4	Food Prep
5	Living Area
6	Guard Station

d6	Triples Result
1	Armory (Weapons/Armor)
2	Execution Chamber
3	Temple or Shrine
4	Forge
5	Library
6	Magical Lab

In some cases, the GM could improvise a second roll to specify the variants. The only example specifically referenced on the table is “Storage”, where another d6 is rolled and the same table read again as a clue to what is stored in that room. Similarly, a well or a fountain could be dry or full of fresh, stagnant or poisoned water, or acid (2d6 reaction roll, with Dry as the middle result.)

This same Exits roll could replace the Tunnel Turns roll, but using two light-colored dice and one dark.

• If no dice match, each position represents one of the three direction (left, right, straight ahead.)
• If only two dice match, read the dark d6 first to find out which direction is blocked.
  • First Position: No door or passage North in a horizontal West/East tunnel, No door or passage West in a vertical North/South tunnel.
  • Second Position: No door or passage straight ahead.
  • Third Position: No door or passage South in a horizontal West/East tunnel, No door or passage East in a vertical North/South tunnel.
• If all three dice match, read the dark d6 as the direction to use (First Position = North or West, etc.)

Inside rooms, roll 3d6 for exits in the same way.

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Last-Minute d6 Dungeons: Exit Destinations

I may be making changes to the Last-Minute d6 Dungeons and its update, but before I did so, I thought I would address the missing portion: what’s behind that door?

Usually, a room, although in rare cases, it would be another tunnel. The GM would roll on a table, but there would in fact be several tables, for different dungeon themes and styles, and there may even be multiple tables for one theme/style.

But here’s a generic approach: roll 2d6 on the table below. If the roll is doubles, use the information in the (If Doubles) column.

2d6	Room Type		(If Doubles)
2	–>		No Floor
3	Jail cell(s)		–
4	Food		Farm/Pens
5	Lair/Living		–
6	Storage		Special
7	Monument		–
8	Kill Chamber		Flooded pit
9	Guard/Defense		–
10	Crafting		Tunnel
11	Debris/Ruin		–
12	–>		Tunnel

Doubles generally means a special version of the general room type: A 4 result means food prep (kitchen, fire pit) or food storage, but double 2 means a food source: a farm or animal pen.

Since a result of 2 is always double 1, it is always one specific result, On this table, it’s a room without a floor. Double 5 or 6 is a tunnel.

The “Special” doubles result next to “Storage” means it’s special storage, like an armory or library.

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Last-Minute d6 Dungeons: Update

I decided to make some changes to the graphics from yesterday's post.

What's Different: 

• Switched the dice results so that they are numbered left to right, top to bottom, which might be easier to remember.
• Switched to absolute orientation (horizontal or vertical, using compass directions) instead of relative orientation (left or right,) since not everyone can handle imagining themselves rotating in space.
• Labels for the d6 results printed on the diagram.
• Made it clearer that dice can be rolled at either end of a tunnel section to see if the tunnel continues, branches, or turns.
• Added doorways and room shapes to make it clearer where these would be drawn on the map.
• Summary of instructions in lower left.

Technically, it would have been better to center the hypothetical rooms relative to their doorways. But I use Alex Schroeder's Gridmapper for quick one-off diagrams like this, and there are limitations to what it can do. If I do a more refined version of this as a PDF, I can do fancier illustrations in Inkscape.

Last-Minute d6 Dungeons

I want to revisit the semi-random dungeon generation technique. I originally developed this for my dungeon expander pamphlet series, the idea being that a GM who suddenly needs a dungeon or needs to expand an existing dungeon can just grab a random pamphlet and create a random one with a minimum of rolling. But I’ve had some ideas on how to update this for a while.

The original system involved a pseudo-map of a corridor with six potential exits and six possible kinds of exits. What I’m proposing now is a more universal framework.

d6	Exit Location	Tunnel Direction
		Right Side
1	First Third	Turn Right
2	Middle Third	Turn Right
3	Last Third	Straight Ahead
		Left Side
4	First Third	Turn Left
5	Middle Third	Turn Left
6	Last Third	Straight Ahead

1. Start with a Basic Tunnel Segment (24 paces, or 60 feet long) heading in any direction.
2. Make a Side Exits Roll (3d6) to determine where each side exit is (See Exit Location column on table above.) On doubles, the exit is a Portal (standard door.) On triples, the exit is a Special Portal (heavy door.) Otherwise, it’s an Exit (open archway.)
3. Make a Tunnel Roll (3d6) to determine the basic tunnel shape. On triples, the tunnel dead-ends in a Portal (standard door) straight ahead. Otherwise, each d6 result represents a tunnel direction, which means the tunnel may turn, branch to one side, end in a T-junction, or become a four-way intersection (See Tunnel Direction column on table above.)
4. For every Portal or Special Portal, make a Chamber Roll to see what’s behind the portal. (More on this later.)
5. After making one or more rolls for a room’s contents, end with a Room Exits Roll (Probably 4d6.) Each d6 represents one exit’s direction (1-4 = one wall of room, numbered clockwise starting at the top; 5-6 = up or down.)

You may notice the pattern of bold name followed by (italic parenthetical information.) Extracting that, we get this summary:

• Basic Tunnel Segment (24 paces)
• Side Exits Roll (3d6)
• Tunnel Roll (3d6)
• Chamber Roll (1d6 or more)
• Room Exits Roll (4d6)
• Extras:
  • Exit (open archway)
  • Portal (standard door)
  • Special Portal (heavy door)

The bold names are the underlying framework of the system, but the italicized information can be changed for custom dungeon types. For example, changing Basic Tunnel Segment to a shorter length like 12 paces or 30 feet makes tighter, twisty-er dungeon designs, while changing the Side Exits Roll to 4d6 packs more tunnels and rooms into the space. Changing Exit from open archway to curtains changes the feel of the place, perhaps making it more like a temple or palace. Swapping Exit and Portal (so that exits only appear on doubles) makes doors more common than archways. Changing Special Portal to portcullis might make more sense in a true castle dungeon or prison.

Chamber Rolls are left vague for now, but the basic idea is that there is a table of room types, possibly two separate tables, one each for portals and special portals. But there could be different tables for different dungeon themes. This is something I’m still working on, but would most likely be a 1d6 or 2d6 table, perhaps with extra numeric entries reachable only when there is a bonus to the role (for example, a +1 for every 2 full levels of depth, so that some room types only show up on deeper levels.

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Treasure Types, or Treasure Codes?

The treasure types table in OD&D’s Monsters & Treasure booklet has slightly obscure design goals, which carry over into B/X, BECM, and AD&D. As a result, it gets tweaked or completely replaced in most retroclones and many house rules. It’s tricky to figure out which type to assign to completely new monsters, or which old monsters can have their types swapped, since it’s not entirely clearly what the differences between most of the types really are.

But there are a couple distinctions worth noting:

• Most treasure types have all three coin varieties, but a few have no copper or silver, and one has no coins at all.
• The max number of gems is the same as the max number of jewelry items in all but two cases.
• Most types can have any kind of magic item or map, but three of them limit this to one variety, while some other have 2 to 4 items of any type plus one potion or scroll (or both,) guaranteed.

Having coins, gems, jewelry, magic items, and maps all specified for any given treasure type confuses the design and reduces usefulness. What we could do instead is use treasure codes made from more than one letter. Something like:

Code	Treasure Type
B	Basic Treasure
C	Common Coins (sack)
Cr	Rare Coins (sack)
Cl	Low Value Coins (sack)
G	Gems
J	Jewelry
L	Loose Coins
M	Maps
P	Potions
S	Scrolls
W	Weapons and Armor
X	Other Magic Items

Coins are separated into Common, Rare, and Low Value, corresponding to your standard coin used for prices in your campaign, a rarer coin, and a “junk” coin that’s less convenient to haul out of the dungeon. By default, these are in the proportion 1 rare : 10 common : 100 low-value, but you can change this to fit your campaign. The way you’d most likely use these codes in a monster description is to assume every treasure type is potentially present in standard quantities at standard chances, then specify anything that’s different. (That’s what Basic Treasure is for: a catch-all for any treasure type not otherwise specified, so that you can note a monster has ten times normal gold, no silver, and everything else is standard.)

Quantities for coins are assumed to be measured in “sacks” (300 coins each.) Other items like Gems and Jewelry are counted individually. This base number is multiplied by a dice roll, which we could choose to link to vowel codes like this:

Code	Size Modifier
a	Abundant (5d6x10)
e	Extra (3d6x10)
o	Ordinary (2d6x5)
i	Individual (1d6)
u	Undefined

So that we can specify treasure types like:

CaBo no S

Which would mean “this monster has abundant common coins like gold, ordinary quantities of other treasure types, but no scrolls.”

Undefined by default means “unique” (only one of this item,) but can also be redefined each time it is used.

Additional notes:

• Coins are broken down the way they are because you might want to set standard chances for each type, like “25% chance for common coins, 10% chance each for low-value and rare coins”.
• Magic items are broken down the way they are partly because that’s the way they are broken down in the original treasure type table, but mostly because those types have special restrictions: armor and weapons probably won’t be in an evil wizard’s lair, potions and scrolls won’t be underwater.
• If you want to specify absolute coin type instead of relative coin type, for example because you don’t want lycanthropes to have silver coins, you can follow the vowel with a lowercase letter (Cos = silver coins, Cog = gold coins.) This is especially useful for the “loose coins” type.
• You can do the same for other treasure types, like magic items (Wis = magic shields, Sic = cursed scrolls.) Some of these might wind up pretty cryptic, though, so adding an actual word after the code (Si (cursed)) might be a better choice.
• You can also use the “rare”/“low-value” modifier to breakdown gems into different values, for example, or to show that a magic item is fancier than normal or appears like a cheap common tool or weapon. (Gri = rare gems, Wlow = wooden magic weapon.)

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Power Sources for Spell Prep

We’ve been talking in a couple places about how the old school magic system works. That reminded me that I had this table squirreled away somewhere. It’s a list of sources of magical power.

d6	Source of Power	on Doubles	on Triples
1	Astrology	Limited Time	Planetary Rays
2	Words of Power	Chanting	Long Song
3	Invocation	Worship	Sacrifice
4	Occult Forces	Rare Reagent	Magical Reagent
5	Psychic Powers	Meditation	Trance State
6	Spirit Binding	Pacts	Sacrifice

Purpose: Randomly determining what a magic system requires a spell caster to do in order to prep a spell, as opposed to actually casting it. Not necessarily for your main form of spell casting, which most GMs or groups would probably want to discuss rather than randomize… But if a GM needed a topic for a random obscure magical tome, or if a strange new adventuring area needs a custom form of magic to make it feel distinct, this table could help with that.

Concept: The table sorts the potential sources of magical power into six categories: astrological forces, occult forces, words of power, invocation of divine power, binding of lesser spirits, and innate psychic power. Each source of power can also have different degrees of effort required:

• The second column is in general just “fluff”, but may have potential minor effects (pissing off a god might cause a penalty if magic requires invocation, for example.)
• The third column either takes longer or requires more resources.
• The fourth column is even more extreme.

Usage: Roll either 2d6 or 3d6, depending on how elaborate you want the magic system to be. With three dice, your magic system may have:

1. three different required sources of power, or
2. two sources, one of which is more limiting than the other, or
3. one very limiting source.

Spell casters would have to follow the indicated procedure to prepare their spells, after which they are either cast immediately or set to trigger when specific mnemonic phrases and gestures are used.

I’m still thinking over the process. I might ditch the third degree of difficulty. I might think of another source of power. Each of the power sources probably deserves more explanation in another post.

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RDG 2.0: Substructures and Superstructures

Continuing my thoughts on random dungeon algorithms: the first three steps on my list deal with nested structures. To explain this better, let’s start with a typical substructure generated on Step 2 and filled in on Step 3. This would be a network of intersecting tunnels. In earlier posts, I suggested using letters (“leximorphs”) to define the tunnel structure. I think this is possible as a computer algorithm, but it would be tricky. You’d have to define a two-dimensional array, where each array location is a list of one or more connections.

But a simpler algorithm might be better. Assume there are six main hypothetical tunnels in a structure:

• three aligned more-or-less North-South (left, center, right;)
• three aligned more-or-less East-West (top, middle, bottom.)

hypothetical tunnel structure

This defines nine hypothetical four-way intersections. Rolling for each direction at every intersection would mean 36 rolls, a tedious task for a human… but nothing for a computer. Roll 2d6 on the following chart, keeping track of doubles:

2d6	This Direction Leads to a…
2	blocked or collapsed tunnel
3-4	door to tunnel (or room if double 2s rolled)
5-7	wall (secret door on double 3s, roll again)
8	tunnel continues (or room on double 4s)
9-12	stairs down (ladder on 5+ on 1d6) roll again
	change direction to “up” on double 5s or 6s

Two of the results – secret doors and stairs/ladder – require a reroll to see where they lead. Stairs/ladder also require a 1d6 roll to determine which kind, with stairs being more likely.

Because of the way we start with a grid of interconnecting tunnels, there are loops built into the dungeon structure. The rolls close off some directions, but some areas of the dungeon will still have loops, allowing multiple routes to reach the same area. When we get to room generation, room exits can generate additional tunnels as well, which can further complicate the structure. This is good. This is a Jaquayed dungeon structure.

Now let’s back up to Step 1. We roll for structure here, too. This is more like a superstructure. It’s basically the same process, except the tunnels are assumed to be longer, and each “room” is actually a substructure, its own network of 36 potential intersections, with a tunnel from the superstructure connecting to one of the outside intersections. If Step 2 generates a dungeon, Step 1 generates a dungeon of dungeons. A megadungeon, if you will. The loops built into the superstructure will enable multiple routes to specific dungeons – call them sublevels, or dungeon nodes. If a route through a particular dungeon seems too dangerous, it may be possible for adventurers to get around the danger via one or more other dungeons.

And it gets more complicated, once we start talking about themes and room clusters. But I better reserve that for another post.

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RDG: Thoughts on Computer-Generated Sublevels

Alex Schroeder let me know in a comment on yesterday’s random dungeon post that he’s looking for additional dungeon generation algorithms for Text Mapper. The method I described in that post was really aimed at being simple and easy to remember for humans. What would I do if I were exploiting computer power instead? What does Text Mapper actually need?

The 5- and 7-room dungeon algorithms are already pretty good for mini-dungeons. One thing I noted, though, is that it rarely creates a Jaquayed dungeon, as Jason Alexander describes. The structure is almost always linear with maybe one or two dead-end branches, although I did get two 7-room dungeons with internal loops after several reloads. And since they are mini-dungeons, there’s an obvious underrepresented dungeon type: megadungeons, or at least sprawling underworlds. I did do a couple old posts about random dungeon generators and non-linear dungeon generation, although I think they are unusable for a computer algorithm in their current state. Still, there’s the seed of a couple ideas for new additions to Text Mapper: an underworld wilderness map, a ruined underworld city generator, and a themed dungeon sublevel generator used as part of the underworld city generator or by itself to generate a mid-sized dungeon.

Here are some hypothetical steps we could take for the third and most important generator:

1. Start at the Top. Randomly select a theme and basic tunnel structure that includes loops and nodes.
2. Each Node is a Substructure. Generate a more specific theme within a node and its own tunnel structure with loops and subnodes in the same way as Step 1.
3. Each SubNode is Either a Room or a Room Cluster. Theme determines which (Mazes tend to be more tunnels and isolated rooms, Tombs are like Mazes but with tunnels connecting room clusters, Ruins have more room clusters, and Fortified Areas have shorter, fewer tunnels.)
4. Generate a Room Shape and Exits.
5. Select Room Theme. For example, Storeroom, Torture Chamber, Kitchen. Specific theme from Step 2 determines list of room themes to select from. Room Theme specifies general room contents, including containers present.
6. Add Room Occupant, if any. Determine if occupant starts in a hidden state and what the trigger is (vermin can emerge from crates if disturbed. Spirits can be summoned by touching a holy/cursed object.)
7. Add Container Contents, including possible treasure.
8. Add Secrets, including secret exits or containers.
9. Repeat Steps 4 to 6 for Each Room until SubNode is complete.
10. Repeat Step 3 and following steps for next SubNode until all SubNodes in the Node are finished.
11. Repeat Step 2 and following steps for the next Node until all Nodes are finished.

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d6-Only Random Maps

I've talked about random map tricks before, but I'm not sure if I've done anything restricted to d6 rolls, kept as simple as possible (no dice map/drop dice techniques, easily memorizable so that you don't need to consult a table...)

You've already seen one such trick in the Generic Tower and Dungeon Expander semi-random dungeons. In a long corridor like the one in the pic, roll 3d6 for each side of the corridor and keep only one die out of every set of doubles or triples. The remaining dice, in order, are what's behind the door, using a simple d6 "table" expressed as a map. (I've modified the room order for this example by making a result of 5 = the Tunnel and result 6 = the Staircase.) Optionally, at the end of the corridor, roll 2d6 and use one die result if you roll doubles, otherwise leave it as a dead end.

The next trick would be to apply this to room exits as well. Roll 4d6 for a room, only keeping one die from each set of doubles, triples, or quads. Results 1 through 4 are doors in each of the four walls. Result 5 is a ladder in the middle of the room (I used a trap symbol, because I couldn't find a better option in Gridmapper.) Result 6 is a staircase. Roll another d6: on 5+, the ladder or stairs go up, otherwise they go down.

But these two tricks work best when used on a "seed map" of tunnels, using Trick 1 in each section of tunnel, followed by Trick 2 to find the second exit in any room discovered. So Trick 3 is to roll 2d6 multiple times to find the direction of several tunnel segments. The first die indicates the tunnel starts at the map edge indicated or in the center of the map. The second die indicates where the tunnel heads. Results 1 through 4 are one of the compass directions. Results 5 and 6 are the center of the map, again indicating a ladder or staircase. The tunnel segments are all a standard length, say 240 paces (60 feet,) after which it may extend as indicated in Trick 1. Don't discard doubles for this roll: instead, doubles indicate a U-turn for results 1 through 4, or a landing stage between two ladders or staircases. (This is what the short "L" segments represent on the map.)

How many tunnel segments you need to create a seed map is mostly a matter of taste, but I'd say three would be a decent start.

Spell Spat Table

OOPS! You ticked off one or more magicians and then let them escape. Your new enemy plans to harass you magically until the very end. Until you do something about it, the GM rolls once a week on the Magic Spat table to see what the latest nuisance is.
Roll 4d6 and set aside any 6s rolled, then look up the total.

4d6 Roll	Magic Spat Activity
0	I Came to Gloat! Rival sends illusion of self to personally confront you.
1	Bite Me! Conjured attack dog appears.
2	Bring Waders! Area floods to knee height for 1 hour.
3	Good Job! Next door you see/pass through does 1d6 non-lethal damage as it hits you.
4	Scary Visage! NPCs flee you 1d6 times.
5	Pantsed! Trousers or robes fall off in 1d6 chases.
6	Flat-footed! Footwear falls off in 1d6 chases.
7	Pop! Next 1d6 bottles/vials held break.
8	Hiss! Backpack fills with 1d6 snakes.
9	The Eagle Has Landed! Birds take the next 1d6 small objects from your hands.
10	On a Roll! 1d6 barrels roll rapidly toward you.
11	UFO Flap! Conjures 1d6 bats around you.
12	Wine Tasting! 1d6 drinks near you spill.
13	Wart Pack! Backpack fills with 1d6 toads.
14	Duck Hunt! 1d6 ducks chase you, quacking loudly.
15	Heckler! Tiny face calls you a liar in next 1d6 NPC conversations.
16+	A Breather. Rival had something else to do this week.

If one or more 6s were rolled and set aside, each 6 rolled adds 1d6 to any dice roll mentioned in the results above.

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Zombie Corpse Conditions

So the PCs stumble on a crypt full of zombies. But zombies rot. How intact are these zombies? Roll 2d6.

Roll	Result	Result Details
2	Nearly Skeletal	Patches of flesh cling to to their bones
3-5	Badly Rotted	Most of one side is skeletal
6-8	Somewhat Rotted	One arm or half the face is missing flesh
9-11	Slightly Rotted	Bone shows through in spots
12	Fresh Corpse	Pallid, but still appears human

Slightly rotted corpses are standard zombies.

Appearance affects two things: surprise and fear. A zombie in relatively good condition can walk the streets of a town, tricking victims into believing they are just ordinary citizens until it’s too late, allowing them to get closer before attacking. Halve the encounter distance in these conditions for the listed zombie varieties.

Conditions	Allows Surprise by…
No Light	Any zombie variety
Dim Light Silhouette	Badly Rotted
Shadows or Fog	Somewhat Rotted
Dim Light	Slightly Rotted
Cloudy Day	Fresh Corpse

A Fresh Corpse zombie also doubles its chance of surprise in any dim light or fog situation (except for No Light, where all chances are standard.)

Hirelings will generally only check morale after a fight has begun, but they will automatically flee if surprised by any zombie, or even when not surprised if they can see a Badly or Somewhat Rotted zombie clearly (dim light or better.) They will also immediately flee a Nearly Skeletal zombie if there is any light at all.

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Last-Minute GM: Random Entertainers and Performers

The local market, whether it’s weekly or daily, will have more than just goods for sale. There’s also entertainment! Traveling performers come to markets to scrape up a few coins from the locals and can be a lead-in to other events: rumors, thievery, false accusations of thievery, or other drama.

You’ll need two kind of dice, d10 and d8, to use the following table. Roll one of each for a village, two for a small town, three for a larger town, and four of each for a city. Really large cities will probably have more than one market area, so you would roll again each time a new market is visited.

d10	Act Type	d8	Modifier
1	acrobat	1	aerial
2	actor	2	balance
3	beast	3	aquatic
4	dancer	4	escape
5	freak	5	fire
6	jester	6	blade
7	juggler	7	strong
8	mime	8	trick
9	musician
10	other

There are a couple ways to handle this roll:

• The Straight Roll: Just roll one d10 and one d8 at a time, one to four times, and read the results. For this method, it might be better to use a d12 instead of a d8 and treat results of 9+ as “no modifier”.
• All in a Line: Roll all the dice at once and read across, left to right. Apply the modifier roll to any act that follows it. Any d10 that does not follow a d8 is an unmodified basic performer.
• Drop Dice: Roll all the dice on a sheet of paper somehow divided into four quarters. Each quarter represents one possible entertainer. If a quarter doesn’t have a d10 in it, there’s one fewer entertainer at the market this time. If two d10s land in the same quarter, it’s a hybrid act: the singing acrobat, the woman who dances on beasts, and so on. If there’s no d8 in a quarter, it’s a standard version of the act, otherwise all modifiers apply to that act.

For the All in a Line and Drop Dice methods, if two d8s both apply to the same act and you roll doubles (dice values match,) the act is a magic version of that modifier. If you roll triples for the same act, it’s an extreme magic version.

Most of the act types should be self-explanatory, but “Beast” refers to any animal act. “Freak” refers to any human or humanoid exhibited for the way they look or behave, including geek and blockhead acts, and “Other” refers to any display of skill that doesn’t fit one of the other types, such as a sharpshooter. The modifiers are also pretty easy to figure out, but here are some notes:

• Aerial involves swinging, jumping, or diving from high places. The magic version is actual flight.
• Balance is a performance on a tightrope or unstable object like a unicycle or rolling barrel. The magic version is balancing on something impossible, like the point of a random sword or the top of a rope that rises in the air by itself.
• Aquatic is a performance while swimming in or submerged under water. Magic versions involve obvious water-breathing, although not necessarily via a spell (an aquatic freak would be a fishman, for example.)
• Escape is for escape artists, of course, although if the act type is not “Other”, the artist does something else before or after or perhaps even while escaping.
• Fire means performing while on fire, or with flaming objects.
• Blade involves swords or knives. “Blade” + “Other” could be a knife thrower or a sword swallower. “Blade” + “Freak” is someone who cuts or stabs themselves for the amusement of the audience.
• Strong means the performer is strong. “Strong” + “Other” is your basic circus strongman, bending and lifting things. Combine “Strong” with other acts to get some very unusual acts, like someone lifting three other people on their shoulders and then dancing.
• Trick is magic tricks, pretending to make things vanish and appear, and so on. The magic version is… well, actual magic or illusion.

Edit to Add: Obviously, there's no longer a way to delay publication if you post to Blogger using StackEdit. Guess I have to start manually copying and pasting if I want to do that again...

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Last-Minute GM: List Picks II

On the random list picks post, ruprecht asked:

For a list of 40 items wouldn’t it be easier to roll 1d4 and 1d10 and derive the line from two?

However, the larger the count, the greater the chance you will loose count, especially when you are counting a large group of small-size items. I was also concerned about items far down the list somehow not getting selected as often because of hidden dice bias. So, I split the count by starting from both ends of the list instead of just from the top.

However, there’s a non-dice-based method that people have used in non-RPG contexts: closing your eyes and pointing with your finger. I felt that raw method had the potential for bias as well, but there’s a way to combine dice rolls and random pointing to lessen the chance of bias: blindly pick a line at random, then roll a d4 + d10 (or another die) to determine direction to count and amount to count:

1-2: count up from that point
3-4: count down from that point

This process allows you to use any list, without knowing the exact number of items on the list or finding the right die to use. It’s perhaps a little better, though, if you still allow counting from the top or bottom of the list:

1. count down from top
2. count up from random point
3. count down from random point
4. count up from bottom

We can call this the “roll and point” method.

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Last-Minute GM: Random List Picks

I’ve been messing around for some time trying to come up with a good basic procedure for picking something at random from an arbitrary unordered list. Prepared tables with numbers indicating dice results are easy, but it would be nice to be able to grab just about any list and pick something randomly. But I hadn’t found a method that was satisfying until now.

You need two dice, usually a d4 and a d10 numbered 0 to 9. The d10 is how many lines to skip, while the d4 tells you where to start and what to do with the d10.

1. Start at top of list and skip down 0 to 9 lines.
2. Start at the top and skip down 10 to 19 lines (d10 + 10.)
3. Start at the bottom and skip up 10 to 19 lines (d10 + 10.)
4. Start at the bottom and skip up 0 to 9 lines.

This lets you pick from a list of 40 items. If you only have 20 items, don’t add 10 to the d10 for results 2 and 3. Some other dice can be used instead of the d10, if you have a different number of items:

• d4 + d6 (reading 6 as zero): 24 items
• d4 + d8 (reading 8 as zero): 32 items
• d4 + d12 (reading 12 as zero): 48 items
• d4 + d20 (reading 20 as zero): 80 items

Always read the highest number on the second die as a zero, so that one of the results will be “use first/last item on list”. For the middle results of the d4 (2 and 3,) add the number of sides the die has to the result.

You can also use a d6 instead of a d4, with this chart:

1. Start at top of list and skip down 0 to 9 lines.
2. Start at the top and skip down 10 to 19 lines (d10 + 10.)
3. Start at the top and skip down 20 to 29 lines (d10 + 20.)
4. Start at the bottom and skip up 20 to 29 lines (d10 + 20.)
5. Start at the bottom and skip up 10 to 19 lines (d10 + 10.)
6. Start at the bottom and skip up 0 to 9 lines.

This gives you a range of 1 to 60 items.

There are other tricks you could do for two-column lists.

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Reaction Rolls with ... Four Dice?

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I’m thinking about the viability of “4d6, dropping all 6s” as a possible alternative dice mechanic. It give you a 0 to 20 range, within the parameters of some D&D rolls, but with a bell curve… but also, you can use the 6s in a different way to alter results.

Here’s an idea for a 4d6 drop 6 reaction roll table.

4d6 drop 6	Reaction	Detailed Explanation
Up to 1	The Worst	Enraged, immediate attack.
2-3	Very Bad	Hostile , will attack. No further offers.
4-7	Bad	Unfriendly and threatening. Refuse offer.
8-12	Normal	Neutral but uncooperative. Ask much more on offer.
13-16	Good	Open and cooperative. Ask a little more on offer.
17-18	Very Good	Friendly and helpful. Accept offer.
19-20	The Best	Enthusiastic, offers help or discount.

As with a standard reaction roll, this is used for two main situations:

1. Potential combat situations (Will the opponent be hostile or even attack, or will they be open to parlay?)
2. Negotiations (Will the NPC accept the offer, ask for more, or reject the offer and refuse further haggling, or even hurl a string of insults or accuse the PCs of being a thief?)

If the result is 4 or more, but one or more 6s were rolled, a special effect may be triggered, if one is present. Some special effects:

• Lying: The NPC or monster pretends to have a different reaction, usually to trick the PCs.
• Personality Trait: NPCs or monsters may have unusual behaviors or goals that trigger if one or more 6s are rolled, for example “looking for the perfect sacrifice to their dark god”. Alternatively, PCs who have personality flaws, such as “accident prone” may exhibit these flaws, perhaps explaining a bad reaction, or simply causing embarrassment during an otherwise successful negotiation.
• Curse: If a PC has a curse effect waiting to be triggered, it takes effect at this point. For example, “haunted by a shrieking ghost” might result in the ghost appearing while trying to find a room at the inn.

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Last-Minute GM: City Street Mapping Options

I was thinking about how to handle city street maps after reading a blogpost I can no longer find concerning improv streetcrawls, where you only pre-generate the major streets and save side streets and alley ways for when you actually need them. But what about those major streets? How do you generate those, if you don’t feel like drawing them out?

There’s a couple ways it could be done:

• Use the Sketchbox Dice Tool: The Quarters roll has you roll a d6 with pips for every town quarter (or every city district.) The pips represent neighborhoods, so the spaces between the pips represent streets.
• Use leximorphs (letter-shapes): Pick a word in some random way, or roll on the Random Random Table or equivalent for individual letters in each city district. Strokes in each letter represent streets.
• Use routes or “clock-paths”: This a new name for something I’ve described before: rolling several d12s and interpreting each as a clock direction (12 o’clock = North, 3 o’clock = East, etc.)

Option 1 generates some fairly grid-like streets that don’t feel very organic, although you can get a little less rigid if you are reading the orientation of the d6 as well as the number and placement of the pips. Option 2 is better for generating maze-like city maps, but needs extra info about orientation for each letter if you don’t want it to be too obvious.

However, I want to expand on Option 3. In a couple of my random wilderness posts, I talked about navigation by landmark and creating random routes from one point to another. This seems the best approach for a city with a more organic feel.

1. Start by defining the central features of each city quarter (the palace, the main temple or marketplace, etc.) Place those on your rough city map, perhaps using a roll on the Sketchbox Dice Tool as a guide to position.
2. Each pair of major features can potentially be connected by a major thoroughfare. Decide which ones, or roll 1d6 for each pair: 5+ = connection. These are the main streets of the city.
3. Each quarter contains five city districts, each of which will have a major landmark of some kind as its hub or central point: fountains, statues, unusual buildings, parks. Place these landmarks as you would place a central feature.
4. For major streets, first check if a major landmark is connected by a street to the next closest landmark (5+ on 1d6.) Then, roll 3d12 for each landmark for additional major streets, using the result as the clock direction. Only unique results on the d12 count, so triples mean one extra street instead of three.
5. City districts may also share major streets with neighboring districts (border streets) Roll 5d6 on the Sketchbox Dice Tool and treat any result of 5+ as a border street along the border indicated (north, south, east, west) on the tool.

This creates your city framework. What comes next depends on whether you are mapping one or more (or all) city districts beforehand or doing it as players explore. For the former, you would roll 1d6 for the minimum number of neighborhoods in each district and place those, using the existing streets as much as possible to define neighborhood borders, adding minor streets if necessary. Follow this by rolling 1d6 for the number of blocks in each district and arrange those as desired, separating blocks with more minor streets. The Town and City Block Tool can be used for building and alley way placement.

If you need to know the orientation of any border street or minor street, roll 2d12. Read each die as a clock direction for one endpoint, relative to the center of a block, neighborhood, or district. If this seems to make a street double back on itself, make it a curve. When a minor street would cross another street, roll 1d12 for another clock direction. If this result would double back, the minor street ends instead. Otherwise, it crosses the other street, possibly changing direction.

Mapping city districts as players explore would resemble techniques I described in various wilderness hexcrawl posts, but I will have to describe this later.

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Town and City Blocks: Variety

The town and city block tool I posted yesterday is meant to work with the sketchbox dice tool to help map towns and cities, especially when you postpone mapping beforehand and instead do it as the players explore the streets. There is some helpful information I left out, perhaps deliberately, although I don’t recall for sure. And that is: how do you make sure the streets have variety?

When making a “quarters roll” with the sketchbox dice tool, villages will have 3-18 blocks and towns will have 15-180 blocks. You do not want to have to roll for the arrangement of each block. So, roll 2d6 once for each group of blocks: once per quarter, for villages, or once per neighborhood, for towns. This sets the default block arrangement in that quarter or neighborhood. Almost all the blocks in that section will look the same.

If there are more than three blocks in a quarter or neighborhood, though, roll 2d6 a second time for the exception. One block out of the group will have a different arrangement. Pick which one is the exception block randomly in any way desired, for example by rolling 1d12 to get a clock direction from the center of the quarter or neighborhood.

Rolling cities with the sketchbox dice tool is not described, but is easy to do. Each quarter of a city is basically a whole town, subdivided into city districts instead of quarters.

• Small cities will have four quarters containing a total of 20 districts and up to 120 neighborhoods.
• Medium cities will have five quarters containing a total of 25 districts and up to 150 neighborhoods
• Large cities will have six quarters containing a total of 30 districts and up to 180 neighborhoods.

Thus, it’s better to map out just the broadest details of a city in advance: where the quarters are and what they focus on, and perhaps the one or two most important districts in each quarter. Map the actual districts and neighborhoods as they are explored.

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Town and City Block Tool

The Sketchbox Dice Tool for creating impromptu towns has a very primitive method for generating town and city blocks: roll a d6. The pips or dots represent buildings in a block, while the arrangement of those dots represent their position in the block. It's serviceable, but provides little variety with only six arrangements.

I have better ideas I'm working on for the updated dice tool. As yet another temporary measure until then, I've whipped up a PDF for the Town and City Block Tool. It's a table that uses 2d6 for 36 possible block arrangements. Roll the dice, read the first die as the row and the second die as the column. Or, if you prefer, drop one die on the sheet and use the block type it lands on.

• Dark grey shapes = buildings
• Medium grey rectangles = courtyards
• Light regions enclosed by black lines = walled gardens

Courtyards can contain tables, benches or other seating, or features like statues or fountains. Gardens may contain trees, bushes, flowers, or a vegetable patch, as well as other features. The main difference is that gardens are private, while courtyards are publicly accessible and may even contain merchant stalls.

No details like gates, doors, windows, trellises, or balconies are shown. These crude "maps" are mainly to show the positions of streets and alleys.

Edit: I left off some details about using the tool, but as I started to edit this post, I realized this might take longer than expected. Follow-up post tomorrow.