Thursday, August 24, 2017

Time and Iron Rations Wait for No Man

I've gotten a surprising amount of mileage out of using the current real-life weather and time of year for the in-game weather and time of year in my Malara campaign. That worked out well enough when we were playing multiple times a month, but now one of the players is halfway across the country and Skyping in, so we play a lot less frequently these days. This upcoming session, they're picking up in the middle of a dungeon, but it's been a few months of real time.

It's time for me to keep track of this stuff like a big boy DM. You win this time, Gary.

I tried to be thoughtful about what I included in my calendar tracker. Each page is a 91-day season (a decent average of actual season lengths and divisible by 7). Each day has space to take notes or add upcoming events, a random encounter number from 1-100 (my encounter tables are all d100, like this one, and I usually roll once per day for overland travel), and the major phases of the moon (new, half, full) indicated by little icons. I don't need to include weather because my encounter tables do that.

I created a few other trackers too:

Turns - Ten-minute turns broken up into hour segments. Cross them off as they happen. Enough for four 24-hour periods. Each turn also includes a 1-100 random encounter number.

Resources - Includes light sources (by LotFP rules), rations, ammunition, and extra tick boxes for other things to keep track of.

"Exploration" - Turns and resources combined. Not sure I'll ever use this because I think turns and resources get used up at very different rates, and it's in landscape format so it wouldn't play nice in a binder. I might use it for a one-shot game, though.

NPCs and Factions - Rosters for keeping track of recurring campaign personalities. Pretty self-explanatory.

Without further ado, the Ice and Ruin Time/Resource/People Trackers.

Print/Download Instructions:
Select "portrait" orientation for all but the Exploration page and "fit to page" for everything. Narrow margins may give you a bit more writing room for the calendar pages, but otherwise normal margins should be fine. Uncheck "show gridlines" under Formatting.

Note that the random numbers refresh every time you load the document. You can make a copy and edit the numbers to match whatever scheme you prefer.

Monday, August 21, 2017

d50 Puzzle Monster Death Requirements


Thanks to +Garrett Fitzgerald+Jon Salway+Whidou+Gordon Cranford+rich fraser+Dice Quixote, and +Zak Sabbath for your contributions.

The creature can only be killed...
  1. if separated from its weapon or other small object
  2. if its wounds are rubbed with (salt, elf urine, holy blood, unicorn bone powder)
  3. if you know its true name
  4. on a moonless night
  5. if it believes itself to be vulnerable 
  6. if fully incinerated or vaporized; otherwise, it will regenerate
  7. by a whore and virgin simultaneously
  8. by a weapon of (living wood, silver, lead, gold, black iron, virgin steel)
  9. without pain
  10. while it sleeps
  11. if cut into four pieces and buried in four different lands
  12. once it has passed on its curse
  13. in honorable single combat
  14. through treachery
  15. by decapitation, though the head will go on living
  16. if buried in the roots of a yew tree
  17. if its blood is drained
  18. at a crossroads
  19. in the rain
  20. over water
  21. outside its place of power
  22. if kept from contact with the ground
  23. in its true form
  24. while feeding
  25. when it cannot commune with a new willing host
  26. if the one who deals the fatal blow dies at the same instant
  27. in a certain, small geographical point/place
  28. by its own willing suicide
  29. if its death can never be confirmed with certainty afterwards
  30. by a true friend
  31. by mistake
  32. by death penalty pronounced by an impartial judge
  33. if the planets are correctly aligned
  34. during the twelfth minute of the twelfth hour of the twelfth day of the twelfth month
  35. if a certain poem is spoken while the creature is attacked.
  36. if someone agrees to take its place
  37. by a scorned lover
  38. by its creator
  39. by removing it from the planet
  40. by reading a children's book to it
  41. by a blade that has slain the creature's sire
  42. by an immortal
  43. in the place of its birth
  44. through ritual sacrifice
  45. by eating it
  46. if it does half of its HP in damage to its slayers
  47. by the tools of its trade
  48. by the moon
  49. if entombed in ice
  50. on its birthday
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