Embuggerance

Here's a thing what I made, plus some rules on Encumbrance. Buckle up, shits about to get cray-cray.

Gameable Encumbrance. Works with any system. Do the following.

Weight is now abstractified (real word?) for the purposes of quicker gaming, less math and more dungeon. Every item in the world has a base weight of '1' - This represent not just its weight, but also how easy it is to carry, and cumulative effect of carrying lots of shit.

For example plastic spoons don't weigh much, if you try to carry five thousand of them with nothing to put them in, you're pretty fucked.

Every time you pick something up, write its name in one of the boxes in the pack. You can carry upto your Strength stat in items.  If you carry more that your STR you encumbered and every d20 roll you make is at Disadvantage. Some items can have certain qualities that make them harder to carry taking up 2 or more (or less) slots:

• Fragile – Items that are prone to breaking, or prone to damage must be carried with more care. (+2)
• Long – Objects longer than 5ft in any dimension. (+2)
• Cumbersome – Things that are shaped in ungainly or awkward ways, they are difficult to store or handle. (+2)
• Heavy – Objects that despite their size require greater effort to move. (+3)
• Lightweight – The item is designed differently than normal to be light, or uses unusual/special materials (-1)
• Ergonomic – The item has been crafted to be easy to hold or carry, its weights is thoughtfully distributed and is comfortable. (-1)

A purse of 100 coins weigh 1, a strongbox or chest is need for higher sums - they tend to be Heavy and or Cumbersome. No item drops below its base weight of 1. 

These are all WIP rules, i've not had a huge amount of meatspace gaming to test these out - if you've got anything to add, let me know.

Eye food

A Gouch Supplicant

Recipe for an Old School Dungeon

This is a romp and some assembly is required - Read the list, get a map, populate the dungeon. These are mostly all from my favourite modules of  old - with the serial numbers filed off. Depending on the crawl you might want a whole heap of empty rooms also - but i'll be buggered if i'm going to amend the list, you can do it when you prep.

1. Super deadly enemy defending hidden shortcut to 32.

2. Moderately deadly trapped entrance disarmed with logical puzzle.

3. Monsters with unique 'trick' and comedy unaligned npc.

4. Potentially dangerous shortcut to 30.

5. Classic 70's D&D monster.

6. Habitat to justify creature from 3 living in dungeon.

7. Unusual or comic method of travel with potential damage or side effect  (travel to 8.)

8.  Enemies hidden in area with an effect (natural or man made) that provides concealment and is harmful to just the players.

9. Large group of low level enemies, plus items for later difficult combat in 28.

10. Magic trap that alters distance or time, with clues and loot.

11. Stairs incline up or down - mundane

12. Dangerous terrain with very deadly ambush monster.

13. Secret door shortcut to 14.

14. Deadly trap/insane combat encounter with pop culture reference.

15. Mechanical deathtrap

16. shortcut to 21 with potential of damage through movement.

17. shortcut to 22 with 50% chance of summoning monster.
18. Dungeon furniture gives random boon to players if figured out.

19. Trapped door with logical puzzle to bypass.

20. A trap that changes physics or the rules with good loot.

21. Delicate loot.

22. Monster that reduces PC effectiveness.

23. Amusing enemy - pop culture references/irreverent diversion.

24. Trapped item - item makes later encounter easier.

25. Complicated or magic trapped door - two fail States one deadly, one amusing.

26. Friendly NPC and trapped false door.

27. Make a sacrifice to unlock C.

28. REALLY hard combat unless have collected earlier items from 24.

29. Natural stuff living in its environment - offer a stealth or creative way around.

30. A primitive minded monster that doesn't attack just reacts.

31. Ambush cave critters' hunting ground.

32. Death trap.

33. Omnipotent dungeon controller tests players morals/integrity/knowledge etc,  with some oddball deadly ways to kills characters - plus a free escape is offered.

Potential reward Rooms (One, Some or all of them)

A. Treasure horde.

B. Massively overpowered monster - kill everyone.

C. McGuffin - preferably unlocked by 27.

#luckyifyoumakeitoutaliveyeah?

Acting High

Lingering in my brain pan is +Rafael Chandler 's #Narcosa. A game where people get really high, should offer some unusual roleplaying opportunities. Im not talking about fairly obvious stoner cliche's either. When I think about people being really high on drugs the thing that stands out for me is how infuriatingly hilarious it is to communicate with them.

Without taking shit-loads of ketamine the easiest way to put up that wall of obfuscation is by forcing a player to modify their speech pattern. It would be too easy to let them choose their own gibberish, plus theres a good opportunity to make this a fun distraction.

Buy/Steal/Make some children phonetic 'sound shape' cards like the image below

Then whenever your players finds themselves ingesting a quantity of drugs (or possibly other consumables) have them make a constitution save, or save v poison or somesuch. If they pass they're fine, if not deal them 9 cards - they can only say (I mean in the very literal sense, not just character talk) whats on those cards until they pass a constitution check, they can make one a turn. If they break the rules, they'll lose a HP for every infraction.

Of course every good drug/poison has an antidote or an upper to the downer, so should your drugs - make available in the world a solution, as whilst it might be amusing for a turn or two - I imagine players getting pissed off if this is used too frequently.

Eye Food

Ardeema Krama

- Sauce -

Reasons

This post has been sitting in my drafts for 3 months now and as you can tell it has been some time since my last post (7 months) I don't feel obliged to explain my absence from posting really, but recent events in my personal life remind me that life is temporary and should be got on with, not to ignore things that should be said or done - and that brings me back to writing again.

The prime reason I haven't felt the desire to write was having a close relative pass away at the beginning of the year, and as i'm sure you can imagine, I didn't much feel like writing or playing games at the time. Then immediately after I had to move house, so of course this was a huge spanner in the works - at one stage I was left without internet for 3 weeks. To top it all off, a week after moving - my computer (and sole writing tool) went pop. 

First world problems, i'm the first to admit. So please don't view this as a cry for attention, no. Just reasons. I also feel a personal apology is owed to my g+ hangout group I was playing with at the time I went dark, as I essentially dropped off the radar. So (chiefly) +Richard Penwarden, +Jeff M and +Franky Borny i'm genuinely remorseful for that.

Im glad i've posted this, I found it too easy to leave something that you don't want to do, then - the more its left, the harder it becomes to do.