d66 Unusual Vantage Points

When running hexcrawls, I tend to pack my hexes pretty dense. This means there's usually multiple points of interest to choose between in an individual hex. For this reason, I generally assume the party is able to find some kind of vantage point to get basic info on all points of interest that aren't specifically hidden. However, I find my mind frequently returning to the easiest answers. In the plains? You find a lone hillock. In the forest? Big-ass tree. You get the idea. This is fine, that's going to be most of the vantage points one would realistically encounter, but I still want to shake it up and provide vantage points that create their own set of complications from time to time.

Below are 36 unusual vantage points and possible complications to scaling them, 6 for each basic terrain type. I've tried to make it so each requires some kind of risk or expenditure for the party to weigh against the time cost of looking for another spot (I'd probably go with 1 watch). You can roll (or pick) from the terrain in question, or roll a d66 on the table at large. Though the results fit best with their associated terrain, few would be more than a little out of place in others.

Gagarin Class Survey Vehicle

In looking for ships to inhabit my Northwest Passage subsector, I've been doing a lot of flipping through 2300AD material. I love the ship designs in 2300 and will be using a lot of the larger designs as is. However, it lacks tailsitters, crafts in which the decks are stacked to take advantage of the ship's own thrust to simulate gravity. This makes sense, the chemical rockets in 2300 can't burn constantly for that continuous thrust, so tailsitters aren't practical in 2300. This isn't so for Northwest Passage, which uses fusion torch drives similar to (though a bit more modest than) the Epstein Drive from The Expanse, so tailsitters are the norm for ships too small for spinning habitation drums. I particularly liked the design of the ISV-2 Independent Scout from 2300 and decided to redesign it as a tailsitter for my own purposes.

I mean come on, the thing is just begging for it with that cylindrical design and naturally seperated deck sections the perfect width to be decks of their own if flipped on their side.

A Couple of Planets for Traveller

Hello. I've been quite busy for some time now, but things are finally cooling down enough that I can begin dedicating some time to this blog again. Here's a few planets that I've rolled up in Classic Traveller (with some extra tables and tools from Traveller 5 and the Worldbuilder's Handbook) that I thought I'd share.

The assumed setting is a bit on the harder sci-fi end than the OTU. TL12 is the maximum for human space, and grav tech doesn't exist at all, but cheap and efficient fusion is commonplace enough to make 1G constant thrust gravity achievable, a la the Epstein drive from The Expanse. It's near enough into the future that present-day cultures from Earth are still largely recognizable, but the area being described is far enough away that it lies at the very edge of any meaningful political influence from Earth. All of this can be changed relatively easily, and it can be used in any system, but I've included UWPs in case you wish to use them for Traveller.

I'll probably be posting planets in this area, which I'm calling the Northwest Passage Subsector, occasionally, but not on any regular schedule like I tried to do with my hex a week posts. On the subject of those, I'm unfortunately a bit burnt out on early modern Spain. I may return to the setting in time, but I no longer have any intention to flesh out a hex each week. It was a fun challenge, but ultimately not one I could keep up with, and especially not one that I can now.

Taking a Break

Going to be taking a break from posting for a while. New job, you know how it is.

Weapon Subtype Tables for Random Equipment Generation Part 2: The Two-Handers

When I started these posts, they came as a result of my adolescent fascination with the many varieties of polearms presented in certain editions of D&D. It is perhaps fitting, then, that the wall my enthusiasm has collided into is made of those same polearms. I had some idea going into this that names for polearms aren't exactly very specific, and that many of the differences are practically trivial. I did not anticipate just how bad it really is.

This is an incomplete chart of polearm head types.
Credit: Bashford Dean

Ashes to ashes, pikes to pikes, I suppose. With all that in mind, I have tried my best to list categories with mostly recognizable names and non-trivial differences in use, even if it has led to some incorrect titling of weapons. I've also had to class axe-bladed polearms, such as halberds, together with battleaxes to fill out both groups into a full table.

A Hex a Week: Week 8

This week, I've been focusing in on a stretch of countryside on the road to the more populated coast. For the next few weeks, I think I'll look North into the Pyrenees proper and leave these foothills and lowlands I've been detailing for next month.

A Hex a Week: Week 6/7

Lately, I've been a bit burnt out after rushing to finish a project, so I took a break from this blog for a week. As for the project, you may have noticed there's now an itch.io link in my sidebar, where you can find Pythion of the Mad Oracle, my submission to the Jennell Jaquays Memorial Game Jam. It was a lot of fun to write, but combined with my weekly games it meant a lot of RPG time for a couple weeks there, so I've been resting since.

This week, I've focused in on the area around a fabled wizard's coveted tower, with some nearby Germans to pantomime through a language barrier at.

A Hex a Week: Week 5

Another short one this week. I've been quite busy working on something that I'm not quite ready to put up yet, but that will see the light of day in due time. This week's hex lies along an old Roman road, and is home to plenty of desolate and forgotten landmarks. It's a lonely place, even as bandits remain a constant threat.

Pimp my Spider

Quick post today, just sharing a table I whipped up as I needed some variety in giant spiders for my game prep.

d20/d12	Spider Species	Cool Stuff
1	Black Widow	Enormous, dripping fangs
2	Brown Recluse	Winged
3	Wolf Spider	d12 extra eyes
4	Jumping Spider	Webs of gleaming silver
5	Orb Weaver	Camouflaged carapace
6	Harvestman	d6 extra legs
7	Tarantula	Human hands on pedipalps
8	Funnel-Web Spider	Intelligent
9	Trapdoor Spider	Huge, bulging egg sac
10	Ant-Mimicking Spider	Invisible Webs
11	Net-Casting Spider	Bladed legs
12	Bolas Spider	Scorpion tail
13	Camel Spider	-
14	Banana Spider	-
15	Triangular Spider	-
16	Crab Spider	-
17	Goblin Spider	-
18	Fishing Spider	-
19	Mouse Spider	-
20	Sac Spider	-

A Hex a Week: Week 4

This past week, I've focused in on an area deeply scarred by war. It'll probably be clear that I've been reading Don Rodriguez lately by the name of this hex and some of its contents. I've been trying to get a bit less sketchy with my doodles, still a long way to go on that, but progress is being made.

Weapon Subtype Tables for Random Equipment Generation Part 1: The One-Handers (And Hand-and-a-Halfers)

Of my earliest gaming memories, the fondest is looking over the illustrations in the 3.5e Player's Handbook. I started playing in my adolescence on the cusp of 4th and 5th edition, but my friend who owned the books played 3.5, so that's what we played. The illustrations were captivating to me, especially the equipment illustrations. For those who have not played D&D's middle sibling, 3.5 and 3rd edition were in love with polearms for reasons I still don't quite understand. If you've ever read 5e and thought it was odd that there was both a halberd and a glaive, you'd be more amused to read the entries on ranseurs and guisarmes.

Now, it's been a long time since I played either 3.5 or 5th edition, and nowadays I tend not to even differentiate damage for different weapons in most of my games, preferring the d6 damage die. Much has been written on differentiating weapons with a flat damage die, so I won't go too deep into that. The state of the art is, generally, to give weapons special mechanical traits or rule differently regarding different weapons ability to do different things on an ad-hoc basis, adjusted to your taste. Still, I miss the big, evocative lists of weapons that I was so taken by in my youth, so I've decided to write some tables for subtypes of each of the weapons found in OD&D Booklet 1. Each has an idea for what it might do particularly well, but I've kept these non-mechanical, both for the sake of system neutrality and because designing mechanical weapon traits is outside of the scope of this post.

I've titled this post with regard to random equipment generation, but you could just as easily have players choose from the tables and use the options as a referee to more evocatively stock armories, weaponsmiths and warbands. This week, I've done the weapon types that are (mostly) held in one hand. I've consolidated certain types together when they did not have enough variations to fill out a table and had significant overlap with other types. Next post on this will be the two-handers, which means lots of kinds of polearms. I will likely not give ranged weapons this treatment, as there just aren't enough distinct varieties with different strengths that I am aware of to fill out a post for them.

Some Character Like Conan to Bring Matters into Line

 "Anyone who has viewed a horror movie is aware of how dangerous angry villagers are. Whenever the referee finds that some player has committed an unforgivable outrage this rule can be invoked to harass the offender into line. Within the realm of angry villagers are thieves from the 'thieves’ quarter,' city watches and militia, etc. Also possible is the insertion of some character like Conan to bring matters into line."

This is the "Angry Villager Rule" of OD&D. I just wanted to muse on it, I don't have much of tremendous insight to say. It goes to show that some issues really have been the same since the start of the hobby, though today the advice would usually be to simply talk to the problem player. I suppose that might show a difference in maturity (of the hobby, not of individuals), but I can't help but miss this kind of off-hand, conversational advice. It feels less like I'm reading a rulebook, and more like I'm receiving advice from some guy in a game store, in a good way. Lots of OD&D feels that way. It also evokes a  kids smashing their action figures together sort of zany fun that I think maybe we need more of.

Maybe you should consider, if needed or desired, inserting some character like Conan to bring matters into line or, for that matter, out of it. After all, who is to say how the scenario will react to such an entrance. I guess if there's something to take away from this post, it's this: go read OD&D if you haven't. It's a quick read and whatever ways you're expecting it to be strange and intriguing, it will surprise you in a different way than that.

A Hex a Week: Week 3

I ended up putting this project on hold for the holidays, now that we're actually into 2024 I've picked back up with the first actual week of the new year. This week I've focused in on the nearby forests, filled with abandoned ruins and ancient megalithic sites.