Fire Safety and Random Tables

I used to spend a lot more time developing adventures, too much time even. Not only does a GM not need to have every detail meticulously planned out, but there adventure is usually better if they wing it at least a little.

But it takes time and experience to develop this skill and to become comfortable enough to try it.

I don't like just winging it though. I've ran complete improve games and sometimes they are pretty good, but they can also be a complete mess.

To help create a balance of structure and on-the-spot creativity I've been developing a lot of random tables.

I used to hate the idea of random tables, and I'm still hesitant to use other people's. I always thought it would be better just to always think of everything myself, but I would often have trouble figuring out where to put everything.

I know I would want a pit full of snakes and falling icicles but I wouldn't always know what hallway to put them in or what room they would fit in.

So now I let fate decide, I write up everything I want in a given situation and put it on a table I can easily roll on. Depending on what I'm doing I may have to roll everything before the actually game but sometimes I don't have to roll until actual play. I usually need to create a basic layout of what I'm doing as well.

This system may require some tweaking throughout and sometimes I'll forget randomness and still plan somethings, but that's usually when I'm sure I know what I want.

But this is dealing with entropy in a creative system so of course you're not getting an exact science.


In the next post I'll talk about how this system actually worked in-game.

Ancient Artifacts- The Goblet of Atli

My buddy James is really into Norse mythology. I'm more of a Greek man myself, but they are pretty awesome nonetheless.

He is taking a class on the subject so he's always reading a different myth. I usually hear about them in some way.

Here's one he told me the other day: There once was a king named Atli, or maybe Atil, but Atli sounds much better to me.

Atli was a greedy king and he often coveted the wealth of his wife's brothers. So Atli killed his brothers-in-law, claiming their wealth for his own.

When his wife learned of this she was furious. For revenge, she killed Atli's sons. She then tricked Atli into eating his son's roasted hearts and drinking from cups fashioned from their skulls.

While things don't end well for Atli. It's tough to debate the bad assness that is drinking from a skull. But who want's to drink from just any skull? Why not have your skull cup tailored specifically based off of the original owner.

A Goblet of Atli is no one single object, but a way to prepare a skull as a drinking container to gain certain magical benefits.

Anyone who drinks from a Goblet of Atli can learn one thing that was known by the skull's previous owner, but this can only be done once per day.

This preparation will be a spell or ritual. The level should be similar to the level of the deceased, the time required should take anywhere from 1-8 hours depending on how high the deceased's intelligence score is.

You can use the Goblet as a hint for players when they get a bit lost, or a quest hook to offer them new options.

I've also made a handy d20 chart for when player's drink from a Goblet of Atli but you have no idea what they should learn. This will also help from the Goblet just becoming an instant answers item.

1: Something everyone in your world already accepts as fact and would have a really hard time arguing otherwise, example: the sky is blue, grass is green or whatever. This could be anything the skull's old owner used to think of as an obvious fact, so it could be some delusion they suffer or some prejudice like the devil speaks through the chirping of birds or all elves are cheaters

2: The drinker learns of a belief or moral philosophy that the skull's owner believed in like lying is wrong or don't kill. Again, this isn't really that applicable to a game, but represents getting slightly deeper into the subject's psyche

3-7: Some random tidbit of information like the location of an object, the name of a pet or person, etc. This could be useful or not depending on the GM's mood.

8-12: Same as 3-7, but this is much more likely to be something the players could actually benefit from

13-17: General knowledge of some skill that the skull's owner was pretty good at, this could be anything from baking to spell casting. The drinker gets a plus 1d4 bonus to checks related to that skill for the next hour

18: A secret of some kind, something a person would almost never share otherwise.

19: The drinker is concentrated enough to pick from any of the lower options but most roll again to see if they can pick specifics. On a 13 or greater they can, otherwise the GM picks, so they could pick a skill roll a 16 and pick whatever they want, but if they roll a 9 you pick for them.

20: The drinker can seek out any type of information that the skull's owner knew of. This can be anything, if they pick something the skull does not know of they can pick again until they find something available.