Pb

THE RULES

A BESTIARY

AN ADVENTURE

A map of a giant mushroom

    This adventure got lost in map-first hell. I had a bunch of cool ideas for it- a mushroom forest that was actually one vast psychic entity, a cult of Radon planning to sacrifice it and eating a face full of plague instead, blind raiders led by the mad Charlemagne Twice-Triumphant coming up from the Underdark. I stalled a whole dungeon's cross-hatching worth, but I couldn't turn my ideas into rooms and encounters. But the map is cool, and the drawings are cool, so maybe one of you could use it.

    I mean, hell, this thing is 10 rooms big- you can stock it yourself easy. I'd love to see what you think goes in here.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

10 Pb monsters

Here you go. Ten monsters for Pb, in vague order from least to most threatening.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming. 

OVERKILL DICE

Here's a good mechanic I'm cutting from Pb.

OVERKILL. If you outnumber your foes when FIGHTING begins roll

a d6 and tick it down by 1 at the end of each player’s TURN.

When the OVERKILL DIE hits 0, your foes act, and the OVERKILL

DIE is rerolled.

WHY'S IT GOOD?

-It makes solo/small group combatants viable when a party is high on resources. With how Pb initiative works, the table gets a turn before the monster has a chance to act- this could easily mean getting wiped before getting the chance to use one attack. A good roll on the Overkill Dice means the monster has a chance to act before the party drops them.

-It builds a timer into the mechanics. Timer dice, where players watch some catastrophe get incrementally closer and make choices according to how many turns they have left, rock insanely hard. Making such a mechanic a default part of solo combats eases the burden on the DM to come up with diegetic time limitations for every combat.

WHY'S IT GETTING CUT?

-As I'm switching towards a low HP, automatic hit, infrequent rests game-running mindset, I'm finding in play that when in an adventuring day the party encounters a threat is deeply significant. A solo combatant can be deeply threatening when a party is low on resources, and in such cases, I forsook using an OVERKILL DIE just to give the party a fighting chance. Given that, I'm alright with a high resources party being very capable of handling most solo threats. If you've got, like, murderers and wizards just getting ready for their long day of pillaging, and you're one dude, you're gonna get creamed.

-I'm a stickler for keeping related rules on a given page, and recording the minimal viable information necessary for a functional game. Getting three lines back means I can write in some information on MOVEMENT that'll be helpful to explain a few magic items on the LOOT table.

SHOULD YOU USE IT?

If your game doesn't feature much combat, and your players are frequently walking into solo combat with a lot of resources, this mechanic is a good (and table-tested functional!) way to ensure that you won't have to artificially inflate the challenge of your monsters to make them threatening while outnumbered.

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Night of the Vampire

 In dipping my toes back into RPG play and design, I found this old notebook I was using to run RBSDnD games for summer campers. I designed a number of short, contained adventures for this format (here’s one), but not many of them were written out in such a way as to be valuable to post without more rewriting than it was worth.

This adventure was one that I feel alright writing out pretty much as it appeared in my notes, and having it still be useful enough to put up.

OPENING SCENE

Vanitas, a gaunt hamlet nestled in the darkest crook of the Carpathian Mountains. Midnight mass, Christmas Eve. The party, vagabonds caught in a blizzard, creeps into the back of the enticingly warm church as Van Helsing preaches at the altar. Then, the candles extinguish. The church is plunged into superstitious whispers as Dracula’s voice echoes from outside, inviting the party to a Christmas feast at his haunt, Castle Scholomance. An unnaturally powerful gust of winter wind blows the doors down, letting two dire wolves into the church to attack the helpless parishioners.

VAN HELSING

The preacher, a secret student of occult lore. His daughter, Mina was taken by Dracula two days ago; Van Helsing knows that Dracula has drained her twice already. If he drains her a third time, she will be turned into a vampire just as powerful as Dracula, and Vanitas will surely fall to the monstrous tide. The earliest he could do so would be midnight tomorrow, Christmas Day. He asks the party to enter Scholomance and rescue Mina before Dracula turns her, and, if possible, kill the vampire count that his rain of terror may end. Perhaps he has some arcana with which to supply the party in aid?

NAVIGATING CASTLE SCHOLOMANCE

Scholomance, an imposing gothic fortress, is built at the pinnacle of a mountain. With winter conditions, the journey to the foot of the mountain, and the shattered and overgrown path up, takes the better part of the day- the party arrives at the foot of the mountain with mere hours until the stroke of midnight. Every second counts.

Start OUTSIDE THE CASTLE. Then, enter DRACULA’S COURT; above are THE SPIRES OF SCHOLOMANCE, below is THE DREAD CRYPT.

For any given room, roll a d6 to determine the number of exits. (If outside, treat 4-6 as seeing the gates of the castle ahead, having summited the mountain.)

1-3: 1 exit, same level

4: 2 exits, same level

5: 1 exit, down a level

6: 1 exit down a level, 1 exit up a level

Roll a d6 in each room to determine its contents.

OUTSIDE THE CASTLE

1 A hunter, a bloodthirsty werewolf in disguise

2 A reluctant she-wolf chained to a tree

3 A slumbering swamp monster

4 A thicket of undead trees

5 A crashed hearse housing a zombie

6 A blind wendigo hunting a child

DRACULA’S COURT

1 CHAPEL, where sits a knight succumbing to vampirism

2 BALLROOM, where Dracula plays pipe organ and makes skeletons dance

3 FEAST HALL, where a spread of rotten slop is glamoured to make it seem delicious

4 COURTYARD, where a fountain runs with blood

5 HALL OF BLOOD, a portrait hall where Dracula attacks from behind

6 DREAD LIBRARY, houses the dread Necronomicon

THE SPIRES OF SCHOLOMANCE

1 MINA’S CHAMBERS, where Mina loves too deeply

2 THE BEATING HEART, from which Dracula feasts

3 NURSERY, where toy knights wage a war to hold the boogeyman at bay

4 ART ROOM, haunted by poltergeists who can’t play the harpsichord 

5 TOYMAKER’S STUDIO, where a crazed Gepetto builds his perfect son

6 DRACULA’S STUDY, complete with animated fire and carnivorous furniture

THE DREAD CRYPT

1 BRIDE’S TOMB, where a vampire rests in a rose-laden sarcophagus

2 KING’S TOMB, below the king’s body is a secret treasure compartment

3 GROTTO, where a tentacle-thing hides below the water

4 THE SLAB, where Dr. Frankenstein’s work nears completion

5 CATACOMBS, through which a Living Ossuary wanders in pursuit of a suitable snack

6 PORTAL, to the Netherworld

DRACULA’S ATTACK

Right before the stroke of midnight, Dracula will attack the party, attempting to kill them all. If Dracula feels he’s in danger, he’ll try to turn into a bat and fly Mina’s chambers in the SPIRES. Then, at midnight, Dracula will drain Mina for the third time, turning her into a vampire.

ARTIFACTS OF THE CASTLE

1 ST. NOSFERATU’S ICON

2 THE IMPALER

3 FRANKENSTEIN’S CLAY

4 MERLIN’S GRIMOIRE

5 WEREWOLF PELT

6 MORTIS THE SKULL

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.

Things I'm learning about Pb

Notes for the game I just ran, in all their sketchy, unfinished glory.

    Just ran my first game in a calendar year. Back in town from school, and reunited with some old DnD friends to play a Pb one-shot. The new Pb system is the latest in a long line of developing sister-hacks, starting with RbSDnD and moving through the SCULPTED WORLD, but it's never had a terribly rigorous combat test from savvy, mechanically-minded players. That changed this evening. Here's what I learned from my experiences running the system.

• A mindset shift I have to accommodate to: in leveled games, less difficult fights with weaker enemies often results in boring and cumbersome combat sequences that don't have a meaningful impact in the long run. However, with the way the math works in Pb, every hit point counts, and 2 lighter flights can make a 3rd lighter fight lethal, or a climactic fight a bloodbath.
• Only foes meant to be encountered solo, or as part of an overwhelming combat, should have 2 HD attacks, or attacks that explode. 3 HD attacks are lethally deadly to anything but the most powerful characters.
• Similarly, having two or more hearts should be reserved for solo or very small group foes. If there's a large group, it's usually best to have one or two foes with hearts, and have the rest be minions.
• Can't recommend enough rider effects on attacks. Especially when they involve a player rolling to avoid an extra effect; it gives the players some feeling of agency in the face of the inevitable damage of a system without attack rolls.
• Cover, and terrain that players can use to put artificial distance between them and an enemy, makes a much bigger difference in combat without attack roles, and the more opportunities to exploit that you as the DM can set up, the more interesting combat will become, in (for one example) weighing the choice of diving behind the cover or staying to make a second attack.
• I'm very pleased with how fast boring parts of combat zip by in this system, and how high the ceiling is for interesting, dynamic combat that goes beyond punching at hit points. With a system this sparse, the standard OSR principles of giving players access to open-ended resources or problems (like hypo-oxygen bladders! like powerful lesser demons, who are vulnerable to iron and afraid of ankhs!) make a big difference in getting the simplicity to "sing".
• I enjoy the ritual of "carving out" what a spell means with the players. You have to touch someone to use VAMPIRISM. You can't use the same CURSE twice. PETRIFY works for Td4 TURNS. Over time, you build out a known world of effects from the one word prompt.
• Any game system or world is fun when you're with fun people. Thanks, Thomas, Em, JC, and Caden, for years of great games, and for a feeling of friendship like I never left whenever I'm home.

This insight would probably apply to any game without attack rolls?

Things Pb needs: loot table, mutation table, equipment ranked by cost bracket a la Black Hack (common, modest, expensive or something), a simple starting dungeon. I could pile in things like NPCs, aerodyne features, that sort of thing, but I'm not sure how much that deserves to live in the artifact. Are those sorts of tables worth the space, working DMs out there?

[Edit: starting rewrites. For posterity's sake, here's my random item table, having been replaced by items by price.

1 Random SCROLL (150g)

2 Random ELIXIR (75g)

3 Phosphoric torch (5g)

4 Lockpicks (20g)

5 Bile-pots (25g, Ud6)

6 Book (15g)

7 Paper map (2g)

8 Journal (5g)

9 Dagger (10g)

10 Manacles (40g)

11 Magnesium lighter (15g)

12 Metal pole (5g)

13 Jewelry (50g)

14 Silver coin (10g)

15 Ankh necklace (10g)

16 Rat (5c)

17 Rope (1g)

18 Key (5c)

19 Mundane crystal (2c)

20 Mushroom jerky (2c, Ud4) ]

Promise I'll put out something more directly usable soon- I'm having fun wading back into game and adventure design, and the world of Pb gets sharper and clearer every time I return to it. Thanks for reading, and happy gaming.