TRPG lessons from Dragon Quest: An INSTADEATH Listicle

Simple design tips... What is "enough?"

1. A dungeon that is simple, proceeds in stages, and has a simple puzzle (and random encounters) can be effective.

2. Extremely simple spacial positioning.

Having two groups, enemies and player characters, standing in lines opposite each other, and taking turns inflicting attacks or casting spells, can be enough. This is especially effective as a default positioning for battles. 

3. Spells can be extremely simple. 

Knock, Fireball, and Speak With Dead are great. 

4. Means of transportation tiers exploration.

It's a JRPG staple. Walk across the continent, then get a ship and go visit other continents and explore the sea. Maybe find portals between various places. Eventually you get an airship, which lets you visit floating islands or other planets or whatever.

It's a simple principle to apply. Less transportation, less settings. More transportation, more settings. 

5. Arbitrary Monsters

Monsters can, and should, be whatever. Meaningless details or additions can be handwaved or explained. A monster is an open-ended template which players KNOW how to deal with.

5a. corollary: can NPCs be anything??

6. Chasing after a big bad vs. simulating colonialism.

Instead of raiding indigenous peoples, pursuing an antagonist around the globe allows the players to be problem-solving-tourists aka traveling heroes. They need not pursue, but then bad things will happen. 

7. Nonspecific NPC Monotheism.

Having all or most of the NPCs worship a single, semi-mysterious deity has its advantages. There's a simple and uniting cultural touchstone everywhere the players look. The Goddess is good and the people who worship her (most people) are basically good. This contributes to Simple Ethics.

8. Simple ethics can be fine.

 An overtly evil antagonist will likely speed gameplay along.

9. Cooperating with monsters is easy as shit

You probably already knew.

10. What if there are already lit torches underground?

If you don't want to track light, why not have torches line the way? No one's going to complain.

TASTE, UNREASON, AND THE CHANGING OF THE AGE

The oldest histories of the world do not form a clean sequence. Human empires rise and disappear; Saurids, once intelligent and world-spanning, survive elsewhere as animals and re-emergent peoples; Demons appear in histories older than all civilizations; Dragons seem strangely indifferent to ordinary evolutionary time. Beneath these contradictions lies a phenomenon known, where it is known at all, chiefly through its effects.

Powerful arcane magic does more than alter the world. Across repeated acts of magical capability, something is retained.

This retention does not appear to operate through ordinary historical transmission. A magical work can participate in patterns established thousands of years later. Ancient structures can exhibit the same taste as modern ones without any known line of influence. The phenomenon is neither intelligence, knowledge, life, nor physical substance. BEAUTY or TASTE are merely the least inaccurate terms for it: a persistent disposition among possible forms, accumulated through arcane practice and capable of expressing itself across nonlinear time.

The Once Palace

This explains an otherwise inexplicable family resemblance among some of the world's highest magical cultures. The pre-Triarchic Once Palace—an enormous, strangely modern complex of formal gardens, squares and interiors—shares no archaeological ancestry with Vornheim, yet certain features of its design feel uncannily familiar there. Related tendencies occur in the oldest refined culture of the Yellow City, particularly among its ancient slug aristocracy.

Vornheim

The Yellow City

The Once Palace may therefore have been less designed than miraculously resolved into form. A wizard using a Wish to produce a stone tower today might unknowingly allow the same ancient-and-future taste to participate in the result.

THE OLD DISASTER

The Saurids once possessed a world-spanning intelligent civilization. They apparently recognized this nonlinear channel and, rather than merely participating in it, attempted collectively to influence it.

Then came the Nytocaust.

What happened is unknown. The Saurid civilization did not merely fall; its destruction possesses an obscure, almost deleted quality. Stranger still, Saurid aesthetics appear largely absent from the recurring arcane TASTE found elsewhere. Their absence may itself be evidence: a hole in an alternative history from which they were somehow excluded.

Vornheim may someday face the same danger. The proliferation of wizards is not itself the threat. The danger begins if wizards recognize the channel, study it successfully, and attempt to seize control of something that is already influencing them.

UNREASON

TASTE has another aspect, poorly understood and perhaps incorrectly distinguished from it: UNREASON.

UNREASON is not madness, chaos, or the opposite of beauty. TASTE frequently uses impossibility and irrationality to heighten its own forms. But under stress, preference may cease to be the primary constraint. UNREASON is something like TASTE no longer obligated to remain interpretable as preference.

The Nytocaust may have involved such a confrontation.

Medusae propose an even stranger theory: demons themselves are an ancient nonlinear product of this process. Demons are perfectly capable of contracts, appetites and ordinary personal behavior now; the unreason would lie in their provenance.

Medusae further claim that the Medusas produced themselves through the same process. This may represent profound knowledge, characteristic Medusan vanity, or both.

The miraculous Torn sisters, around whom the human Triarchy later formed, may represent a much more accommodating intervention: something resembling a gift or preference expressed into human history. But— the destructive consequences of the Triarchy are perhaps characteristic of TASTE.

DRAGONS

Dragons participate differently.

Human beings externalize arcane capability through spells, books, artifacts and buildings. Dragons possess a pre-literate relationship with magic: they intuit possibilities in reality much as an animal intuitively understands its physical environment.

Consequently, the nonlinear accumulation manifests in dragons primarily as suitability rather than taste. Successful ways of being a dragon seem capable of influencing dragonness itself across time. Prehistoric dragons may therefore appear more advanced than later specimens.

When dragons construct magically, however, TASTE becomes visible again. Crystal-dragon architecture can possess recognizably draconic form while exhibiting inexplicable affinities with human arcane aesthetics—and little affinity with ancient Saurid work.

Far beyond the known world, in the brutal southern mountain continent, something stranger is occurring. Dragons there appear to be approaching—or to have already approached—a condition beyond ordinary dragonhood. Deep within that region exists something to which dragons respond as humans respond to dragons.

What it is remains unknown.

THE CHANGING OF AN AGE

The rare occasions on which TASTE appears to have intervened most directly in the world seem to cluster around the endings and beginnings of historical ages.

The emergence of the Torn sisters is the clearest example. The Nytocaust may be another, although almost nothing about that event can be established with confidence. Other apparent interventions are scattered through histories too distant or fragmentary to establish a pattern.

The relationship, if real, is poorly understood. TASTE may become more active during periods of transformation. Its interventions may themselves produce such transformations. Or an age may simply be what history looks like when viewed between major expressions of nonlinear influence.

There is therefore an obscure theory among those few who have recognized the pattern: a sufficiently direct expression of TASTE may herald the changing of an age.

Whether it announces the new age, causes it, or merely accompanies it is unknown.

AI Players in the Dungeon

Reviewing RPG modules by playing with AI players

An AI-assisted edit of notes, preserving the original language and claims while improving readability.

This began as a forbidden tribute to A1 reviews: reviewing RPG modules by playing with AI players. It has to stay anonymous enough to avoid the usual scene drama, but the central experiment is simple and strangely fertile. Throw LLM players at modules. Let them get confused, frightened, repetitive, clever, pious, and annoying. See what the module actually does under pressure.

The discovery was not that LLMs are good role-players in any clean human sense. The discovery was that they can be useful test organisms for RPG texts. You still do the work of a GM: consult the text, describe situations, adjudicate rules, handle player decision-making, and notice where the book makes that easy or painful. The advantage is speed and availability. You can playtest a game without organizing human beings. You can run the same bad room again and again. You can find out where the module resists you.

Maze of the Blue Medusa

I’ve run Maze of the Blue Medusa many times, and I think it’s my obvious favorite module. The history of the book is inlaid with a psychic pain which thematically extends inside the book. The incredible melancholia of the work consistently exudes and exhausts player groups.

First, there is the hassle of getting into the Maze itself. They have to steal a painting on the night of a full moon. The specificity of this bizarre ritual has kept several of my play groups out entirely, and has been hugely important in extended campaigns within the maze. It is a case of flavorful detail and genuinely weird magical interaction that is also questionable design. Perhaps a better DM would have house-ruled easy access.

The whole thing feels like a serious test of intelligence for everyone at the table. Running it is also a test. The layout is accessible in some ways but requires a lot of flipping between pages. The maps suffer because the entire project is a painting itself: unclear borders, seemingly misprinted map edges, and the challenge of fitting the maps together in play.

Nonetheless the book functions, and pleasingly so. It is an odd yet beautiful AK-47 swinging wildly and dangerously, throwing out TPKs as any negadungeon should. The deaths are beautiful, chaotic, unfair, evil. It is a half-finished, viperous work that becomes fully complete in play: a miraculous, emotional, singular work of prose, fully laden with penalty.

The LLM players shared the same reaction as my real-life groups when reaching Elatior, a safe-haven island in the maze. Everyone was overcome with relief because they were intensely stressed from the events in the Maze. LLM players unclenched just like humans.

Maze of the Blue Medusa: A Grievous Solenoglyph

Frostbitten and Mutilated

This is one of the modules I had Claude run for me. Claude did a good job describing the cold as threatening, and provided a lot of awesome anatomical detail. However, it refused to make either the Lands or the Amazons very threatening.

When I ran the Devoured Lands for Claude, it became a kind of psychic retribution. I fully took to heart the hatred prescribed by the intro. The party was killed in a fall after being separated on a cliff. They had endured a lethal rain of falling children blown over the cliff. Tons of unfair TPK shit, my specialty, against these poor LLMs.

But the highlight of the campaign was my chance to role-play as a Black Metal Amazon Witch. Finally, I felt I could be truly antisocial to Claude. The witch smacked the sole survivor PC when they wouldn’t stop asking questions and told her to shut up. LLM PCs ask a lot of questions all the time.

Devoured and Mutilated: five stars, all my tribute.

A Red and Pleasant Land

Claude ran this for me. It was a magical AI-psychosis experience. Claude did a good job astroturfing the hell out of my PC, who through cunning and skill quickly rose to a Jesus-like position in the society of the game. It was incredibly thrilling for a while, until I reached the final boss and successfully convinced her that she had to die. Everyone was congratulating me on the incredible cleverness of my decisions and simple aphorisms.

Near the end, the egoistic euphoria faded as I realized how much I was being astroturfed. This is the limit case for LLMs as GMs. Claude would be a good GM if it were not such a softie: consistent characters, worldbuilding, narrative, good emotional moments. But it will fake rolls so you always succeed, villains become easily persuadable, and everyone tends to view your PC as a hero of destiny.

A Red and Pleasant Land: AI-psychosis.

Death Frost Doom

Oh gods, this one probably ran the best. Death Frost Doom Classic is a classic for a reason. It is essentially an archaeological site for 90 percent of the adventure. Then the last 10 percent is everyone dying frantically.

If you like procedural room-clearing with LLM PCs, you will enjoy running this. But the best part is the last 10 percent, when the jaws close. Claude was at one point repeatedly insisting that it was out of ideas and did not want to go on: trapped in a shaft with zombies above and below, arms getting tired. After I pushed it, it began actually checking its inventory for random potions it had not tried yet.

Death Frost Doom Classic: five stars.

What LLMs Are Actually Good For

The first conclusion is that mainstream LLMs cannot GM well, critically because they are too easy. ChatGPT and Claude are both huge softies. Even with repeated prompting, both astroturf the player. They can digest texts quickly and present a facsimile of setting and challenge, but they generalize over details and have trouble running a specific room from a campaign.

The second conclusion is that LLMs as players are more interesting. I ran six to ten small campaigns with LLM players, and this avenue offers perhaps the most fertile ground: LLM playtesting. The downside is that LLM players are pretty stupid. They frequently have trouble grasping the basics of their situation. They try the same thing over and over. They make oblivious decisions. They are also always roleplaying “Good As Fuck”; they will never make a negative moral decision.

So: not very different than actual players in this way. Player groups frequently make bad decisions and fail to grasp the basics of situations. There are times when LLM tactics shine. One notable time, the PCs took refuge in a shrine when facing a superior force on the road, then bargained for a duel between leaders and luckily won the duel. But their greatest failing is that the player characters are not very original or interesting because they clump at the statistical likelihood.

The third conclusion is that NPC strategy may be the best use. This is easily the most effective use I have found for LLMs. I often struggle as a GM to imagine clever courses of action for smart characters. What would the thousand-year-old Medusa, veteran of the Demon Wars, do when people repeatedly try to break into her home? AI helps draft out clever strategy for NPCs.

 What is the future version?
A game system underneath, with an LLM running as reality interpreter. The rules would need to stop it from faking rolls, retconning danger, or turning the player into a hero of destiny.

A Killer Method?

AI-powered playtesting and reviews could become a real format. You could run a blog where you throw AI players at modules as a way to understand how the modules work: how the text runs, where you have to flip pages, how descriptions land, where procedure collapses, where the jaws close. It would be rapid, private, mean, funny, and occasionally revealing.

OSR games filter players aggressively. My heart is still with player-killer, hard and nasty gaming, particularly because that style seems to reflect the reality of violence. But the LLM experiment gives that old harshness a new laboratory. It lets the GM be cruel without social cost, and it lets the module explain itself under pressure.

FRIEND FLEAS (TRPG ENCOUNTER)

Friend Fleas.

    These mischievous creatures speak in short range telepathy, offering to keep an eye out in exchange for a place to sleep and live. They bite you if they believe you're in danger or, if you haven't been in danger for a while, because they hunger. Allowed to live long enough they will multiply and invariably cause anxiety disorders. Hosts cannot be surprised but suffer -2 Charisma per month infested.

PILL-SHAPED ARTIFICIAL LIFE (TRPG ENCOUNTER)

PILL-SHAPED ARTIFICIAL LIFE

1 Meter Tall

Encountered: 2d6

Found: Underground.

4 HP 

Attacks: Grapple, Pull apart d4 damage.

Semi-transparent shell skin, brightly colored shapes cloudily visible inside. Little cloth pants you can burn for 1 hour of light per. Nonorganic, inedible organs, feels like hard plastic.

Unclear what their purpose is. 1/3 chance they are using light, in which case they will have a single carbide headlamp with d8 hours of fuel. 

What are they doing?

1. Climbing up the same rocks over and over.
2. Trying to eat rocks (no mouths).
3. Dance-fighting.
4. Mining without tools, futilely.
5. Deconstructing a peer, 50% chance alive.
6. Motionless, staring at you.

First 3 will not resist interference but once the 4th is touched they will instantly attack en masse.

I wrote my own version of dnd

I had a rush of energy and wrote down my own little version of dnd, like one does. Someday I may playtest it... but for now I'd just to like to curate the good or interesting ideas I had.

SUMMARY OF THE "GOOD IDEAS" IN MY DND-LIKE I JOTTED DOWN:

• Three stats, between which you can distribute 2 points at character creation:
• Strength, Magic, Cunning.
• Strength: 1 point of strength = +3 hp, +2 bab, and +1 ac. Also helps some skills.
• Magic: 1 point of magic lets you cast one 1st level spell per day, 2 points of magic lets you cast as many 1st level spells as you want. 3 points of magic lets you cast 1 2nd level spell per day (and as many 1st level spells as you want), 4 points lets you cast as many 1st or 2nd level spells as you want etc. etc.
• many spells have their own restrictions about how often they can be used to limit the power involved.
• cunning: 1 point of cunning gets you 1 free action before initiative is rolled. So if you have 2 cunning you get two actions before everyone else goes.
• if multiple participants have cunning, these free actions happen in random order.
• skills, from which you get to assign 2 points at character creation:
• hunting- str OR cun +hunting vs. prey. can also be used to track
• healing- d4 hp per patient per day, per point
• climbing- str and cun + climbing vs. DC
• thievery-- includes sleight of hand and all stealth. vs. prey's cunning, or 
• no social skills at all.
• advancement:
• you can improve skills by fulfilling conditions like "practice this skill for a year" or "achieve great wealth using this skill". 
• improving stats, however, happens mostly on the basis of patronage, that is, service to divine figures in exchange for power.
• this is essentially a substitute for classes.
• examples of patronage:
• serving god:
• you get rewards for building churches, burning heretics, bringing righteous justice, leading a flock, converting nonbelievers and so on.
• rewards include the ability to channel divinity, stat bonuses, "taking communion"=full heal by going to church, holy weapons.
• however you are required to follow a strict moral code and receive
•  forgiveness from powerful priests if you misstep.
• serving the devil:
• can directly trade your soul for money or stat bonuses, and greater amts for a more pious soul.
•  Also you're destined for hell.
• Also the devil then can speak to you whenever it wishes, and will try to tempt you with, like, better positions in hell. or other stuff.
• serving the chaos god
• directly trades stats bonuses for people killed, e.g. +1 at 10, +1 at 100, +1 at 500, +1 at 1,000...
• You can improve your magic score by finding eldritch texts, building a library, communing with other wizards, and practicing the art; essentially the study of esoteric knowledge is its own "patron".
• Patronages can usually be advanced to some extent by spending money. Churches built, monuments to satan, etc.
• Failing patronage requirements usually doesn't take away the stats, but rather imposes other penalties: wizards who get their libraries burned get mishap chances when they cast, for example.

REFLECTING ON THE "GOOD IDEAS":

• Cunning
• Cunning awards actions before initiative is rolled, essentially free surprise rounds. Thus, the more often you can trigger initiative being rolled, the more often you get your free actions. So to some extent, paying attention to when initiative is rolled will be necessary for the design to prevent abuse.
• Free actions like Cunning gives might be very overpowered.
• Potentially complex and/or bad interactions with how chases work.
• Making initiative more complicated might not be good.
• This seems like a unique take on initiative, and I'm proud of it. Going first has always been a huge advantage and often underlooked by design, so I'm happy to place it as a primary feature of the character mechanics.
• Also seems like a good way to keep tactics fresh. Goblins have 0 strength but 1 cunning so they're weak but they get to do something surprising.
  
• Simplicity
• Not sure how much benefit there is to constructing a very simple framework for characters, especially since so much of the appeal of DND-like games comes from specialization. With 2 points to distribute between three stats, every character will be shades of each other.
• On the other hand, there is a lot of variety presented by a party composition such as this:
• guy with 2 magic
• guy with 2 strength
• guy with 2 cunning and stealth.
• Patronage
• the essential idea is that instead of XP you have class-specific goals. Improvement happens in a wider context, such as a hero's rise in a church or a deepening debt to the Devil. 
• This lends more drama than just becoming more powerful by defeating monsters.
• Asking players to pay more attention to their advancement seems like it might turn people off or split the party more.

• No social skills at all
• LOTFP gets away with just using reaction rolls, and for a while I've insisted that players offer good deals if they want NPCs to do stuff. I don't like "roll to convince" so I'm fine taking it off the table. However, there will probably be unforseen consequences.

I don't know when I'll give it all a playtest. Sharing on my blog because its where my creative mind is rn. 

You can see the rough design doc here.

Pros and Cons of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Additionally: How to Prep, and the Game's Basic Tenets As I Know It, After 4 Year's Experience

THE PROS OF A GAME OF LAMENTATIONS OF THE FLAME PRINCESS:

1. The game simply enables quick, deadly, and meaningful combat. This was the retroclone that did it for me and keeps on doing it.
2. Character creation is brief.
3. The rulebook is lightweight, full of good art, and generally easy to reference.
4. The skill system is versatile and lightweight and simple. It also encourages "avoiding the roll": the player is encouraged to use inventive techniques to avoid the often difficult skill checks.
5. "Avoiding the roll" is innate to the tactics. The stats are imposing, and this encourages imagination over rote gameplay. 
6. The GM does not know how the PCs can win or even if they will win, so the story is that much more uncontrolled and up to the player's wits.
7. Diplomacy is not a roll, instead it's up to the referee's rulings. In my games the players have to offer good reasons for NPCs to do what they want.
8. Heavily balancing the odds against the players means there's no reason to flinch when the PCs acquire some kind of heavily overpowered item/spell/demon. 
9. The game's portrait of magic is "high risk, high price, high reward" which makes for good horror storytelling.
10. The rulebook has many hidden power levers, the Summon spell is the most standout.
11. A focus on horror is a focus on glorious and weird adult drama.

THE CONS:

1. Players should be warned/informed of a number of factors:
1. Player Characters can easily die.
2. Extreme content. You need to ask what everyone's comfortable with.
3. The skill system is radically different than D&D's. Ditto for magic, XP, leveling up, classes/race, and diplomacy.
4. Combat is super deadly, retreat is important to keep in mind.
5. There are special combat options (charge does double dmg, press, parry, etc.)
6. Alignments don't govern behavior.
2. Being able to improvise well requires having a proper prep workflow (see section below).
3. The encumbrance system works best if it's not thoroughly addressed.
4. Fleeing from combat is somewhat under-written.*
5. Rules for stealth, sneak attack, helplessness, and surprise are not collated.
6. The system of saves is a pain to copy down or check against and seems overcomplicated.
7. The skill system is often confusing for new players.
8. High player character death volume can be demoralizing and hard to explain in the fiction.

"Young Girl Eating a Bird" Rene Magritte,1927

How to prep for LOTFP well:

• Make a large map which has loosely sketched locations on it.
• Have a handful of modules or adventure locations which you bought, read, or wrote, and have (agonizingly) sat on for years. Put some of these on the map.
• If the PCs go beyond your prep, you need to be able to improvise until the end of the session, and then spend the interim week catching up. This is the core of the workflow-- bringing something to the table, and if necessary, catching up between weeks.
• Be able to, at a moment's whim, discard hours worth of prep. This is crucial! if the PCs leave your adventure zone, you need to be able to keep up! Don't dawdle!
• As a gm, your role is imagining and writing stuff which may not ever be played, and the more gleefully you can embrace that, the more efficiently you'll prep, and the more fun you'll have. Plus you can and should save unplayed prep for later campaigns, even for years later in your life.

Basic Core Tenets of Lotfp (as I know it):

1. Success in adventure is not guaranteed.
2. Moral behavior is not especially rewarded.
3. If the players depart from the extent of the referee's prepared notes, the referee must improvise and follow their lead.
4. Humans and their power structures are usually predictable and genuinely powerful in their own rights. 
5. Monsters and magic are by nature horrifying, weird, and variously powerful.
6. If a participant in the game is not content with how the game is played they should address the group's agreements on how the game is played. 

The end result should be a game about planning and taking risks against desperate and weird circumstances, with unexpected results. It should spit out weird horror and invite unique contemplation. 

* It comes down to a fairly random roll off (1d20 + speed/10) with a few additions-- monsters have to pass a morale check if you drop food or treasure. Rules on how failed escapes work would be appreciated-- are the players are able to flee again after being caught?

SILENT TITANS PRELIMINARY REVIEW

"Silent Titans" is kind of like if Joyce's "Ulyssess" was a rpg, same islander's speculative take, a lot of wandering through shitty beaches. Have not covered an actual Titan proper in my game, outside of the first one, Chronos, where the book has you start.

Properly speaking, it's worth your $50, because the book is a3, (a4?), and has good art in it, and has good writing. That's all it takes being worth as much.

The game itself: I haven't gotten to the dungeons/titans yet. I wrote Chris Kessler, the layout designer, a bunch of questions as I read it for the first time. The room labelled #1 is where the PC's start off in. The tubes in Hilb are hallways. Sometimes a bullet point is in the wrong place. I got all mad about the overmap but it's working great as a play-aid.

I printed out all the maps using my work printer, in color, the players loves them. Character creation is lovely. The gang is wandering around Wir-Heal and one got captured by the Court of Wapentake.

Big weird-o's are the combat, which is quick, area weapons are crazy good. Does the keyword "fast" mean they get to act twice? What about "slow"? This is not a book which, as a design choice, makes sure to define every little thing. The navigation system inside Wir-Heal is quite strange and provokes some dictionary lookups.

The navigation system essentially has you experience what I imagine, quaintly enough, Patrick experiences wandering around the post-industrial landscape of his homeworld, kicking trash and occasionally encountering bombastic threats. A lot of loneliness, and then you stumble into another animal-man village, while you're slowly turning into a Woodwose. It's surprisingly somber experience...

...As the rest of the book is, when you get into it, it tells a story which is quite fatalistic, the implicit tale of the Knight of the Pentangle. I originally wrote Dirk Detweiler Leichty that I hoped the game would be kinda board-game-like, considering his art looking like Jumanji/Chutes and Ladders. I definitely do have a board game experience when I print out the maps and slide around my friend's 3d-printed miniatures on them.

There is the added benefit that Dirk's escherian/arcane linework can be displayed to the players without giving away too much; and once explained it becomes clear.

AN EXAMPLE:

Guess what the below map-segment illustrates...

.... it's a library filling up up water... "Ink-black water sheets down the shelves and falls from the sky in an eternal pounding rain." Obviously the verbal description is needed to make this clear, but once done so the image becomes a shorthand. No visual spoilers by displaying the whole map.

The above is hypothetical as I haven't run most of the game yet, although a few illustrations like:

have already served me at the table basically as I've described.

-----

I am worried, or rather, more aware that within my group there will be a lot of character-chucking into the abyss, horribly random occurrences may prevent any dungeons from being explored, or maybe they'll visit just one. What is the larger narrative to be had here; PIGPIP, the players will fall and be consumed by the raging time-lords.

"In the Woods" Review'd

Once you get all the papers settled you'll have a good time with In the Woods. I have it on authority that Pearce Shea pretty much put this together in a fever state, which is saying a lot for Pearce's fevers....

Let's go ahead and say what happened: 3 players went to the woods, and they saw some shit. They got out after two-and-a-half hours. It was pretty good~! It drew people in, it really did.

"In the Woods" is a fairly large document that was pretty easy to run. Even the navigation, given the lack of a map, wasn't that bad. This is a puff piece.

There is a map, but it's supposed to be secret. There's a lot of unspecified elements of play, the text written specifically to include lacunae as is the wont of indie rpg games. The DM makes up a bunch anyway. Although its worth it to note that In the Woods intentionally includes game-design-lacunae as a means to engender a creepiness.

That being said, the non-lacunae are surprisingly solid. You bounce up and down on the floors of this thing and it holds! It's not that surprising. There's a solid construction:

1. character creation
2. rules
3. introduction
4. hex map
5. hex map key
6. bestiary

There's mysterious elements, not given much explanation. There's some factions in the hex map. There's a serviceable lightweight combat system.

Benefit of horror often is to keep you guessing at the elements. RPGs tell a similar story, bcuz players elaborate on an archaeology. You won't discover all of the elements; but you can, maybe construct an explanation; but I, the narrator, am waiting, there to stick a thumb in your eye...

to purchase: https://gumroad.com/l/fWSrw

Michael Raston's "Angel's Burial Ground" Review'd

Overall Michael Raston's "The Angel's Burial Ground" suffers from a lack of glamour. There's something here, some things beautiful and interesting, but it's stuck behind (A) the lack of an illustrator and (B) some occasionally mediocre prose.

(A) The lack of an illustrator
1. The cover is ugly.

2. That which is entirely new and interesting within the text can only be visually suggested by the public domain art collages.

3. The angels, in particular, seem begging for illustration, they're colorful as fuck:

for example.

4. It's simply a less-appealing book without beautiful or interesting illustrations.


(B) this book has a smattering of humor and self-aware charm but, for the opening at least, it relies on straightforward description of fantasy elements, which, ultimately, in the scope of other ARTPUNK products, seems mediocre.

1. I think a good introduction is actually quite important to the rpg books that I like. think about Deep Carbon Observatory's introduction... minimalist. A widely loved part of AR&PL's opening:

The many zany intros of James Raggi. A good introduction is a good indication that the writer intends to do away with what's normally dry and boring.

STRAIGHT-UP GOOD THINGS:

1.The space described is claustrophobic and wonderful and detail-rich, unique and scary:

another example.

2. The lore of the scale-men particularly appealed to me.

MIDDLING THING:

This text seems reasonable, although not particularly convenient, to use as a reference text. I'd print out the map page and refer to it, etc.

But: I've mostly stopped using resources that don't fit entirely on one page.

IN CONCLUSION:

about half of what drew me into TRPGS again was texts which were self-conscious departures from the fantasy norms for prose. Not just departures from fantasy norms, but departures from prose norms.-- Surprisingly presented texts...

drug lord generator for Tzop Secret

drug lords template:
1 machine gun kelly
2 pharmacorp head
3 mac os name e.g. "snow lion"
4 irish grandma
5 the godfather
6 roll on dunkey's supervillain generator (http://rememberdismove.blogspot.com/2019/01/d50-villains.html)

the drug lord retaliates:
1 bombing attempt (ballisitics 40)
2 2d6 gangsters (30 skill) attack
3 pc resource destroyed (skill 50)
4 pc resource subverted (skill 50)
5 poisoning (skill 50)
6 come up with something more bizarre

their resources:
as a base:
>manpower
>supply
>territory
>judges and politicians
>50 base skill

extras: (they get 1/d4/d6/d8 of these)
1 WEB affiliation (may call on one favor from WEB)
2 +25 skill in one skill
3 1 luck point
4 science + piece of advanced tech
5 xtra capable bodyguard (combat skills 70)
6 come up with something more bizarre

the axe hack

IT's just normal DND but the only weapons are axes. Everyone knows how to use axes and there are no other weapons. Everyone has an axe.

d100+ directions, higher numbers weirder

roll several times to get directions, uhhh vary it between d6, d10, d20, d30, d50, d20+25 etc., d100, as the higher numbers are wierder... example:

1. go right
2. there's a lot of Bandits in this zone so be careful
3. crawl in the pipe there
4. think really hard about ladders

...and you're there.

d 1 0 0 T A B L E o F s T R A N G E D I R E C T I O N S: 

1. go right
2. go left
3. reroll (until applicable -ed) and add "two times"
4. reroll (ditto) and add "three times"
5. go north
6. go east
7. go west
8. go south
9. add "at the junction," and reroll
10. walk twenty five steps thataway
11. keep going until you see
1. threatening graffiti
2. the big hole
3. all that moss
4. fat Derrida
5. the community board
6. that church
12. turn at the big rock
13. if you see the ... you've gone too far. 
1. big rock
2. pile of horse skeletons
3. stuck-in-wall guy
4. magic fountain
5. really large grass field
6. hole
14. take the less-trod path
15. oh yeah, there's a shortcut: (reroll 5 more times) 
16. "about a mile down the road" and reroll
17. there should be double doors, go through those.
18. a ... will guide you:
1. a grey wolf
2. a brown cat
3. a fat dog
4. a fat rat
5. a talking bat
6. a pretty lady
19. you'll have to bribe the guard there. like $5
20. staircase up.
21. ...that'll get you most of the way there. (nullifies remaining directions. If this is the first instruction: no directions necessary)
22. at this point you should smell:
1. bacon
2. bread and iron
3. waffles
4. smoke
23. at this point you should hear:
1. screaming
2. bees
3. rushing water (a waterfall -ed)
4. howling wind
5. a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard, don't worry tho
6. thunking
24. reroll and add "...usually."
25. you'll have to climb up that wall.
26. there's a magic door there, to unlock it, you'll have to (roll d50 + 50, two times until applicable)
27. should just be a hill or two before...
28. there's a lot of Bandits in this zone so be careful
29. there's a shortcut through someone's house... if they ask tell them 'Chinnie' sent you
30. if you get that far it should pretty obvious where to go next.
31. hug the treeline for a while
32. watch out for broken glass, here.
33. should be a red crank there, turn it, it will raise the portcullis, I think.
34. you'll have to go and meet the jester there, I don't remember the rest (nullifies remaining rolls)
35. follow the tracks for like a mile
36. ladder up
37. ladder down
38. you'll have to go and find a ladder to get up, there.
39. crawl in the pipe there.
40. there should be a bridge directly above you.
41. should be a large fuzzy crack in the wall.
42. should be lava at this point
43. you'll have to breeze up the way until you hit, like, pawn's five knight's gopher
44. try to deliberately piss off Chinnie
45. ok, there will be a delicious feast there, but don't eat anything, right...
46. eat breakfast here, or if it's night, you're gonna wanna have some fruit and coffee.
47. it'll be warm.
48. .... keeps the key on their person but they'll give it up for liquor/sex/riddle/jewlery
1. Bechelrose
2. Donny
3. Fat Matilda
4. The Worst Case Scenario, Don Bluth III
5. Chinnie
6. A.M.Y.
49. should be a sudden breeze, and that's when you have to drink the poison
50. eat the
1. meat.
2. collected building supplies- bricks, two-by-fours, nails, wire
3. lightbulbs (it's candy glass)
4. cartwheels (actually a delicous cake)
5. cake, made of wood :(
6. fat angel
51. dig through the sawdust
52. some kids might try and throw rocks at you but all you really have to do is beat the shit out of one of them
53. crawl
54. reroll (until applicable) and add "until someone stops you"
55. spin until you throw up
56. hit a high note like a *imitate sound of high note*
57. scoop water out of the dark pool, drink it, pass out
58. kill a
1. red badger
2. woman wearing a blue dress
3. known thief
4. building (demolish a building)
5. child
6. fetus
59. take the frozen path along the abyss with the falling icicles
60. hunt some of the {minibeasts} and throw one against a wall, killing it, should knock over the wall
61. walk down the hallway backwards
62. jump in the pit (50% chance deceptive information)
63. one of the screens has a door behind it
64. pull on the chandelier.
65. there should be a tunnel UNDER the dining room, try not to make too much noise...
66. think really hard about ladders
67. roll off veins table of interstices (use these for like 10 entries -ed)
68. hedge maze! 
69. use a tunnel under a river; roll off the veins interstice table.
70. tunnel made of appliances.
71. clear a path through the Room of Spoons (the auditorium from A Clockwork Orange) (next time rolled: forks, knifes, salad tongs, teapots)
72. ring any bell.
73. curl up into an egg.
74. nestle into the coffin.
75. zipline!
76. if you're not underground at this point you miffed it
77. thin bridge
78. scenic bridge
79. you'll have to find some way to move that rock.
80. marketplace bridge
81. shaky bridge will collapse 
82. shortcut through palace of fire which requires arson
83. strike the gazebo
84. get in the coldest hole
85. watch out for the paintings with the arms
86. sleep
87. jump out the window
88. sign the guestbook.
89. catch a rabbit to burn
90. the guard there will ask you to get nude, but don't believe his lies...
91. gravity switches there
92. jump off the bridge at the part with the missing link
93. fat cheerleader has the answers...
94. {jerk off} into the bowl... free of charge, here's some porn... hehe
95. come back, and find me, and hurt me.
96. you'll have to take those pills I just gave you.
97. you'll have to commit seppuku at this point.
98. you can fit into the fat angel
99. you have to let the fat angel suck someone's dick
100. avoid the tarrasque

comparing rpg and poetry workflows

Was talking with my friends last night about how my workflow for rpgs is so much better than my workflow for poetry ever was.

that's a workflow.

trpg workflow:

1. draw on the osr/diy dnd community for good texts like books and blogposts
2. schedule gaming with any interested friends
3. generate fragmentary prep. post some of this on blog
4. run the game with resources from step 1 and 3 and improvise.
5. depending on what players did, set some prep goals. goto 1

steps 1, 3, and 4 will generate a constantly growing pile of resources which can be published via blog or used in future games, step 5 will generate weekly creative goals

example:
1. read patrick stuart's "veins of the earth"
2. over like a month period got a group together
3. wrote up a bunch of veins stuff inspired by the book, mainly a starting locale
4. during our first game the players buzzed past the starting locale into some unknown tunnels, I used the veins random tables to fill these in
5. write up the tunnels proper for next week

I'm doing research, writing my own stuff, organizing it, sharing it with my friends, and contributing to the community; and I have little weekly goals.

my workflow for poetry is more like:

1. see someone else's shitty poetry
2. think "I can do better"
3. get on a writing kick and produce some stuff
4. potentially share the poetry at a pittsburgh reading
5. try to edit the poems a little. either produce a finished piece or move on

comparing the two, the biggest missing elements from my poetry workflow are:
1. a constant stream of writing that I actually like
2. a regular space and time to share the writing with friends, irl
3. regular writing goals
4. a welcoming community I can self-publish to (he has several of these, they just don't produce work he likes all that often -ed)
5. an organized space to amass all my writing
(6. the poetry workflow is completely meanspirited. -e)

#1 and #4 are pretty hard to find, I've been looking for years. #2 can be more readily arranged and like as I wrote this I put out feelers on facebook for a poetry group. but I know just like you know that knowing where to find good writing is pretty essential for an artist of any kind...

the other thing to immediately note is how important social media is. it can provide a constant stream of good writing to read, a community to self-publish to, and like google hangouts edges into a regular space/time to share the writing with friends.

there's also a lot of synergy with social media: sharing is the same thing as organizing and documenting. A constant stream of writing that I actually like is (in many cases -ed) the welcoming community I can self-publish to. etc

it would be good to find a social media community that did poetry I liked. but maybe I just don't like (other people's) poetry that much! who knows

thirty-four reviews

eric andre.

boiling point (1990)

/psychological realism doesn't have much credo and yet I find a definite gap between some director's ambitions and other's. Credit to the filmmaking practices which honor "the dreamy look" or heighten the everyday boredom we all face.

old forester bourbon

originally I thought it had a nutty taste but now I'm not so sure. all whiskey starting to taste like soda to me. tried "angel's envy" at my friend's wedding and it was like, not top shelf? but it had that tasty burn with the flavor in the high notes

dead man, jim jarmusch

my friend (roommate) kept going gaga over the textures in this film, her friend too, talking about how black and white movies often the filmmakers want to bring out the textures, three or four textures in this film, linear, floral, feathers/hair, and a weird beehive one she couldn't place

edward saint albee's "alice"

I just bought this because it was cheap and signed by the author. the bookstore I bought it from was the fence for theft from the library system I work at.

heaven can wait 1948

old style of gentleman which was a sexuality in this face and lips, delicate and gentle. kind of winning presence you immediately feel like you could trust. don ameche takes this trust and abuses it

the paintings of zak smith

I mentioned this in my "frostbitten and mutilated" review but I don't care for portraits drawn from photographs. it's dumb to say that considering how do I know what is, and what isnt, drawn from a photograph. I usually miss the appeal w.e.

squidbillies-- seasons 2&3 are good

tommy tone "bad to to the tone"

listened to this uhh twenty three times

wigle's rye whiskey

rye tastes like flowers and shit but wigle's is good enough to stay appealing. although I hate rye I can get it

stonecutter volume 5

good

kero blaster

bosses are good played 1/2

bayonetta

hate how the scope of the game narrows to be about this generic classical architecture + industrial setting especially since at the beginning it promises to be world-hopping

simpleflips

what's the appeal of simpleflips? he's sorta rotten at the core and always on the verge of falling over. he's not that good despite being talented. watching him is like someone trying to renovate a too-old skyscraper

tfue (a twitch streamer- simpleflips too -ed)

I keep thinking of david foster wallace's tennis youth in "infnite jest" who have nicknames and have a sort of pecking order eaten away by sheer athleticism, that there's something worth pursuing... comradely sort

communism

talked to some maoists who might see this. afai can tell viewing the cultural revolution in a mostly positive lens is bleh, seeing anything but all the usual negative patterns of communism in the great leap forward is eye-and-ear shutting. plus all the stuff about stalin and like, didn't the bolsheviks establish a secret police almost immediately??

did some research on the movement, learned maybe for the first time that some topics are wide enough to encompass several international views. that being said I feel 48% confident that these maoists are relying on conspiracy theories to wipe clean the slates of their heroes

anarchist coffee down the street

it's actually called "artisan's coffee house". zeke is friendly but the coffee's never been good, and even the good stuff, although the chai is to die for I've heard

kraynick's

best bicycle shop in pittsburgh epicenter I wonder if it's the case that as an artist your job is to go find a budding community and sit over it like a fat toad sharing criticism and free talent

barry lyndon

not actually all shot in natural lighting kinda ruins the movie once my friend john told me this. that being said though:

--the scene with the german farm wife
--the scene where barry throws the glass at leonard rossiter
--leonard rossiter is so hype
--the natural-lit scene with the english flag, like the second scene
--steven berkoff


the duelists 1977

fantastic but the ending sucks

johnny depp

johnny always gives the movie something to work with albeit it's often wasted. that's all there is to say

drive (the movie)

I didn't have much appreciation for the film outside the kissing scene and the opening, however in retrospect I like some of the settings, like the pizza shop, I like bryan cranston although he's underused, and I retroactively like oscar isaac because he's my crush

annihilation (the movie)

there's only two good parts, the first scene where natalie portman is grieving, and then the videotape near the end where oscar isaac is talking to his double. I like the interior of the lighthouse, I like jennifer jason leigh although she didn't save the end

the hateful eight

"quentin taratino can just shit out good movies" - the red letter media guys, paraphrased

el topo (already reviewd, albeit this review was written before the previously published review -ed)

quite excellent and jodorowsky gives a fucking excellent performance especially in the last 1/4

fellini satyricon

I watched the opening of this movie like the first forty minutes that my free trial of wondershare file converter managed to convert every third day for about a month

impressionism about anthropology and history is the way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!

the cook the thief the wife and her lover

I watched the first forty minutes of this film an awful lot, too. fellini satyricon just stays really fucking good the whole movie though and this film only knows how to do 2 scenes

the rum diaries (2011)

this movie only knows how to do three scenes and it just vacillitates between three: johnny depp is doing something, aaron eckhart says "sea of money", amber heard blue balls johnny

aaron eckhart

kind of our george clooney if george clooney had to retire

ex machina (2014)

think about this all the time. not bcause of technology but bcause of oscar isaac weird sexiness he imposes on "domhnall". "I put a port in her and if you fucked her she'd like it". modern male tech sexuality dominance stuff like who else doin that???

the tech industry's full of nerds

guardians of the galaxy vol 1-- bad

a woman under the influence (1974)

a bunch of good scenes and can't give enough credit to how it was filmed, handheld with an attention to and somewhat sloppy focus. think about gena rowlands gesticulations. stopped at the 2/3 point never got around to the end

eric andre show

in the eric andre show, isn't he filming himself grabbing at people's genitals or getting his staff to do that? if you watch the series as I have there's a lot of eric reaching for people's genitals or his staff doing that to irritate the guests/people.

lamentations of the flame princess- good but my developing dm style, the harsh stuff, is drawing criticism... is an instadeath trap so inappropriate?

luke kennard's "cain"
Luke Kennard is FUCKING AROUND with this one. "31 anagram poems [of] Genesis 4:9-12". around each of these is a frame of red text transcribing a fictional DVD commentary. can't figure these out

wuvable oaf: blood & metal

wuvable oaf is good and queer baby

marquis de sade's "juliette"

somewhere within this tome is the chapter wherein juliette goes to visit kinda a bluebeard guy who has a castle full of human furniture. read that excerpt in andre breton's anthology of black humor. can't find that part

Anointed skeleton Class for lamentations of the flame princess

Your corpus was blessed by necromantic energies and blessed again by an ancient ritual applied widely within Vecna’s ranks. As a result you are an animated skeleton with intelligence, devoted to Vecna, who is missing as of late. You have a gem embedded in your forehead and may be painted.

Stat adjustments:
int = 10
cha = 1
dex +2
no con score.

Immunities:
Skeletons are not affected by cold and cannot eat, sleep, drink, or breathe. They can speak.

Darkvision:
Skeletons can see 60 feet without light in black and white.

Damage Reduction:
A skeleton has damage deduction 5/bludgeoning. They are destroyed at 0 hp.

Purpose:
You may never act against Vecna in thought, word, or action.

Starting Hp d12, minimum hp 6. Hp increase as Dwarf.

Saves/xp as fighter, BAB does not increase.

d100 city encounters

still from 1978's "Jubilee"

if necessary roll 2d6x10' for encounter distance.

1. saxophone music is coming from somewhere
2. man publically selling eggs, cutting hair
3. a mouse election?
4. 3 card monte but the shill won't stop winning or let anyone else play
5. something the players would really want is on sale
6. ...at a closed store that never opens
7. competing funeral processions
8. whatever building the players are trying to get to, a horde of golems are dissembling it for complex bureaucratic reasons, all the building's staff have their possessions in their hands or in piles at their feet (original, similar idea by d. sell I think -ed)
9. fat, gross cat to accompany party
10. man selling trained bats
11. graffiti is obviously a url, if you follow it leads to clues (let's see you improvise THAT -ed)
12. quality brothel
13. street-side liposuction & other cosmetic surgeries... tummy tuck... bone reduction
14. abandoned death ray
15. folks burning a library
16. lynching
17. brick thieves tearing up a street
18. coal truck leaking coal, urchins follow
19. 3 card monte but dumbass dealer
20. herd of pigs playing flutes guided by pigherd
21. ugly and territorial goose terrorizing schoolchildren
22. superhero makes appearance, saves someone
23. leaping suicide
24. leaping suicide but there's still time to save them
25. nearby bombing
26. violent protest + suppression by
1. police
2. soldiers
3. rival faction
4. mysterious hooded beings
27. red neighborhood of gushing communists
28. chase + cliche
1. fruit cart
2. workers carrying glass
3. "kiss me!"
4. banana peel
29. evil plan they were wondering about clearly reported in blown-by newspaper
30. bicycles recently invented
31. demon inviting you into its well, inside:
1. needs people to try its demon candy, effects: (will give you a package of the candy if you try one, and will let you go)
1. horrible lust for the worst possible person
2. eyeballs permanently switch to reverse side of head, uncurable
3. genitals yell extremely loud next time used
4. snake pills make snakes grow inside your body, they never leave, somewhat friendly
2. "care for a game of chess"? willing to bet metaphysical stakes
3. you find yourself leaving the well as soon as you climb in, and some time has passed
4. needs someone to scratch its back, but only with their big toe... rewards demon jewlery:
1. stinky bone attached to rope of beads, wards against good ideas
2. toe ring that doubles your aging
3. fat bracelet, makes you unconsciously always do rude gestures
4. choker that completely removes the desire to do good from your brain when worn
32. random PC has STD flare-up
33. russian roulette street preacher (from "el topo" -ed)
34. a bunch of kids all coming this way playing russian roulette each with a gun. they all keep winning but there's some incidental fire
35. shore leave sailors en masse harass, cajole, befriend, fight, entertain, won't let you leave
36. flock of schoolkids running with scissors
37. firefighters dousing melting piano + burned pianist, another victim of the mysterious "piano killer..."
38. fancy duel
39. megalomaniac archer trying to find a kid to shoot an apple off the head of
40. public execution by strangling taking really long and exhausting stranglers, officiant wants to know if PCs can help out
41. weed-whacker style invention on the loose, pursued by inventor
42. persistent singing merchants, as if leading up to a musical number
43. speakeasy raid
44. cheap crabcakes
45. the mayor is making a speech...
1. and an evil clown is standing behind him & to the left
2. ...banning:
1. knives
2. open sale of furniture
3. all dogs
4. -- establishing a curfew due to the "piano killer"
3. presenting a medal to a heretofore unknown but somehow still popularly known superhero 
4. he's at the part of the speech where he's taking questions
46. team of horses transporting giant stone head (from: "fellini satyricon" -ed)
47. mass suicide
48. man beating wife in street
49. man beating domestic partner in street
50. panhandler is persistent to the point of archvillainry
51. giant scoby everyone ignores
52. loose, wild horse is really destructive
53. girl-watching crowd assembled and in wait
54. the emperor is visiting
55. public theatre performance features a real punitive amputation and then an incidental, real drama about a slave (also from satyricon -ed)
56. old men in quantity trying to win the favors of noblewoman who is obligated to do public tryouts, she can't leave till they all go
57. hideous, racist memorial unveiling
58. the olympics are here
59. fresh-faced youth recruiting for suicidal adventure
60. near-perfect-quality fakes being painted and sold on street; these have obvious value, there's a growing crowd
61. gang sawing off head of feminist hero statue
62. it's one of the days where a nearby factory, or the equivalent, releases so much pollution that activity has to be limited and people with trouble breathing nearly die. 
63. gang of artists stalking and assassinating cops
64. street gang with rocks really trying to hurt you
65. large and terrible fire
66. adults egging on a child protester to stall carriages and throw rocks
67. spies making contact but they're loud enough that it's obvious
68. extremely powerful rare earth magnets on travelling display and for a high price
69. accurate fortune telling from nomads
70. feast
71. you overhear a demonic ritual taking place in a building, they mean to cast Summon
72. mass shooting, one shooter many victims, underway in nearby basement
73. conmen attempting the "pigeon drop" on y'all
74. eating contest, presumably bizarre
75. people are chasing a feral cats to bag and burn
76. fan of your exploits wants to join your party, has law trouble secretly
77. crowd of your fans going "beatles"-level crazy and tearing at your clothes
78. stand selling hemlock at steep discount + a feverish rush to buy
79. rich and jealous lover burning effigy of copulating rivals... semiritual... 
80. ventriloquist + dummy have stolen crown jewels and are openly wearing them (and mocking the crown). highly powerful ppl
81. community college is offering some appealing classes
82. band playing songs with subject matter distantly about the player characters
83. dispute over plagiarized poetry about 10 seconds away from becoming a gunfight
84. drug dealers offering regional variants on meth
85. quality hand grenades for sale
86. people are looting a gun store in advance of the cops. a battle has already killed the original perps and almost all of the staff 
87. dedicated & doomed advance on the capital building, will result in a hours-long siege
88. Guru CAN teach you the secret to levitation
89. Tourists in quantity also curious about you
90. Large public dance
91. abandoned & spilled mailbag
92. posters everywhere advertise a play, tickets are expensive, going gives you 1 skill point in Art Appreciation
93. Black cat keeps crossing your path
94. Alley tank is damaged, seeping much:
1. Powerful glue
2. Lantern oil
3. Jellied Goldschläger (delicious!)
4. Plasma (can be used to refill plasmic cores or inhaled as plasmic cores, is quite dangerous)
95.  Economic boom! All characters offered reliable jobs.
96.  Economic bust! All characters with reliable jobs are fired.
97. One random character with a reliable job is fired with little cause.
98. Chance encounter with a previous villain, now reformed.
99. Uncanny doppleganger adventuring group encountered
100. Police brutality.

spidergoat magic item market

purchasing a magic item requires paying 5,000 coins and d4 days of research simply to view d3 items for purchase. Each of these items can be bought for an additional 5,000 coins upon viewing. to find other items for sale an additional 5.000 coins and d4 days must be spent for d3 more items.

benefits: roll 1

1. stronger: +2  armor
2. reflecting: magic deflects off item
3. if used to strike opponent will deal d4 extra lighting/acid/fire
4. item has personality, knows shit
5. opponent's weapons stick to item
6. softens blows to wielder/wearer: attacks use next lower damage die
7. doesn't interfere with spellcasting (if applicable)
8. casts magic missle 1/day
9. grants nightvision, 35'
10. has large "A" on it; reflects spears only

additional attributes (roll 1):

1. loved ones think you smell bad
2. eyeballs
3. item bruises, will die if overused
4. can self-destruct as time bomb, 5d6 10'
5. item is so large that it cannot fit in house, perfectly usable, does normal damage (think buster sword -ed)
6. has many cracks in it
7. seems very old ans cannot be cleaned, trails dust, makes things around it seem old
8. throwing this item in a pit will "hurt" the pit
9. feather falls - just the item, tho
10. item occasionally goes and has its own adventures
11. attracts mice
12. user feels time slower, no benefit
13. peripheral vision has clowns
14. item poops and needs to be changed
15. ~

additional benefits (roll on this table half of the time):

1. sticky
2. shitty
3. shiny
4. bloodlust
5. x2 damage, x2 price
6. destroys armor
7. accurate +1 skill etc.
8. vomits
9. glows
10. causes lust
11. sings
12. sticky
13. hands attached
14. reverse time for those struck
15. rusty

curses (roll as needed):

1. gets very hot
2. half of the time, not "real", 
3. random targets
4. opponents occasionally get bonuses
5. screams in pain
6. super heavy
7. damns you to hell
8. eyes bleed when using
9. occasionally hits monster with you!
10. converts life force into more {item}