No plan survives first contact with the player, at least no plan of yours, my fellow GMs. I often find that heavy planning isn't worth it. I specifically find that improvisation is advantageous in play, for it can lead to even more interesting results than your original planning may have ever yielded.
Attached to my GM screen I have four pages. The first is a giant list of random names, surnames, quirks, appearance, and secrets, all on D100 tables in some almost too tiny text. The second is a set of "templates" for magical items. The third is the player-facing rules to my hack. The fourth is simply for taking notes. I tend to run lots of my games pretty off-the-cuff since I am only an efficient writer when it's about an hour before the game starts and I'm panicking - anxiety is a horrible curse to have.
Now, in interest of making interesting content, I'm going to share the magical item templates, since I'm almost sure everybody has seen their fair share of D100 tables and nobody could ever decipher my notes, and my own custom adventures will come later down the line. The magical item templates are by far the most interesting contents behind the screen.
The general gist behind magic item templates is that, in my games, there are some items that are commonly known to contain certain types of versatile magic. This could be, for instance, spell scrolls. If you were to pick up two spell scrolls, you would know that these two items are visually almost the same and are used in the same way, but they still have unique effects different from one another.
Basically, every magic item from a template contains a power word. This differentiates from item to item, but it's really simple to come up with a power word on the fly. The magic item has specific mechanical and magical effects based around the selected power word.
Hopefully you understand that, if you don't, there will be examples of magic items with templates. Without further ado:
Spellbooks
Spellbooks contain a power word used to cast spells, this is a verb. To use a spellbook, you must construct a command. Roll 1D6 for every word in the command. The amount of dice rolled represents the amount of saves that need to be made before anybody can break free from the effect of the command, the sum of the dice rolled is the damage of the command, if it does any.
If the sum of the D6s rolled is greater than your current WIL score, you take WIL damage equal to however much you rolled over your WIL. For instance, if you had 16 WIL and rolled 18, you would take 2 WIL damage. You also need to make a WIL save against your new WIL, if you fail, the GM can change what the command says, except for the power word.
Spellbooks also have limits:
- Spellbooks are only usable once per day.
- Commands from spellbooks must start with the power word.
- Commands cannot be longer than 5 words.
- Commands only persist while you are in line of sight of the target(s), and affect everybody within line of sight if target's aren't specified within the command.
- Grammatically incorrect commands target everybody within line of sight.
Example:
The party rips a spellbook from a dead pyromancer's crispy hands. The spellbook contains the power word BURN. Later, the party wizard uses the newly obtained spellbook against a horde of feral cats, shouting BURN, CATS! Since this would be a damaging command, all cats within line of sight instantly burst into flames, taking 2D6 damage.
Masks
Masks contain a power word, a noun, specifically a creature. As an action, you can gain an aspect of this creature, such as the wings of a bird or the eyes of a cat. When you do this, roll 1D6. This partial transformation lasts for this amount of minutes. You can gain a total of three aspects in one day, lasting a total of 3D6 minutes if you transform in quick succession. If the total of the D6s you have rolled are over your WIL, you transform into a humanoid form of the creature the mask represents forever, the mask becomes your face and can no longer be used if this happens.
Example:
The party takes a mask off the face of an assassin, the mask represents a MOSQUITO. The party soon is chasing after another assassin who is dragging away their friend. The party wizard uses the newly obtained mask, and as an action, gains the wings of a mosquito. They roll 1D6 and find out they can now fly for 4 minutes. About 30 seconds later the party wizard, outpacing their slower friends, decides that they need some firepower, so they take an action and gain the giant proboscis of a mosquito. They roll 1D6 and find out that they can now fly and sting with the proboscis for a grand total of 7 minutes.
Lenses
Lenses contain a power word, an adjective. When the lenses are held up to the face, you can see anything that possesses this adjective in a colored highlight. This highlight is perfectly visible in darkness or through any other conditions that obscure sight. If the lenses are word or attached to the face, the lenses come tumbling off into an inconvenient place if you take 6 or more damage from a single attack. If you take 10 or more damage from a single attack, the lenses are cracked and will need repairs.
Example:
The party steals the lenses of a paladin and pushes the paladin down a well as he stumbles blindly, it has etchings in it that contain the power word UNHOLY. The party wizard puts on the lenses and looks around, seeing that one of the party is highlighted. The party swiftly descends on their former comrade, killing them, and their illusion of humanity fades, revealing them to be a horde of mummified cats wearing a clever disguise.
Just as a note to GMs using this template, be sure to make the power word specific. If the power word is something general like EVIL, then like everything will show up. If you're going to do something like EVIL, break it down into a more specific component like GREEDY or PRIDEFUL.
Planchettes
Planchettes contain a power word, a noun, specifically a material or substance. Three times per day, you may spend a minute to do a quick seance with the material or substance as the focus of the seance. You may then ask the material or substance a question, it can only answer YES or NO. You must spend another minute to ask another question to the substance, possibly wasting time or attracting attention. The substance or material answers honestly based on its knowledge of the surrounds.
Example:
The party steals a planchette from an occultist noble, it has silver inlays that contains the power word GOLD. The party wizard, seeing the noble's housecat, has an idea and grasps its golden collar. The wizard uses the planchette and asks if there is a secret door in the library of the noble's mansion. The collar answers YES.
Ipecac
Special vials of ipecac contain a power word, a noun, specifically a material or substance. You can take an action to drink a vial to puke up the material or substance that is the power word. When you do this, you can choose to either sip it (roll 1D6), slurp it (roll 2D6), or down it (roll 3D6). The sum of the dice you rolled is the amount of liters of the material or substance you puke out, about 4-ish liters makes up a gallon for you Imperials out there. If the sum of the dice rolled is over your current STR, you also puke out some entrails, the GM may decide what innards you puke and what disadvantages that may result in. Ipecac has three doses (3D6), use them wisely.
Example:
The party loots a cellar in an abandoned city and finds a vial of ipecac with the warning label that says FIRE. The party is soon attacked by a pack of feral cats in the abandoned city, and the fight comes to desparate measures. The party wizard decides to pull out the ipecac and slurps it. The wizard rolls 2D6 and gets a 7, just barely below their STR. They puke out about 2 gallons of fiery bile at the cats, scaring them off back to the furry allergy-ridden hell they came from.
Whistle
Whistles contain a power word, an adjective. The whistle can be blown and it will cause intense irritation and ear-covering towards anything that possesses this adjective. This is not a dogwhistle, it is audible to everything, it just has adverse effects on anything possessing the adjective, and can still draw lots of attention if blown.
Example:
The party takes a whistle dangling from a guard captain's neck. It has engravings in it, its power word is TRAITOROUS. The party goes into the basement of the castle they've found the whistle in, and a horde of armored cats ambush the party. The party wizard blows the whistle, and all the cats turn tail, but this attracts the rest of the guards upstairs.
As you can tell, I'm not a cat person. My hatred of felines aside, I find that this template method can come in great use for improvisation along with stocking dungeons since the power words to magic items can be thematic to the dungeon itself. When I first made this about half a year ago I feared that it may become repetitive quickly. But, in play I've found that if you don't give out magic items too commonly, your players will come to appreciate the sight of these certain items and happily add it to their toolboxes. Of course, just as a measure against possible repetition, I've created quite a few more magic item templates. I may compile them later, but for now, I'll see you all later.
Attached to my GM screen I have four pages. The first is a giant list of random names, surnames, quirks, appearance, and secrets, all on D100 tables in some almost too tiny text. The second is a set of "templates" for magical items. The third is the player-facing rules to my hack. The fourth is simply for taking notes. I tend to run lots of my games pretty off-the-cuff since I am only an efficient writer when it's about an hour before the game starts and I'm panicking - anxiety is a horrible curse to have.
Now, in interest of making interesting content, I'm going to share the magical item templates, since I'm almost sure everybody has seen their fair share of D100 tables and nobody could ever decipher my notes, and my own custom adventures will come later down the line. The magical item templates are by far the most interesting contents behind the screen.
The general gist behind magic item templates is that, in my games, there are some items that are commonly known to contain certain types of versatile magic. This could be, for instance, spell scrolls. If you were to pick up two spell scrolls, you would know that these two items are visually almost the same and are used in the same way, but they still have unique effects different from one another.
Basically, every magic item from a template contains a power word. This differentiates from item to item, but it's really simple to come up with a power word on the fly. The magic item has specific mechanical and magical effects based around the selected power word.
Hopefully you understand that, if you don't, there will be examples of magic items with templates. Without further ado:
 |
| Six Magic Item Templates (Jakub Rebelka) |
Spellbooks
Spellbooks contain a power word used to cast spells, this is a verb. To use a spellbook, you must construct a command. Roll 1D6 for every word in the command. The amount of dice rolled represents the amount of saves that need to be made before anybody can break free from the effect of the command, the sum of the dice rolled is the damage of the command, if it does any.
If the sum of the D6s rolled is greater than your current WIL score, you take WIL damage equal to however much you rolled over your WIL. For instance, if you had 16 WIL and rolled 18, you would take 2 WIL damage. You also need to make a WIL save against your new WIL, if you fail, the GM can change what the command says, except for the power word.
Spellbooks also have limits:
- Spellbooks are only usable once per day.
- Commands from spellbooks must start with the power word.
- Commands cannot be longer than 5 words.
- Commands only persist while you are in line of sight of the target(s), and affect everybody within line of sight if target's aren't specified within the command.
- Grammatically incorrect commands target everybody within line of sight.
Example:
The party rips a spellbook from a dead pyromancer's crispy hands. The spellbook contains the power word BURN. Later, the party wizard uses the newly obtained spellbook against a horde of feral cats, shouting BURN, CATS! Since this would be a damaging command, all cats within line of sight instantly burst into flames, taking 2D6 damage.
Masks
Masks contain a power word, a noun, specifically a creature. As an action, you can gain an aspect of this creature, such as the wings of a bird or the eyes of a cat. When you do this, roll 1D6. This partial transformation lasts for this amount of minutes. You can gain a total of three aspects in one day, lasting a total of 3D6 minutes if you transform in quick succession. If the total of the D6s you have rolled are over your WIL, you transform into a humanoid form of the creature the mask represents forever, the mask becomes your face and can no longer be used if this happens.
Example:
The party takes a mask off the face of an assassin, the mask represents a MOSQUITO. The party soon is chasing after another assassin who is dragging away their friend. The party wizard uses the newly obtained mask, and as an action, gains the wings of a mosquito. They roll 1D6 and find out they can now fly for 4 minutes. About 30 seconds later the party wizard, outpacing their slower friends, decides that they need some firepower, so they take an action and gain the giant proboscis of a mosquito. They roll 1D6 and find out that they can now fly and sting with the proboscis for a grand total of 7 minutes.
Lenses
Lenses contain a power word, an adjective. When the lenses are held up to the face, you can see anything that possesses this adjective in a colored highlight. This highlight is perfectly visible in darkness or through any other conditions that obscure sight. If the lenses are word or attached to the face, the lenses come tumbling off into an inconvenient place if you take 6 or more damage from a single attack. If you take 10 or more damage from a single attack, the lenses are cracked and will need repairs.
Example:
The party steals the lenses of a paladin and pushes the paladin down a well as he stumbles blindly, it has etchings in it that contain the power word UNHOLY. The party wizard puts on the lenses and looks around, seeing that one of the party is highlighted. The party swiftly descends on their former comrade, killing them, and their illusion of humanity fades, revealing them to be a horde of mummified cats wearing a clever disguise.
Just as a note to GMs using this template, be sure to make the power word specific. If the power word is something general like EVIL, then like everything will show up. If you're going to do something like EVIL, break it down into a more specific component like GREEDY or PRIDEFUL.
Planchettes
Planchettes contain a power word, a noun, specifically a material or substance. Three times per day, you may spend a minute to do a quick seance with the material or substance as the focus of the seance. You may then ask the material or substance a question, it can only answer YES or NO. You must spend another minute to ask another question to the substance, possibly wasting time or attracting attention. The substance or material answers honestly based on its knowledge of the surrounds.
Example:
The party steals a planchette from an occultist noble, it has silver inlays that contains the power word GOLD. The party wizard, seeing the noble's housecat, has an idea and grasps its golden collar. The wizard uses the planchette and asks if there is a secret door in the library of the noble's mansion. The collar answers YES.
Ipecac
Special vials of ipecac contain a power word, a noun, specifically a material or substance. You can take an action to drink a vial to puke up the material or substance that is the power word. When you do this, you can choose to either sip it (roll 1D6), slurp it (roll 2D6), or down it (roll 3D6). The sum of the dice you rolled is the amount of liters of the material or substance you puke out, about 4-ish liters makes up a gallon for you Imperials out there. If the sum of the dice rolled is over your current STR, you also puke out some entrails, the GM may decide what innards you puke and what disadvantages that may result in. Ipecac has three doses (3D6), use them wisely.
Example:
The party loots a cellar in an abandoned city and finds a vial of ipecac with the warning label that says FIRE. The party is soon attacked by a pack of feral cats in the abandoned city, and the fight comes to desparate measures. The party wizard decides to pull out the ipecac and slurps it. The wizard rolls 2D6 and gets a 7, just barely below their STR. They puke out about 2 gallons of fiery bile at the cats, scaring them off back to the furry allergy-ridden hell they came from.
Whistle
Whistles contain a power word, an adjective. The whistle can be blown and it will cause intense irritation and ear-covering towards anything that possesses this adjective. This is not a dogwhistle, it is audible to everything, it just has adverse effects on anything possessing the adjective, and can still draw lots of attention if blown.
Example:
The party takes a whistle dangling from a guard captain's neck. It has engravings in it, its power word is TRAITOROUS. The party goes into the basement of the castle they've found the whistle in, and a horde of armored cats ambush the party. The party wizard blows the whistle, and all the cats turn tail, but this attracts the rest of the guards upstairs.
As you can tell, I'm not a cat person. My hatred of felines aside, I find that this template method can come in great use for improvisation along with stocking dungeons since the power words to magic items can be thematic to the dungeon itself. When I first made this about half a year ago I feared that it may become repetitive quickly. But, in play I've found that if you don't give out magic items too commonly, your players will come to appreciate the sight of these certain items and happily add it to their toolboxes. Of course, just as a measure against possible repetition, I've created quite a few more magic item templates. I may compile them later, but for now, I'll see you all later.
I can make lists of names fairly easily, but I'd like to see your lists of quirks, appearances, and secrets. These templates are really interesting tools.
ReplyDeleteThe lists of traits I randomly give NPCs will probably come with the player-facing rules that I'm going to post next. Thank you!
DeleteThis is really good stuff. The masks are especially evocative.
ReplyDeleteThere's a fine balance to be struck between over-codified and DM-whimsy, and I think you've nailed it.
Holy hey, I didn't expect to see one of my inspirations here. My players still find ways to make me regret now codifying this more, like when they shove ipecac down somebody's throat or try to make somebody else use a mask or surgically replacing somebody's voice-box with a whistle. It's nice to have confirmation that I'm doing this semi-okay, so thanks for the input!
DeleteThanks for sharing
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