Time For My Nightly Patrol!

Oh for Pete's sake! He's right there! Behind you!

Looking over my "City of Crime" supplement, I was stricken by how some of the results aren't completely appropriate for all sub-genre's of superhero RPG'ing. While it was my intent all along to go in and tweak it at some point to offer a more "comics code friendly" option, I was still somewhat surprised at how squicky or grimdark some elements were. So I decided to go ahead and do it right now, and to  jail break it out as a separate thing.

"A Night on Patrol" focuses specifically on just the Districts of The City, the Patrol Encounter Chart, the Specific Crimes charts, and the Types of Rackets chart. It has been edited to remove crimes and situations that might be distressing or uncomfortable, and that would not typically show up in your average comic book.

So get out there now and patrol the city in a more genre appropriate way!

The Owl swoops!

"The Vigilante Hack" is HACK-TASTIC!

Love the cover for starters.

Once again, it's been a while since blarging. All the usual reasons, so no need to dwell on that. What I wanted to talk about is a little game that has motivated me in a big way: "The Vigilante Hack" by Eric Bloat from Bloat Games.

"The Vigilante Hack" (TVH) is a small indie RPG based on "The Black Hack" (TBH) by David Black. I'd heard of TBH when it made its big splash a little more than a year-and-a-half ago, but I didn't pay it much mind. "Another retro-clone" was my thought. Then I heard some talk of its Usage Die mechanic, thought "neat", and still didn't pay it much mind,

Then a few months back, TVH dropped. I was taken immediately by the stark simplicity of the cover, which I found quite striking. Reading the description, I kinda went "eh". Though I liked the sound of it, at the same time I have plenty of Supers games, and this one didn't sound like it did anything new or different than the others (and to be honest, it really kinda doesn't), so I didn't check it out right away.

Apparently I just wasn't ready at the time, or the mood wasn't right, or whatever. But the exposure must have went in by brain and stuck there, waiting for the right moment. I got to thinking about getting a Supers game going again, as I often do, but couldn't settle on a particular game, a particular sub-genre or setting, etc, also as I often do. Then I remembered TVH and a little something clicked. I looked it up on DriveThruRPG, saw that A) it had been marked down to a measly two bucks, and B) that it already had support material by way of a GM's Guide, "A City Full of Sinners" (aCFoS), also two bucks. For $4, two books? Why not?

Another awesome cover.

For starters, they motivated me enough to post about them on several of my G+ groups recently. They've also continued to motivate me enough that I've been feverishly working for a few weeks on a couple of projects in preparation for a campaign. Finally, the fact that they motivated me enough to get off my butt and blarg about them at more length and examine WHY they've motivated me so much is obviously proof that I'm glad I gave them a chance.

On the surface, they're deceptively simple. A mere 37 pages for the core book! Another 37 for aCFoS. 74 pages combined. Just 10 pages more than the sixty-four pages of Moldvay's Basic D&D, which is a high point for me in lean, mean, succinct game design, so this is not a bad thing.

The rules are pure, old school, D&D stripped down to its core for task resolution and combat, and removing the clunky sub-systems, thus making a small, lean rule set even smaller and leaner, & streamlined even further, with a few innovations (like the aforementioned Usage Die) & modern flourishes (Advantage/Disadvantage a la 5e). This is also not a bad thing, as reading it reminded me of all the familiar things that I LIKE about old-school D&D, familiarity and ease of play being among them.

One of the areas I think the game really shines in is in its look, presentation, and style. It has a certain feel, a certain vibe about it that sells the premise of the game.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the premise of the game:

"The Vigilante Hack is not a superhero game. While yes, some vigilantes in The Vigilante Hack are considered heroes and some wear costumes, including capes and masks, there is nothing “super” about them. They have no X-ray vision. They cannot run faster than cars. They cannot leap buildings in a single bound and they are not bullet proof. The vigilantes in The Vigilante Hack are normal people, the same as you and I, who have become fed up with the lawless individuals, thugs, organized crime and villains and have decided to do something about it! They have trained hard, sometimes to the point of obsession, and have struck back at those very people who are ruining their city. Think Batman, not Superman. Think The Punisher, not Spider-Man. Think Batgirl not Wonder Woman. Being a vigilante can be a thankless and even deadly calling. You may get arrested. You may pick a fight that you can’t win. You may find yourself looking down the barrel of a villain’s gun or you may even cross the line of right and wrong and become the exact thing that you started out trying to stop."

If this is what you want, this is what the game delivers. And that's ALL it delivers. Instead of trying to be all things to all people, it does the one thing it does, and does it simply and well in a rules-lite package.

This was what set off the light bulb for me: I didn't want to play a SUPERS game, I apparently wanted to play a VIGILANTE game. A MASKED HERO game. A COSTUMED ADVENTURER or MYSTERY MEN game. Calling it a "Supers" game is really a misnomer.

And by narrowing the focus, I found this liberating. When contemplating a Supers game, I think I was overwhelmed by choice . By limiting the focus and saying "There are no superpowers. Everyone in this game is a regular human", I suddenly felt relieved. Even if I had attempted to play this kind of game with other rule sets, it would have felt like I was missing something, both because of how those games scale to handle superpowers, and just the fact in the back of my mind I would be aware that they're there. By saying "This is not what this game is about" it suddenly made me feel OKAY about it. It gave me permission to play this kind of game. By eliminating all other choices it set me free.

This is "Watchmen" without Dr. Manhattan. It's "Kick-Ass" by Mark Miller. It's the DCU if it only consisted of The Batman and Family, The Green Arrow and his related characters, and so on.

Again, this is not a bad thing. It seems to have resonated with me in some of the same ways that recent shows like "Daredevil" and "Arrow" have with viewers. It levels the playing field between the heroes and the criminals they will do battle with. Makes them more of a challenge. Suddenly the common street criminal or mobster seems like more of a threat. I like that. It also brings the genre back to its pulp adventurer roots in a way I also like.

So all that said, I've finished the two projects I was working on. The first was adapting a set of (hopefully easy to use) but very detailed Hand-to-Hand and Gunfire Charts to add flavor to (modern) d20 combat. The second I'm very excited about, as it's a project I've wanted to tackle for a while. It's an adaptation and expansion of various Patrol and Crime, charts, both published and online, to give a Patrol System for the types of situations a crime fighter would encounter on their nightly patrols.

With the completion of these, I'm ready to start my campaign! Speaking of which, next time I'll share the details of the campaign setting I've brainstormed thus far. I'd also like to share a few other Black Hack games, resources, and "Additional Things" that I'm adding to season TVH to taste.

Until then! 

Spring-ing Back Into (Superhero) Action!

My new crush

It's been a rough year for this Blarg-edy Blarg'er. Work upheaval & some (minor) poor health throughout the year didn't leave me with a lot of time. Or desire to "blarg" about gaming, or much of anything else. For a long while I didn't do, or even think about, anything gaming related.

BUT, as situations improved, I started thinking, then tinkering, & finally, feeling the urge to share my thoughts again! SO, here we are!

Oddly enough, it was just a little over a year ago that I made my LAST post here at the Blarg, on the same subject I'm tackling again: Superhero RPG'ing

One of the issues I'd been struggling with a bit in the past while working on the Super Hero Open World Sandbox Hexcrawl series of posts was which rule set to use. As I'd covered in a previous post I was a "Champions" man first, and then a "Marvel Superheroes" guy later. While I would be fine with running either, at the same time I still had issues with both. Still, my love for both REALLY made it difficult to entertain the thought of a new system.

But in this latest bout of spring-fueled mania, I decided to take the plunge. But which one? "Icons" , "Supers" , Capes, Cowls, and Villains Foul were among those that had my interest.

The Contenders

"Icons" in particular I'd looked over, and had things that left me cool towards it, despite the fact it seems to be the most popular of the new breed Supers RPG's of the rules lite variety. (Something about the "FATE" system just doesn't seem to click with me I think).

After reading up on all of them, I ended up settling on "BASH!" (as I'm sure you already figured out from the lead-in image at the beginning of this post...)

I'm still in the process of reading it, but so far my thoughts are: "Holy procrastination, Batman! Why did I wait so long?!?"

It's been out long enough that there are plenty of reviews that can do it better justice than I, (especially since, as I said, I'm still reading it), but I'll happily share what I'm digging about it thus far:

• Seems to nicely straddle the line between "Champions" and "MSH" in terms of rules, mechanics, and character creation, while addressing the issues I have with both.
• Has a really nice, simple universal task resolution mechanic, that still has enough crunch for me.
• The simplicity of character building should make modding or porting characters over a breeze, but again, with enough detail to satisfy. 
• Has a really nice mechanic for handling the power progression from Mook to Cosmic level, on such a small (mechanical) scale no less. It's not unlike the old "DC Heroes" RPG, but not as crunchy.
• VERY nice mechanics for making sure that all characters don't have to be built on the same point totals, yet characters of varying power levels are still "balanced out", which also eliminates the need to "make sure all the points are spent", and provides for cases when uneven/unspent point totals do occur.
• Nice and concise. 146 pages total, Rules and Powers covered in just 60 pages, the rest devoted to the GM's section, Settings, Example Characters aplenty, Alternate Rules, & the Index. This is a biggie for me, as I'm a big fan of the brevity of old-school rules like the original "Champions" or "B/X D&D".
• Speaking of Example Characters, they've got TONS of "comic book characters with the serial numbers filed off" stat'ed up in a sort of "blank template" format, so that you can either use them as those characters (if you chose to do so), as a starting point to mod that hero more to your liking, or especially as the starting point for your OWN character. Want to play a character "like" Spider-Man? Grab the "Swing-Line Skulk" template & then mod to your tastes!

  

  Why didn't somebody tell me he had one a' those, those...THINGS?!

• Finally,and this one was another big selling point for me, some REALLY nice Random Tables for Adventure Creation &/or Going on Patrol.  Like the rules themselves, brief, but detailed. You generate by Neighborhood (Slum, Downtown/Midtown, or Uptown/Suburbs) to get a Crime Type, then get a Specific Crime by that Type (Violent Crime, "regular" Crime, or "Routine Business". I'm a sucker for Random Tables, and HAVE a lot, but can always use more, and these weld together a couple of different approaches in a way I haven't exactly seen before, and like quite a bit.

If I had any one "complaint" it might be that I really wanted something that had BOTH Random AND Point-Buy Character Building. HOWEVER, as easy as character building IS in this game, it should be a SNAP to randomly generate characters in, say, Marvel for example, and then port them over!

So, overall I'm REALLY pleased thus far. Maybe now I can put all that prep last year to use!

YES!!!

You down with (Gamer) A.D.D?

Yeah, you know me...

Gamer A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). It's become a running joke in gaming circles. It's funny, although I worry that it in some way trivializes REAL A.D.D. (which is certainly not my intent).

In any case, it's become a shorthand for being easily distracted from one's current RPG pursuit(s) by the "new shiny". The proverbial "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome.

While I'm still firmly committed to getting a Supers game off the ground, I'd be a liar if I said there aren't other games tempting me. As a Solo gamer now, I feel like I (we?) am/are even more vulnerable to the dreaded Gamer A.D.D, as with a group, once everyone is on board with a game, usually it takes on legs of its own and the train keeps rolling. I'd say there's not a lot of suddenly skipping from one game to another on the whim of one person in a group.

In any case here are a few of the other Games I'd Like To Play:

My sci-fi crush

 "White Star", oh how you tempt me. Ever since I picked this up just for the intent of adding material to the Star Trek thing I was tinkering with, it has pulled at me strongly to do as a stand-alone thing.

I love the "generic with the serial numbers filed off" vibe of it. I could totally see playing in a style of the cheesy post-Star Wars sci-fi movies of the 80's, like Battle Beyond the Stars, Starcrash, The Humanoid, The Ice Pirates, or Galaxina, which I love. (Just like in my mind, all of my D&D sessions look like the cheesy post-Conan fantasy flicks of the 80's like Hawk the Slayer...)

With the recent release of White Star supplement Five Year Mission the urge is as strong as ever. It even gives me thoughts of the Trek thing AGAIN...

tempts me to Trek on again

The recent trailers for the new Bond flick "Spectre" got me to thinking, I haven't played a modern action/adventure game in a LONG time, not since Hero Games "Espionage" back in the 80's. But I was a BIG action adventure guy back in the day, eating up flicks like "Die Hard', "Lethal Weapon", "Rambo: First Blood Part II", and a particular favorite "Commando".

Even my choice of reading material back then skewed to the Men's Adventure novels of the 80's like Mack Bolan (the Executioner), Able Team, Phoenix Force, and so on.

Meet the guy who inspired Marvel to create "The Punisher"

So I was curious to see what kind of Spy &/or Action/Adventure games were out there. Though the modern digital age has been a huge boon in the options of readily available, affordable, gaming material, it can also be a BANE too, in that it can be an enabler of one to give in to the urge to ACQUIRE and COLLECT, especially since they are, y'know, so readily available and affordable...

ANYWAY, after shopping around, two games caught my fancy for simple and rules light that look like they'd be a lot of fun that I gave in and picked up, "Covert Ops" and "Dogs of W*A*R", the former being aimed at a more espionage bent (though it looks like it would really cover the whole gamut), while the latter is firmly aimed at those Men's Adventure novels I mentioned earlier.

"Covert Ops"in particular has really got me enthralled. There is a lot of ideas and good game crammed into that rules light package. All of the Random Generators for Major NPC's, Enemy Organizations, Master Villains, Missions, and Security and Traps alone are worth the price. I can already REALLY see running it RIGHT NOW, as a very zero prep, pick up and play, stand-alone adventures type thing, not unlike the Mini Six powered "Monster of the Week" thing that I still want to get back to at some point.

Another genre that I love is the Western. It's a genre that I'm intimately familiar with, having grown up at the tail end of the the heyday of the T.V. Western, and having a Dad who's a fan of the genre instilled a love of Cowboys and Gunslingers in me that has endured, so as such I've had an idea for a "Boot Hill" sandbox for some time that I'd still love to explore at some point.

SO, back to the titular subject of Gamer A.D.D, I wonder if as a Solo gamer that this couldn't end up being a POSITIVE, as we're really free to jump around, experiment, and play whatever we want, WHENEVER we want.

The biggest challenge for me is just to get past that feeling that I'm "cheating" on one game with another, or that I'm "abandoning" one game for another.

I tend to be a absolutist in my thinking, AND in my hobbies and gaming. I'm a real "all or nothing, all in" kind of guy. That's something I'd really like to get over, as when I look at the images posted of so many great games, I really want to make room for them all in my gaming life.

That's Life in the Big City! (Modern Urban City Dressing Tables!)

Welcome to the city that never sleeps...

As mentioned in a previous post in my series on my proposed Solo Open World Superhero Sandbox Hexcrawl, one of the vital elements I still needed was Modern Urban City Dressing Tables. Not Random Encounters, just Set Dressing. Slices of life. Normal people living everyday life doing normal things.

As I said there, I feel like Dressing Tables (regardless of setting) lend verisimilitude, color, flavor, and realism.

Since I couldn't find many to choose from, I made my own. Compiled from the pages of RPG.net, Reddit, and others, as well as my own, and polished and edited by yours truly, and shared with the world for gratis below, you will find 200 Random Events, in both Day and Night flavors:

Random City Events (Day)

Random City Events (Night)

Though designed for a Supers game, these are generic enough that they can be used in any modern urban setting. They're not fancy or pretty, but they'll get the job done.

So, hopefully these make your city life a little more interesting. If you enjoy them and/or find them useful, feel free to drop me a line. :)

See ya in the Big City heroes!

*EDIT* Night table link was to a draft, not the finished one. Fixed now.

How's the Weather? And Now, The News... (Superhero Sandbox Thing Pt. 3)

Weather helps evoke mood and atmosphere

As I work on compiling and creating Random Mundane City Street Urban Encounters/Dressing I remembered yet another piece of verisimilitude  that served me very well in the D&D Sandbox that would be equally useful here, not only for adding color, flavor, and realism, but could also add some fun complications.

I'm talkin' 'bout The Weather.

As seen in innumerable comics, shots like the one above can really lend flair and authenticity. Fortunately, weather charts are a LOT easier to come by than the aforementioned ones in the last post. I already have a favorite weather chart, that, while created for Warhammer, is really pretty system agnostic.

Now, right after that, while still working on the random encounters, another thought hit me as to a great tool to add to this "process" I'm brewing up to not only add more set dressing, but possibly add an easy "in" or hook for adventures:

I am referring to Newspapers.

Fair and Balanced?

I looked around for a while on line for Newspaper Headline Generators that would generate serious, crime and other news related blurbs, but with no luck. But really, one could sit down with any favorite Adventure Generator and whip up a plot that is the focus of the headline. And now your hero has a hook to start investigating. Maybe it ends up being the focus of the adventure, maybe while heading out for the day/night to begin the investigation something ELSE occurs and the story in the paper falls by the wayside.

My idea is that such a feature shouldn't turn up ALL the time, more like a Random Encounter. SO,  Roll 1d6 each day to see if there's anything interesting in the paper, with "1" = Yes. (Maybe +1 for each uneventful day until SOMETHING happens? This IS the Big City after all,,,)

So the Procedure I'm picturing for a Daily Routine as originally pictured in the first post in this series probably looks something like this:

1. Roll for Dependent NPC's, Hunteds, etc.
2. Roll for Weather, roll for duration (as needed).
3. Roll for Interesting Headline in the Newspaper. (Generate as needed)
4. Roll on Patrol Encounter table for each "area" moved through/entered.
5. If no Patrol Encounter generated, roll for Random Encounter,
6. If no Patrol OR Random Encounter occurs, roll for City Dressing/Mundane Urban Encounter
7. Roll for Random Encounter (as per #5) to see if any Encounter occurs AT the Destination. If     not, conclude your business there and then repeat 4-6 as you travel to your NEXT destination,   out on your daily/nightly patrol, or just back home.

If doing a Daily/Nightly Patrol, repeat #4-6 for each area/hex/block/borough moved through. 

If simply travelling to/from point A to point B (like on the way to school, job, date, etc) then repeat 4-6 until you reach your destination (#7)

 (Or maybe just one set of rolls of 4-6 on the way from Point A to Point B if you want a more relaxed pace. As I haven't tied this yet, I haven't decided, BUT I'm thinking I'd rather only do the more frequent rolls while PATROLLING and only single sets when TRAVELING).

Following the above, I think I've got the formula to play out "a day in the life" of a Superhero whenever it suits me. 

You know what this town needs?!?!? (Solo Superhero Open World Sandbox Hexcrawl Pt. Deux!)

NOT what he said!

In my last post I laid out my ideas on what I think it would take to make such a beast as a Solo Superhero Open World Sandbox Hexcrawl run, as well as all of the links to blog posts, random tables, and so on that I've armed myself with for such an undertaking. But it occurred to me that I've left out one VERY IMPORTANT element (in my mind, for me, I can't stress HOW important):

City or Urban Dressing.

Call them set dressing, set pieces, stock footage, color, flavor,or whatever you like. I've found in my D&D Solo Hexcrawl that they've been a crucial element at adding that oh so important verisimilitude that I crave. Charts and tables full of little slice of life bits that just add color and flavor as you pass through an area (and that JUST MIGHT lead to something more if you start asking Mythic the right questions, roll a juicy result on a Rory's Story Cube or whatever).

Not the big Random Encounter type results mind you, just little, mundane, everyday details (with a little color and flair).

This is what I want MY city to be like...










...and this....

...or this...

...or even this, and so on.












Raging Swan Press makes a great series of them for D&D/Fantasy RPG's that I highly recommend...

But when I SCOURED Teh Webz for modern, urban/city dressing, random events, etc I found NEARLY BUPKIS!!! There is ASTONISHINGLY less support for pretty much any other genre you care to name COMBINED than there is for the monster that is Fantasy. *sad face*

Now, I did find ONE product that is (more or less) exactly what I had in mind "100 Modern Happenings On A City Street" ...

and found a long series of forum posts that has a lot of good ones (but it'll take some time to comb through and separate the wheat from chafee).

Beyond that, surprisingly little! So, I guess I know what I'm working on this weekend!

Superhero Open World Sandbox Hexcrawl!

Let's play!

So this post may be a bit all over the place and random, as my thoughts are a bit scattered on the subject, but I will at least try to cram as much stuff in as I can that I have located on the subject of, and that I'd like to use for, a Superhero Open World Sandbox Hexcrawl, along with my ramblings on the subject.

First, I had a bit of a revelation in the past couple weeks thinking on my beloved Champions. I have a suspicion that one of the great unsung heroes of Champions game design could end up being a crucial piece of the type of game I'm looking to play. I'm talking about Disadvantages.

If you're not familiar with Hero System games, character creation is a point buy system. You're given a starting number of points for free, but in order to have enough to build an average character you have to make up the balance with Disadvantages. It's a neat system that helps build a background for your character while handing the GM juicy plot hooks.

There are a couple of types among the various Disadvantages that I have in mind in particular. These are Hunted's and Dependent NPC's 

Hunted's are individuals or organizations that are actively pursuing your character. Dependent NPC's are those regular folks who rely on the hero for their care and well being. There are a few different criteria that determine how many points you earn for both (how weak or capable they are, and so on), but the one I have in mind is FREQUENCY. Both of them have a chance of showing up each session (8, 11, & 14 or less on 3d6), rolled by the GM. An appearance need not mean combat or endangerment, just that person(s) will figure into the session somehow.

I always thought this was one of the areas Champions outshone the competition, and always felt like games like Marvel Superheros could have used it. ( Aunt May, Dependent NPC: Amazing (50). Red roll? Uh-Oh, Aunt May is going to be in danger! Maybe Green is a phone call, Yellow a personal appearance, that sort of thing).

If I end up playing Champions this isn't a problem, but regardless of system, I want to front load my sessions with a chance of Hunted's, Dependent NPC's, and the like. These could then be worked in when relevant results show up on your Random Encounter Tables (see below), or when your Game Master Emulator of choice (like Mythic GME) throws you a Random Event or an Altered/Interrupted Scene, and so on.

(This may not be much of a "revelation" for most, but it was for me, in that as kids we never really used ALL the rules from Champions (Endurance, I'm looking at you!). We were pretty lazy about Hunted's, Dependent NPC's and so on. If we were running an adventure with Genocide, and you're HUNTED by them, well, they're going to target YOU. Otherwise, we just ignored them. We we kids...)

***

Next, I'll address a question that seems to come up a lot in various online discussions I've Googled up on the subject, which is: why does a Supers game NEED a hexcrawl in the first place? It's not a bad question.

For me at least, it all goes back to subjects I've discussed in previous posts: Immersion, realism, simulation, verisimilitude. I want the world to feel REAL. INTERACTIVE. Not only do I want a GAME MASTER EMULATOR for solo play, I want a WORLD emulator as well.

It would be pretty easy to just plunk the hero down in the city and roll up a random encounter. But I want more of a city that feels like it has all these things going on around me.

SO...that said, simple random encounter tables aren't enough for me. As I'm patrolling different parts of the city, I want greater or lesser chances of encounters, types of crimes, that sort of thing. IMO this will help make the city feel REAL and ALIVE.

One of the games I've heard recommended a lot for this style of play is also the FIRST Supers game: Superhero 2044. It incorporates planning sheets for you to block out how your hero spends their time and charts to roll on for patrols and so on. Very simulation-ish. Okay, sounds promising.

I managed to track down a PDF. The results...? Well...I got a headache, and a couple of nifty charts anyway...







I won't go into much detail on how these are used in the game, as I STILL don't quite grok how it works, other than to say it all boils down to a random die roll to see if you stop the crime, make a conviction, and so on, with a bunch of modifiers and mathematical formulas. Snore.






BUT, that chart for determining types of crime by area patrolled is pretty awesome. It reminds me of another one I found at Republic of Replicants from the DC Heroes RPG supplement Night In Gotham:

Add that to this map from IO9 that is keyed with the 24 boroughs on the chart above:

And you're off to a great start on prowling the city looking for crime.

***

Marvel Superheroes has a pretty good one too, in the accessory New York, New York

that you can get for free at Classic Marvel Forever

This one runs more of a gamut, incorporating Daily Life, Miscellaneous Crimes, Robberies, Burglaries, Rampage, Vendetta, Organized Crime, and Catastrophes. It's closer to what I think of as a Random Encounter chart.

Which brings me to Random Encounters. I have nothing against them. Heck, I love them. I think they're just the spice a sandbox needs. So while the ones above and to the right would be good for "hex stocking" tables as you move through the city, I also think a Supers Open World Sandbox Hexcrawl would need true Random Encounters.

In my mind the Random Encounters in this type of game would be more of your "big" encounters. Supervillain attacks, Alien Invasions, and so on.

Fortunately there are several good ones I've scoured up in my  searches of the internet like the DC Heroes RPG one linked to above at Republic of Replicants or here's a good one for sale at Drive Thru RPG...

Worlds of Pulp: Generic Random Event tables for Super Heroes


The thing that makes the Wandering Monster/Random Encounter work in D&D is the simple 1 in 6 on d6 (or 1-2 in some cases). So I'm picturing something like that here. Each "hex" (borough, neighborhood, whatever) you move into or through you would check on your Patrol Encounter Table. No crime in the area? Roll for Random Encounter. If one is generated, roll on Random Encounter Table.

I haven't decided on frequency though. In D&D, for Wilderness you check 3-4 times per day. In a Dungeon it's every other turn for Wandering Monsters. Every other "hex" could be a good metric here?





***

So, overall the basic procedure would look something like:

1. Check for Hunted's, Dep NPC's etc. at beginning of session.
2. Roll on Patrol Encounter table for each "area" moved through/entered.
3. If no Patrol Encounter generated, roll for Random Encounter every other "area".

Between this procedure and all the randomness your GM Emulator of choice (like Mythic) throws at you, plus any and all other oracles you might employ ( like Rory's Story Cubes) SOMETHING has to happen! If not either you're not looking hard enough for trouble, or it just wasn't meant to be. Go back home and go back to bed.

Needless to say, all of this is only if you're just out patrolling the city, on your way to work, whatever. If you have a specific mission or agenda from a previous session or whatever then obviously that would take precedent (unless you WANT to add the chance of added complications. Could be fun!)

***

As a bonus, here is my collection of all the most useful blog posts and downloads that I've gathered on the subject (in addition to the ones already posted above!).


Blog post on Superhero Sandboxes by Jeff Rients

Alien Shores blog posts on Sandbox superhero campaigns (3 parts. Recommended!)

Rogues and Reavers blog: New York, New York inspired Campaign Frames

Modern Dispatch (#66): Superheroic Adventure Generator

Marvel Superheroes RPG Random Encounter Table by Ty States

Random Encounter Tables for GM's by Ty States

Polyhedron Magazine article collection for MSH. (Of note are the articles "Constructing a Solo Campaign" from issue 80 and "Constructing Random Adventures" from issue 91)

CRIME SCENE written by A. Bigwood QUICK SCENARIO GENERATOR FOR CHAMPIONS OR ANY OTHER RPG

Heroes Unlimited Random Encounter Table

Elfmaids & Octopi blog: River city encounters for Marvel Super Heroes

Mutants & Masterminds Random Events (pg 6)

CrimeTable+Toolkit for Icons

*EDIT*

I wasn't even aware when I drafted this list and post, but apparently +John McMullen  was already ON this track before I was, hitting on some of the same thoughts regarding Random Tables and Disadvantages back in JUNE! Check it HERE.

+StevenLincoln also gave me a tip to a great City Blocks Generator, that while intended for Sci-Fi/Cyberpunk, could work great in this context with minimum tweaking.

...of Immersion and Verisimilitude: Pull a seat up at the Table

One of the finest examples of Old School Random Tables

Random Tables. I've made no secret of it in the past, I absolutely love them. While still high on the post from last night, I celebrated by buying up PDF's of a ton more random tables from RPG Now. (My version of going out and painting the town red, but with less hangover the next day).

While spending the day browsing all of the new acquisitions, not only was I filled with joy and inspiration (which would be worth it alone even if I wasn't actually using them in play), but I was also suddenly hit with another trendy word from video game design:  Immersion, defined as, deep mental involvement.

While contemplating that word, another one sprang to mind, one that I'm quite fond of: Verisimilitude, or something that gives the thing into which it is integrated the appearance of being true or real.

In this case, it is Random Tables, as many as I can get my hands on, from as many sources as I can, crammed full of all kinds of little nuggets of inspiration and ideas that I wouldn't have come up with on my own, that I can stash away until needed, unremembered, and in most cases UNREAD, that give me the deep mental involvement and appearance of being true or real that helps create for me another of those words mentioned last post: Simulation.

Now the same may or may not work for you, but I think it is worth consideration that you find whatever that thing is that gives your games a sense of Immersion and Verisimilitude and include it.