What has changed since the last time we were here? d30 Table!

I have a bunch of tables and generators, but it's all in Portuguese on my Brazilian blog Pontos de Experiência. I am mainly working on my Adventurers of the Lost World setting book, but I will eventually translate some of my stuff in English to post here, which is exactly what this post is about today.

When running my games I always want to give the feeling of a world in constant motion and change. The characters can start in a settlement, go on an adventure and when they come back, something must have happened. The world continues without them, and they have to notice it somehow. This will give them the impression that the campaign world is real, even when they are not around!

To aid me in this task, I came up with this simple d30 table. It gives you a general idea you can interpret and create more elaborate events in pretty much any kind of settlement. So, whenever you feel like enough time has passed and some sort of change should happen to a place in your campaign world, roll on the table below and adjust the result to the settlement in question!

Explorer - A Class for Adventurers of the Lost World

Things continue to be developed for the upcoming Adventurers of the Lost World setting for DCC RPG. I am almost done with the Our World classes (just need to finish the Gadgeteer and the Mentalist) and soon will start to work on the Lost World "Race as Class" classes. Today I am bringing the Explorer class, a character specialized in survival and exploration of the wild areas of the Lost World.

As usual, this is not the final version of the text and changes can happen based on the feedback and playtest.

Explorer

You may not have been born in the wild places of earth, but you made them your home. You know what paths to follow. You know what natives and beasts live in the wilderness. Shelter, food and water are just a few steps away when you are around. Your knowledge on the ways of the wild is a valuable resource for any group of adventurers traveling around the world, including expeditions to the Lost World, since much of it is untamed and savage.

Specialist - A Class for Adventurers of the Lost World

Things are moving along behind the curtains, but as GENCON approaches, my writings are getting spared between planning and preparations for the 5 games I am running and the listing of all the magnificent stuff I want to buy there!

Today I present another class variation: the specialist. This class is a variation of the Thief class, adapted to the fictional 1930s world of Adventurers of the Lost World with it's own tweaks and perks. It's a class used to represent assassins, spies and international thieves as in classic pulp stories.

Soldier - A Class for Adventurers of the Lost World

Today we continue with the Adventurers of the Lost World previews with the presentation of the draft for a new class. The Soldier would be the equivalent to the Warrior in the fantastic version of the 1930s of Our World in this setting. As always, the final text and mechanics that are going to be in the Adventurers of the Lost World sourcebook may be different than what is presented here.

Soldier

You served the military, maybe even went to war a few years ago. Or maybe you were part o paramilitary group, created to overthrown an authoritarian regime. Fact is you know how to act in combat. You know the armaments. You know the tactics. Your presence in the battlefield can mean the difference between victory and death.

Soldiers are one of the toughest classes in the game, trained to use the most effective and heavy weapons, including war vehicles and equipment. Their military knowledge helps them serve a leading role in combat also, making them valuable individuals to any adventuring party.

The Lost World on the Adventurers of the Lost World - Part II

This is the second part of the description of the characteristics of the Lost World setting in the Adventurers of the Lost World. You can read the first part here.

10 Characteristics of the Lost World

When setting your game in the Lost World, whatever it might be, some characteristics should be remembered in order to capture the right feel of pulp adventure and fantasy exploration that comes from the stories which inspires Adventurers of the Lost World.

A World of Extremes

This is a land where everything is turned to maximum capacity. The mountains are higher, the jungles thicker and warmer, rivers are larger and wilder. Animals in the Lost World grow larger, stronger and more savage than their counterparts on Our World, and that makes the gigantic dinosaurs a greater threat than they already were going to be. The judge can emphasize this aspect by making sure to describe how much bigger things are in the Lost World. Statues are gigantic, raw diamonds are the size of giants head, the trees are as tall as buildings and the tyrannosaurus chasing them could swallow the titanic!

A World Out of Time

Not only time has its own flow in the Lost World but time itself seems to have forgotten this land. Creatures that should not be alive anymore are, like dinosaurs, mammoths, saber tooth tigers, and other extinct animals and beasts. Civilizations long gone from the face of the earth linger in the Lost Land as if no time has passed. This characteristic can be reinforced by the introduction of these ancient people with which the characters can interact and by putting these prehistoric and thought to be extinct creatures in the adventurers path. Being chased by gigantic blood thirsty reptiles is always fun!

A World of Magic

In the Lost World magic is real as science is in Our World. The natives of that land believe in it and either admire or more commonly fear the ones who use it. Shamans, druids, priest and sorcerers harness the energies provided by sinister powers to bend the reality according to their whim. The most learned occultists from Our World speak about dreaded and powerful rituals forgotten on the walls of ancient tombs of the lost civilizations, just waiting to be rediscovered. Most of them want to recover those writings to use it for their own goals, but the most rational of them comprehend that these need to be destroyed least it gets to the wrong hands. This is probably the easiest element to portray in a game since the use of magic is part of the rules. However a common pulp trope is to have evil sorcerers planning sacrifices to summon higher powers to do their bidding, as well as savage priests, shamans and druids that can control the elements to protect their tribes. In the Lost World where Atlanteans ruins and artifacts are scattered, magic can be part of every adventure.

A World of Mysteries

Not everything in the Lost World has a clear explanation. Mysterious things happen in this land that wouldn't happen anywhere else, and this is one of the reasons some people relentless seek the Lost World. Tales speak of miracles such as people walking again when they couldn't in Our World, terminal diseases that strangely vanished after drinking the pure water of a holy fountain, and blind people recovering their sight once they bathed in the pools of a isolated monastery inhabited spiritualist apes. Monuments, statues and buildings that no human hands could have constructed dot the landscapes of this land. Some of them have runes and sigils not present in any mortal language. Be it from the past or present. The judge can portray this characteristic in his game by putting things that are inexplicable in front of the characters, even if they are not directly linked to the main plot. Statues with the faces of alien creatures mode of solid stones that seem almost alive, a great sphere of obsidian that floats just above a crater inscribed with runes and symbols no one yet can decipher, a pyramid constructed upside down and that does not topple. It's quite possible that the adventurers maybe hired to investigate these affects or even make them happen to their patrons.

A World of Strange Creatures

Even though the Lost World is populated with all sorts of animals, other strange creatures also call it home. Most would call these creature monsters, demons or somethings else, but the natives have their own names for them. Creatures that are half man half beasts. Fungal beings that are sapient and have a huge city underground. Amorphous things with thousands eyes and uncountable tentacles that speaks with the voices of hundreds of people. A game inspired by the pulp literature will surely have this element of the Lost World well represented. The Mythos set by Lovecraft and other influential authors are a great source of inspiration to use. In Adventurers of the Lost World, however, the encounter with these creatures and entities does not have to be so fatalistic. This is an adventure game after all.

A World of Legends

Legends and myths entertain the imagination of most people in Our World. But in the Lost World they are real. The fountain of youth, the river styx, the caverns of time and many more legendary places and objects could very well exist in your Lost World. An entirely adventure or even campaign can be centered around these legends and the quest to find them. Legendarily civilizations also exist in the Lost World. In fact, the Atlanteans are an integral part of this land and are included as a character class that can be used by players if the judge allows. The ruins of their once great civilizations are scattered all around, and inside them the marvelous artifacts created by their ancestors. The judge can introduce this characteristic in his game researching real legends and setting them in their Lost World.

A World of Abundance

Jungles full with rare herbs. A city made of pure gold. Mines encrusted with the most precious gems. The Lost World has an abundance of resources that Out World considers valuable and many seek it to explore them. This puts the powers from outside of it in direct conflict with the natives of this land. Not to mention between themselves. The classic struggle of the protagonist hired to explore the resources of this new land who falls in love in love with a native and now is torn between two worlds is very powerful and can be used by clever judges. A game where the characters are natives themselves, or allied with them, and in which they have to battle evil forces trying to extract all the resources from the land no matter what the consequences might be could be interesting. At the same time, a campaign doing the exact opposite is not impossible either.

A World of Savagery

Although various civilizations inhabit the Lost World, this is still a savage land. Barbarian tribes thrive between the few settlements. Savages hide in the jungles, awaiting the unwary. Cannibals lurk in the shadowy swamps. Beastmen and other creatures fight for survival and dominance, attacking anyone who invade their territories. The civilized men from Our World are out of place there. To emphasize this aspect in your game you will need to present contrasting characteristics from civilization and savagery. Angry cannibals chasing the adventurers through the jungle because they trespassed their holy ground is a staple of the pulp genre and can be used ind adventurers quite often.

A World in Danger

The Lost World is not static. Things happen all the time in there and something dangerous is always just around the corner. Volcanos are always about to erupt. Earthquakes shake the ground beneath out feet announcing greater cataclysm to come. Dead pharaohs awaken from their centuries long slumbers to conquest their empires again. A great warrior unites the savage tribes of beastmen to bring the end of men once and for all. Judges need to remember to portray a live and dynamic world with its own actors and events, independently of player characters actions. While the adventurers are trying to find the legendary idol of the Thousand Eyed Frog, a war among the frogmen tribes might be going on, presenting opportunities for allegiances and social conflicts in addition to exploration.

A World in Dispute

If that wasn't enough, the arrival of inhabitants of Out World changes everything in the Lost World. Powerful countries, organizations and even secret societies vie for power and dominance. The wondrous artifacts of the Atlanteans, the abundant resources and the legendary objects that can be found are all for the taking and violent confrontations will certainly arise. As the animosity between the nations of Our World grows, the possibility of a war erupting in the Lost World and changing it forever goes stronger and stronger. Whole adventurers and campaigns could be centered around the race to conquest territories and relics for the main powers and stopping the nazis or some evil secret society to acquire an ancient and destructive Atlantean artifact.

Our World Addendun - Other "Isms" for Adventurers of the Lost World

While posting about Adventurers of the Lost World over the DCC RPG Google + community, +Anne Hunter (whose profile I cannot find now), suggested the creation or mention of other philosophies inspired by the weird and unknown aspects of the fictional 1930s world of the setting in contrast to capitalism, socialis, comunism and fascism. The result is the little piece of text I present below. More about this will appear under the resources chapter (probably in the Lost World Alphabet part).

Sidebar: Other "Isms"

In the fictional setting of Adventurers of the Lost World, where magic is real, people can control others with the power of their mind and science can do wondrous things, other philosophies and ideas will eventually emerge, even with these amazing accomplishments being unknown by most of the population.

The Lost World on the Adventurers of the Lost World - Part I

What follows is the draft for the description of the Lost World I've written in the upcoming Adventurers of the Lost World Setting for DCC RPG. The goal is to be evocative but to leave blanks and details to be filled by individual judges. The book will contain genetal ideas for the Lost World and a lot of resources to help the judges to run games in there. Below is he first part of the general description of this unknown land.

The Lost World 

The Lost World is a land forgotten by time and memory. A land far away from Our World, that does not appear in any map men can remember. Here prehistorical animals that vanish from our world still roam the land and the civilizations long gone still thrive as if not a single day has passed. In this land the laws of reality are not absolute and strange things happen for mysterious reasons. Here, men can find its salvation or its doom.

Lost World Occupations for Adventurers of the Lost World (DCC RPG)

In a previous post, I talked about zero level characters occupations in the Adventurers of the Lost World mainly from the point of view of individuals coming from Our World (the fictional 1930s fantasy pulp version or our world at least). Now it's time to talk a little bit about the zero level occupations for characters hailing from the Lost World itself! In addition, we provide a little information on the usage of zero level trade goods. As usual, this is a draft text and the final version of it might be slightly different.

Lost World Occupations

Lost World characters originate from the various cultures and races that call that savage land home. Many human civilizations still survive in this land. As well as many more non human ones. As before, The judge can allow a player to choose his own occupation or make him roll on the following table. Each of them represent the role the character had in his society before heading out on his adventures.

Our World on the Adventurers of the Lost World - Part II (And News)

This is the second part post about the 1930s fantasy pulp version of our world in the upcoming Adventurers of the Lost World setting. You can read the fist part here.

The Unknown  

Although the 1930s of Adventurers of the Lost World is very similar to our own, this is a fantasy pulp adventure setting and this means things are not what the seems on the surface. So far as the majority of the world population know, the world is just as we remember from our history books. The laws of physics work the same way as always, there is no such things as monsters and all those legends about fantastic people and places are all, well, legends. But the truth is that reality can be much stranger than fiction.

Our World on the Adventurers of the Lost World - Part I

There are two completely different scenarios for the adventures of this game to take place: Our World and the Lost World. There are almost opposites, with characteristics from each one contrasting with the characteristics of the other.

By Our World, we are referring to the world we know in our normal lives. The world as it was by the 1930s, with the same countries, maps and people they had back them. Well, maybe with some differences since magic is real, some people have psionic powers and super-science is a thing, even though all of this is rare and almost unknown by pretty much everyone.

As for the Lost World, we are referring to an isolated land, unknown by all, where the laws of our common reality don't quite work the same, where civilizations long gone still thrive, and where legends are real. Dinosaurs and other prehistorical creatures still roam the place and the coming of people from Our World may change everything.

What is Adventurers of the Lost World?

A land forgotten by time, not present in any map you ever saw, where prehistorical creatures roam primeval jungles while ancient ruins hide the lost technological marvels of bygone civilizations. A land with riches beyond our imaginations, with secrets our mortal minds is incapable of fully comprehending and with dangers we will learn to fear. This is the Lost World. 

What is Adventurers of the Lost World? 

Adventurers of the Lost World is a sourcebook for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game set in a fantastic 1930s version of our world. Superficially, the world seem just like ours in the 1930s, but sorcery is real (although very rare, dangerous and thought to be superstition by most people), some people do have psionic abilities, science can do wondrous, almost magical, things and there is a land beyond the reach of almost everyone where dinosaurs roam, ancient civilizations still live, and strange creatures battle for survival. It's inspired by the pulp adventure stories of such authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, de L. Sprague Camp, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and many others. 

This book contains setting information for the judge to create his own Lost World setting, be it a new continent, a forgotten island, the hollow interior of our world or even another planet! Also, there are rules for new character classes, rules for psionic powers, inventions, new monsters and a several resources for players and judges to help them adventure in this Lost World

Our World Occupations for Adventurers of the Lost World (DCC RPG)

Characters in Adventurers of the Lost word can came from both Our World or from the Lost world and their adventures begin when these two meet.

The character creation process is just as presented in the DCC RPG rulebook with just a few adjustments. Zero level occupations are determined using one of the two tables that will feature in the supplement. If the characters hail from Our World, they use the first table. But if they are native to the Lost World, they will use the specific table for that place.

The character classes presented in the character chapter are also divided in two groups. Our World Classes are for character that come from Our World and have more modern like roles. Characters that hail from the Lost World can, at the judges approval, use those classes, or normal DCC classes (since they are more primitive) and the racial classes presented on the Lost World. As usual, zero level characters with non human races have to take the corresponding non human character class.

Classes for Adventurers of the Lost World - 1930s Fantasy Pulp Game of DCC

The Lost Wold (1925)

Last post I talked about creating an adaptation of a 1930s fantasy pulp setting for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and some ideas I had for that, including adapting the core classics presented in the DCC RPG rulebook to this scenario and creating some other type of characters. I don't think they would need too much change (well, except of the cleric class, which wouldn't be present and would be substituted by the Mentalist and the Gadgeteer classes, but those would be treated in their own full blown description), but some adjustments would certainly be welcome, as well as some cosmetic change to the demihuman classes.

Inspired by the amazing stories of such authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, de Camp, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and many others, I came up with a list of character archetypes that would work as character classes. Seven of them would be for human characters and 5 more for non human characters.

Complications for DCC RPG Characters

Image from Judge's Guild City State
of the Invencible Overlord

It's not uncommon for characters in sword and sorcery stories to have complicated lives, with enemies interfering with their adventures, crime bosses trying to catch them for some debt they owe, cults attacking them for some unforeseen reason they saw in a prophecy. This all the while they are trying to achieve their goals to find a lost treasure, to stop a dark ritual to awaken a sleeping old god and all sort of other quests.

One way to simulate that in our games could be with a simple mechanic like a random encounter linked to each character. Every player could have a complication for his character and once per session the GM could roll a chance for those complications to arise during the game. This would insert more tension in the game and would make the adventures more chaotic, with unexpected events in their way. Since this could potentially screw up all their plans, when the complications show up, the gods could send a favor to the PC in the form of a Luck point to even the odds. That way, a player would have a reason to accept a complication.

Using WhiteHack Vocations with DCC RPG

One of the best things about the OSR is the easiness to steal things from different games and insert them in your current one without much fuss. Whitehack, for example, has a great simple mechanic that lets you put more color into your character, at the same time it let's you contribute to the world creation and his abilities. Vocations can also be easily inserted in other games, like my favorite one, the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.

In Whitehack, every character gets to chose some words (called groups) that associates it with some element of the game, be it a career (like barbarian, pirate, desert raider, astrologer), an organization (Order of the Chroniclers, The Seven Stars Society, The Purple Hats), a race or culture (Shadow Elves, Atlantean, Cimmerean, Diamond Dwarf) and other things. This lets the players link their characters to some aspect of the game world and gives them some identifiable characteristics (not to mention the possibility of creating campaign elements by themselves doing that). The other thing that it does is allow the player to roll and ability check relevant to this element twice and keep the better result.

The Coming of the Zero Level Blog... And How Can you Learn Magic Missiles!

KNOW, oh dice tossers, that between the years when the little brown books and the gleaming weird dice appeared, and the years of the rise of the "story first" gamers, there was an Age undreamed of.... An age of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and other OSR games!

And this is a blog to talk about this great age, and these great games! Specially the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (DCC RPG) and it's related systems (MCC and whatever more it's going to be released). DCC RPG has made me rediscover fantasy gaming and its literature roots, making me feel like I am playing RPGs for the first time all over again. Everything is new, fresh and surprising again. And not only that, it provides us the tools, resources and techniques to keep it that way for a long time!