The Gorgon: DD12 Cataclysm & Beyond

Backstory: DD12:Cataclyzm is the survival horror scenario for Dungeon Delvers Twelve world/system. Your group has 'arrived' on this world, and before they have time to even think, something in the shadows and darkness has decided that you are its next meal.

The Male Gorgon.. minus snake hair...

The Gorgon:

So what is a Gorgon?

According to several mythological stories, the gorgon gets a wide variety of descriptions, from snakes, snake haired, bulls with volcanic or metallic flesh, other things with scales, wings, claws, tusks, mixtures of all the above, even the sphinx, satyr, hippocampus and mermaid are considered a gorgon.

All of the above.. maybe

So likely gorgon means demon, more than specifically Medusa and her sisters, of which they are likely demons.

So what is a demon? well, for a medieval peasant, anything that's scary enough to have come up from the depths of hell (if that's their local religion).

So Gorgons are just labels for demons.. but more commonly, demons that are mashed together bits of other animals. So, a hybrid right?

More like the Colchis Bull or the D&D gorgon here

Except, not theriocephalic, because that's just head of an animal, body of a human. and we're not talking humanoid, because that's a whole nother set of monsters.

So Gorgons, are hybrids, Heads like humans, or at least faces like humans, and then a whole mixed bag of what the rest of it is..

Except also, that any of those body parts, could be parts of humanoids, or theriocephaloids?

Whoa, where is this going?

So In Cataclyzm, the idea is that anything could come from anywhere, and as such, alot of it, might not so do well on a world with gravity, or air, or sunlight or a lack of sunlight (like nighttime) and so, a Gorgon, in this context, is any creature of anything that the GM comes up with, a mishmash of bits and peices, resulting in something the players might run away from, get eaten by or manage to hack apart and use.

Cataclysm was about lack of resources, cave-people of the Coyn World, you start with nothing and you build something, on a wider scale than a standard RPG where you start in an existing culture, and rise a little bit in comparison to all that is around you, to a well known hero.

Catacylsm won't have grand overarching bag guy plots, or heroic status when visiting nearby towns, not instead people will probably just have a general Awe and Fear for someone who managed to travel from one location to the next, and not get eaten.

Googling Gorgon can produce many varied results

So, The Gorgon is a multi-roll (or choice) on a chart that gives the GM a thing that he can describe, maybe its a bull body, a fish tail, arms of a rhino and the face of a chicken, it breathes air, but lives in a 0.5x gravity. As a result the GM can double the creatures Initiative costs, making it slow, it has a peck attack, and horns, it stomp around on two legs and maybe has a slap attack with its tailfin.

More interestingly, when you defeat it (if you do) you've gained access to cow leather, fish scales, large fore-arm bones, horns and probably a strange beefy-fish meat, with intestines, organs and the like.

Surprisingly, no Heart as Meat Potion images exist in google

While Early DD12 Cataclyzm notes had leather, horns and bones, more recently I've added in the organs, intestines and such so you can play as a shaman who gathers strange exotic liquids and meat sacks to attempt to brew up some very weird things indeed.

The Gorgon, gives us the ability to create some truely weird things, without the need for the exotic locations and the plot on how your group got you there.

Cataclyzm works well as a "westmarches" style game, each week you can have a whole new set of players, make up characters based on the villagers that still exist. They go out into the wilds to discover whats around, maybe they survive, maybe they don't, they bring back information, resources and new skills, so that hopefully, an established location can be added to the historical maps.

Gorgons should be used somewhat sparingly, once a month if you're playing weekly, its a freak of ... well not of nature.. it might be defeatable, it might be able to live in the world and become a re-occuring nightmare.

While the name Gorgon, brings up images of snake headed women, or metallic bulls for some, I do wonder if the controversy of keeping the generic "abomination" called a Gorgon would be a good idea or maybe the old adage, "All publicity is good publicity", if they're talking about my game, who cares if its trash talk?

Coins Part One: Currency, Weight and Stealth.

While travelling across Europe, as it changed from local currency to the Euro, I was constantly thinking about how currencies would work if players crossed from one culture to another. Forget language, we've got that covered with "comprehend languages" but Coinage? Exchange rates? that doesn't convert with a spell.

How do you work your coins & currency in your game?

In France, I managed to pick up a few of their tourist coins, large heavy things, matched the size I thought of as my 'gold coin' until I checked how much gold would be needed for such a coin. 

34mm diameter & approx 21grams for these ones. (not gold)

Such a coin would be 34grams of gold, priced around $2,100 vs the 2 Euro I paid for my French coins. so at 21 grams each, I just 'counted' the weight as 30% less for my quick calculations.

much smaller 16mm & 8 grams

I bought around 20 of them myself, put them in a leather bag I got from a medieval fair, and threw in some Estonian Crowns (Kroon) because they looked cool (and I figured matched the more common copper or silver coins of my world) and noticed now that I had a fair weight hanging from my belt. almost 2 kilos. ok sure, I had over 100 Kroons (there were so cheap when I bought them) and the leather bag itself is 300grams. 

So how in the world, would I not notice this being stolen from me?

Stealth & Weight

I have been pick pocketed thrice in my life, the first time was so fast, and unnoticed, I wouldn't have known had the man not realised that he'd stolen a tourists hand book (the same size as the wallet) and returned to give it back. I was in Mongolia and went to the bank with a fellow traveller, we exchanged cash for local currency, put away our wallets, took out the guide, took a look at where to go, and as we left, the guide went away into the front pocket of my jacket. A local, bumped into my friend, raised his hands in apology, patted my shoulder as a re-assuring, I'm sorry, please don't have me arrested, and walked away.. within seconds he returned, handed back the travel guide he'd taken, and walked away again.. we looked at it, first thought was.. did we drop it? checked the pocket, and viola, .. empty.. impressive skills..

The second time was so skillfully done, I practically applauded the man, before I gave chase in a taxi. I had (stupidly) taken out my wallet in the evening, as I exited a Moscow supermarket, took out the cash I was about to use to pay for a taxi, and put the wallet back in my front pocket, tucked my jumper down over it, adjusted my bag on my shoulder and walked to the main street. The spotter had obviously seen me, somehow tipped off his friend, who approached me as a 'out of towner' looking for a bar. My helpful Australian attitude was to point out where it was, he asked (in poor Russian, but hey, mine was worse) where was my accent from.. I replied, and he started talking about his favourite boxer.. Kosta Zu (Russian emigrated to Australia).. even offered to show me how Kosta would win.. I declined, he shook my hand, and walked away.. then it struck me.. my pocket was empty.. my wallet had ended up in the hands of this man, in such a way that I could not, even now, fathom. Somehow, he'd knocked the wallet up from my pocket, down my jumper and into his hand, without me knowing til seconds (or even more) later.. I think he might have even managed to hand it off to a guy behind him, so I could not accuse him (because his hands were empty when we backed away and walked off)

The Third Time, I had a thicker wallet (I learnt to keep more receipts for other reasons, and this helped in this third instance) The man and his girlfriend approached me on the street, asked about cigarettes or something, I refused, it was cold, I wanted to get home quickly. she asked about my accent, and when told, they were amazed that an Australian would be here in -31.c Moscow.
He patted my shoulder, like a friendly person does, then my wallet, and my wallet moved in my pocket, 20/20 hindsight, seemed he could see the outline in the pocket, somehow grabbed the shoulder and lifted it with a tug (as he patted the same shoulder?) and my wallet would rise up with it.. No longer being oblivious as to what was about to happen, I pushed him away and yelled, and some other very choice words I had learnt since. He understood quickly that he had the wrong kind of foreigner, the look of a scared man entered his eyes, and he backed away, I gave enough of a chase to ensure they would not follow me, and went home via a different path..

But for years afterwards, I always thought about this.. A heavier wallet is always on your mind, bumps your leg, its annoying.. but also, harder to pick pocket. (but also more noticeable to thugs).

So, lets say you have a coin purse, larger gold coins are going to jingle a certain tone, while smaller less valuable coins have higher pitch. So a half decent theif will know if you're carrying a purse of 10-20 gold coins vs 10-20 copper. Also the difference between 5-10 coins and 50-100 coins based on weight & noise.

So my first conclusion is, When characters are traveling through a city, if they are carrying anything above 10 coins and the currency is gold or platinum, I make stealth checks for local thieves to attempt a pick pocket.. above 50 coins, the pickpockets will notice, but the likely hood of their success in stealing drops considerably, the mark is likely to notice. While a Thief might abandon a low chance of success, they might alert some thugs (and get a coin for the info).. typically a thug is going to ask.. whats the risk vs reward.. How dangerous does the mark look, vs how many coins they're carrying. In some of my larger cities, My Thugs might be 4th level, I'll set the chance at 25% +/- 10% @ 5 platinum / per level of the heroes, i.e. if you're a 4th level hero and look it, and you're carrying 9-12 platinum worth of coins, I'll put a 45% chance of encounter, same circumstances with 7th level heroes, drops down to 15%, but triple the cash, and 55% those thugs might try anyway, and makes for a quick little city encounter.

A lot harder to cut this kind of purse, send in the thugs, he's obviously got some wealth in there!

Part Two of Coins: Currencies and Culture

W.A.L.L.E Pre-Movie Roleplay.. would it even be fun?

Note, this has nothing to do with the now defunct roleplay forums about the wall-e Earth, Post Movie, with the Humans recolonizing earth. More of how would the pre-movie world exist and could it even be done as a roleplay game?

Would it be fun to roleplay as a WALL-E device?

Now on my 10th+ time watching wall-e with my little one, I was thinking about the pre-movie world.

The movie opens with massive piles of Junk. Junk, Junk and more junk, and what do I see?.. all one super encounter/treasure table with players figuring out stuff to do with the junk.

Maybe its the minecrafter in me, that just wants to get into that world, make blocks out of the junk, structure it in towers, occasionally finding rarities, using them to better my 'base' upgrade my 'robot', stash or store all the spares for later use.. that sounds like fun yeah?

Like most roleplay games.. the basic structure would be 'random encounter tables' between key story points, 'acquisition of special items' as either quests or prep for quests and 'establishing a foothold on the world' to either find the best way to retire your character or achieve some super awesome event/plot point.

but would it be fun?

90% of roleplay fun is usually the players, how they take the scenario and make a story, how they interract with the world. Yet in a lifeless world of junk.. is there anything much to do?

Might be enjoyable for players who enjoy homebody heroes style roleplay, or maybe as a minecraft style roleplay game. anyone want to make it?

Encounter lists, why are they so drab?

For quite some time, I've been using a computer database for my encounter lists, but recently I ran a few sessions in a different system, and found the encounter charts to be abysmal, so I quickly threw in some ideas that I thought I'd share with the community [note, by this I mean, unedited ramblings]

Why do I need to fudge encounter chart lists?

Back in the day, when I was a green GM, a DM if you will, players would enter a room in the dungeon and I would roll up the next encounter from a chart and they would fight it. I was 13, I had no other idea about anything other than the expensive (read: I couldn't afford so I made my own) pre-written adventures, which in hindsight, seemed to be a writer doing the very same thing, then giving some actual explanation why a beholder is in the room next to 20 orcs, in a Crypt that has been sealed for 50 years.

As I progressed, they of course became the 'random encounters' that characters would 'cut their teeth' on before the adventure, so they could test their 'leadership' and 'tactics' with the opportunity to heal up and even return to town, before they would repeat this process 3-10 times in a sealed environment.

Years Passed, and I found myself rolling, 2-3 times, and picking what seemed far more logical, rather than what the dice said.. but it felt wrong to fudge the dice.. going against fate, as it were..

Which Encounter to Choose.. Hmm, Maybe All? Seems logical!

So what was wrong?

Looking back at those charts, I see monsters too high a level, assigned only 1 value on the d100, while common creatures assigned several values.. but just like the casino, the house always wins. If you have a dragon on your chart, eventually the players will encounter it.

recently, a 12 day trek through semi-dangerous forest resulted in this:

Day 4, Dire tiger, day 5, Treant, day 8, 4 Bugbears, Day 9, 11 goblins & a Barghast, Day 12, 2 assassin Vines. All for a group of 4th levels.

Ahh TPK, how Schadenfreude

The Dire tiger mauled our tank, who couldn't participate in the fight with the Treant, so the whole group got wrecked, we had to camp to rest, but that made us vulnerable to the Bugbears, So while the goblins should have been a walk in the park, they almost slaughtered us and the Vines TPK'd the group.

Now, ignore the group.. lets look at the creatures.. We have a Dire Tiger and a Treant, within a days walk of each other.. The Scent of the Tiger, should have caused the Treant to be wary, which admittedly could have alerted him to come investigate, but in turn the Treant should cause the Dire Tiger to be wary or moving on from this neck of the woods..

Databased System

As I said, I use a Database system, which wouldn't allow such things to occur. creatures have a threat radius, a scent radius, a territorial radius and a position, some creatures ignore these things, others stay well back from such things, so certain creatures wouldn't be found dead, (literally) within the radii of other creatures, and others would (be found dead).

Another feature of databasing is that when players kill the Dire tiger, its gone from that neck of the woods, and the creatures react to the power/territory vacuum, some creatures increase their territory & breed more, others randomly move into worse neighbourhoods, perceiving the threat to be gone, to find a worse threat which annihilates them.

No DataBase.. how can I make a better list?

So after starting this game, in an area with no database, no system, I had to revert to my old knowledge of encounter lists, and thought.. surely there has to be a better way to do this.. hence this blog.. and I came up with a solution.. I'll be sure to put this into my own system for publishing later, but I think its cool enough to share with any reader:

First we start by ordering the danger rating of the encounter list, At the top, 01 - ? is the 1st level creature, keep the '% values, but scale it up to 300%.. i.e. if goblins was 3 numbers before (41-43), its 9 numbers now (41-50), if unicorns were 1 number, they're 3 numbers (actually for unicorns, I'd scale them back to 1 number and bump something else up by 2). Shift these around as you see fit.. creatures who would likely not care about other creatures, scents, territorial etc, give them higher %, while other more territorial, a lower %.

Next, Add in these two charts:

Encounter Modifier & Encounter Style.

Encounter Modifiers I leave 01-75 as "no modifier" and for each 25% I add in an increasing addition, such as " & pets (add d4 dogs of appropriate type)", or "increase numbers (increase the dice of creatures from d4 to d6+1, or d6 to d8+1)" or "aggressive, (+1 to hit, +1 to damage)". These also go up to 300.

Encounter Style I have things like, 01-25: Not here today, 26-50: tracks of _(roll on chart again).. nearby, 51-75: dead body of  _(roll on chart again).. 76-100: Ambush, 101-125: -Bandits, 126-150: Roll again & have fight each other, 151-175:  Boss monster of encounter roll. etc etc up to 300.

So here's where it gets interesting..

When you roll on the "do I get an encounter today %" initial listing, and get "nothing" you roll d3 and add 10% or 20% (normal vs dangerous terrain) to one of my charts (bit of paper behind the screen, add a notch, marker, etc) so I know that todays encounter could be nothing, or this could be the beginning of something worse, maybe the characters have entered the territory of some hideous beast. each day of "no encounter" is just increasing the likely hood that the next encounter is going to be bigger than before. The first 3 styles listed, are of ways that the group will not encounter this larger than normal beast, and if that happens, I'll have the next few days also be no encounter (this land is so dangerous, nothing wants to go here, but luckily the characters managed to 'bypass' its horrible lair) but the players won't know that they bypassed, instead they're thinking they are getting closer and closer to something even worse!!

Encounter a Lair, ensure no encounter rolls for trip home

My own lists include in the styles (at 01-25): Within the Lair: Ignore the modifier, and roll again at -25%, keep the modifier for future rolls, So while travelling trough the hills of the hill giants the players encounter some kobold travellers, easily defeated, but the danger of Hill giants is still close.

With a few test rolls, (and a spreadsheet for extensive testing) I had around 80% success rate, that the larger, deadlier creatures turned up far less often, in close proximity to anything else.. ensuring that if you do encounter something rather large, you'll have enough time to rest up, cause nothing with any brains, is going to be coming to the lair of this (now dead) beasty anytime soon.

and the GM doesn't have to feel like he's cheating, fudging the dice, anymore.