Stuff I use to run a game

Blogposts without images are boring -
art by me

I was originally going to make this simply a gathering of the few rule packages like Defy Death that I've made and throw some nice tables into it as well and then put it up as PWYW on drivethru, but the more I wrote the more I was thinking that this would fit just that much better into a blog post, and what more I haven't really shown this blog that much attention lately, so here we go.

To start off, this will be me listing off the various supplements, tables and procedures that I've added to my games and actually found fun or useful.
I obviously can't share everything that I use at my table because a good portion of it is also stuff that have been picked up from other products and people, but I will still name and go over them, and give you my thoughts on them.

Overland Travel & Wilderness

This is the thing that comes up most often in my games, players want to move from one place to another all the time.

I've admittedly got very little to offer in terms of codified procedures to track movement and such, and have for the most part simply been using a very simple map that I share with the players. On this map I have a rough idea of how long it takes to move between settlements and intuit the time taken to travel anywhere else based on those.

I would however suggest you take a look at Into the Wyrd and Wild since the camping rules in that are what I would probably say is the best feature of the entire book.

They abstract it enough that your players don't need to describe everything they do while making camp and roll separate checks for all of those things as well as make expenditure of supplies during travel a bit less static as you may require anywhere from three to no supplies spent per camp.

Another great resource in terms of wilderness is Longwinter. The player's book comes with a very neat system for tracking how cold the temperature is and how much clothing the PCs need to wrap themselves in to not start potentially getting frostbitten, although it is very clearly aimed towards 5e-like systems so a small amount of conversion was required for me to make it fit the LotFP framework a bit better.
The book also is maybe 70% lore and setting that I personally find no use for, so be warned, but the rules section is packed with all sorts of useful stuff if you're going for a game set in a cold climate, I have for example used a table in the book to generate a month's worth of weather for a game I'm running. The cold survival rules are simply the biggest feature of the set in the book in my opinion.

What I can offer you here however are a few tables that I use whenever an encounter in called for during overland stuff, one that I use for generic travel encounter results and onether that I use for finding out what has happened during the night on somebody's watch.

Travel events, mundane and weird

1. It's an ambush! Several volleys of arrows fly out as both men and dogs run at you.
1. Band of criminals from nearby camp.
2. Assailants are either band of cultists, controlled by something or fleeing from something rather than attacking.
2. Few hungry feral dogs, will meekly follow the party.
1. Not agressive unless provoked, looking for food and may attempt to steal from the PCs when they camp.
2. to be added
3. Lone traveller asks to join you on the journey to your destination.
1. He will gladly share of his rations, or may try to run off with somebody's backpack during the night.
2. False Beggar (Into the Wyrd and Wild)
4. 1d4 wagons with adventuring party guarding them.
1. Returning from or heading off towards some adventuring location.
2. to be added
5. Change of weather.
1. Just normal weather.
2. Something unnatural about it, perhaps it was conjured or caused by some creature or rite.
6. Upturned carriage lies in a small ditch near the road.
1. One of the two horses is missing, the other lies dead and looks partially eaten.
2. The horses are still attached, one of them is eating the other and has small black nails driven into it's gums.
7. Small group of priests/monks.
1. On priestly matters such as spreading the faith of helping the people, will offer absolution and issue quests or prices for reaching heaven.
2. The lead monk rings a bell and carries a long rope that the rest of the monks are holding on to. They have sack-like hoods drawn over their faces and shuffle forwards looking unsure in their steps.
8. Pile of bodies being picked by crows.
1. Site of some roadside accident or the aftermath of an ambush.
2. Something moves underneath, redcaps? Is someone crawling out of there?
9. A horse carriage with a pair of armed outriders.
1. A noble or high ranking merchant passing by.
2. Armed delivery of something dangerous or forbidden as it's being re-located.
10. Shadows dances weirdly, reaching towards a PC.
1. Just a trick of light.
2. It lashes out when approached, scraping at your shadow where it connects to your feet.
11. Travelling troupe of entertainers.
1. A freak circus, fortune teller, snow leopard, "wolfman", fire swallower.
2. Dagger swallower (only swallows, where do they go?), tall lanky man with goat head, identical twins, chained up shapeshifter.
12. Remains of a campsite not too far from the road, looks disturbed.
1. Still has bedroll and a strewn out bag around the campfire, blood and dragmarks all around.
2. Footprints that nobody recognises around the camp, a strange smell in the air that definitely should not be there, or perhaps a small figure sitting on a rock few metres away from the site like nothing had happened.

Generic night watch results

1. Attacked by: 
1. Flock of Ravens, 2. Stray Wolves, 3. Bandits/Poachers, 4. Whatever else makes sense, or re-roll
2. There's something out there, but it hasn't noticed you yet.
1. Flock of Ravens, 2. Stray Wolves, 3. Bandits/Poachers, 4. Whatever else makes sense, or re-roll
3. Sounds of movement/monsters from somewhere outside the field of vision.
• Grunts, stomps, dragging, rustling, communicating, clattering
4. Watchman fell asleep.
• Something might be missing or not as it's supposed to be, next watch has encounter trigger on both 1 and 6 on a d6.
5. Light moves somewhere in the distance.
• Bandits, travellers, monsters, natural phenomena, glowbugs, reflection of the campfire.
6. Change of weather.
• Roll on weather table or do reaction roll, unfavourable result = unfavourable weather.
7. Shadow dances curiously by the edge of your campfire, stretching a bit too far towards you compared to the other ones.
• Single shadow, more curious than it is hostile.
8. The wind carries what almost seem like wails of someone or something in the distance.
• Trick of imagination, or perhaps a sign of something in the area?
9. Change of weather.
• Roll on weather table or do reaction roll, unfavourable result = unfavourable weather.
10. All is good after all.
• No event

Our highly detailed campaign map

Tracking time and happenings

Something something strict time records and campaigns.

I've found it helpful to have a calender, even if very rudimentary one. In fact what I use is simply a wheel of thirty phases of the moon that I move along as days go by in the fiction.
And if I ever need to quickly find out what phase the moon is in, I don't need to bs my way through it.

The main thing with keeping a calender is being able to keep track of seasons, in the sandbox games I have running we are approaching winter season and I may soon be able to subject players to some cold weather hijinks without it feeling like I'm suddenly just deciding that the cold season has set in.

And then we have this weird and silly idea I had for keeping track of the happenings in the world, named Chess of Fate.
Simply put, at the beginning and end of each session the players make a single move on a chessboard followed by me making a move against them. Whenever a piece gets captured, something that's either positive or negative will be happening or have happened in the session following that move depending on who captures the piece.

If you want to give this idea a go yourself, here's the events I have assigned to each piece:

• Pawn = Minor Fortune 
• Knight = Travelling Events 
• Bishop = Religious Events 
• Rook = Stability, Maintaining of Status Quo 
• Queen = Major Fortune 
• King = World-scale Event 

If you lose a piece, gain the opposite negative effect. Minor fortune becomes a minor misfortune etc.

The "home page" of my sandbox campaign on Roll20

The other stuff

Yeah, then I kinda realised that I run so few dungeons that there isn't much procedures that I've had to develop for them...
The encumbrance system from Veins of the Earth is cool and I like using it, although it does take a bit to explain through if you don't have access to printed sheets where it is extremely simple to understand. I currently limit items that would be handled in bulk to bundles of three per inventory slot (candles, torches, rations etc.) and make coin pouches able to hold up to 200 coins and take up a slot as well.

It's made the players think about what to pick up and even return back for some left behind equipment in one dungeon since they had decided that treasure was worth more than tools which was kinda fun moment. 

In the current sandbox game(s) that I now realise have been going on for over half a year I am also using Defy Death which truthfully hasn't really yet resulted in any of the cool personal quests or party problems that I was thinking it would promote, as well as a super janky "magic-users can cast as much as they want but the spells can fail/miscast sometimes" which I don't really think I'll be using for any future games as all it really does is add a need to nerf magic missile.

I have also streamlined the absurdly convoluted rules of natural healing rates that Lamentations has which have like certain hp tresholds at which you heal at different rates and simply made it so that if the PCs sleep in a comfortable bed, like an inn room, they heal 2hp per night, and when they rest somewhere less comfortable and simply "make do" with their situation they heal 1hp per night.
Less stuff to figure out for both me and the players.

Other miscellaneous tables that you may be interested in are the mutations included in the Diabolist hack that I've made for LotFP based on a pre-existing blogpost, or my list of 1d30 reasons not to turn back which is essentially just a list of backgrounds that the PCs might be coming from.
I have also made this fun magical tarot deck that you can have travelling fortune tellers give readings with, which kinda counts as a table, as well as a ever trusty "I search the body" table that sees frequent use in my games.

Tables of just random names to throw up on the spot are also absolutely great, and currently my favourite are the ones present in Times That Fry Men's Souls simply for the reason that they are incredibly easy to find in the book as they come straight after a stack of pages that have a black border and you thus know exactly where to open the book to get to the tables.

As far as running civilised locations like cities or villages, I spend a few hours making a nice rumour table for them and maybe write a sentence or two about the place to get the vibe down for myself and simply bs my way through the rest for the game.

For example, here is a what I have written down about the current hub town in the sandbox games:

Yes, I do pretty much all my game notes and creative writing in google sheets.
Yes, I know it's quite difficult to read this from the picture.

West Marches

Yes, I have also recently started a west matches style game in hopes of getting to further satisfy my addiction to tabletop roleplaying, and here's what I have currently as the guidelines for that game to keep the feel of adventurers setting off from a hub town:

• When you find an interesting listing on the Bounty Board, a place in the wilderness that you would like to check out or a rumour that you would like to pursue, gather an amount of players that you think you might need and form a party with them. Once you have formed a party, inform the Referee and we will decide when to play it out. Easiest days to get a game on will be Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday.
• No PC can be played in two consecutive adventures, all PCs must sit out at least one adventure before venturing out into the Gemthrone wilderness again.
• If by the end of a session the party is not back in town or in other safe and civilised location, the Referee gets to determine what has happened to them when they next resume play.
• Civilised settlements are considered safe places for any PCs left in them, and no harm will come to PCs taking time off inside them.
• Information about new adventure sites should be made available for everyone, although omitting the full story is not forbidden.
• Each session continues from the same in-game date that the last one finished on.
• Newly created characters should buy their own gear with their own money, but after their trial by fire any PCs spending time in town can trade etc with each other.

Still very new to this so will have to see how these end up working out and if they need to be tweaked/removed/expanded.

Now I just need more players to throw into that pool so that game will have more than one session a week so I can spend less time alt-tabbing between youtube and discord and more time watching in amusement how the players are yet again defying all my expectations in how they handle problems that get thrown at them.

This is not a cry for help, I can stop whenever I want.