Tag Archives: Generators

RPGs

Adventure/Module Names

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It’s been a long day. Snow and cold last week, followed by warmer temperatures and a lot of rain and a thunderstorm last night. I only new there was a thunderstorm because I had to get up in the middle of the night, I can sleep through most anything once I get to sleep. That was at 3:30 and the power was out.

I got back to sleep.and was sleeping soundly and dreaming, on the edge of lucid dreaming when I swore someone was pounding on my front door, so I stumble downstairs to see who it was. No one. The dogs in their kennels were all excited and wagging their tails into the sides of the kennels making a load of racket. Did my dreaming translate that into pounding on the door? That was at 5:30 and I couldn’t fall back asleep. At 6:30 the power came back on and the streetlight across the street filled my room with light. (I need blackout curtains.)

At 7:00 my alarm went off, so I grudgingly got up and got ready for work and stopped to get massive amounts of caffeine to help me get through the day. At about 9:30 I dozed at my desk for a bit. Thankfully, it was a relatively slow day at work.

We finally got a CostCo in Kalamazoo, within a couple miles of my work, and just off the way home. My son presented me with a membership card, as he got two with his membership. Since he lives with me, we are in the same household. I made the mistake of shopping while I was hungry, but got things that are healthy…or mostly so. I saw what I consider a good deal on a mini desktop with Win7 Pro. My last desktop got zapped and all I could salvage were the peripherals and the hard drive. My laptop has a failed screen and keeps freezing up and having issues with Google+ Hangouts with the weekly AD&D game I’m in. I do some work for a non-profit, so I need a working PC to keep up. I was on the look out for a good buy.

Did I bury the lede well enough? LOL

My tired brain came up with a name based on some of the OSR and original modules, and I thought I’d write about that tonight.

The Caves of Cavernous Caverns. Awesome, right?

Or, The Caves of Chaotic Caverns.

The Crumbling Caves of Chaotic Caverns.

The Terrifying Terror of The Terrible Trolls.

What this is calling for is a random adventure/module name generator. I recall having read about something like that a couple years ago, there is probably more than one, but I don’t feel like googling for them right now.

Alliteration add punch to it, like : Red River of Raging Ravenous Revenants. Although a horde of raging revenants would be silly without the proper story and narrative elements, psychobabble and circumlocutious obfuscation….

It’s not a complete set of tables to generate a module/adventure/campaign name, since I didn’t put a die and a roll with each table, just something to get started. This is more a placeholder for me to refine my idea and come up with some sort of finished product or PDF to share at some point in the nebulous future. Ah what fun a tired brain can generate! Here is the current PDF.

d3 ARTICLE
1-3 – A/An
4-6 – The

LOCATION
Cave(s)/Cavern(s)
Tomb/Crypt/Vault/Grave
Hill(s)/Knob/Mount/Mountain(s)
Plains/Tundra
River/Lake/Sea/Ocean
Idol/Altar/Shrine/Temple
Pit/Dungeon
Fort/Castle/Fortress
Aerie
Coast

NOUN/ITEM
Secret
Night
Gold
Hoard
Horde
Clan/Tribe
Idol
Deep
Dark
Unholy

ADJECTIVE/DESCRIPTOR
Shiny
Adjective form of the Location
Frightful
Awful
Awe/Awe-full
Dread/Dreadful
Mischievous
Ravenous
Raging

ALIGNMENT (Use Lawful, Good, and Neutral if you want.)
Chaotic
Evil

CLASS (Mix in some of the AD&D Level Titles or find a Thesaurus)
Wizard/Mage/Archmage/Necromancer
Priest/High Priest/Acolyte
Monk
Thief/Rogue
Assassin
Warrior
Ranger
Paladin

COLOR
Black
White
Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
Ochre
Mauve
Taupe
Plaid

WEAPON(s)
Sword
Dagger
Staff
Hammer
Axe
Spear
Bec-de-corbin (not so much….)
Arrow
Club

MONSTER(s)
Kobold
Goblin
Orc
Hobgoblin
Drow
Pirates
Lizard/Lizardmen
Frog
Ogre
Troll
Dragon
Gelatinous jelly of slimy oozing spores (Now I need to stat that out….)
etc.

RPGs

Dice Drop Generators

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Dice Drop Generators differ from All The Dice Tables/Generators in that instead of being a collection of tables to consult, the placement of the dice as they land on a blank or pre-printed sheet determine the results.

Random Dungeons from Buckets O’ Dice is a method of generating random dungeons. Dump all the dice you own on a sheet of graph paper, those that miss the paper take away. Those that roll their max, keep in place and remove the rest. The value on each of the remaining dice indicates room size. d4 = room size 4, d6 =  room zize 6, etc. Read the rest at the link for details.

A variant on Dungeons from Buckets O’Dice is Five-Die Dungeon Generation. Similar to the above, but 5d6 are used, ignoring those that miss the paper.

I haven’t turned up other Dice Drop Generators with a Google Search.

[Update] Google+ has a community called Die-Drop Table Heaven.

If you know of a Dice Drop Generator, please share.

RPGs

All The Dice Tables/Generators

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All the dice tables/generators are tables that require using one of each type of dice, i.e. d4, d6, d8, d12, d20, etc, and then referring to the table/sub-table for that die. Most I have seen only do d4 through d20. The idea is to have a single roll of these dice generate one item, NPC, situation, etc. It is a neat idea. Just trying to come up with ideas for your own such generators can help you get the creative juices flowing as part of session or sandbox prep.

I like the idea for rapid session prep when you need some quick ideas. I think this is a neat idea for quick generation of NPCs, Maps, Treasure, Different kinds of objects, dungeons, magical effects, etc.

The Swords and Wizardry SRD has two tables in PDF format that use all the dice to generate multiple characteristics quickly. The GrimRandomNPCGenerator.pdf and Grim’s Random Tavern Patron Generator.pdf, which is actually at the Mythmere Games Website, AKA Swords And Wizardry. A third Grim’s table is a Treasure Map Generator.

Grim also has a lineage generator: Grim’s Roll All the Dice Lineage Generator. Grim posted his NPC generator over on Dragonsfoot Forums.

I did some Google searching and uncovered a few more tables that use all the dice.

I plan to collect a list of All The Dice Tables/Generators.

Telecanter’s Receding Rules has a post of OSR Table Types:

Telecanter’s Receding Rules: Roll all the Dice

TelecantersEncounterSpur                       EncounterSpur.pdf

TelecantersHirelingSpur                          TelecantersHirelingSpur.pdf

TelecantersMagicItemSpur                      TelecantersMagicItemSpur.pdf

Ronin has a generator for Random Pits & Occupants.

Applied Phantastically has an all the dice generator for Random Tables. And related articles on generating tables.

Similar to All The Dice Tables, are multiple dice tables, or multiple result from a single roll tables. A good example of tables are the d30 tables from New Big Dragon/Richard LeBlanc and his d30 DM Companion and d30 Sandbox Companion supplements.

What tables have I missed?

Related to this are Dice Drop Generators, which is a similar idea, but is not a formal table. I will be collecting those as well. Often dice drop generators are for quick random maps.