So, I came up with a few more things to use effects on. I have three more mechanics utilizing effects. Two are handy (Enemies and Spells) and one is mainly for filling out your world (Drama). Let me explain them.
First, enemies. You ever have trouble making enemies interesting for your players? They tend to end up as faceless copy-pasted mooks for me, since it's hard individualizing each enemy. However, I came up with a solution. You can have your regular faceless mooks, but there is also special enemies. They come in three classes:
Captains are enemies that are slightly tougher then your usual enemy. In a videogame, these would be special versions of normal enemies. You roll one effect for them. Usually, these are still faceless mooks in characterization, so you can have multiple versions of this to fill out the ranks.
Lieutenants are enemies that are difficult to fight against. In a videogame, these would be bosses. You roll two effects for them. These guys tend to have more personality, but they are still killable so keep them limited in number.
Generals are enemies that are extremely difficult to fight against. In a videogame, these would be the final boss. You roll three effects for them. These guys have the most personality and are the toughest to kill, so keep them individual and interesting.
Here's a few I genned as examples.
Ill: This captain is wearing a gasmask and a HAZMAT suit, and has a flamethrower that has been modified to spray anthrax.
Will: This captain is utterly high on all kinds of drugs, and ignores any pain. He will not stop until either you are dead, or he is dead.
Dragon: This captain is clad in lizard skins and is wearing a komodo dragon's head as a helmet, and has a flamethrower.
Death, Emotional: This lieutenant appears to be actively dying and weeping, until he manages to grab someone. The longer he holds on, the healthier and happier he becomes, while the victim becomes more despairing and closer to death until he finally dies in the midst of a terrible depression.
Spikes, Flechettes: This lieutenant has a shotgun made out of gas pipes that, when he fires, shoots out a swarm of tiny spikes that shreds apart anyone standing in it's radius.
Healing, Electricity: This lieutenant has electrical sparks coming off his hands and his veins appear to be glowing an electric green. When he shocks someone, he heals them.
Sleep, Extradimensional, Morality: This general is constantly doped up on hallucinogenic plants. If he injects you with one of his syringes, beware! You will fall asleep immediately and disappear, landing yourself in a strange hallucinogenic alternate dimension where you must go through a spirit trip that will test your morality in several lethal choices. If you succeed without dying, then he will allow you to kill her as you have proven yourself and that is all he wants.
Healing, Sharp, Armor-Piercing: This general is a tinker in his spare time. He's made a type of vial that spreads a healing gas as soon as it's smashed open, and a metal ball that extends claws while in the air at a sufficient speed that shreds apart armor and flesh alike. He uses both as ammo for her compound slingshot.
Lost, Nail, Lightening: This general has a nailgun that is hooked up to a car battery, firing electrified nails. If you are hit with one of these, you may become disorientated and forget where you are, wandering lost around the place until you find your place again.
Second, spells. I personally have trouble coming up with interesting rituals and spells. I like them unique, but making unique spells is a chore and letting the players come up with their own spells can be kinda risky if it's not from a limited selection of elements. Here's a spell generator that I think covers most bases.
You have to roll a 1d3 for what it targets. It can be outward (Affects anything that is not you), inward (Affects yourself), or All Around (Affects everyone in the general area, including you). Then you roll a 1d3 for what school it is in. It can be Physical (Changes/Create objects permanently), Mental (Creates/Changes things mentally), or Temporary (Creates/Changes something that isn't entirely real for a temporary time before stopping). Then you roll a 1d4 for the amount of effects it has. Here's another few examples I have.
Outward, Temporary. Unreliable, Singing, Demonic, Broken. A spell that causes the sound of demonic singing from hell to become audible in the current area you are in. This causes all mechanical and electronic devices to break. This is unreliable, and may not work/backfire horribly.
Outward, Mental. Incapacitating. A spell that causes a living target with the ability to feel pain to be overwhelmed with intense horrific pain for several minutes.
Inward, Physical. Decorated, Area of Effect. A spell that causes you to look extremely fancy and cool in a certain location.
Outward, Physical. Sleep, Water, Cancer, Self-Damaging. A spell that causes all the water in the area to cause people to be either knocked out, get cancer, or have severe internal bleeding.
And finally, ever at a loss for another work of fiction that could appear in the RTD? What is the latest hot new TV show watching in your world? What's the latest book your writer NPC has put out? What play is on when your players need to assassinate the mayor at it? Well, here's my way of automating that process a tad.
First, you roll a d8 for what media it's based on. It can be book, a TV show, an animation, a film, a painting, a sculpture, a comic book, a theater play, or music. Then you roll a d5 for mood. It can be:
1. Dangerous To Diabetics. Everything and everyone is good! Yay! YAAAY.
2. Happy. Life's good, really. Optimism is the right path to take, and people are innately good.
3. Realistic. There's good people, and bad people. Some get rewarded, others don't. The world's worth fighting for, but it's not the best.
4. Sad. The good guys don't catch a break, and the bad people lap it all up.
5. Don't Watch This If You Are Feeling Depressed. Reality is a prison and it's a crappy one at that. Everyone is not only evil, but incompetent and insane. Going mad or committing suicide is the only way out.
Then, you roll a d7 for the ending.
1. Complete Happy Ending: Everyone goes away happy, even the villain is redeemed.
2. Happy Ending: Those who deserved their punishment got it, and the heroes get rewarded.
3. Bittersweet Ending: They completed their mission, but at what cost? Perhaps the villain got away. Maybe the person they wanted to save died. But at least the villains were stopped.
4. Grim Ending: Nothing's improved, but at least the good guys got away.
5. Sad Ending: the good guys are either dead or might as well be, but at least they did so while happy.
6. Downer Ending: the villains won. The good guys are screwed/dead. What a waste.
7. Kill Em All: everyone's dead. Everyone, villain and hero alike. Maybe one person walks away from all this if you're lucky.
Yes, you can have an extremely joyful fiction end up with everyone involved dead,or have the most depressing film ever end with a completely happy ending. This does happen IRL. REALISM.
Finally, you roll 1d4 for amount of effects, then roll effects. These are themes: stuff that happens in the fiction, are a running theme, or are related to the characters. So if you get an effect you don't think could be an overarching theme in the fiction, say it happens to a character or happens within the fiction as an event. Here's a few things I generated.
Theater. Happy. Grim ending. Themes: Broken, Soldier, Mythology, Drama.
A dramatic play. It focuses on a soldier in the desert campaign of WWII who has been broken mentally by his witnessing death, but encounters the Egyptian god of death who eventually manages to help him deal with his fear of death. It is revealed that he was in fact dead all along, but he goes along with the death god as he is at least glad to have escaped the war. It is generally upbeat despite of it's subject matter.
Animation. Realistic. Complete happy ending. Themes: Scaled, panic, reality warping, jungle.
An animation that takes place in a jungle. A archaeologist finds a relic in a temple that can manipulate reality, and attempts to take it for himself. The guardians of the temple, a tribe of scaled humanoids, panics and tries to hunt him down. Eventually, the misunderstanding is cleared and the archaeologist lets the scaled humanoids keep their relic. It takes a realist stance in terms of mood.
Why is making mechanics so fun? And addictive? Also, I think I'm going to put the effects in a piratepad so people can edit in some more.
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Topic: Roller's Block (RTD Brainstorming Thread) (HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY) (Derm is 5k) (Read 745254 times)