Balthazar and Bork in the Wastelands

 Alas, if you did not attend, much hilarity was experienced by

Joseph

and

Eli

The Misadventures of Balthazar and Bork

Being a Comedy of Homelessness, Chitin, and Inheritance

Part Dieux: Electrix Boogaloo

So, the party (Bork played by Joe and the Junker Balthazar VVVMVF played by Eli) alighted on the shipping platform of Mesa 4, which Balthazar's Ancient Family Heirloom indicated was his own personal property and filled with Treasures Beyond Compare.

Jacques, the dirigible pilot who brought them, indicated that they ought to signal by Wrist-O-Com when they wished to escape the premises, and Jacques always gets payment up front which of course drained the Junker's coffers compleatly. Being a bit of a drunkard and Anarchist (not Antifa because O NO You DINT) Bork often took payments in rum, and a good thing, too.

So, within the delivery hangar they were greeted by a cloaked group of spindly ghasts, who immediately sniffed Balthazar's genetic rights to the Mesa and begged of the party to send paychecks retroactively for hundreds, thousands of years, and when it was determined that Bork (now CEO) was carrying RUM, the unnervingly polite and totally undead fiends drank deeply of it and wobbled off, tipsy, to darker climes, directing the party languidly down Maintenance Hallway 4. After nigh on a millenia with no fermentables, their tolerance for alcohol was very low and so they passed out somewhere off camera.

Continuing down the hallway, the party encountered the old "Jiggling Doorknob" problem, which Bork promptly nullified by kicking the door into smithereens and unleashing the masked, blank-faced Monstrous Centipedes within. A short tussle ensued, but the vittttleorious party found, to their surprise, an Ancient and Untouched Cache of Meals Ready To Eat in various unsavory flavors (I did not tell them they missed a collectible limited edition Candwich) but eyes lighting up with dollar signs they signalled to Jacques to return, and meantime they stuffed the carcasses with as many MREs as they possibly could. This effort left them with (perhaps hundreds!) of MREs and a mere 12 minutes or so to explore the remainder of the Mesa, because Jacques has no qualms about abandoning stranded explorers of haunted laboratories and mesas.

Down the hall, they encountered a Security Droid (somewhat malfunctional) who requested access clearance, and of course since Balthazar is the rightful heir a single drop of blood suffices to gain them entrance to Laboratory 4, containing row upon row upon hideous row of shrivelled, Partially Viable Super Psychick Fetal Clones which (although tasty) are well-suited to becoming an anti-establishment Psychick Army to destroy some lower quadrant of Bastion whilst the Junker Balthazar plays fruitless games in Parliament. The drone delivery devices of Mesa 4 only needed their address in Bastion to deliver White Hot Death to the new chairmen of the Junker's (Evil? Misguided? Doomed?) corporate headquarters. It is amazing what paradigms can be busted when you think outside the box.

Ahhh, the joys of Pseudo-Random Generation (by Tablesmith) and fast-and-loose rules systems (Into The Odd) with no expectation of continuity nor clarity! It is good these nanites in my blood have broken the RPG dam that held my heart back in some sense. It has been heavy with serious matters of late...

Perhaps more picaresque scenes, later, G*d willing, if you compleat the requisite forms, of course.

Noah's Knot, Redux

metaphor for the code, and incidentally a room in the dungeon!

When I was in 5th grade, in our BASIC programming class, Mrs. Dempsey saved my project as NOAHSKNOT because I had too many badly-nested GOSUBS. This project is a lot like that one was! It changed the course of my life, I think, because until then I programmed my C64 with aplomb and joyously - if badly. So, I don't enjoy programming much, today. Hence, I was having a problem with the code for the Tablesmith funhouse dungeon-maker. That being: it's got so much random good stuff in it that it becomes a heaving mass of good ideas all entangled into a heap which doesn't make sense.

Here's from the file's header where I keep track of changes. The wish list is large, but not un-doable. The guys on Tablesmith.io asked a question that pulled back the veil and now I have more intimate knowledge of how I was mucking it up before, and so new and better features must inevitably arise - I think I can do almost all the stuff I was wishing for. Further! I can use markdown to just take the whole chunk of stuff and send it right to GMBinder for custom-made .PDFs of Goodness +2. I'm talking custom page styles, random illustrations, random maps that may even have some sense to them, hyperlinks to NPCs, the whole Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine Hellish yards of it.

## Feature wishlist

## 1. Geases and quests, maybe with a call to an outside table (seems improbably easy but unnecessary)

## 2. Difficulty of some traps and saves scales with dungeon level via variable (done!)

## 3. Integrated personalities of some generated NPCs (probably unnecessary but doable!)

## 4. Standardized formatting for monsters (bold), treasure (italics) - (done! - new wish: markdown output for generated monsters right to GMBinder - probably easy! Could even spit out SRD documents to an appendix but that's for later)

## 5. Re-rollable via link options for some non-sensical entries (Done!!)

## 6. Room sizes (Done!), with larger rooms containing larger features (not done, but now imminent)

## 7. Random chance of adding a template to a monster - the templates are included - note added kludgy version on June 19,2020

## 8. Better treasure the farther down you go, maybe like the random treasure system in DMG1e (this is a whole 'nuther table and the current one suffices)

## 9. Lair treasure vs. Carried Treasure? (not wished for any longer)

## 10. More Steam, Electricity, Magnetism, Flooding, and Wild Organic zones? (highly desired feature!!! - n.b. now ludicrously easy - the level will be broken into zones of d6 rooms sharing certain features)

## 11. Lairs/Settlements of humanoids with leadership, for allies and trading. Pretty easy, actually. Single line of code.

## 12. Zones of 2-4 rooms of various sizes that share qualities (fairly easy to implement with Loop command - I think this is the same as 10, above)

## 13. Maybe room contents depend on room size? Not likely since that gets complicated... n.b. would require a minor re-write but not too bad.

## 14. Trap triggers (implemented in another table, but needs weirding)

## 15. Factions of humanoids are the main populants of each level - up to 3 Factions would be cool

## 16. Room numbers - Should be pretty easy, actually. Having troubles with the variable (problem resolved - now FIXED!)

So, I haven't implemented it, yet, but here is the somewhat-less repetitive but MOAR CHAOTIC and less-sensible output of the generator, now, for a 30-room, 1st level dungeon in the Lair of The Robolich. I'm pretty sure I've figured out a way to send back the number of generated monsters in each encounter to the main generator for... reasons. 

1. The room has a patches of russet mold that is activated by false switch. The trap is attached to a steps.
2. There are Mimic subtype Frost and a winch and pulley, in this average-sized room.
3. A Slowing Gas. The victim is slowed for 4 turns, DC 18 Constitution save keeps the Potion of Poison and 17 Native Amethyst 250gp safe.
4. A Essence Displacer that shift the soul/consciousness of the target into the 1-Astral 2-Ethereal 3-Positive 4-Negative 5-Shadow 6-Alternate Reality that is activated by psionic magnet keeps the antique coins worth 3261 GP safeguarded.
5. There are Displacer Beast and a broken furniture in this room.
6. A 10 lewd voxel sculptures. They activate an animated information provider, containing 2216 GP. The treasure is divided into small coffers and safeguarded with spring darts firing up from inside bottom of container.
7. The room contains Vampire Spawn subtype T-Virus and a Hail Of Needles. It deals 10 attacks per PC as fighter of Level 4 doing 5 damage each that is activated by psionic magnet.
8. Owlbear, a charcoal bin, and hidden treasure antique coins worth 2154 GP .
9. 2 Large Monstrous Scorpions subtype Nega-, a spinning wheel, and hidden treasure 28 omnium nuggets.
10. 3 Troglodytes subtype Mutant guard 30 Black Opal 1000gp. The treasure is held in metal urns.
11. Janni, hidden Antitox Functions on 1-8 in 20 loose, and a trap: Sprayer soaks entire party with dirty water.
12. 4 Ghouls, hidden 51 Amber 100gp locked in iron trunks, and a trap: patches of green slime.
13. There is a maintenance area. There are Mop and hidden 40 Moonstone 50gp, here.
14. There is a planetarium projector - if disturbed then laser attacks at d24 on each party member for 1d10 damage and hidden A Hastelloy aigrette, set with star rubys, worth 100 gold coins, here.
15. An abandoned storage area, with 30 larval spider-demons, twitching but dormant in egg-sacs.
16. 1 Lizardfolk subtype Arachno, a stuffed beast, and a Quark bender will alter victim's alignment by 1 step 1-3 Law/Neut/Chaos or 4-6 Good/Neut/Evil that is activated by low frequency sonic motion detector.
17. It is dusty, here. There is also a spike.
18. Hound Archon subtype Crystal, an overhang, hidden 2618 GP, trapped with Spring Loaded Chute, which will eject a PC into an oubliette that is activated by false switch.
19. 3 Androids subtype Space guard 11 omnium nuggets. The treasure is stuffed into sacks.
20. There is antique coins worth 3935 GP hidden here.
21. This room has an office supply storage facility. 1d100 suspicious 40 gallon drums, marked as biohazard (1d8: 1 tar-zombies, 2 ooze-like mutagen, 3 movement sensitive explosive, 4 distilled water, 5 Synthetic Fire Flower juice, 6-8 surfactant/sanitizer).
22. Minotaur subtype Steam, a manger, hidden 4738 GP, trapped with Cold Glyph on a cauldron, full of mutagenic fluid, forcing a DC 19 Constitution save or 8 that is activated by video motion detector.
23. A Large Spring Loaded Chute, which will drop the party down 1d3 dungeon levels that is activated by pressure pad keeps the 54 Native Red Coral 100gp safeguarded.
24. 4 Grimlocks subtype Nega-, an arch, and hidden treasure A Cast Iron bracelet, set with a thulite, worth 600 gold coins.
25. 1 Lantern Archons subtype Ghost, hidden 3462 GP stored in pottery jars, and a trap: Rust Glyph, forcing a DC 18 Wisdom save or lose all non-magic metallic items.
26. There is antique coins worth 5061 GP concealed here, nestled in huge chests.
27. This modest room includes an a pit full of broken worker robots.
28. This modest room includes an is half-flooded with waist-high water. The next 2 rooms are also flooded.
29. This is a food-supply store room, with a few scroungeable rations and some potable water..

30. This room has a 3 shipping containers containing 111 wrench,pipe.  

Psuedorandom Dungeon Friday

I added some non-repeat indicators for certain sections of my Dungeon Maker code - so there ought to be more unique encounters within the dungeons - not monsters/NPCs because repeats of those give rise to factions - but fewer repetitive traps and trappings. Here's a 30 room, 1st level dungeon for you:

TOMB OF THE TOMBAC TOE RING 

1. There is A Tombac toe ring, set with a rose quartz, worth 600 gold coins concealed here, stored in chests.
2. There is a broken scientific equipment, that will grants a Wish Fulfillment, but Reversal and hidden 6 Bloodstone 75gp, here.
3. The oily corpse of a Dwarf lies here, with axe and faded leather coat.
4. 4 Acidic Lily Pads subtype Space, hidden antique coins worth 724 GP divided into small coffers, and a trap: Arrow Trap. The party sustains d20+5 attacks with 1d6 damage.
5. A Sonic Harmonizer inflicts silence on whole party for 2d6 turns keeps the antique coins worth 76 GP safe.
6. There is 15 Tiger Eye 10gp concealed here, stuffed into sacks.
7. 4 Viper Snakes, hidden An ornate Calamine Brass pauldron, set with trilobite fossil, worth 1750 gold coins in large stone containers, and a trap: Monomolecular Scythe that attacks everyone in party as a Level 1 Fighter for d20 damage, with crits decapitating as a Vorpal Sword.
8. 2 Elf Warriors, a barrel, and hidden treasure Potion of Poison and 513 GP.
9. The room has a Rust Glyph, forcing a DC 17 Wisdom save or lose all non-magic metallic items. The trap is attached to a seemingly-innocuous unidentifiable odor.
10. This room is spotlessly clean and free of dust. In the corner, there is a BEYOND THIS POINT, Spider Swarm ATE Garnet Fuddnery in spraypaint.
11. There is an a very tidy resting spot is nestled in an out of the way part of this room, complete with water and toilet facilities here.
12. The room has a thick spiderwebs. The trap is attached to a seemingly-innocuous rivulet.
13. 5 Morlock Warriors, a chute, and hidden treasure 12 Amber 100gp.
14. There are 3 Viper Snakes and a pedestal, in this room.
15. 5 Viper Snakes subtype Nega-, a stairs up, and a trap: Hail Of Needles. It deals 10 attacks per PC as fighter of Level 1 doing 5 damage each.
16. 1 Androids guard 169 GP. The treasure is tied in bags.
17. 2 Dire Rats, a weapon rack, and hidden treasure Communicator Functions on 1-4 in 20.
18. There are 4 Human Warrior Skeletons subtype Ghoul and a stall, in this cramped room.
19. There is a statue from an ancient civilization, that convert the victim to worship of Saint Agilus here.
20. Shocker Lizard subtype Flesh, a dome, hidden antique coins worth 837 GP , trapped with: Monomolecular Scythe that attacks everyone in party as a Level 1 Fighter for d20 damage, with crits decapitating as a Vorpal Sword.
21. 3 Morlock Warriors, a stool, and a trap: Mummy Rot Powder. The party must pass DC 16 Constitution save or all be cursed as per a mummy.
22. Spider Swarm subtype Mutant, a divan, and a trap: Mud Glyph, forcing a DC 13 Dexterity save or the party members will be mired in this room for 6 turns.
23. Spider Swarm guard antique coins worth 2 GP . The treasure is scattered on the floor.
24. 11 Piranha Butterflies, an ore smelter, hidden antique coins worth 429 GP , trapped with: Radiation Field Projector, forcing a DC 17 Constitution save or victim gains random major corruption.
25. 2 Medium Monstrous Centipedes, a loose masonry, and hidden treasure Potion of Water Breathing and antique coins worth 317 GP .
26. There are Krenshar and a recess, in this room.
27. There are 2 Vegepygmy Warriors and a stairs up, in this room.
28. The party can encounter 4 Viper Snakes, here.
29. A Tachyon Bolt, forcing a DC 19 Dexterity save or the victim ages d20 years keeps the Scroll of Ward against Undead and antique coins worth 572 GP safeguarded.
30. There is a large demon idol from an ancient civilization. Genuflecting to it activates a releases a spray of ancient coins worth 1351 - half are counterfeit or token money here.

p.s. subtypes I put in to vary up the monsters and keep players on their toes, just kind of templates added on to normal monsters. Some are kind of fun like "shadow" and "nega-" and "space" but anyeways

p.s.s. the code makes lots of stuff to play with, even though it's not always sensible, with the idea being that human interventions and edits will turn weird and unplayable entries into something fun at the table

Acidic space lily pads? I simultaneously want to jump on/vaporize these

Crossin' the Streams - DnD plus Sims 4

So I was bored, what with this pandemic, and incidentally a client I work with was tellin' me about The Sims 4. I'd played all the Sims games but never really got into them. I have a copy of Sims 2 downstairs, and a fantasy Sims thing for my kid for this cast-off Nintendo DSi. The whole thing never really appealed to me for very long, so it's not something I've ever been too... enthusiastic about. But, it just so happened that when I went to the link that the client was talking about on Steam, there happened to be a Halloween sale on, and so I picked up the base game and a Potter-esque wizarding thing, a Vampire thing, a "Fear and Loathing in Space Desert Retro Alien Invasion" thing, and a halloween party pack, and some other stuff for pretty cheap. SO. That's done. My kid wanted the cats and dogs one, so I got that too. There's also an official licensed Star Wars pack, which offers lightsabers and "comfortably-used" architecture and alien races n such.

Death comes for the Vampire Kleiner at a cocktail party. Boba Fett, hold my beer.

The interesting thing about it is, that the EA people put out regular mod packs for $$$, which is great - I have my eye on the camping one, the Aztec/Inca/Maya/Mesoamerica jungle one, and my kid has asked for the mermaid one. They have a pretty good model, these EA guys - they build the framework and they offer high-quality expansions, and they look the other way when people hack the heck out of it.

Reminds me of WoTC - I don't know if there's an equivalent of Old School Sims, or whatever. But in the interim, I picked up a "Zombie Apocalypse" mod wth Resident Evil characters (including the Nemesis!). There is, interestingly, a Sims Medieval pack/mod/total makeover for what appears to be the Sims 3 engine. I wonder if people are diligently stealing content from that, or if it could be done? That one has pirates, knights, castles, swordfights, all the good stuff.

Also, I figured out how to use a community-friendly program to add a t-shirt skin of my favorite, now sadly-defunct podcast Drink Spin Run. It happens to be the most comfortable T-shirt I own for some reason, and it leaps magically into my hands from the clean laundry bin. I accidentally happen to be wearing it as I type this.

Kleiner wasn't a terrific roommate, but we had times.

Take that, Evil(?) Space Plant!

So, here are some links to DnD-style mods and hacks for The Sims 4. If I ever make more scripts or content for this particular game, I'll share it around as best as I am able - probably from this particular page.

I saved Strangerville from the >>REDACTED<< and also now I'm working up to Master of Magic whilst I pursue a day-to-day job as superspy. So, that's cool, I guess.

HERE IS SIMS 4 STUFF I'VE MADE:

You, too, can celebrate the greatest Roleplaying podcast in all of recorded history by dressing your digital avatars in very comfortable T-shirts when you battle friendly wizards.

HERE ARE POSSIBLY-USEFUL LINKS FOR World-Famous-Fantasy-Roleplaying-Game LOVERS OF THE SIMS 4:

Some skyrim textures (I ought to play that game one day)

Very promising set of props for having a table full of DnD stuff at your house. 

Add DnD 9-Way alignment as traits to your Sims by Emoria

Add DnD Races as traits to your Sims by Emoria

A big fancy castle using only the base game

A bonkers list of fantasy-oriented mods by Valhallan 

A Couple of Random Wampus Witches

Hey all y'all!

Like you, I dig Halloween and it's here. Or pretty durn close (Edit: i forgot about this until mid-November - so sorry!!). So my esteemed friend Erik (twitter handle : @daydreamtiger1 ) over at Wampus Country has forwarded to me and other Kickstarter backers of his Lumberlands project a fun little October-taster partly distilled from some previous WC posts (I dig the sucromancer and lore behind it and refuse to acknowledge whether I bumped into candy-races whilst thinking of Thrend). Amongst the other amazing things it contains, you jealous reprobate, is a "Random Witch Generator" and if you are anything like me, which is established (see above) that's just the sort of thing you need at this time of year. I was thinking about doing a "Witch March" where you plod along to the west, conflicting and conquering The Myriad Witches of Thrend, the kicker being that once they are all disposed of you find they are the only thing keeping off THE REAL BADGUY who is of course a douchebag CyberLich or sommat. Fight the patriarchy yinz. 

These days, I'm often kept awake by the screeching and to-and-froing of the witches in my county, so I don't have a great deal of processing power left in my brain to handle my witch-based needs unless I eat an unhealth-ier amount of candy than I do and my dentist has forbidden such and so I used Erik's wondrous document and my trusty dice/computer to cook up a couple of startling witches on the fly, totally at random. I could probably manage a Tablesmith thing but we'll see. You ready? I'm ready! Handfuls of dice (as you are wont) (postscript, I actually did finish the Tablesmith generator and here is 5 Wampus Witches for yinz).

post-Postscriptum: Erik conveyed to me that a goodman hath entered his works into Abulafia, wherein the entry you will need is missing because Abulafia is currently plagued by PHP issues. I wish I could help you, Dave Y.!

Again: here is the Tablesmith .tab file for yinz what have it

1. This witch is named Goody Rat. She is a witch because she consumed devil-flesh. She hates those who are outwardly upstanding, but secretly corrupt, and is known for thriving on cannibalism.She has beaklike nose and wears furs and hides. It is rumored that vomits forth worms. She can be seen riding about on transforms into (mist, dark cloud, puddle of blood, shifting sands).Her pet is superior-to-the-norm specimen (lesser undead, goblinoid), and she is weak against her own voice. She is never far from her standard weapon (dagger, spear) made of something unusual
2. This witch is named Gujah Steel. She is a witch because she died by exposure. She hates oak trees, and is known for harrying travellers on “her road”.She has crooked nose and wears dark robes. It is rumored that vomits forth insects. She can be seen riding about on saddle/howdah on the back of a giant version of a mundane animal (vole, pillbug, sow).Her pet is sentient animated object (tome, ottoman, scythe, dressing-mirror, mounted moose head), and she is weak against mundane plant (hollyberry, potato). She is never far from her creepy light source (candlestick, lantern, hand of glory)
3. This witch is named Wrack Culai. She is a witch because she foolishly made an evil bargain. She hates sunlight, and is known for punishing the sexually liberal.She has yellow skin and wears covered in dirt and moss or leaves. It is rumored that if caught out at sunrise, she turns to stone. She can be seen riding about on chariot/coach drawn by (black steeds, skinless hounds, blinded orphans).Her pet is sentient animated object (tome, ottoman, scythe, dressing-mirror, mounted moose head), and she is weak against mundane plant (hollyberry, potato). She is never far from her creepy light source (candlestick, lantern, hand of glory)
4. 
   This witch is named Sister Ghost. She is a witch because she cruelly murdered someone. She hates children, and is known for cursing infants whose mothers are impious.She has patches of feathers and wears furs and hides. It is rumored that causes flowers to wilt. She can be seen riding about on immense kitchen object (mortar & pestle, bowl, beer-stein).Her pet is floating, talking (skull, jack-o-lantern, severed dog’s head), and she is weak against particular moon-phase, holiday or unusual occurrence (coronation of a new king, etc). She is never far from her creepy light source (candlestick, lantern, hand of glory)
5. This witch is named Missus
   
   
   
   
   

   

   It is the ringing of the bell that commands you to find this show!

   
   
   
   
   
   Oakie Fitzherbert. She is a witch because she cursed the King. She hates fairies, and is known for stealing forgotten objects and punishes the former owner.She has patches of fur and wears matron’s clothing. It is rumored that has teeth, that if planted, will produce a tree whose fruit are infant goblins. She can be seen riding about on transforms into a flying creature (screech owl, bat, giant moth - human head optional).Her pet is superior-to-the-norm specimen (lesser undead, goblinoid), and she is weak against mundane plant (hollyberry, potato). She is never far from her something choppy (meat cleaver, woodsman’s hatchet)