Reviving Mr. Cavern

[JonSetanta]

Zinegata: I saw GameMastery "Illusion Deck" cards a while ago. Too pricey at the store, but it was essentially just picture cards with various common MM style monsters on them. Basic races and stereotypes, etc.

I should have bought that too on half-off day.

[TheFlatline]

Random Name Generator + Word Processor = As many custom name lists as you like.

I do that already. But having names that are custom to a specific setting or to a fantasy setting would be really nice.

[Hieronymous Rex]

Since every NPC needs a name.

I disagree, sir. Proper names are largely superfluous in RPGs (at least in the games I play; YMMV). Players rarely remember or care about the names of even their fellow party members, much less of NPCs. Instead, characters are recalled by their function or notable traits (in a Star Wars game I played, there was a Trandoshan Force-User NPC that was invariably referred to a "Argonian Cleric"). If I may give a long quote:

The very first module I ever owned was Gary Gygax's B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. You'll notice that no one and nothing therein is given a proper name. Even the titular Keep is simply called...the Keep. The lands around are...the Borderlands. Within the Keep live the Jewel Merchant, the Priest, the Bailiff, the Curate, the Castellan, the Scribe, etc. In the wilderness reside the Mad Hermit, the Hero, the Evil Priest, etc.

The Major Arcana of the Tarot would be far less evocative if, instead of archetypal figures, they bore particular names: Pope Leo II (instead of "The Hierophant"), Johnny (instead of "The Hanged Man"), Emperor Frank (instead of "The Emperor"), etc.

On a more mundane note, I recognize my limitations and that I'm not a philologist. I relish and revel in the names found in M. A. R. Barker's Tekumel and those in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. In both cases, a brilliant philologist invented entire languages for his fantasy world. The names therein have consistent linguistic significance, like traditional names in the real world. The invented names of Professors Barker and Tolkien therefore possess a euphonious beauty. Contrast that with most of the invented names that I have encountered in many other works of fantasy, whether RPG products or not. Most of them are not far from Dildo Bugger, or (even worse) Ith'ilindri'eldriletha.

Further, the text is more understandable without proper names. The reader of B2: The Keep on the Borderlands can never be in any doubt as to whom the Castellan (or anyone else) is. But if B2 had given proper names to everyone, the DM would be continually scratching his head as he read the module, "Now who is this Figbert again? Was he the bailiff, or the captain?"[/url]

[Xur]

@Hieronymous: that may be true, but names are an organic process. You need to start with real names, even though the players may ditch most of them and refer to the NPC with names picked after some memoriable traits, events or whatever. I wouldn't want all important NPCs have been named only after their function (The King, The Wise Mage, The Veteran), but rather try to impersonate them so good the players will come up with labels like that of their own.

On the topic, my favourite name generator is this one (former Dire Press generator). Very D&Dish, but also some really cool names resembling ancient cultures.

[Archmage]

Since every NPC needs a name.

I disagree, sir. Proper names are largely superfluous in RPGs (at least in the games I play; YMMV).

Conversely, my players want to know the name of everyone they talk to for more than a minute, which frequently turns out to be a lot of people.

The long quote seriously doesn't give credence to idea that names are unimportant, either. It's just one guy's ruminations about how module publishers shouldn't necessarily include names for every Joe the Barkeep and Dick the Stable Boy unless they're major, recurring figures. And they probably shouldn't, because that shit takes up space. A condensed table of random names included with the module might be nice if MC doesn't have one handy for his/her particular setting or culture, however.

[TheFlatline]

Same here... In my Grimdark game I'm using archaic germanic names to represent Calixis sector heritage and Roman-esque names for core Imperium lineage. I have a list of 3-400 names for each, roughly divided into male and female. The players really enjoy the names I'm throwing at them, and only forget the PC names. The NPCs they all refer to by name.

[fectin]

Templates were a good idea, but they take too long to implement.

What if you made templates easier to apply?
Or actually, what if you started with generic monster styles, balanced those well, and added templates purely as flavors?

Consider a "Fast Animal" base, with a table of attributes by level. Slightly underspec it. keep a separate list of templates that add mostly flavor, like "Fire" or "Evil" or "Stinky," and which do something like "Fire: the base creature is on fire. Add it's CR to all damage it deals, and half the damage it deals is fire damage. Also, if you pet the creature, you will get burned for 1d6 fire damage for every 2 CR."

Not neccesarily exclusively go with that, but it seems like something similar might give an easy way to generate thematic monsters on the fly, and still make them level appropriate.

Or I might be off the deep end, and this way turns everything too generic.

[JonSetanta]

Don't advance anything by CR. Use HD or levels.

[Lokathor]

Well that's another problem isn't it? HD, Level, and CR should really all be the same thing.

[Xur]

Well that's another problem isn't it? HD, Level, and CR should really all be the same thing.

Either that or they shouldn't try to mean the same thing, but I'd prefer the former one.

[fectin]

CR was actually a lot closer to what I was looking for, though it also needs someone to do CR well.

On the XP issue though, giving XP by CR overcome is dumb, unless you are literally doing dungeon crawls. Use story awards, roll some dice, flat out make up awards. Absolutely anything is better, and there is no system more arbitrary. You would be better off doing levels entirely by fiat and handing out crafting XP as a separate goodie.

EDIT: seems that the tomes already made this point and did it better. My bad.

[JonSetanta]

Well that's another problem isn't it? HD, Level, and CR should really all be the same thing.

Well naturally. But if that's the assumption, just call it "level".

[Caedrus]

What about the second part of what I mentioned in the OP? Not just the idea of streamlining things, but actually making the experience of DMing more rewarding in a more game-like sense?

[mean_liar]

That's an interesting question.

Ars Magica does it with rotating Mr Caverns, such that so one actually has to sit behind the screen all the time and the duty is shared only so far as it wants to be shared. You generally have to divide up story duties: in ArM, my method is that one person takes the local Hermetic stuff (and is probably the best with the rules), one person takes the local mundane stuff (dealing with nobles and peasants and what-not), one person takes on the non-Hermetic magical stuff, and everything else is doled out as "whatever you feel like running". It works decently in ArM because your characters grow more powerful with off-screen downtime than you do adventuring and trying to convince the Faerie King to not eat all the women-folk, so you're really only missing the player-perspective story aspect of the game and nothing else, which the Mr Cavern-perspective story aspect should be a fine replacement for.

So, useful downtime for a Mr Cavern-PC seems like a nice carrot.

A method used by Agon is that the Mr Cavern has a finite set of resources to generate and run the adventure, called Strife. You spend some Strife to create the static elements of the adventure, but then you hold onto the rest of the Strife and pepper the game with complications and enemy boosts using your Strife. Where it falls short is that it's an end unto itself. Mr Cavern doesn't profit from using all his Strife or none of it, he's just encouraged to use as little as possible in order to test the players to the utmost.

Tweaking that to allow unspent Strife to fuel a Mr Cavern-PC would be another mechanism to consider.

[RobbyPants]

Wait. You mean that Mister Cavern goes easy on the PCs, and then he gets to run an overpowered PC when it's his turn to play? That just sounds like an incentive to always run the game on easy mode until you get too bored.

[mean_liar]

Hey, we're brainstorming. It's all part of the process.

You'll want to incentivize "just hard enough" difficulty such that Easy Mode does not become desirable and Hard Mode is a TPK that ends the game, but I don't have an idea how to yet.

[RobbyPants]

Well, several people I've played with have voiced an interest in wanting the game to be hard but winnable. So, a TPK would run counter to those interests as would a cake-walk. I'm not sure I need more incentive then that.

[Ice9]

What if you made templates easier to apply?

That would definitely help, and it could be done just by changing what templates modify. Currently (in 3E D&D) templates most often modify the base stats, which is a terrible ass-backward way to do things, as it requires recalculating most of the stat block. But if you went straight to modifying the final numbers, templates could be applied in in a couple minutes, maybe even in play.

So for example:
Death Beast (Current Method): +3d8 HD, +6 Str, +6 Con, +5 Natural Armor, does negative level on bite.
Death Beast (New Method): +30 hp (+60 if level > 10), +5 attack and damage, +5 Fortitude, +5 AC, negative level on bite

[Dean]

I think that ^ is a good idea

[hogarth]

What if you made templates easier to apply?

That would definitely help, and it could be done just by changing what templates modify. Currently (in 3E D&D) templates most often modify the base stats, which is a terrible ass-backward way to do things, as it requires recalculating most of the stat block. But if you went straight to modifying the final numbers, templates could be applied in in a couple minutes, maybe even in play.

So for example:
Death Beast (Current Method): +3d8 HD, +6 Str, +6 Con, +5 Natural Armor, does negative level on bite.
Death Beast (New Method): +30 hp (+60 if level > 10), +5 attack and damage, +5 Fortitude, +5 AC, negative level on bite

Pathfinder has "simple" templates that work like like that. For instance, the astoundingly poorly named "advanced creature" template:

Advanced Creature (CR +1)
Creatures with the advanced template are fiercer and more powerful than their ordinary cousins.

Quick Rules: +2 on all rolls (including damage rolls) and special ability DCs; +4 to AC and CMD; +2 hp/HD.

Rebuild Rules: AC increase natural armor by +2; Ability Scores +4 to all ability scores.

[RobbyPants]

But if you went straight to modifying the final numbers, templates could be applied in in a couple minutes, maybe even in play.

That actually is a pretty cool concept in its simplicity. Since the ability scores are so arbitrary and abstract anyway, there's no real loss to simply modifying end numbers instead of base stats.

[fectin]

Pathfinder has "simple" templates that work like like that. For instance, the astoundingly poorly named "advanced creature" template:

Advanced Creature (CR +1)
Creatures with the advanced template are fiercer and more powerful than their ordinary cousins.

Quick Rules: +2 on all rolls (including damage rolls) and special ability DCs; +4 to AC and CMD; +2 hp/HD.

Rebuild Rules: AC increase natural armor by +2; Ability Scores +4 to all ability scores.

How does that work out?
On its face, it looks a little different from the original suggestion in that it's actual advancement instead of just flavor, and has a lot more crunch (meaning time to implement) than Ice9's excellent example.

[hogarth]

Pathfinder has "simple" templates that work like like that. For instance, the astoundingly poorly named "advanced creature" template:

Advanced Creature (CR +1)
Creatures with the advanced template are fiercer and more powerful than their ordinary cousins.

Quick Rules: +2 on all rolls (including damage rolls) and special ability DCs; +4 to AC and CMD; +2 hp/HD.

Rebuild Rules: AC increase natural armor by +2; Ability Scores +4 to all ability scores.

How does that work out?
On its face, it looks a little different from the original suggestion in that it's actual advancement instead of just flavor, and has a lot more crunch (meaning time to implement) than Ice9's excellent example.

The Advanced Creature template's "quick rules" say "add +2 to attack/damage/saves and +4 to AC and some extra hit points". Ice9's example say "add +5 to attack/damage/saves/AC and some extra hit points". How is that "a lot more crunch"?

(Ignore the "rebuild rules" i.e. the slow, complicated rules. Maybe that is what's confusing you.)

[fectin]

The Advanced Creature template's "quick rules" say "add +2 to attack/damage/saves and +4 to AC and some extra hit points". Ice9's example say "add +5 to attack/damage/saves/AC and some extra hit points". How is that "a lot more crunch"?

(Ignore the "rebuild rules" i.e. the slow, complicated rules. Maybe that is what's confusing you.)

Mea Culpa. I don't know what I was thinking. I must have read it wrong.

The flavor vs. advancement part stands though; it doesnt look like you could slap the Advanced Creature template on something midstream without juggling the challenge level. Or does it work out to not matter?

Either way, to really streamline it, you'd need a bunch of tables of level-appropriate base monsters

[hogarth]

The Advanced Creature template's "quick rules" say "add +2 to attack/damage/saves and +4 to AC and some extra hit points". Ice9's example say "add +5 to attack/damage/saves/AC and some extra hit points". How is that "a lot more crunch"?

(Ignore the "rebuild rules" i.e. the slow, complicated rules. Maybe that is what's confusing you.)

Mea Culpa. I don't know what I was thinking. I must have read it wrong.

The flavor vs. advancement part stands though; it doesnt look like you could slap the Advanced Creature template on something midstream without juggling the challenge level. Or does it work out to not matter?

It increases the CR by 1. Hence the "(CR +1)" notation.