On the Limits of Random Tables

I love random tables. Knowing that I can roll a few dice and get a solid idea to build from gives me confidence when running my games. Sometimes the ideas I get go well beyond what I can come up with on my own in a short time. These are all positive points about tables.

But there's a downside.

Every table has limits. Limits on how many options exist. Limits on the scope of ideas available. Limits on what the table can do for you. Don't get me wrong: A d% or d66 table offers plenty of options. But vanishingly few tables exhaust the limits of options available in reality.

Characters As Hope

Why do we make characters? What compels us to keep rolling up characters we may never play or even look at again? What's the point of spending time breathing life into numbers on a piece of paper if that life only ever sees that glimmer of reality and never a full table?

For me, it's a form of self-soothing.

Lemme 'splain, using Mongoose Traveller. Also look at Hanlon Greyrazor.

Lance Sgt Malachi Dobbs (Human, Age 30, ex-Army Scout)
B46686 - Athletics 0, Carouse 0, Drive 0, Gun Combat (Slug) 2, Heavy Weapons (Vehicle) 1, Investigate 1, Leadership 1, Melee (Blade) 1, Navigation 1, Recon 2, Streetwise 0, Survival 1, Vacc Suit 0
Gear: Cr 8,350. Augments: Enhanced Vision, Subdermal Armor. Cloth Armour, Suppressed ACR (DNA-locked), Cutlass, Mobile Comm, and an assortment of Grenades.
(Created Summer 2021)

Colossal Beast - Ti'an the Celestial Dragon (Promptober 2025 #24)

Ti'an, Celestial Dragon
Mythical creator of Beneterra

One ancient myth from the Yamagura Empire tells of an ancient and massive dragon sacrificing itself to create the world of Beneterra. The myth gives the dragon a name, Ti'an, literally meaning "heaven" or "sky" (though modern translations break the name into two characters roughly meaning "bloody paste". Linguistic evolution. Go figure.). The myth refers to Ti'an as a Celestial Dragon from that point on. Ti'an supposedly has scales made of the purest metals: platinum, mithril, and adamantine, and its body glows with starlight and holy fire.

The myth starts with the Celestial Dragon flying across the universe, creating life in its wake as it travels. It weeps comets and breathes dust and fire to ignite the stars in the heavens. Sometimes it hovers and watches what it created, and most times its creations die out in short order, but mostly it moves on to the next patch of sky that craves more than emptiness. Ti'an eventually tired of its journey after millennia of seeding the heavens, and it decided to sacrifice itself in a final concentrated burst of creative energy. It found a warm, welcoming, yellowish sun, then curled up and slept until it expired, laying the seeds of life and intelligence in its own corpse.

The Alchemy of Original Thought

Can we create new ideas from whole cloth any more? We've had 50+ years of TTRPGs, and the market has mostly settled into recognizable genres and flavors, such as generic fantasy, heroic, alternate history, horror, modern, cozy, espionage, near-future (and now alternate present like Cyberpunk), gritty, interstellar, war, and far future. Is there room to fit a new genre in that spectrum? Sure. But it'll definitely show its roots. Same with systems. Are there still innovations to be made that aren't roll+modifiers beating a target, dice pools, or roll+spend? Sure. Are they really bringing new technology to the table? Possibly, but I'll need convincing.

By the same token, can we find a fresh game hidden in something archaic? Is unearthing a tired system that nobody plays anymore valuable? The OSR certainly thinks so, even though a large part of the movement focuses on making new games to fix whatever the designer doesn't like in the older game. Then again, would I play PsiWorld again, even though the system has holes and needs an edit? Absolutely.

"And the world, the world turns around.
And the world and the world, the world drags me down."
  - The Cult "She Sells Sanctuary"

Gary's Visit

Gary visited me last night.

Or rather, I had a dream where I went to Gary's house for the weekend. It was a shack in the woods, half a mile up a pitted dirt road. Snow had fallen overnight, losing the battle against spring's warmth. The next morning his house lay just out of the center of town, across the railroad tracks and through a park where people in Victorian finery rode horses. Maybe it exists everywhere, sort of a Gaax's Magnificent Mansion. It fits.

Dreams are dew, evaporating in the morning sun. Splinters of this one stuck with me a little longer like frost on the grass. I got up and started typing this out on my phone in the bathroom in the wee hours before dawn.

Funnel Photo Finish

This snippet of story, all 800 words of it, exists solely because of the following image, used with the permission of its creator, Robert Cornelius. He does fantastic Photoshop work. Don't believe me? Check out his portfolio and blog. Look for more photo-inspired pieces like this in future posts.

This image screamed "DCC Funnel" to me, so I went with it. Enjoy!

Fight or Flight by Robert Cornelius. Used with permission.

Sixteen volunteers descend those cold and ancient steps in the keep's basement. Ninety minutes later only the Woodcutter still lives, desperate to find a way back up those steps to relative safety.

Eentra, The Goddess Between

Some call her Hecate, but
her name is more ancient.

Most scholars can’t agree on the exact time of day or the nature of the present moment, but all of them agree on Eentra’s status as the firstborn of the Human Gods. Before humanity could talk and before their tribes grew into urban centers of trade, people disagreed with each other. They formed opinions different from others of their kind, and in doing so they created a gap in understanding, a tiny gulf between what is and what should be, an uncomfortable space of simultaneous doubt and conviction. Eentra’s consciousness filled this void the very moment the first two humans disagreed.

Scholars disagree about when Eentra first coalesced, or even how she sprang from nothingness. Personally, I enjoy the thought that a disagreement over what to have for dinner first called her into existence. Berries again, or rabbit again? She has rarely let a mealtime pass since without creating a place for herself well before the food is served.

The Worlds Come Again

The worlds come again.

They nucleate at the bottom of the cauldron holding the turbulent mass of my mind. Their bubbles rise and pop, filling the air above my head with the umami aroma of miso broth and green vegetables. Perfect tiny globes of rock, water, jungle, air, vacuum, and spaceworthy vessel rocket through my mental soup. They demand attention.

After a famine of ideas, they are as welcome as a bountiful oasis shimmering in the desert's heat.

Personal Note: Sudden Proliferation

I'm not used to having 4 posts in the hopper waiting for publication. (OK, 2 and two that are almost done. Curse my inevitable exaggeration.) But there they are. And this one makes 5. So I'll shoot to publish a post a day this week.

Over the winter I was lucky if I had inspiration for an article a month. Spring showed up and brought a bounty of ideas with it. So here I sit, swimming in ideas and actually carving out the time to develop and record them.

It feels glorious.

Pushing Past the Devil and the Empty Well

Waiting for inspiration is the devil in disguise. That feeling of limitless potential, of the world laid out before you, begging to be discovered, explored, colonized, made real; that feeling intoxicates me into inaction.

How can I improve on that feeling of endless possibility? How can one person, crude in aspect and clumsy in skill, take even one tiny part of this bounty and hope to make something worthwhile by simply changing its form? How can one person possibly improve to the point of mastery in any craft?

Honor Your Ideas

Honor your ideas. Make them flesh. Commit them to a more permanent medium than the ephemeral thoughts swirling inside your head. Inside your mind every idea is perfect and the act of recording them violates the sanctity of this false perfection in the ultimate pointless act. This line of thinking embodies self-delusion, procrastination, self-sabotage. Don't give in, even though it's easier than wrestling your ideas into reality.

Record your ideas. Put them on paper. Type them into electronic files. Scribe them onto clay tablets. Encode them in laser light. Break the myth of perfection and get on with the work of making them breathe. Give them the chance to survive in the outside world. If you don’t, one of two things will happen. You’ll lose them to the aether like a dream of the morning dew, or they will torment you by invading every thought and disrupting your sleep. Do both yourself and your ideas the favor of letting them out the first time they hit your mind.

Your ideas will suck. Some will need to be shredded by whirling blades, or crushed into pulp, or set alight to burn merrily and be heard no more. Expect this. Embrace this. Not every idea survives in this Darwinian thought space. Ideas rarely spring fully formed as Athena from Zeus’s head. When they do, you'll find the flaws soon enough.

Whisper to a Scream

Public Domain
via Wikimedia Commons

I know Teddy Roosevelt, but I'm a nobody and it's a hundred years after his death so nobody believes me. I see him when others can't, and occasionally I let him have a ride in my body. Like today, as we wait for the train to get out on the bridge.

He said he came home to New York after his death. Even dead, he's larger than life. He's brave, loud, overconfident, and he gets me in trouble. He's sill kicking himself that he didn't run for reelection. His heart's in the right place, though, and he's just a stand-up dude. Which is why we're starting something in about 2 minutes.

He tells me he can't abide seeing decent people shackled to someone else's work. He tells me we can do something. He tells me that after we free a few, they can help us to free more. He tells me he knows what to say to get them on our side.

We chose the train because the etheric detectors can't quite discern what's train power and what's raw spirit. They say the detectors will find terrorists with etheric bombs, but everybody knows that's total bullshit. They're looking for escapees and for the people who help them, like me.

The Fischer Tape

Partial transcript from FBI surveillance tape labeled “Gwen Fischer’s office, General Etheric building, 24th floor, August 8-9, 1953”. Ms. Fischer's official title at GE was "Assistant", but she was involved in the approval and development of many secret research projects for the company in 1948-53. Working on a weekend wasn't unusual for her.

Soft music plays. Papers rustling, becoming more agitated.

FISCHER: Nigel, step in please. Stop music.

Music stops playing. Door opens and closes.

FISCHER: Has R&D gone insane and nobody bothered to tell me? What the hell is this?

Nigel Cotes was Ms. Fischer’s secretary. Flagged as Communist sympathizer, but vigorously defended by Fischer and GE Legal. Interviewed but not indicted; refer to Congressional Inquiry Proceedings dated September 5, 1951.

[Toolbox] GMing Links

In the continuing effort to close browser tabs and outsource cranial retention services, I've compiled another set of links. These mostly focus on GMing and Worldbuilding. So without further ado...

On Economics
Building Your World: Economics Overview for Fantasy Writers (non-technical) explores world economics in terms of World of Warcraft's quest rewards, monster loot, crafting, and auction house mechanics. It's a great way to simplify thinking about the economies in your tabletop game.

Fevered Haiku

I have Teh Sick. I left work early yesterday and caught an earlier train.

I got inspired to write while feverish on the ride home. I cranked out 17 haiku (one for each syllable) in about 30 minutes. Some are tremendously meta and self-referential, some stray near the artsy interpretation of concrete reality.

Today I decided to share. Who knows, this may inspire someone at some point. If you can use them, great. Please let me know so I can add a link to you.

I took every photograph in this article with my cell phone.

All written on and
Inspired by my train ride in
the rain on Thursday.

Dark rain-embroidered
Windows paint the wind's preference:
Either calm or gale.

The Glacial Forge

I had a few minutes listening to a conference call at work today, so I sketched out another quick map. It's a true 5-minute effort, so no bells and whistles. I call it the Glacial Forge.

The Glacial Forge

Drawn with a cheap "Gel Mini" pen from Staples - I picked up a box of a dozen for a buck - on the back of a meeting agenda. I scanned it in through the copy center at work and cropped it in Paint. Unlovely, but functional.

The Water Shrine

I cleaned off my desk this morning, and now I have some space to work. To celebrate, I broke out my kit and made a map. I'm still working freehand, so the lines aren't as sure as they could be, but overall I'm happy with it.

The Water Shrine map, created 23 July 2014.

I used a Sakura Micron 05 to draw the walls, and I went over them twice to give them a little more thickness. I used a Micron 01 for the room contents and fill.

Gone Mapping. Don't Wait Up.

Last week, I solicited recommendations on pens for mapping. I scored a set of Sakura Micron pens at Blick (a short walk from work, and for $6 - yay, member discount!) and scribbled a map in a graph composition book in about 10 minutes at work. Since then I've been playing with hashing and fill, and I'm still experimenting.

All the hashing looks muddy to me.
Then again it's all freehand, and I'm still tinkering.

Vacation Perspective

Last Wednesday night, I arrived at a cottage on a lake shore in New Hampshire with my family, a box of games, and 4 bags of food. We left for home with much less food on Sunday around 5PM. We only left the cottage by boat or to swim. It was glorious.

The view from the Turret.

Here's a partial list of things I did not do on vacation:

• Turn my phone's ringer on.
• Wear my fitbit.
• Think about work.
• Spend time editing anything.
• Mind, care, nor worry.
• Watch TV.
• Play online games.
• Play games on my phone.
• Use my computer.

OK, I lied. I used my computer to pay a bill on Thursday morning. And there's a typo on a card in Seasons - "cristal" is, in fact, a correct spelling, but not in English unless you mean the champagne. But it was right there in my face; it's not like I was looking for it or anything.

ANYway.

Character Hook: The Train Shade

There's this guy on the train. He looks older: mid 40s or early 50s. Thin. Not too tall. Snappy dresser, usually a yellow polo shirt and slacks. Shaved head under a cap. Always wears dark glasses. Always carries a brown leather soft-sided briefcase.

Is this his natural form?
By nJoo at deviantART.

He has this presence, like you can feel him come into the room. And here's the kicker: Whenever he walks, he rattles and clanks like he's wrapped in chains from crown to sole.

I'm to the point of staring as he walks by because I can't figure out what's making the noise. The bag is closed and doesn't move. Does he drape chains down the inside of his pant legs for armor? Is he really that good with special effects? Is he a Foley artist?

Or is he haunting the train?

Dear Lord. Am I the only person who can see him?