Abstract Inventory & Stress

by mulebits

I ditched weight-based inventory for slot-based a while ago. The system is simple: each PC has 8 slots, and each slot holds 1 thing (or 1/2 for bulky items).

Spells also take up 1 slot each (blame Mausritter and Knave). It doesn’t matter where you’ve put it—a tome, a scroll, a carved stone tablet, or your own brain—it’s still 1 slot. I like this dynamic a lot; instead of introducing a new mechanic in spell slots or mental inventory, the system asks players to use existing resources in new ways.

Enter Grave. Tocci’s stamina system is great; simply put, you can spend inventory slots to pull off stunts or cast spells. It’s another bolt-on system, reminiscent of the slot-based fatigue system which I swear was in the original GLOG but it isn’t???? I like it.

So we have spells, items, and stamina all fighting for inventory space. So, what else can we shove in inventory?

Oblidisideryptch had some ideas that I want to follow up on.

Here’s The Pitch

Your Inventory holds everything that your character is holding, things that you can lose/get rid of/hand off to a friend. This is the place for:

• items
• spells
• fatigue
• injuries
• stress
• ideas (the bad, mind-breaking kind)
• anything you’re likely to change more than once per session

Each of the abstract inventory-things has an overflow mechanic (for when you need to add it to your inventory but have no room) and a removal mechanic (for when you want to remove it from your inventory).

Fatigue
Overflow: Drop an item OR be unable to move until you have a proper meal or a nap.
To Remove: Have a proper meal or a nap. 

Injuries
Overflow: Drop an item OR have the injury become permanent.
To Remove: Receive specific medical treatment OR spend a week of downtime recuperating. 

Stress
Overflow: Drop an item OR roll for a Crack.
To Remove: Spend a week of downtime on emotional therapy and/or heavy drinking.
You can get rid of stress FASTER by sharing it with a friend. Anyone who hears you out over a meal can take your stress from you. 

Ideas
Overflow: Drop an item OR have the idea become permanent.
To Remove: Forget or fulfill your dark desire.
You can get rid of an idea by sharing it with a friend. Anyone who hears you out over a meal can take the idea from you. Alternatively, you can spread the idea to others with an unsettling speech.

There’s probably a hack out there where skills, class abilities, languages, race, background, and even HP all take up inventory slots. (I know Bonepunk does the last one.)

Some personal takeaways:

• Track only the things you care about. Stress is in; arrows are not.
• Bolt-on subsystems should build upon existing gameplay loops without distracting from them. stay focused on what the game is about
• Know your audience; anticipate their needs. Think about what all this shit looks like on a character sheet.
• It's easier to write blog posts when you have other work that you need to be distracted from.
  

The Eboshi (MononokeGLOG)

You're a woman with a gun. Those rejected and degraded by polite society flock to you. Then you give them a gun.

You get +1 HP and +1 to hit for each Eboshi template you have. This increases to +2 to hit per template against men who have betrayed you.

The Eboshi
A: Perfect For Ruling The World
B: A Wolf’s Head Still Bites
C: Irontown Militia

D: Very Impressive Piece of Paper
Δ: How to Kill a God

A: Perfect For Ruling The World
You carry two prototype firearms. They’re bulky, single-shot, medieval hand cannons that deal 3d6 damage and take three rounds to reload. If the powder gets wet, it’s useless. New prototypes, ammunition, etc. are not cheap to produce, but you can easily teach others how to make more.

If you roll doubles on damage dice, something fucks up. It’ll take an hour to fix. You also take 1d6 damage.

When you gain an Eboshi template, choose or invent an upgrade for your prototype firearms.

1. Damage dice explode on 6
2. Ignores half armor/AC
3. Automatically shatters shields/natural armor on hit
4. No longer bulky
5. Rifled, +2 to hit
6. Can fire flare-type ammunition
7. Can fire a steady stream of flame for 10 seconds
8. Sets enemies hit on fire
9. Gun only fucks up if you roll triples
10. Breech loading, takes 1 less round to reload

B: A Wolf’s Head Still Bites
When you arrive At Death’s Door, you can make a free attack. It is guaranteed to hit.

C: Irontown Militia
Your followers can reload firearms in one round. You can have 2 additional followers without issue.

D: Very Impressive Piece of Paper
The emperor sends you a missive. They want you to bring them the head of a god, in a desperate bid for immortality. They promise you something ludicrous in return.

Δ: How to Kill a God
Shoot at a god with the intent to kill.
You gain the benefits of this template immediately, before your shot makes impact.

Your firearms deal double damage to gods, including those that would otherwise be intangible, immortal, and indestructible, so long as you do not fear them.

yaphleen

 

Druid Variety Hour

Rachel Suggs

Here’s some Druids based on this format. In summary: Druids have SD (analogous to MD) which they replenish by completing Rituals. Their SD are more or less reliable depending on how close you are to your Sanctum. They also start with a Relic.

(All the spells below use the minimalist glog/knave spell format.)

Fae Druid 

Sanctum: Fae space. An extra-dimensional space accessible through any doorway, so long as you’ve been there before or are being led there by another fae.

1. Pixie breeding hollow. They’re always fucking. Poachers may approach you with ludicrous offers.
2. Forgotten Elven gravesite. Any liquid poured on the headstone turns to wine. If the elves find out you're here, they’ll be pissed.

3. The Fearsome Teatime. Keep your wits and manners about you. Roll thrice to see who’s at the table today: (1d4) a noble fae; a mundane animal in fancy clothes; an illusory messenger from a faerie court; sentient candy.
4. A time-displaced tavern. Anachronistic adventurers from past and present gather here.
5. The door between doors. 1/session open a door to somewhere (1d4) dangerous; you’re not supposed to be; alien; convenient.
6. Fox den. 

Ritual: Restore SD by

• Hosting an elaborate tea party.
• Destroying a clock or other time-keeping device.
• Eating a shit ton of candy. 

Relic: A beautifully filigreed and painted wooden mask, marking you as an honorary member of faerie society. You can guide mortals through fae space without mutating. 

Spell List

1. Illusion: You create an illusion of your choice with [dice] sensory properties.
2. Charm: [dice] creatures treat you like a friend.
3. Betwixt: Treat two objects as adjacent to each other.
4. Delicious: Object smells and tastes delicious.
5. Masquerade: [dice] characters’ appearances and voices become identical to another character’s.
6. Oops: [dice] creatures trip whenever they run.
7. Babble: A creature must loudly repeat everything you think. It is otherwise mute.
8. Sleep: [dice] creatures fall into a very light sleep.
9. Vision: You fully control what a creature sees.
10. Menagerie: An inanimate object transforms into a mundane animal of similar size. It has no allegiance to you.
11. Time Slip: An object disappears, leaping forward in time. It reappears unchanged at the end of the spell duration.
12. Looking Glass: A mirror becomes a gateway to another mirror you looked into today.

Mike Azevedo

Grim Druid

Sanctum: A respectable graveyard, entrusted to you by the last sentinel. (1d6)

1. Space-efficient grave archive. Has a registry of everyone who’s died in a six-mile radius over the last few centuries.
2. Cyclopean tomb. The runes are inscrutable, and the coffins are much too long.
3. Misty headstone labyrinth. Outsiders get lost immediately and can’t escape without your help.
4. Ancestral burial ground. 1/session, you can consult with your dead wise-yet-eccentric great-great-grandmother.
5. (g)Raveyard. There’s undead all over the place, but its, like, totally chill. They all know and like you; some are even quite chatty. They’ll get pissed if you kill undead outside the sanctum (they’ll know).
6. The Hive Dead. 

Ritual: Restore SD by

• Naming and honoring an unmarked grave.
• Burying and honoring a corpse.
• Petting a cat. 

Relic: A shovel with a vial of holy water tied around the handle. As long as the vial is full, the shovel blade counts as if consecrated. The handle is always cold to the touch. 

Spell List

1. Pit: A 10ft wide, [sum] + 5 ft deep hole opens up.
2. Summon Candles: Candles sprout wherever you touch.
3. Fog Cloud: Dense fog spreads out from you.
4. Wisplight: A floating light moves as you command.
5. Phantom Limb: [dice] body parts can’t touch physical objects, only incorporeal ones.
6. Speak with Dead: A dead body answers [dice] questions. It doesn’t have to tell the truth if it dislikes you.
7. Bury: [dice] objects (or memories) bury themselves entirely in an area (or creature). If it’s a living thing, it is buried up to the neck.
8. Phantom Coach: You flag down a ghostly coach. It moves unnaturally fast over land or water.
9. Ward: Draw a circle on the ground and choose a category (i.e. living, dead, good, evil, metal, bees). Things of that category cannot cross it.
10. Glaciate: A thick layer of ice spreads across an object or surface.
11. Fast: [dice] creatures ignore [dice] of their biological needs (food, water, air, etc) and the symptoms of their absence (hunger, thirst, suffocation, etc).
12. Danse Macabre: Corpses in an area follow peacefully wherever you go. If you die, they go berserk.

A. Shipwright

Gutter Druid

Sanctum: Behind a door, down a back alley, in a cruel, unfeeling cityscape. (1d6)

1. Secret tea house for the rebellion. Each week, an informant offers (1d4) good news; bad news; useless information; exotic tea.
2. Celestial speak-easy. An angel is tending the bar. Kind but strict; no blasphemy in the bar.
3. Stomach of a (tame?) tavern mimic. Disposes of bodies easily and efficiently. Drools a lot.
4. Entrance to the mythic sewer rave. You know two party rats, but the rest are strangers.
5. Shrine to Kon-Fabulate, god of cities.
6. Marijuana garden.

Ritual: Restore SD by

• Tagging a wall with an obvious and inflammatory symbol/phrase.
• Shouting “Hey, I’m walkin’ ‘ere!” at some bastard.
• Dumping a bucket of strangers’ spit in the street.

Relic: A conspicuous piercing that abhors attention; peoples’ eyes skip right over it. You can go anywhere unnoticed so long as you act like you belong and don’t draw attention to yourself. 

Spell List:

1. Knock: Up to [dice] nearby doors, chests, belt buckles, etc. unlock and fly open.
2. Grease: Object or surface is covered in slippery, flammable grease.
3. Filch: [dice] items you see fly into your hands.
4. Oops: [dice] creatures trip whenever they run.
5. Babble: A creature must loudly repeat everything you think. It is otherwise mute.
6. Vermin Sovereign: Rats and other vermin obey you so long as you wear an appropriate crown.
7. Spider Step: You walk securely on any surface: walls, ceilings, water, etc.
8. Haste: You are thrice as fast at all tasks.
9. Scry: You can see through the eyes of a creature you touched earlier today.
10. Like a Shadow: You can’t be perceived by up to [dice] senses.
11. Mob: Creatures in an area despise an object, symbol, or signifier of your choice. They act rationally, but are likely to join in if someone starts a riot.
12. Strike: Creatures in an area abandon their obligations until a demand of your choice is met.

geng kun

Some design takeaways: The format works! These were fun and easy to write, so well done to owlbearchickenhawk. Sanctum perks and relics may be a bit redundant, but that’s on me for adding the former instead of opting to merge the two conceptually. I still feel like the chassis has room to improve. Still, great stuff.

Minimalist Spell Scaling

Rachel Suggs

I like GLOG spellcasting. I like Knave spells. Here’s a system that combines the two, with a lot of inspiration drawn from Mimics & Miscreants’ spell list.

The Format

Spells are written in "[title]:[effect]" format, using plain language and as few words as possible.

Unless specified by the spell text, the following spell properties change based on the [dice] invested in the spell:

[dice]	Object Size	Area Size	Range	Duration
1	Smaller than a head	Smaller than a bedroom	Within reach	[sum] rounds
2	Smaller than a person	Smaller than a courtyard	Across the room	[sum] minutes
3	Smaller than a wagon	Smaller than a hillside	Across the battlefield	[sum] hours
4	Smaller than a house	Smaller than a city	Within earshot	[sum] days
8+	Smaller than a castle	Smaller than a country	Visible from a distance	[sum] eternities

 

Some examples:
Menagerie: Inanimate object transforms into a mundane animal of similar size. It has no allegiance to you.
“Object” changes with [dice]. If [dice] = 2, the object can be anything the same size or smaller than a person. If [dice] = 8+, you can turn a castle into a dinosaur.  

Dredge: Buried objects (or memories) rise to the surface in an area (or creature).
“Object” and “area” change with [dice]. If [dice] = 3, you can dredge any number of wagons out of a swamp within shouting distance. If [dice] = 8, you can raise Atlantis.

Objectify: You become an inanimate object between the size of a grand piano and an apple.
“Object” would change with [dice], but the size is specified by the spell description.

Why This Format?

I use this format because its easy to write, I don’t care to specify range and duration for every spell, and I like giving players the freedom to define how “Summon Candles” scales to 8+ MD.

Here’s d20 of my favorite spells using the format, most of which are stolen or half-stolen:

1. Arms to Arms: Your hands become weapons.
2. BEES: Object contains more bees than one would expect.
3. Blazing Gaze: Anything you glare at catches fire.
4. Delicious: Object smells and tastes delicious.
5. Dinnertime: Object is edible AND eatable.
6. Dull Senses: Creature loses [dice] senses.
7. Feather: Object weighs as much as a feather.
8. Forecast: The weather changes as you wish after one day/hour/minute/round (based on MD).
9. Gate: Open two linked portals. If cast for 1 hour, open a portal to a random plane instead.
10. Mutate: Creature gains a random mutation.
11. Oops: [dice] creatures trip whenever they run.
12. Raise Dead: Corpse rises as a [dice] HD undead. It has [dice] special abilities it had in life.
13. Smite: Creature rolls [dice] additional damage dice on their next hit.
14. Spider Step: You walk securely on any surface: walls, ceilings, water, etc.
15. Take Aim: Name a creature. Object will always strike that creature when thrown.
16. Time Jump: An object disappears, jumping into the future. It reappears at the end of the spell duration.
    
17. Umbrella: Falling objects don’t touch you.
18. Upwell: A spring of seawater appears.
19. Vermin Sovereign: Rats and other vermin obey you so long as you wear an appropriate crown.
20. Ward: Draw a circle on the ground and choose a category (i.e. living, dead, good, evil, metal, bees). Things of that category cannot cross it.

Horde (HD 8; AC 0)

Dominik Mayer
this started as a Joesky tax, then i realized it was 100x more interesting than the article it was attached to

Never run zombies as individual monsters ever again.

Zombie Horde
HD 8; Morale 12
There are as many zombies as the horde has HP. Attacks automatically dispatch as many zombies as they hit.
Horde "Tactics": The horde doesn't attack conventionally; instead, take 1 damage for each zombie within arms reach at end of round (no save), and 1 damage for each zombie you pass through the reach of while moving (save for half, round down).
Characters who look, sound, and/or smell like zombies (at least 2 of those) take no damage.
Only Slowed Them Down: Each round, half of the zombies you dispatched get back up and rejoin the horde, so long as their bodies are still intact.
They Just Keep Coming: Each round, 1d6 new zombies shamble around the nearest corner. This continues until the source is discovered and neutralized or the horde stops chasing you. (you're probably fine if you walk around the corner; they're very dumb)

Other monsters to horde-ify: goblins; orcs; swarms of bees; sharks; town guardsmen; plant monsters; velociraptors