Thursday, September 20, 2018

What The Fuck Did I Do Last Night?

"You were in a bar fight with... three dwarves. And you won but take 1d6 damage, and now you can't go back to that bar."

"Ok. Do I still get the experience?"


BORING

And perhaps a little contrived, but whatever, my point still stands. A bar fight? How do you know? Black-out drunk, wake up with bruises on your face and shin, a fistful of someone else's hair in your mouth, and the other guy is in the cell over trying to pick your pocket through the bars.

Now that's what I call Carousing. Sure, if you narrate it well it can be interesting. But players and DM-alike get all the information at once, and there's an easy temptation for it to just... slide away. Excellent and impactful Carousing mishaps should be something you can't just ignore. Here's my take: until you know exactly what happened, is it safe to ignore it? Sure, it might've just been a bar-fight... but who with? Where? What happened? Enter, stage left - What the Fuck Did I Do Last Night?

Rather than dictating exactly what happened, the results are both concrete and freeform. You may never know exactly what happened, but you're very unlikely to get out of it scot-free! Roll each of the following questions in order, but only when the character has a moment to take stock of the situation. Assuming you failed a Constitution roll to end up in this situation, make a note of the value. Some of entries have two options (odds is left, evens right)

Where am I?
  1. In a gutter
  2. A closet
  3. On someone else's floor
  4. In the lockup
  5. Still at the bar
  6. Rolled up in a rug
  7. In a sewer
  8. A gibbet / the stocks
  9. In the dark
  10. In a wizards tower
  11. In a nice bed
  12. In a palatial suite
  13. Falling down a large hole
  14. The top of a building
  15. The cupboards of a busy tavern
  16. In a sack, carried
  17. A wagon of vegetables heading out of town
  18. The middle of the street
  19. On a stage, about to give a speech
  20. An operating theatre

What am I wearing?
  1. No pants
  2. One shoe, not yours
  3. Socks bearing strange formulae
  4. A suspiciously damp shirt
  5. A beard
  6. Painful bruises everywhere
  7. Lash marks
  8. A helmet, horns optional
  9. Blood, probably not yours
  10. Wizard hat, nothing else
  11. The tanned hide of a bear
  12. A crown
  13. A sword in an ill-fitting sheathe
  14. 1d20 copper coins in odd and uncomfortable places. Very uncomfortable, in some cases
  15. Dapper suit
  16. Peanut butter
  17. Children's clothes
  18. Ballet slippers
  19. Mascot costume
  20. Toga

Who am I with?
  1. Two clowns
  2. A gorilla / a sleeping tiger
  3. A pile of spiders / a snake
  4. An attractive woman/man
  5. Your lawyer
  6. Someone's wife/husband
  7. A rival adventurer
  8. A mercenary/bandit (hard to tell)
  9. Four dwarves in various states of inebriation
  10. A half-elf with a frightening mohawk
  11. A notably rich merchant
  12. An heir/ess with a contagious disease
  13. A different party member
  14. A talking skull/book
  15. A hidden voice
  16. Three slaves, chains broken
  17. An apprentice wizard, in the middle of casting a spell
  18. An inebriated paladin
  19. Someone who looks suspiciously like you
  20. Nobody. You can’t find anyone at all…

To demonstrate, I kludged this out of my list to HTML translator. However, for maximum enjoyment I would recommend that the DM roll on the d20 table only when the player actually asks the question. Embrace contradictions wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm.



4 comments:

  1. Do you mind if I ask how you coded that autogenerator? I'm sure there are templates out there I could find, but did you use one or write it up from scratch? I have a tiny bit of experience with HTML but I've been meaning to learn more, and doing something like that was one of the things I wanted to learn how to do!

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    Replies
    1. One of the other posts on his blog here provides a generator for just this!

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    2. Whoops, forgot to link that, should be there now.

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    3. Forgot to check the box to get emails to comment responses haha, only seeing this now, thanks!

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