What’s The Story, Muthur?
To the point, tabletop gaming
These are the best death rules for your rpg
The moment a player character goes down in battle, you take a d20 and you hide it under the mug. You put the mug out on the table for all to see. For every player turn that the character remains “down” you hide another d20 under the mug. This is important, so remember to add another d20 every round…
…in my opinion
Before we get started, I want to be straight with you. This post contains links to my new online zazzle store - tldr: I designed a mug… because I’m peculiar and I think it’s funny. You don’t need to buy the mug, if you like these death rules, just use your own.
Oh, whilst I’m writing disclaimers, this D&D house rule of mine is inspired by the death rules in Mothership 1e, which is a fantastic little game by Tuesday Knight Games.
setup
You are going to need an opaque mug, cup or similar vessel, and you’re going to need a handful of d20s.
how to use the best death rules
The moment a player character goes down in battle, you take a d20 and you hide it under the mug. You put the mug out on the table for all to see. For every player turn that the character remains “down” you hide another d20 under the mug, this is important, so don’t forget!
At this point, no one knows the status of the character, all we know is that the longer they’re down, the more dice they’re getting, and the worse their odds of survival. Feel that tension baby!
The spicy bit
When another character goes to revive the downed character, be it during or after battle, using a spell or just a stabilising action, that’s when the fun begins.
The player making the revive action first shakes the mug, and reveals the d20s within. Read them as follows, with later conditions superseding earlier ones:
Condition 1) If at least 3 dice show a result of less than 11, the character is dead.
Condition 2) If any dice show a result of natural 1, the character is dead.
Condition 3) If any dice show a result of natural 20, the character is alive. (This overrules condition 1)
Condition 4) If multiple dice show results of 1 and 20, they cancel each other out. (This overrules conditions 2 and 3)
If the character is dead, the revive action fails.
Why do this?
Characters die, and the moment should be a glorious tension dripping swan song of nail biting action! Standard D&D rules (for example) rob you of this because everyone at the table knows your exact condition at all times, so there’s no need to rush over to cast healing word on you if you’ve already rolled 2 public successes on your death saves.
With my rules, You could be dead on turn 1. You could be dead even if they cast healing word on you immediately. The only thing players know for sure is that the longer they leave you face down in the dirt, the greater the odds are that you’ve stabbed your last goblin. Also, other than a natural 20, there is no way to ‘self stabilise’.
This creates a beautiful sense of urgency at the table, suddenly, someone going down is a cause for massive alarm that requires an immediate response. All the while, waiting patiently, the downed player has no idea if it’s already too late, sitting there grinning with anticipation, half imagining their next character…
About that mug I mentioned…
Because I’m peculiar, I thought it would be funny to actually make a specific mug for this purpose, so I designed one using royalty free art and stuck it up on Zazzle. “The Mug Of Death” amuses me greatly, and it has the best death rules laid out on it.
I know what you’re thinking, and to respond your very reasonable question: The image on the mug is intentionally upside down, because the mug is meant to be flipped over during play to hide the dice. When it is correctly oriented, everyone will be able to read the image as:
If you want one here’s the link to buy one from Zazzle (your transaction is entirely with them). I get a kickback from them, and it helps me keep the lights on.
But seriously (and I cannot stress this enough), just use a mug you have kicking around in your kitchen instead! Unless you’re peculiar too of course, in which case thank you very much in advance.
Conclusion
So that’s it, use these death rules to make character’s going down a spicier occasion, and then bask like a sea lion on the rocks of tension it creates!
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials, and maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.
Combat in Mothership rpg really doesn’t have to be complicated
The Alexandrian did a piece couple of months back about combat in Mothership, and how it’s a little confusing with the rules as written. It seems that there’s some discrepancy between the core books about the exact process.
The Alexandrian did a piece a couple of months back about combat in Mothership 1e, and how it’s a little confusing with the rules as written. It seems that there’s some discrepancy between the core books about the exact process.
Specifically, the ‘Player’s Survival Guide’ has a Violent Encounters section which indicates that all rolls are made player facing - that is, the players roll for their check and the monsters automatically succeed if the players fail.
This contrasts against the ‘Unconfirmed Contact Reports’ book, which serves as a kind of Monster Manual, whereby the monsters are given Combat and Instinct stats which imply that the Warden rolls for monster combat.
Having scoured the official Discord for interpretations, I’ve discovered that the author, Sean Mccoy, prefers the player facing method and merely presents the other option (perhaps somewhat confusingly) as a choice.
So how does the player facing method work exactly?
As I understand it, the way it’s supposed to work all combat is simultaneous. Get rid of your D&D baggage about every character having their own turn, in this, the Warden begins by telegraphing the monsters action:
Warden: “The monster starts hurtling down the corridor towards Tommy, it’s going to violently pin you to the ground“
Then the players say what they’re all going to do in response. Now, they aren’t limited to doing actions that would nullify the monsters telegraphed attack, they can do whatever they want within the boundaries of 1 move and 1 action, but for the sake of Tommy, it’s probably a good idea:
Tommy: “Can I dive down the laundry shoot off to my side?“
Then the Warden has to decide if what Tommy is doing automatically succeeds, or if he wants him to roll. For the record, I’d let him auto succeed because Mothership is supposed to reward clever play over last resort dice rolling.
Warden: “Great, Tommy dives down the laundry shaft just as the monster pounces, missing you by inches…“
The key thing to remember with this is that the players can’t do actions that would take an amount of time greater than the amount of time implied by the monsters telegraphed attack. This is one of those things that everyone can police at the table quite easily. After one round like this, the Warden needs to decide if combat continues or not. If so, rinse and repeat!
Doesn’t sound particularly complicated, what’s the fuss?
Bringing me back to the Alexandrian then. Reading between the lines, Justin’s principle issue seems to be with what I refer to as “GM Conflict of Interest“. This is where a GM has that awkward internalised battle between executing the most tactically advantageous move for this allegedly deadly monster, or giving the PC a fighting chance and pulling your punches.
Mothership exaggerates this phenomenon because the monsters don’t have to roll to see if their attacks succeed, which means that the Warden is pretty much directly choosing whether or not to put the PC in a ‘save or die’ position.
Fortunately, I believe there is a solution to this problem. If we look to Free League’s Alien RPG, they have a system whereby the monsters roll against a table to see what their close combat action will be, and these results generally range from nothing, to panic inducing, to trapping, to mild, heavy, and fatal attacks.
We can incorporate this into Mothership. At the point where the Warden telegraphs threat, (unless it seems obvious to them what the monster should do next) they first roll against a table and then interpret the results given the situation. The result will be the threat that is telegraphed.
Sorted, no more GM Conflict of Interest - the dice gods have decided.
Did you whip up a little table for us then Jimmi?
You can bet your sweet potatoes I did! Without further ado, I give you the Monster Action Decision Table:
| d10 | Telegraphed action
| 1 | Monster withdraws
| 2 | Temp withdraw / Setup ambush
| 3 | Force a save
| 4 | Flip the terms of engagement
| 5 | Force a panic check
| 6 | Trap someone
| 7 | Light attack
| 8 | Medium attack
| 9 | Heavy attack
| 10 | Fatal / Signature attack
It’s worth giving a bit of an explanation for some these:
“Temp withdraw / Setup ambush“ as opposed to running away, the monster feigns a retreat, and if pursued it pounces from the shadows!
“Flip the terms of engagement” means to fundamentally alter the nature of the combat scenario to make it more advantageous for the monster, for example, turn out the lights or spray acid blood all over the floor.
“Trap someone” can mean pinning someone down, grappling onto them, or simply cornering them as you slowly advance, mandible jaw dripping with vile intent…
“Fatal / Signature attack“ in the context of a Xenomorph, this would be using it’s wicked little inner mouth to perform a fatal head bite. This result will clearly vary from monster to monster, and environment to environment. Maybe the 3 headed dog shoves you off a cliff?
The “light”, “medium”, and “heavy” attacks respectively will also depend on the monster in question, to calculate their damage I’d reduce each damage potential by a third. So starting with the Heavy attack with the maximum damage potential as written in your module, say 3d10 if that’s what it was, that’d mean I’d make Medium attacks be 2d10, and Light’s would be 1d10
Conclusion
What do you think? Simply take advantage of your dice to remove the headache of GM Conflict of Interest, and fix the biggest problem with Mothership’s combat!
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials, and maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.
the pip system is the best inventory management solution for your RPG
One of the three key pillars of D&D is exploration, and inventory is a major part of what makes exploration interesting and consequential, it creates a good problem for players to try and solve.
…In my opinion
The Pip System as I use it is broadly lifted from Mausritter by Isaac Williams, which is a brilliant little D&D adjacent fantasy RPG starring mice as heroes against the evil forces of Rats, Frogs and Cats. Check it out, it’s won awards and stuff!
pip system Setup
By default, each player character should have ten item slots. You can easily just represent this as empty rows on a list. If the player buys a better bag for their character, give them 15 item slots instead.
On the right hand side of each row, you should have three empty circles drawn in pen, known as “pips”. Players mark or rub out the insides of the pips with a pencil to represent the abstract quantity or quality of the given item.
This way, each row will contain an item with 1, 2, 3, or 0 pips filled in. These amounts of pips can represent abstract quantities and qualities.
The more pips are marked, the better the situation is.
How to use the Pip System
Consumable items can stack, so that one item slot might carry multiple arrows, rations, spell components, or whatever. However the amount of things in the stack is abstracted to either lots, plenty, a few, or none, according to its pips. Never fall into the trap of allowing your players to place an actual granular value against an item as it undermines the system.
In otherwise exactly the same abstract way, non-consumable items don’t stack, but they can deteriorate, like swords or armour getting damaged with use. So such an item might be in perfect, good, bad, or destroyed condition represented accordingly by its pips.
The key message is that the quantity or quality of the item in the stack is represented by how many adjacent pips are filled in.
Depreciation
After a battle, for any item that saw some use during the battle, roll a d6, on a result of 1-3 reduce the pips of that item by 1. This is called “rolling for depreciation”.
Outside of battle, anytime someone uses an item on a per use basis, roll for depreciation again.
In this way, player characters will find their swords starting to chip, their shields breaking with overuse, and their arrow and potion supply dwindling.
Restocking
Whenever players loot a body, they might find armour, weapons, potions, whatever. But these looted items should always be one pips worth to represent their scavenged quality.
If players buy the items from a shop, or find them in chests etc, then the items should be three pips worth.
Likewise, players can take their swords and armour to a blacksmith and have them repaired (pip restoration) for a fee.
Use my Pip System Tracker
You absolutely can (and probably should) very easily make up your own inventory sheets for this system, but if you want to support this blog, please sign up to the free Mailer of Many Things, and you’ll be given a link to my exclusive premade A5 pip inventory sheet, as well as receiving occasional news round ups from this site and the broader tabletop news ecosystem.
You’ll notice the additional sections for currency and pocket items on my inventory sheet - I basically allow for infinite coins to be carried, and as many tiny items as your player can justify fitting in their characters pockets.
For most forms of treasure that players are likely to encounter on their adventures, I like to apply some abstraction and stack them together under “valuables” on the main sheet, the pips in this instance indicate the value of your row of valuables. Once a row of valuables hits three pips, if you pick up some more, it’s time for a new item row of valuables! Players won’t know exactly how much a given row of valuables is until they sell it at a shop for currency, and that can be up to the GMs discretion.
This way, for most types of treasure that players encounter, they will still need to weigh up if it’s worth using up an item slot for.
Why Use the pip System?
You might have noticed that I gave away the juice immediately with this blog post, but for anyone who’s interested in the reasoning and theory, read on, dear reader!
Granular Inventory Systems Slow Everything Down
Contemporary official D&D suffers from a really bad inventory system, it asks players to continually be adding and subtracting literal weights of items using the near globally rejected Imperial System of measurement.
Using granular weights and measurements to track inventories further places burden on the DM to either invent an appropriate weight for things on a per item basis, or it asks them to stop the game and look up a list somewhere to get the weight of something.
This is painful, and unless you have a kink for accounting, I can’t imagine anyone ever sticking with it in favour of following the conventional wisdom of just hand-waving the system altogether and playing by “feels”.
Hand-Waving Inventory Systems Can Undermine the Game
One of the three key pillars of D&D is exploration, and inventory is a major part of what makes exploration interesting and consequential, it creates a good problem for players to try and solve. Intrepid explorers should be asking:
Do I have the right equipment for the job?
Do I have enough food and water to keep going?
Is my torch going to last?
Is my gear going to last?
Have I got enough arrows?
How much should I sacrifice to be able to carry away more loot?
In addition to this, without good inventory management you have no consistent system to track the deterioration and consumption of your stuff. The logical conclusion from this is that you’ll never need to spend your loot to replace said stuff.
Now your game economy is ruined, players can just collect infinite amounts of gold without needing to spend any meaningful amounts of it, which begs the question; What is the motivation to go on adventures to collect more?
Game designers have tried to answer this by inventing subsystems of varying complexity for buying keeps and businesses as a way to try and get you to spend. It’s like they casually forgot that D&D is about running around having heroic adventures, not managing your property portfolio!
I jest of course, people do actually enjoy the power fantasy of having their dudes owning a keep or similar in D&D and that’s all well and good*, so I guess the point I’m trying to make is that the game shouldn’t have to rely upon this in order to have a game-functional economy.
conclusion
So that’s it, in the Venn-diagram of granular and abstract inventory management systems for TTRPGs, the Pip System sits nicely in the middle, occupying a best of both worlds position which supports players making interesting and impactful choices without forcing anyone to perform boring accounting tasks.
Hey, thanks for reading - you’re good people. If you’ve enjoyed reading this, it’d be great if you could share it on your socials, and maybe think about subscribing to the Mailer of Many Things! Either way, catch you later.
*My own D&D character, Mendagg, is a Dwarf cleric-come-chef who wants above all else to own a pirate ship that he can convert into a floating restaurant. It’s gonna have a mahoosive shark jaw above the entrance and it will serve the finest dishes from across the land - he’s even been collecting recipes on his adventures.