An Abominable Fancy

I've been making little layout projects for myself, to brush up on InDesign. And I saw this Portcullis post for rolling polyhedral results with d6's . Thus: Click for a pdf! I'm not sure that this has much practical value in the smartphone age, but it would have saved my 12-year-old self a lot of headaches (I remember spending a lot of time flipping through books to use page numbers as random generators. Weird how I only ever rolled odd numbers). Anyway, this turns out to be a pretty good way to learn about making tables with InDesign.

I've been using attribute checks a lot, lately. My PbP game is  Beyond the Wall, which uses attributes and additive skill bonuses. At home, I've been playing Holmes with the kid, with straight attribute checks bolted on. Now, there is a powerful spartan appeal to the default 1d6 skill check of OD&D and B/X. And there's a curvy elegance to the 2d6 check of Traveller and *World. You can use OD&D-style attribute bonuses with 1d6, and B/X-style bonuses with 2d6 without breaking anything. But I've been using using the standard d20 vs. Attribute Score.  Largely, this is because I hate to not use the attribute scores. They are such a prominent part of the character sheet, we expend such hope and energy on rolling them up, and they are so central to how we envision our character—how could we not use them? With the kid's games, I've found this especially gratifying. The kid grasped the significance of the attributes, and how to apply them to a singl

I'd love to know more about how the attributes in D&D originated.  Rolling dice for STR-DEX-INT-WIS-CON-CHR is the most emblematic and formative act in D&D. Maybe you've fought a melee or cast a spell or conversed with a dragon, but everyone who has ever sat down at the table for any length of time has picked up three six-siders and scribbled down the results. The six attributes are such an oddly specific abstraction of a character's capabilities. They're the weird little numerical window you peer through when trying to figure out who your character is— who you are —in this shared fantasy. When I was younger, I would obsess over getting the "right" attribute scores, and this frequently tipped over into fudging. I played a statistically improbable number of half-elves with 18's in Dexterity and Charisma— I just wanted to be pretty, dammit! And yet... what good are they? Haintz-Nar-Meister, 1494 The attributes are all there, fully form

How’s the harvest? Disastrously bad: Withered crops produced only cursed locusts and dysentery. Bad: Poor yields mean hard times for the coming year. Bad with some good: Too much rain flooded the fields, but the fishing industry is having a boom. Good with some bad: The yield was good, but the Goblin Horde has been targeting towns for supplies. Better fortify the wall! Good: A bountiful harvest means a prosperous year ahead. Spectacularly good: Surplus crops combined with neighbors suffering droughts means the gold is rolling in. How did the Ogre King sleep last night? Disastrously bad: Was haunted by the angry ghosts of his ogre ancestors, demanding the blood of any trespassing adventurers. Bad: Dyspepsia and bad dreams kept him awake, and he’s his very grumpy about it. Bad with some good: It was a restless night, but he thinks he has time to take a nap in the afternoon. Good with some bad: Well rested, but concerned about a possibly prophetic dream involvin

1d6 1 Disastrously bad. 2 Bad. 3 Bad mitigated by a little good. 4 Good mitigated by some bad. 5 Good. 6 Spectacularly good. How’s the weather? How goes the war in the next kingdom over? How’s the market for turnips, this season? What kind of mood did the Lich wake up in? How’s the dragon’s digestion? How were things at home while we were away? Even more concisely: 1d4 1 Disastrously bad. 2 Bad but something good. 3 Good but something bad. 4 Spectacularly good. But I doubt I’d use that, for the perhaps-ridiculous reason that I just don’t like rolling 4-sided dice. I think it’s because they don’t tumble—they plop. And they don’t feel nice in the hand, the way all other dice do. Besides, extremes can get wearying, right? Of course, I can roll two dice and keep highest or lowest, if I need the results to skew in a given direction. Instead of a flat 16.67% chance of any result, I get: 2d6, keep highest 1 2.78% 2 8.33% 3 13.89% 4 19.44% 5 25