Telecanter's Receding Rules

I've seen a few comments around about the OSR being too grim.  And while I feel like I am good at coming up with creepy ideas more in tune with the spirit of early fairy tales or a savage, swords and sorcery type world, I'm completely sympathetic to someone that wants to just escape this rough ol' world a bit when they play.  So, for those of you that want something more cute or fun, I promise to try and keep you in mind with my posts too.  With that in mind, here are six animal companions for your players to find, tame, or buy:

6 Animal Friends

1. Blossom Moths - These moths the size of a fingernail are white on top and various colorful shades on bottom.  They perch on their owner in the dozens as a clump that looks something like a white mum.  When a stranger approaches, they burst into flight and flutter around their owner's head in all their color.

2. Long Fox - Two yards long or more, these creatures prefer to curl and clamber around their owner.  At a simple command, they will fluff up their silky-soft fur to its utmost, protecting their owner from even magic cold.

3. A Troupe of Hamsters - This dozen or so hamsters are found living in a keg fitted with straps to be carried on their owner's back.  The keg smells of sawdust and has a tiny door from which, when asked "Hey, what happened here?", the hamsters will trot out in little paper costumes and reenact whatever event happened in this location most recently.

4. Scout Gecko - Call its name, point to a room, and salute and this gecko will salute back, crawl ahead on walls and ceiling, and chirp when everything is clear.

5. Probable Pup - What is your favorite breed of puppy?   What a happy coincidence, that's the breed of this pup!  A single pup in your hands when scritching its belly or letting it gnaw your finger, when you set it down on the ground it blossoms into hundreds of pups loping and tumbling in every direction.  A roiling mass of pups covers the floor, but only where a pup wouldn't be hurt, so dangerous spots-- chute traps, trigger stones, snares, rotten flooring-- become quite obvious. 

6. Golden Joke Frog - A tiny green frog will drop a coin from it's mouth once a session when told a joke.  Rumor has it, it will drop two coins for each joke if you've given it a cute hat to wear.

Work is crazy right now.  Here is the collected NPC portraits I promised long ago.  The file is still pretty big.  Also, have a bull, or aurochs silhouette until I can post more substantially:

I don't see my DM role as being an adversary of the players.  I see myself as a facilitator of adventures.  In other words, I have to do just enough to know that adventure is possible and keep spinning the wheels so the game continues.  I don't have to worry about story, or big bad finale monsters, or anything but helping players move around in that shared imagined world.  The problem comes when players face opponents, because then I am the brain of the adversaries.  And this is one of the last places that I feel the game is not giving me enough support when I DM, when monsters attack.

I've largely dealt with this by using random rolls to determine which target, from those closest to it, that a monster will go after.  That and morale has been enough, surprisingly, to have some really fun combats, partially, because I have stuck to mostly creatures of animal intelligence.  But I've wanted something more sophisticated for a while.

Traditionally, I think the solution is supposed to be to look up the monster in the monster manual and you find out about its behavior and ecology there.  But that means you have potentially infinite monster behaviors to memorize as DM.  That's not a good option.  I think traditionally the encounter dice are supposed to give the DM valuable info too, but because it just generates a range of numbers it isn't going to solve that memorization problem: high or low numbers will presumably lead to different corresponding actions by different creatures.

In this post by Alexis of the Tao of D&D looks at creatures by intelligence and one of the factors is how they react during encounters.  That has been bubbling in the back of my head for years now as well as an article from the Dragon that talked about intelligent monsters targeting high threat party members like magic users.

I think I have finally come up with a solution that simplifies the idea while keeping much of the flavor.  I can assign all creatures one of a small number of behaviors.  That will give me some consistent behaviors without requiring too much to remember.  I would put them into these six categories:

1. Mindless
2. Vermin
3. Scavenger
4. Pack hunters
5. Lone hunter
6. High Threat

I still need to flesh out the actual behaviors but here are some ideas:

Mindless creatures, like zombies, would function the way I've been handling monsters, they attack whatever's closest with a bit of randomness for equally close targets.

Vermin would only physically attack if they far outnumber the target or are cornered, but they will shadow the party and try and steal small trinkets and food.

Scavengers would behave similar to vermin with a lower outnumbering ratio needed.  They would also become aggressive over any carcasses the party produces fighting other creatures.

Pack hunters would try to encircle the party and, also dependent on the numbers of each group, might start probing attacks by stronger pack members to see if the whole pack should swarm in.

Lone hunters might shadow the party for a while before darting in quickly in an attempt to carry off the smallest party member.

High threats are like mother bears with cubs or elephant bulls in must, unless you show sign of submission and back away quickly, they will attack ferociously.  (hmm, that seems a little too similar to mindless).

What I like about this is that players could learn these behaviors and gain a sense of expertise about the dangers in the wilderness as their characters become veterans.  And all I have to do is decide which behavior type traditional monsters fall under.  Are stirge vermin or pack hunters?  And that gives the cool possibility of having some stirge that act as vermin, the bluish-black ones, and some as pack hunters, the reddish tinged ones.  Parties will learn to pay attention to that small difference.

Are there any other broad behavior types that are left out?  Maybe lie-in-wait type hunters, but those are more like traps that would then attack mindlessly.

(I know this still doesn't deal with sentient foes, but I have an idea that six additional categories might work for them, including guerrilla tactics and such.)

Haves more, folks.  Small animal edition.  These are mostly for me to use on terrain sheets to show my players what small game is available.  I know I could just use a number but it's one of those instances where that's a bit too abstract for my tastes.  I'd like pheasants in some places and guineafowl in others in my world and have players know that.

Anyway, these are all public domain use them as you wish.

First, another goat:

A screech owl:
A rabbit:
A pheasant:

A guineafowl:

A quail:

A songbird:

And a couple iconic insects that I've never done.  The first because it never occured to me as I was mostly concentrating on threatening monster types and the second because it took me a long time to find a good image.

A  butterfly:
A dragonfly:

As always, these have all been added as vector graphics to the zip file linked in my sidebar to the right.

Nothing too exciting this time, but these things have started cluttering up my desktop so let's get some more out there.  Here are public domain silhouettes for your maps, charts, and counters:

An addax:

 A goa:
A gemsbok:

A mountain goat:

A Musk ox:

This stegosaurus has been sitting around on my computer for years, but I haven't ever found a better example so I might as well give you this slightly lumpy one:

And, finally, a gila monster:
I've got more of these animal silhouettes coming soon.  Mostly wilderness related and not very useful as monsters, but I like having a lot of parts to make weird mashups with.  Here's an example:
These have all been added as vector graphics to the zip file linked in my sidebar to the right.

I'm trying to get my players into the great outdoors.  I'm trying to make a sandbox that will allow them to experience lots of different terrains that feel different.  I'm finding it a lot of work because I'm building it from scratch.

Seasons, weather, travel rates, encounters there's so much to decide about a terrain and then convey to players.  Here's an approach I think I'm going to try.  Rather than have all the season rules in one place in the rule book and the travel rules in another, what seems more relevant is to show the players all the rules that apply to where they are (or are soon going to be).  A single page with every thing you need to know about that terrain.  Well not everything.  I can't fit all this stuff and the special travel challenge mini-game too.  But maybe that can be on the back of the same piece of paper.

Here's my first mock up:
I'll have a better idea of what sections I need as I try to make more terrain.  For now, the mockup shows the most common threats on the right and the most common small/medium/large game animals on the left.  The game animals are for use with Talysman's cool Simple Hunting rules.  Also with my survival rule of one hit die yielding one ration of food.  This will give you an idea going in what dangers to be on the look out for and what the possibilities for living off the land are.

Some terrains may have no game animals at all-- blighted lands and such.  Also note with the mock up that one of the food options is also dangerous.

One of the benefits of silhouettes is that they can convey information even if small, so there isn't really a need for these to be so big.  I like it aesthetically.  You could make  them smaller and fit more monsters/animals on but I wouldn't want to over due it.  These might be just those folks know about.  Other mysterious dangers could be encountered.

The middle section is for any special notes about travel, seasons, and weather particular to this type of land.

I put a row of silhouettes by the name.  They don't mean anything.  But I was thinking if there were certain categories of information that come up again and again maybe they could be iconized to make things simpler.  So, maybe for these three it could be: yes the plague is here, threat of fires, and villages present (or maybe small rural settlements not even of village size).

Of course this might all seem silly and obvious in a "the forest has trees" type of way.  But it might not be for your Burning Tire Wastes or Crystal Deserts.  And if nothing else it's helping me as DM sort out in my head how to differentiate this terrains in a simple yet interesting way.  Let me know you thoughts.

Here are more public domain silhouettes for your maps, charts, and counters.  These are just more animals, as I think more about wilderness maps and charts.

First, a fox:

A reindeer, aka caribou:
A doe, a deer, a female deer:
An ibex:
A dolphin:
A raccoon:

A tapir:

And an Agouti:
These have all been added as vector graphics to the zip file linked in my sidebar to the right.

For your charts, maps, and player handouts, these are all public domain, so use them as you wish.

First, a halfling, hobbit, or maybe a barkeep:
When I did dogs I never posted a greyhound, so here's one:
Here is an archer or bowman:

and finally, a peddler, vendor or monger of some sort:
These have all been added as vector graphics to the zip file linked in my sidebar to the right.  I also converted a few more images in that file to svg and renamed some files.  Incremental improvement is the name of the game for me.  Otherwise, it would seem like too much and I'd be procrastinating on something else.

The last guy certainly isn't imposing, and can't even represent a character, but I just figure I'll offer up the best crisp, distinct images that could possibly be useful and let it work itself out.  It is really hard to find good stuff.  In all the years I've been doing this I'm starting to wonder if Archive.org has added any new books with illustrations from the 1900's, because I seem to be scouring the same works over and over.  Ah well, hope you are having a great weekend.

More Silhouettes for your charts, maps, and player handouts.  (Been bored out of my head lately, so have another shot of these)  These are all public domain so use them as you wish.  We'll start with a peasant holding a scythe:
A cleric petitioning the gods, or maybe a wizard casting earthquake:
An old OSR favorite, a female bard (you know it will be cool when I put her torso on a giant flea body and her songs turn people to amber):
Have some more dogs, starting with Foxhound:
 Fox terrier (small but likely vicious):
 and a Collie:
Todays selection also includes a Bobcat:
a Cricket:
a Prawn:
Pronghorn
Seal
Toucan (not that threatening, but c'mon, you know you want a Toucan-headed giant or something):
Beaver

and last but not least, Armadillo
These have all been added as vector graphics to the zip file linked in my sidebar to the right.

More silhouettes for your charts, maps, and player handouts. These are all public domain, so use them as you wish. We start with three warriors, bronze age, early iron age, and stone age:
Next another porter, because you never have enough. This barefoot woman could be a peasant desperate for the work:
An ape- or caveman:
A mysterious rider that could be a mage or beckoning thief:
Now from my beasts of burden posts, a pack ape and an elephant with mahout and howdah:
An ostrich:
A snail:
A seahorse:
A porcupine:
And some alternates for animals we already have, baboon and tortoise:
Finally, a palm tree:
These have all been added as vector graphics to the zip file linked in my sidebar to the right.