Saturday, January 30, 2010

Totally Random Day


Placing my faith in the roguish work ethic, I went into yesterday's game with nothing but a sandbox worldmap and a bunch of random tables.

"Meanwhile, in the library...Ladies, what are we doing? Lady Smashalot, since you're a barbarian, you can't read."

"I want to...find a very interesting book, like a book of spells, and it's in her language and be like...I wanna find this book that's like 'aaah-aaa-aaa' [angel noise] like this and be like 'Gruh uh uh uh, look at this.'"

"So what you're saying is you want me to roll on the random book table?"

"Yes."

"Roll a 20-sider."

"15,"

"You find a book that looks interesting to you..."

"Ok."

"Are you gonna take it over to Mandy?"

"Mandy, look, I found this book, it's glowing and it's very interesting."

"It's not glowing. It has a picture of a tree on the front. It's very nicely bound, however..."

"I'm gonna, um, open and try to read it."

"Ok, it is full of pictures of women being caressed in lewd ways by plant life--it's called 'The Fondling Tree'."

"Awesome, I'm gonna keep it and show it to [the only male PC] when we're alone together."

"Is this how you spell 'Barbarian'?" (Twittering.)

"Alright, Mandy what are you gonna do?"

"Can I roll to find a book?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Do I just roll a 20?"

"Ok, when Kimberly looks for a book, she looks for a random book, because she can't read. So, other than just pulling a book off the shelf, you could actually look for a topic of a book."

"I'm looking for a spell book."

"Ok, well you can just keep looking if what you find isn't a spell book."

"I rolled a 3."

"Ok, um, you didn't find a spell book right now, you found a book called 'The Clutching Cow'. It's about a cow that grabs people."

"Do you have any actually relevant books on that table?"

"Umm...maybe."


________
Lizard owned and fed by Kimberly Kane, idea for a random book table from Jeff.

5 comments:

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

you made your own table i'm gathering. never heard of such a thing, but most of my stuff is pre '84.
i go here:
http://sfbook.com/modules.php?name=Authors

any author you click on has a list of books, endless ideas for what you'd think would be inside. extrapolation on the brain cusp with the melange of offered words. that means leaving the laptop open though. Rendezvous with Rama? how to meet the hindi god via self control and insane weaponry.

speaking of which. i highly recommend Shiva 3000 to anyone who wants to involve a mechanical roaming god into a campaign. one hell of a read. lots of spice bombs at one point..

Anonymous said...
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biopunk said...

VHS skate vids, minis, lizards, sour punch candy and D&D.

You really do bring a lot cool stuff to the sandbox.

Adam Thornton said...

The Fondling Tree is the name of my Shel Silverstein cover band. We cover the songs he wrote for Dr. Hook, as well as doing our legendary live performances of the entirety of Uncle Shelby's ABZs. With props. You ought to see our gigolo.

The last time we performed "Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball" we were compared, both in the local music press and in the ensuing indictments, unfavorably to G.G. Allin.

Well, in my fantasies anyway.

Tom Fitzgerald said...

That looks a lot like a bearded dragon. When I was young my herpetologist father had several and we would take them out to the yard to eat dandelions. Have KK feed him some dandelions and he'll crunch 'em down merrily.

They also like cherry tomatoes. One of the more fearsome varieties of dragon out there.