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d100 - Some More Specific Concealed or Secret Doors A nother Random Table Resource to assist Referees with those often-under-specified Secret Doors. Some Dungeon Maps neglect to describe the...

d100 - Some More Specific Concealed or Secret Doors
Detail for when a Dungeon Key is found to be Lacking
blog.d4caltrops.com/2026/02/d100...
#osr #randomtables #ttrpgs

Chinese Crested dog. Tongue sticking out of mouth, tufts of wispy white hair on head. Two big black eyes.

I'm partial to the Dog-bold versions, specifically basing them on the Chinese Crested breed (especially the ones that are so awkward looking they end up being cute!)

Players often underestimate them!

Give that Cleric a Fishing Rod as a Holy Symbol!

I love these "emergent Callers" when they show up!

I definitely get that sensation sometimes. Most of my Tables are really just a primary form of my Prep, and they can sometimes be challenging and fun to complete. Some of them have those *silly constraints* (rhyming, alliteration, etc.) that put my mind in a more Playful/Improvisational mood!

There is a bit of whiplash with it sometimes, but over time most Players seemed to adapt to it. Led to a lot less "Unlucky" dice over the years (they would sometimes even save those "Low Rolling" ones for different things!) 😅
In most instances it's not *too difficult* to "flip" things though.

You could spend more or less to have a more powerful or less powerful effect though.

And 1 point could always be spent to fire an "Eldtritch Bolt" that had damage/range as Dagger (up to your level in Bolts per Round.)

Our Vintage Spell Point System from the 80s:

d4 Spell Points per level (like Hit Points with a bonus for INT)

This was rolled anew after a good 8 hours of sleep. Sleeping in some places granted more: d6, d8, d20!...good place to build a Tower 🙂

Spell cost 2 points per level to cast

Or maybe Sorority/Fraternity Names? I did get it from a College 😅

Some of these symbols get used quite a bit in Equations, so my thought was maybe they'd use it to type those into an already typewritten piece?

The one I did as a kid was done on a typewriter and I used underscores/parenthesis and other symbols to make the art (a bit like the ASCII art that would later be popular!)

Wish I still had that old thing 😅

Illustrated portraits of Female Player Characters with effigies of game designers Gygax, Lakofka, and Kask preparing to hang them from nooses.

They got a quite a bit *spicier* in Alarums & Excursions! Bless those early Female Gamers!

I still really enjoy the Pixies cover on that one!

These were just something I put together to help after noticing the return of that Lair Chance, but we'll see!

The Fox In The Snow, by Kiki and Herb from the album Do You Hear What We Hear?

My favorite is probably the Kiki & Herb Cover/Medley: kikiandherbwilldieforyou.bandcamp.com/track/the-fo...

Excerpt from "The Lone Tower" an early Adventure by Jennell Jaquays.

I always love sharing this little bit from one of her very early Adventures "The Lone Tower"

Yeah! We do a few more of these. Getting "Level Drained" also tears a corner off your Character Sheet! So that "Character" is *forever marked* by the experience 😂

Excerpt from the Fairy Tale Weaknesses Table: Highlighted Entry is 53: Only dice of a certain color inflict damage

Not the "DC" precisely, but I've put some sneaky things in my games that leverage this, like one of my Fairy Tale Weaknesses:
blog.d4caltrops.com/2022/03/d100...
But I don't mind the *occasional* bit of ludic bleed this introduces and it can be a fun "puzzle" in a way for the Players to figure out!

I have seen a few of these: It's best if they use pips or Roman Numerals to make sure they don't get easily picked up in place of a d4.

I also have a set of d12s with Roman Numerals for this...but I am partial to the Caltrops obviously 😉

Description for a Magic Item known as The Gnashing Stone, based on the image from an article about a recent fossil discovery.

Got it covered:

Super aspirational these days (takes a lot of consistent/sustained Play to reach those levels and that's not really a given now) but when we were young, had less responsibilities, tons of free time, and not a lot of money for leisure activities: It really hit the spot!

BE is largely B/X though 😅

I was always more partial to BECMI, but in all honesty the difference are mostly *very minor* and quibbles and things like Classes slot in just fine to both. But we skipped B/X back in the day: Holmes --> bit of hybrid AD&D --> BECMI

Monster Character Class Options Here’s something I’ve been adding to sporadically: A collection of Monster Character Classes (along with atrocious art by yours truly!). ...

Keep the Dream Alive! I love slapping together a quick Class for the Players that want to Play something a little less *typical*: blog.d4caltrops.com/2021/11/mons...

Thank you! That's so gratifying and awesome to hear! I love it when these tables end up making an appearance in other games 🙂

Yeah sometimes those are handwaved, but I find they can really sometimes add a lot of Tactical Complexity to an Encounter! Opens up opportunities for Missile Fire/Spells and the all important decision to try and Run Away! 😂

d100 - One Hundred Horses G rowing up around Horses, how I use them in these games might be one of my vernacular tells . One of those little things that I always s...

Happy Year of the Horse 🐴

Here's a fun d100 Table I've gotten a lot of mileage out of to celebrate!

blog.d4caltrops.com/2022/04/d100...

Hazard Dice often work like that though: They can Rob Prep Peter to Pay Play Paul. They can sometimes generate dissonant situations, so it's just something I like to be prepared for if I'm going to be using them 😅

Locality stuff is always just so *Dungeon/Setting Specific* that I find it a little harder to genericize for broader use, but scribbling down a quick d6 of ideas for the Environment is always a good thing to practice during Prep!

Overloaded Wilderness Dice: 2d6 Procedures that provide a little more Granularity to the Hazard-type Systems.

For *Encounters* I'm usually going to let those Repeat but for Clues I often draw from my Tracks/Traces Table: blog.d4caltrops.com/2023/07/spoo...

Another way to "Overload" it is something I experiment with periodically for Wilderness Adventures: With two dice, you can kind of "bake in" granularity

Two d12 Tables for Hazard Excuses. One for Sequential Fatigue results and one for Sequential Torch Exhaustion results with some ideas on how to narrate those situations where the same result repeats.

I need to get back to fleshing out a few of my "Hazard Die Excuses" tables that I wrote to help with those pesky "repeat" results that can crop up from time to time: