d6 Random Sources Of Navigation
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0971
This random source of navigation table from the new Monstro Manualis blog made me laugh out loud.
d6 Random Sources of Navigation
- Strong booze
- Psycho on a leash
- Neurosyphilis
- Narcotics
- Hallucinogens
- Sleep deprivation
Imagine being alone in a wilderness crawling with monsters that want you on the menu.
Your only hope of getting to the hidden location is your guide.
You’ve put all your trust in them. You believe they know the location. You believe they know the path. You believe they know the dangers.
This guide is all that stands between you and your callous players rolling up another toon.
And what’s guiding our guide? What key knowledge do they have signaling the correct path? What special skills do they have keeping you away from quicksand, dwarf-eating plants, and poisonous snakes?
d6 shake shake shake…
…Hallucinogens!
Our lives are in the hands of a person crazed from drugs whose brain fog meets hallucination to light up the path ahead in their boiling brain.
Perhaps a bit of justice meted out on our poor murder hobos.
Next time the party needs a guide, use this table. Make sure the guide really does have special and exclusive knowledge so they are the only legitimate choice for the players.
And here’s a quick table of my own to make it more interesting.
d6 Additional Sources of Naviation
- An intelligent hellhound that likes to chase rabbits
- A goblin prisoner who demands to be fed live spiders
- A beggar who claims to once have been a famous ranger
- A divorced couple who hate each other and each knows half the way
- A fey who’s a terrible prankster
- A goat herder transporting secret messages out to the resistance
(Thanks to Joseph Teller, Jonathan Moulton, and Scott Charlton for supplying great ideas for this.)
For bonus points, let’s make the journey a 5 Room Dungeon.
We kick things off with the PCs hiring or recruiting the guide — against their better judgment.
We choose our source of navigation using both tables above.
Shake shake shake. Double sixes!
Feature: A goat herder spy suffering from sleep deprivation.
Here we go.
- Room One: The forest beckons. The guide describes the three-day journey ahead and warns of various dangers to get players worried. Seems tired.
- Room Two: The guide offers to take first and last watch. Never sleeps. Starts to hallucinate and alert PCs to false dangers while missing actual ones.
- Room Three: The guide enters a fugue state. Gets disoriented and lost. Needs PC help finding the track again.
- Room Four: The guide meets up with the resistance and exchanges information. Will PCs join, flee, fight, trick?
- Room Five: Arrival! But resistance members followed and want in on the PCs’ mission.
Thank you for the great inspiration, Monstro Manualis. May your guides always get you there.