Part of what makes Transhuman so brilliant for me is the way that it made me fall back in love with good old random tables. I love rolling for random stuff and cobbling strange, interesting things together for that. It all feels really organic and fresh. It's also something I've started injecting back into my games as a way of every so often spontaneously making subplots out of whole cloth. This thread is for sharing any you particularly like or want to use. I'm currently working on another one.
This table is for randomly determining the content of cortical stacks. This came about because I set a session on Legba, home of the Nine Lives, where cortical stacks number in the millions and are so common members of the gang use them as religious offerings and tertiary currency. They're literally lying around the place. If the players were feeling heroic and wanted to liberate some of these stacks from the slavers, this table was to be what they find. Results are fairly generic and give the category of mind, with exact details to be made up on the fly by the GM.
01 - Infected Stack (Latent); appears normal at first but will manifest Exsurgent symptoms at a later date.
02-04 Infected Stack; obviously infected with late-stage Exsurgent virus.
04 - Exsurgent Mind; d10 SV to witness. Totally corrupted. Infectious.
05-15 - Broken and Worthless; low-value skillset such as children, housewives etc with 2 Derangements
16-22 - Industrial Waste; Indenture/low level AGI with middle value skill set (1 skill at 40) and 2 Derangements
23-25 - Worth It?; High value beta fork (2 skills at 60) and 2 Derangements
26-35 - Domestic Shards; low value skillset (children etc)
36 - Fall "Survivor" - d10 SV to witness memories. 1 skill at 40. 1 Derangement.
37-42 - Fall Veteran - d10/2 SV to witness memories. 2 skills at 40.
43-49 - Collateral Damage - Civilian/low level corporate mind. 2 skills 40.
50 - Uplift Mind. Roll d10: 1-2 - 1 Disorder. 3-5 1 Derangement. 6+ None.
51-60 - Corporate Indenture - 3 Skills at 40
61-62 - Terrorist/Criminal - 3 skills at 40
63 - 66 - Scum/Anarchist - 3 skills at 40
67 - Ego Hunter - Heavily tortured. 1 Derangement. 3 skills at 50.
68 -72 - Inner System Middle Class - Small bounty for reclamation (~3K creds, +3 c-rep)
73 - 75 - Hypercorp Researcher - 4 Hardware/Academics/Medicine skills at 50
76 - 82 - Direct Action Merc - 4 Combat skills at 50
83 - 85 - Triad Underboss - Small bounty (~3k creds, +3 g-rep)
86 - Gatecrasher - 5 Skills at 50, 1 Disorder
87 - 89 - Rogue AGI - 5 Academics/Hardware skills at 50.
90 - Lost Async - Psi 2, 2 Disorders, 4 sleights, 3 skills at 40
91 - 94 - Socialite/Media Icon - High Bounty (~15k creds, +15 f-rep)
95 - Fall Criminal - HUGE Bounty (~50k creds, +20 any rep)
96-99 - Missing Firewall Sentinel - 5 skills at 50, +10 i-rep to rescue
100 - Missing Firewall PROXY - 7 skills at 60, +20 i-rep to rescue
Modifiers:
These modifiers depend on the circumstances of where you get the stack. In Legba, there are many stacks that are just left unidentified so the default roll covers the circumstance of just randomly picking one up.
Apply a +10 modifier (max 100) to the roll if you go searching in a high-value area, such as someone's private stash or a stash that has been previously identified as having high value content
Apply a -10 (minimum 01) to a stash that has been previously determined to be low-value, high-risk or has been otherwise "picked clean" of high-value stacks.
Thoughts? Comments?
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Random Tables
Wed, 2013-10-23 10:35
#1
Leodiensian
Random Tables
Wed, 2013-10-23 22:46
#2
MephitJames
Agreed!
I also really love the [i]Transhuman[/i] tables and want to see more of this sort of thing. This table seems really useful and makes me think of incorporating more of this sort of thing into my campaigns. Caleb Stokes also has a table like this for scouring a Fall-era hulk in the Know Evil campaign on Roleplaying Public Radio.
Thu, 2013-10-24 09:41
#3
Leodiensian
I had been considering the
I had been considering the odd "bonus roll" for if any of the PCs have things like Edited Memories, Beta, basically anything concerning forks, memory loss or family connections. Basically, a chance that they could crack open a stack and see themselves (their wife, child, dog etc) staring back at them. But none of them had it so I never worked that in.
Any thoughts on how that would work?
Thu, 2013-11-07 20:31
#4
Thampsan
Great table Leodiensian I
Great table Leodiensian I will have to use it, I have taken it and tweaked it in a way I feel opens it up a little more but keeps the feel of yours.
01-05 – Infected Stack, Roll Again*
(01-34: Early Stage, 35-70: Devloped, 71-85: Inhumanly Exsurgent, 86-00 Hidden)
06-10 – Exhuman Stack, Roll Again
(01-30: Camoflaged, 31-50: Unusual/Novel, 51-85: Insane, 86-00: Alien/Corrupted)
11-15 – Booby Trap, Roll Again
(01-20: Incapacitating Basilisk Hack, 21-30: Sensory Reprogramming Basilisk Hack, 31-40: YGBM Hack, 41-80: Unpleasant Experia 1d10 SV, 81-90: Nightmare Fuel Experia 1d10x2 SV, 91-00: Jack in the Box Malware)
16-40 – Broken and Worthless; low-value skillset such as children, disabled, the elderly, the criminally insane, etc with 2 Derangements
41-43 – Worth It? Roll Again; High value Beta fork (2 skills at 60) and 2 Derangements
44-55 – Slice of Domestic Life; low value skillset (children etc)
56-65 – Fall Haul, Roll Again**
(01-35: Fall Infugee, 36-65: Fall Veteran, 66-75: Fall Survivor, 76-00: Corrupted Stack)
66-70 – Collateral Damage - Civilian/low level corporate mind. 2 skills 40.
71 – Uplift Mind. Roll d10: 1-2 - 1 Disorder. 3-5 1 Derangement. 6+ None.
72-75 – Corporate Indenture - 3 Skills at 40
76-83 – Terrorist/Criminal - 3 skills at 40
83-86 – Scum/Anarchist - 3 skills at 40
87 – Ego Hunter - Heavily tortured. 1 Derangement. 3 skills at 50.
88 – Inner System Middle Class - Small bounty for reclamation (~3K creds, +3 c-rep)
89 – Hypercorp Researcher - 4 Hardware/Academics/Medicine skills at 50
90-92 – Mercenary/Bounty Hunter - 4 Combat skills at 50
93 – Guanxi Underboss - Small bounty (~3k creds, +3 g-rep)
94 – Gatecrasher - 5 Skills at 50, 1 Disorder
95 – Rogue AGI - 5 Academics/Hardware skills at 50.
96 – Lost Async - Psi 2, 2 Disorders, 4 sleights, 3 skills at 40
97-98 – Socialite/Media Icon - High Bounty (~15k creds, +15 f-rep)
99 – Fall Criminal - HUGE Bounty (~50k creds, +20 any rep)
100 – Conspiracy Asset, Roll Again – assets worth ~10-20 Rep for relevant organisation and have half a dozen skills between 50-60.
(01-35: Oversight Agent, 36-50: Medean, 51-65: Commonwealth Provoceteur, 66-75: Jovian Republic Agent, 76-88: Firewall Agent, 89-00: Ozuma Agent)
*Each stage of infection has a 15% chance of having infectious malware capping at a 60% chance for Hidden Infected Stacks.
**Each stage has memories of the fall as well as stress, derangements and valuable skills incrementing;
Infugee: 1 skill at 40, 1 derangement, 2 SV.
Veteran: 2 skills at 40, 2 derangements, 1d10/2 SV.
Survivor: 3 skills at 40, 3 derangements, 1d10 SV.
Corrupted Stacks are beyond repair).
Thu, 2013-11-07 20:36
#5
Thampsan
I would consider using a
I would consider using a separate roll - perhaps; PC Moxie Score - after the roll had been determined. If what the roll would fit the PC's family member (i.e Fall Haul, Corp, Celeb, etc) i'd make the check and I might even multiply their moxie score by the number of family members that they declare they had but no longer have. This would mean that you'd have anywhere from 1-10% chance assuming the initial roll was relevant to the PC's backhistory.
Thoughts?
Fri, 2013-11-08 00:40
#6
thezombiekat
@Thampsan: There are some
@Thampsan: There are some implications of your system.
Lets say a PC has one lost relative and moxy 1. The relative was a there wife, who worked as a checkout chick (insignificant and non-useful skill set). On entering the 9 lives habitat the PCs start killing evil doers and this PC picks up every cortical stack that is just lying around unattended. He gets a bucket full of them. Should be easy to get that many
Cortical stacks are the size of a grape, say 1cm. the bucket I use as a bin is 10L and would hold 10000 cortical stacks, let’s say its only half full, 5k cortical stacks. Because we went for the least guarded ones they are mostly going to be in the no skills category 4k, if each one of those we load and check has a 1% chance to be the wife, excel rounds the chance of finding the wife to 1 (the chance to not find the wife is 3.5*10^-18).
If you want to have them find a specific cortical stack then just say its there. If you want it to be random roll once to see if it is in the pile they are checking. If you need to know if it is top or bottom of the pile roll 1d10 and tell the player, “its not in the first 10%, not in the first 20% until they decide to give up just before they find it (they won’t. PCs always take 20 no matter how boring the task)
Fri, 2013-11-08 03:45
#7
Thampsan
I agree kat, the system I
I agree kat, the system I suggest isn't very viable but I think it still holds some merit.
Imagine a scenario in which a PC has a bucket full of stacks, perhaps you make two rolls and then the PC begins the arduous process of sorting each stack. You don't tell the PC that the stack they want is there, you make the first roll to determine if the stack is there and the second to determine whether it is at the top or the bottom of the pile.
Then you ask the PC if they want to keep going 3, 4 times as they sort through the stacks finding all sorts of human detritus. Maybe you throw them something else interesting and you play a game of chicken with them. You remind them how much time this is taking and what else is happening while they are wasting all this time.
If they don't blink and go through the entire stack then they get their reward - if it existed. If it didn't, well then you've had a bit of a merry goose chase and other things have probably happened. But otherwise I agree with you, sometimes just giving the PC what they want is easier than going through the motions of rolling for it, other times when you're looking at stringing along a player, making them salivate for the reward at the end of a hard slog makes the PC feel accomplished, like they earned it.
Sat, 2013-11-09 01:13
#8
thezombiekat
that type of system would
that type of system would work better. of cause if i was the PC i would hand the task of checking bots to subverted servitor bots (or whatever was handy to subvert, passably ruining a beta fork of myself) and get on with dealing with those situations that could have been over looked.
Wed, 2013-11-13 12:29
#9
Leodiensian
Watch this space - I'm about
Watch this space - I'm about to send the party on a trek through the TQZ and I'll be making a table to see what they might encounter along the way..