Preparing for Pirates vs. Vampires

I'll probably break out the Adventure Funnel later tonight, once I have time for some clear-headed creativity. Meanwhile, I thought I'd catalog the various resources that I'll have at my finger tips when running Sunday's play-by-post Pirates vs. Vampire game.

Rules

• Risus: I don't really need to refer to it anymore, but it's good to have around for the groovy vibe that it gives off.
• The Risus Companion: I'll have it handy because there are a couple of Target Number charts to which I occasionally refer and haven't completely memorized.
• The Mythic Game Master Emulator: I'll need to have this handy if I decide play alongside my players or if I want the action to veer into really unexpected territory. There are a handful of charts that will see constant use.
• Mythic Variations: I'll probably use some of the variant event tables to better reflect the genre (Action-Horror). 

Name Generators

• Kleimo: Not as useful as it would be for a modern or near-future game, the random names pulled from real social security data are still useful for (mostly) anglo-saxon non-player characters.
• Chris Pound: Again, not quite as useful as it would be for a straight-up fantasy or science fiction game but there are still some useful tables for faking names from non-western cultures.
• Seventh Sanctum: Contains generators for pirate ship names, tavern names, and a few culturally-specific character names. Lots a stuff, really. Worth checking out.
  
• Everyone Everywhere: My go-to-list for names by culture.

Mythic Complex Questions

• Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: The url for the last entry is http://www.bartelby.com/81/17757.html. To randomize, simply roll d20,000, discard anything over 17,757, and then change the url accordingly. The results are often arcane but surprisingly well-suited for generating ink-blot answers appropriate to the genre and era.
• TV Tropes: Has a Random Item button to produce a random trope that can be exploited for certain complex questions. More likely to produce anachronistic results than Brewers, but the cinematic potential is much greater.
• Wikipedia: The random article link can produce a huge variety of material. I just use the first genre-appropriate idea that pops into my head. Though it can produce some real head-scratchers, it is especially good for geographical questions.
  

Other

• AEG's Ultimate Toolbox: Pricey for what amounts to be a giant book of tables, but many of these tables are highly appropriate to the Pirate genre. It was an impulse purchase that I hope to justify by heavy use in this campaign.
• UNE: It stands for Universal NPC Emulator. I don't find it that useful for NPC emulation, but it can be used to help create interesting NPCs when otherwise stumped.
• Instant Game: More useful tables, especially for generating settings.

Dyson's Random Morph Map

I'm a little behind the curve on this one (the Ruminator beat me to the punch), but Rob Lang over at the Free RPG Blog put together a handy-dandy little web-page that randomizes the totally awesome geomorphs being produced by Dyson (of A Character For Every Game fame). I absolutely adore Dyson's map work. His style totally resonates with me. His maps evoke an old-school aesthetic, are easy to read, and best of all are bursting with ideas for cool encounters. These particular geomorphs do what I didn't think was previously possible... they incorporate multi-level ideas on a two-dimensional map in such a way as to seem totally natural.

If I get the time (and I'm not sure when I will), I may try to expand on Rob's script. It seems to me that the only thing missing is the ability to rotate or flip the geomorphs. I also can't wait to see what this all looks like when Dyson completes his set (as of today, he's on geomorph #39). At 100, there's bound to be a staggering variety.

This all makes me want to do another solo dungeon-crawl. I've done some with Mythic using my AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (or OSRIC depending on my whim). But the dungeons produced seem to lack coherence that I hope geomorphs could provide.

One Page Dungeons from Snikle

Still on that Old School kick...

Early this past summer, while fire-hosing myself with retro-gaming goodness, I came across the One Page Dungeon Contest (winners and all entries can be found here). What became readily apparant from reading the many excellent submissions is that Risus is a perfect fit for the format. What other system offers such brevity in writing up opponents?

An early example of a Risus one-page dungeon that I discovered was Snikle's Zombie Tower. What I didn't realize at the time is that Snikle had created a large handful of brilliant Risus one-page adventures. Check out The Tomb of Galron Dor, The Innsmouth Lighthouse, The Spider Caves of Grinlok, and The Ruins of Kal-Kamen.

Snikle's blog also contains a healthy dose of Risus goodness, if you look for it.

Stock Characters

Hat tip to Guy Hoyle at Risus Talk for pointing out this excellent WikiPedia entry on stock characters. While generally useful for any game, it is especially appropriate for Risus (where clichéd characters are the game's chewy center).