Dragon Anniversary: The Meanest of Monsters
Instructions: Whenever a player annoys you in
any way, by wearing tasteless clothes or eating the last corn chip, ask him to roll a d20. He may become wor- ried that he’s rolling a saving throw.
Ha, ha!!! Little does he know that he just rolled on the Wandering Damage System matrix!!! Repeat the roll as often as desired.
lair to lure unsuspecting roleplaying gamers into the world of his warped imagination. Once seated at the table, the players are destined to lose at least one dearly beloved character apiece. It is a cruel fate, but unavoidable at this point.
The Killer Dungeon Master thrives on elimi- nating player characters as fast as one can create replacements, even by computer printout. With the Killer Dungeon Master in charge, monsters will automatically become at least six hit dice more pow- erful than the scenario suggests is appropriate. If a module places two monsters guarding a treasure, you can count on at least fifteen being there. When a regular Dungeon Master would say, “The three orcs are dead; now you see a small chest,” the Killer Dungeon Master says, “So you killed three orcs, huh? Let’s see what you can do against twelve mind flayers!”
Killer Dungeon Masters are known to use wan- dering monsters, deadly traps, and the disease table in the DMG to destroy characters, but what really sets them apart from other Dungeon Masters is their access to the revolutionary new Wandering Damage System. The following information was stolen from the notebook of a sleeping Killer Dungeon Master, and is presented in its entirety for the benefit of all gaming humanity (Killer Dungeon Masters have no other treasure but this):
How to Use the Wandering Damage System
First there was the wandering monster. They serve well when applied in hordes, but why not cut out the middle- man and just deal out damage to the characters directly? It makes for a smoother, faster-paced game, and if you want to kill off characters quickly, it can only be beaten by divine intervention by Cthulhoid godlings.
The Wandering Damage System Matrix Roll Result
1 Your character has fallen down a flight of stairs; roll his dexterity or less on percentile dice, or else consult Limb Loss Subtable. 2 The monster your character just killed gets
up and attacks him, doing 8-80 points of damage.
3 Your character smells smoke; his right arm is on fire. Take 14 points of damage and save vs. gangrene.
4 Your character cuts himself while shaving; consult Limb Loss Subtable.
5 Your character’s nose hairs catch fire, and he dies of smoke inhalation.
6 Your character stumbles backward into a yawning chasm and disappears from view. 7 The next time your character says some-
thing, he eats his words, chokes on them, and dies.
8 Something cuts your character’s nose off, doing 2-12 points damage and really mess- ing up his charisma.
9 Your character steps on a piece of glass; consult Limb Loss Subtable.
10 Your character suddenly catches a severe case of brain death.
11 Something invisible chews on your charac- ter, doing 6-36 points damage.
12 Your character develops an incredibly severe case of arthritis and can grasp noth- ing with his hands; he drops anything he’s holding—and if that happened to be a sword or an axe, consult the Limb Loss Subtable. 13–20 Consult the Random Damage Subtable for
Dragon Anniversary: The Meanest of Monsters
4
Jun e 2011 | DR AG ON 4 0 0Limb Loss Subtable (roll d6)
1 Left leg gone 2 Right leg gone 3 Left arm gone 4 Right arm gone 5 Head gone 6 Torso cut in half
Random Damage Subtable Roll Result
01-05 Take 10 hit points damage. 06-10 Take 15 hit points damage. 11-20 Take 30 hit points damage.
21-25 Take 10 hit points damage and consult Limb Loss Subtable, modifying die roll by +5. 26-30 Take 10 hit points damage and roll again on
Wandering Damage System Matrix.
31-35 Take 15 hit points damage and then take 30 more.
36-40 Roll every die you own for damage. 41-45 Take 17 hit points damage. 46-50 Take 42 hit points damage.
51-55 Multiply your character’s age by 5. Take three times that much damage.
56-60 Take 24 hit points damage and then take 31 more.
61-65 Take 1,000 hit points damage and roll again. 66-70 Roll every die within 30 feet for damage. 71-73 Add up the total hit points of everyone in the
party. Take that much damage.
74-75 Take 3 hit points damage and consider your- self very lucky—for the time being.
76-00 What? You didn’t get hurt? That’s impos- sible—this system is foolproof. Roll again.
SLEEP-INDUCING DUNGEON MASTER
(Dungeus Masterus Aerheadium Monotonus)
FREQUENCY: Here and there NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: Not applicable, cannot be attacked MOVE: Immobile
HIT DICE: Just enough to be considered alive % IN LAIR: 100% (detailed below)
TREASURE TYPE: Players’ dice
NO. OF ATTACKS ON CHARACTERS: Nil DAMAGE/ATTACK ON CHARACTERS: Nil SPECIAL ATTACKS ON PLAYERS: Boredom SPECIAL DEFENSES FROM PLAYERS: Boredom MAGIC RESISTANCE: Immune to sleep spells and
powers of all kinds
INTELLIGENCE: High (for a rodent) ALIGNMENT: Neutral tedious SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: “Psionics? Well, I worked out a
system, only 340 pages long, based on the 13th-century German philosopher Noodleheinz, who said form does not precede reality but rather is derived from the innateness of the mental image. Here, I’ll get it and show it to you . . . .”
The Sleep-Inducing Dungeon Master is always found seated at a table (75% likely to be laden with food), behind a homemade screen devoid of writing. The table is well organized though extremely crowded, and the adjacent areas are meticulously clean. Soft Barbra Streisand music can be heard from a con- cealed sound source, and the room temperature will be ten degrees over the comfortable limit.
The Sleep-Inducing Dungeon Master lives only to steal the dice of unsuspecting role-playing gamers, by luring them into his lair and then boring them to sleep (or, in some cases, to death). Standard tech- niques used by these Dungeon Masters include excruciatingly dull dungeons, pointless mazes, no monsters or treasure to be found, and constant
searches through the rulebooks for scraps of infor- mation. (“The combat tables are in here somewhere, I saw them yesterday.”) In some cases, a low-level Sleep-Inducing Dungeon Master will have an accom- plice, who will be disguised as one of the players. This person will ask questions like, “What does a glaive- guisarme look like?” and will not be able to decide on a name for his mule.
The Sleep-Inducing Dungeon Master gains power by accumulating dice, at the rate of one Dungeon Master level per 1,000 dice stolen from players. As the following table shows, the Sleep- Inducing Dungeon Master is also proficient at making players lose interest in gaming if he can’t make them fall asleep.
Sleep-Inducing Dungeon Master Table DM
level
Distract Sleep Comatose Dead 1 50% 10% — — 2 55 20 — — 3 60 30 05% — 4 65 40 08 — 5 70 50 10 05% 6 75 60 15 10 7 80 70 18 15 8 85 80 20 18 9 90 90 25 20
Distract: Power causes player to wander away from game, either to a nearby checkers set or to the refrigerator.
Sleep: Player falls asleep, either at table or on any nearby sofa. Duration 10-60 minutes.
Comatose: Player will regain consciousness and come to his senses in 4-6 weeks.
Dead: The unfortunate player has been bored to death, with no saving throw.