Background

I have been reviewing elements of my own role playing game system Heroes of Adventure which I would like to improve further. One of the key principles I want to develop further is the procedural generation elements for an adventure (i.e. generating treasure, settlements, NPCs, monsters etc).

My vision is for each of these sections to act as a form of mini-game which makes it more enjoyable for the referee (and players) to use these tables as a way of building content for your own game setting.

In particular, I am keen on developing the links between character generator and world building further so it works something like the following examples:

• When rolling your characters background you learn that you once barely survived a dangerous encounter with a monster that terrorised the settlement you called home.  (Goto Page X and generate a monster. Add a quest to gain some XP if this monster is ever found and defeated) or....
• When rolling your characters background you learn that you have inherited and heirloom from a family member, an ancient weapon which has been in your family's possession for generations. (Goto Page X and create a rare class ancient weapon, add this to your inventory)  

This gives both the referee and players an opportunity to use the content from the book to collaboratively generate more world content in a way that the player is invested in.

I think my current artifact, crafting and component systems can be refined further to make this more streamlined and enjoyable. The Ancient Weapon Generator is my first step at tweaking these rules.

I've used a current itch.io TTRPG game jam to help motivate me to produce a small piece of content which is system agnostic and can be used with other game systems but I will eventually look to include this in the Heroes of Adventure system. 

Ancient Weapon Generator

Finding an ancient or magic weapon should be exciting and offer gameplay opportunities such as: 

• Some flavour over the items look, feel and use
•  It tells you something about the setting 
• Opportunity to discover things about the item, a hook 
• A mechanical advantage in a combat situation

It should be much more interesting that saying "you found a +1 sword"

The Ancient Weapon Generator requires just a few dice rolls to quickly generate an ancient or magic weapon with background details including its; origin, construction, features, powers and maybe even a potential flaw. 

This supplement can be used with any role-playing game system and was released as part of the  OSR supplement jam  in Mar 2022 and can be downloaded for free.