d20 Cargo Robots

I imagine these are the real standard types, variations on which you will find in far-flung sci-fi starports. Perhaps many of these were a brand-name model at one point, but after decades of time and light-years of distance you can't suppress these obvious winners with intellectual property law.

Please draw these. Draw one of these. Draw a picture of a bot and show it to me.

d20 Cargo bots

1. Mule, a biped with forklift arms

2. Liger, a forklift with humanoid arms

3. LD, a trundling cylinder with shower-head arms that generate anti-gravity

4. Oersted, a smiling box that sticks magnetic vertex stickers on crates to lug them about electrically

5. Flockers, a cloud of suction-drones

6. Ulysses Lifter, a two-meter disc with a computer in the side, a tube running from it to stomach-level, and a screen interface

7. Auto-Snake, an autonomous go-kart that drags and attaches fuel lines. Can carry lighter goods that are strapped down by teamsters

8. Toplines, a mechanical puppets that ride around on rails installed in the warehouse ceiling, belaying up and down at will.

9. Grasp Droid, a big claw on wheels, fitted with sensitive sectional weight distributors for precise and safe carry

10. Sancho, with a tripod of deer-like legs and a hydraulic humanoid torso

11. Fernjack, a rolling cart with tendrils at one end to arrange and steady loads

12. Fido, a wheel that fits into axle of specially prepared crates to drag them around.

13. Spoonlift, a real big wheel with forks on the front and a hyperdense round counterweight on the back, dropping the counterweight to lift a load and drive around like a penny farthing bicycle.

14. Viker, a wide dolly with shoulder-high sides. Rolls right under a crate, tips back, and rolls away, barely hyper-competent at balancing its load.

15.Row Rack, a car-sized frame with hydraulic bows on the side. Drives over a crate and tightens the bows to carry it. Grumbles like a bear.

16. Heron, a metal giant like a terrible, tall angel with broad, shuffling feet. From the chest, a crane extends, gripped by knife-elbowed hands for stability.

17. Zipper-Tractor, a waist-high RC tumbler tank dragging a trailer on an ingenious hitch that won’t upset the load even if the tank fully flips over

18. Floor-Raft, a millipede of rollers with a rider plate at the back to carry workers and a loading-ramp mouth

19. Leap Pal, a friend-shaped squared biped with incredibly dangerous jetpack

20. Powerdrag, a sassy pallet jack

At worksites, assume there is an SOP which effectively prevents most potential accidents and carefully stows all hazards, Whenever one comes up, roll 2d6. On an 8+, wise precautions have been closely followed. On a 6+, they've been approximately followed. On a 5 or less, they've been ignored or replaced with an easier, ineffective procedure. Cyber-security gets a -2 penalty.

d20 Cargo Bot Quirks

1. Runs hot/cold. Workers use a compartment in the chassis to boil coffee and other hot drinks or store snacks along the coolant lines

2. Gives off fumes. Workers issued PPE. Some opt to ride the high of lightheadedness and slowed time

3. Talkative-- makes many beeps and pops with a speaker.

4. Discontinued and beloved. Newer versions are available, but they suck

5. Requires constant remote direction by an operator, for union reasons

6. Technically classed as mechanized operating suit, requiring a wearer to function for legal reasons

7. Frequently shuts down in accordance with hour of service regulations 

8. Chummy, with a quaint programmed personality

9. Easily explosive with some tech know-how. Worksites use this to discourage theft of the bot.

10. Contractually obligated presence, due to nepotism, covering for a corporate boondoggle, or to buy off the manufacturer’s political arm

11. Fully intelligent. Enjoys working, but stands up to mistreatment

12. Unnecessarily evocative or attractive (😳) mascot painted on the side

13. Oversensitive. Barks an alarm at almost anything

14. Sloshing. Needs a regular top-up of petroleum, saltwater, exc.

15. "Cyborg", integrating biological elements like a cattle brain processor, miniature fuel-generating biosphere, or regenerative fur padding.

16. Proprietary. Can only legally be serviced by a shadowy corporate camorra, with hardware built-in to threaten tinkerers.

17. Reclaimed. Created by an ancient society or driven-off aliens or outlaws, and built to serve their sensibilities.

18. Spy. Unlike most elements of the surveillance network, this one is publicly acknowledged under the fig leaf of efficiency tracking or scientific management principles

19. Integrated terminal. Internet severely but ineptly hobbled. Password written in marker on the keyboard.

20. Roll twice and combine

The Hydra Problem

 Discordian FifthDragon an image of this tumblr post the other day:

Interesting for sure, and with a very fine piece of art to go with it. But as people in the glog discord server riffed off this idea, suggesting their own variations, it made me think about the weird tension of hydras in adventure games. Like the troll and the vampire, the hydra's main gimmick is well-known. If you cut off a head, more will grow back in its place. Unlike the troll or the vampire, its gimmick is often quite avoidable if you endeavor to fight one. Rather than changing how you attack it, you ignore its special ability. Don't go out of your way to cut off a head-- just strike at the body as you would with any monster.

This isn't very fun. You want the monster to have the potential to do its coolest thing, but it would take an especially obliging player to willingly fall into the trap. Original D&D makes the regrowing of heads a special ability that only some hydras possess. Other rulesets might give the necks a lower AC or slow down the speed at which new heads grow to introduce some kind of risk-and-reward decision. Anytime I've run or played in a game which took such measures, they failed to encourage the heroes to consider trying to cut the hydra's heads. Most of the players I know are a little risk-averse, and often the mathematical considerations used to balance the dilemma are too obscure. Much safer, it was reasoned, to not engage with the hydra's special ability.

Some creativity can solve this. All you really need to do is give a proactive reason to slice at the hydra's heads. Here are some hydras for which the right circumstance can be set up without losing the element of risk inherent to the hydra's dilemma:

• Vampire hydra. You can try to use the standard vampire weaknesses, but it would be be hard to immobilize enough heads to drive a stake through its heart. Cutting each neck brings double smoke-particulate heads, but if you cut all the physical heads it is banished to its resting place to recuperate.
• Zombie hydra. Stupid, yet infectious. Cutting each neck brings double ghost heads, but if you cut off all physical heads you can send the fully-ghost hydra to its eternal rest by resolving its unfinished business. Usually this is embarrassing a demigod, fully killing a guy who's only mostly-dying of its poison bites, or telling its living descendants that it loves them and is proud of them.
• Lich hydra. A skilled, senile swordsman. Cutting each neck brings double mimic heads, then double rabbit heads, then double gorgoose heads, then double stirge heads, then its true death, which when destroyed ends the immortal fiend.
• Necromancer hydra. Intentionally kills the lesser heads to split off, then resurrects them. Rendering all original heads inert kills it.
• Skeleton hydra. If you cut off a heads, it doesn't double, instead snaking around as a necrophidius you may find more manageable.
• Pyrohydra. The classic fire-breathing hydra. Perhaps only the original heads can use its breath weapon?
• Philopater. The monstrous son of a vengeful god. You really don't want to kill this one, but severing a couple heads might give you enough opening to run away or hurry past it.
• Cosmic Hydra. Each head has a random alignment, and severing one might replace it with one or more allied heads.
• Mechanical Hydra. By summoning more pop-out heads, you create new weak points and even hiding spots in the torso of the monster.
• Cadmean Hydra. The hydra's blood is soldiers, gold, or some other desirable resource, and severing its heads is the most efficient way to access it.

Traveller (Mongoose 1e) World Generator

 I tried really really hard to make this 100% accurate to the rulebook, but was stumped a couple times. This generator won't give you the temperature of the planet, so they tend to have more water than generating a word by hand because the only modifiers temperature applies to hydrology is negative. More importantly, I couldn't account for all bonuses contributing to Tech Level, so I tried to average it out among all possible worlds by making its base roll a d7 instead of a d6. Though these compromises are unfortunate, I think the generator is very usable.

In addition to the book's work, I compiled suggested planet names from such places as an online list of Greek words and a wikipedia entry on fonts. I also expanded the potential cultural quirks list. This was all made functional by Spwack's wonderful list-to-HTML tool.

This generator uses the Universal World Profile format:

1. Starport quality (A is good, E is basic AF)
2. Size (0 is an asteroid, 2 is Luna-size, 8 is Earth-size)
3. Atmosphere Type (6 is Earth-like, 1-5 is various kinds of thin, 7-9 is varyingly thick, A-F is weird)
4. Hydrographic percentage (multiply by ten, give or take. 1 is 10% water, A is 100%)
5. Population (in orders of magnitude. If 0, no population outside spaceport)
6. Government type (complicated, but assume that higher numbers are more dystopian. 7 is multiple governments competing to be the global hegemon)
7. Law level (0 is anarchy, 10+ is maximal control)
1. (hyphen)
8. Tech Level (1 is Bronze/Iron age, 3 is 18th century, 5 is widespread electricity, 7 is the 70's, 9 is interstellar settlements, etc.)