You could have re-incorporation of a theme as an entry. For example, have your d66 table with 36 random items. Perhaps the first four rolls hit column one, the next four rolls bring back those items in more detail and/or a twist.
Swords without Master has a mechanic that might complement that nicely -- when you encounter an interesting image, idea, or, well, motif, you add it to a list of motifs. Then when you pass a threshold of play, you're instructed to reincorporate those motifs, and you can't be done with the game until you do!
I've also had thoughts about using an A+B+C=N method. I think if you're playing in a defined horror setting (Call of Cthulhu) than it is necessarily mechanistic; e.g. wet footprint + stolen idol + weird jewellery = deep ones. With a less-defined world, it seems less forced, but requires you to step firmly into the GM role and make a decision about what it all means.
There is also an upper limit to how many separate 'clues' will make sense as a unit, but I've been lucky with this as my d30 rolled up the same entry twice (scarab). Mostly I just wait for enough clues to accumulate so that I have a sudden flash of insight about what's going on, but there's proabably a way to randomise it if that's not your style, say rolling 2d6 for each clue after the 3rd, and figuring out the meaning as the GM if you roll under the number of current clues found.
I don't do structure well, so always starting on a randomly determined scene and seeing what happens works for me. Sometimes this pushes the horror in a direction I wouldn't have chosen for myself, but at least it's always surprising.
The best thing I ever did was tweak the Mythic Event Meaning tables using word frequency from a gothic novel. It's so much easier to interpret answers when the oracle has horror built in. If you wanted to try for a specific genre, you could use bibliomancy instead. Just keep an appropriate book to hand, and point to a random passage to interpret when you ask the oracle for something.
You could have re-incorporation of a theme as an entry. For example, have your d66 table with 36 random items. Perhaps the first four rolls hit column one, the next four rolls bring back those items in more detail and/or a twist.
ReplyDeleteSwords without Master has a mechanic that might complement that nicely -- when you encounter an interesting image, idea, or, well, motif, you add it to a list of motifs. Then when you pass a threshold of play, you're instructed to reincorporate those motifs, and you can't be done with the game until you do!
ReplyDeleteI've also had thoughts about using an A+B+C=N method. I think if you're playing in a defined horror setting (Call of Cthulhu) than it is necessarily mechanistic; e.g. wet footprint + stolen idol + weird jewellery = deep ones. With a less-defined world, it seems less forced, but requires you to step firmly into the GM role and make a decision about what it all means.
ReplyDeleteThere is also an upper limit to how many separate 'clues' will make sense as a unit, but I've been lucky with this as my d30 rolled up the same entry twice (scarab). Mostly I just wait for enough clues to accumulate so that I have a sudden flash of insight about what's going on, but there's proabably a way to randomise it if that's not your style, say rolling 2d6 for each clue after the 3rd, and figuring out the meaning as the GM if you roll under the number of current clues found.
I don't do structure well, so always starting on a randomly determined scene and seeing what happens works for me. Sometimes this pushes the horror in a direction I wouldn't have chosen for myself, but at least it's always surprising.
The best thing I ever did was tweak the Mythic Event Meaning tables using word frequency from a gothic novel. It's so much easier to interpret answers when the oracle has horror built in. If you wanted to try for a specific genre, you could use bibliomancy instead. Just keep an appropriate book to hand, and point to a random passage to interpret when you ask the oracle for something.