Pythia Charts in Calypso
filed under mechanics and pythia on 01 May 2017 tagged calypso, pythia, solo, charts, and random
As I may have mentioned a time or two, I often convert from Pythia to pen and paper as the whim strikes me. But I can’t remember if I actually covered which Pythia charts ended up “making the cut” to be included in The Calypso Compendium.
So here’s an overview. Even if you’re not interested in a Lady Blackbird/Apocalypse mash-up, the tables should have a lot of utility for any interpretive game.
The “Random Generators” chapter starts off with Dangers & Risks, with a “Complications” chart. This is a d66 chart useful when you’re not sure what’s at stake. Entries are things like “you suffer harm”, “one of your cherished dreams or illusions is shattered”, and “a path is closed or barred”.
The next section is Actors, and contains “Visible Quirks”, “Hidden Quirks”, “Temperament”, and “Motives”. So you can generate an NPC wearing “mismatched clothes” who is secretly a “really bad cook”, who “feels envy towards love to an overwhelming degree”.
More minorly, in the “Structure” chapter, there’s “scene purpose” and “scene type”, part of a scriptwriting framework that I think is useful, when combined with scene keywords, to set just about any scene.
That’s all for now, though of course there’s plenty of room for more!
Oh, and bonus feature – I added a chapter for “Optional Systems” and some rules for handling relationships. Which is a hint about what I’m working on now, haha.
