New PWYW d30 Table is up at DTRPG: Random Cavern Table Generator

It feels like it has been forever since I put out a new d30 table and damned if I didn't miss doing this. If you're one of my regular 13 (it was 12, until a new reader tracked me down and corrected me!) readers you know that the last couple years have been problematic for me. Some serious real-world crap that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy (well, maybe I would...screw that guy) followed up by some major upheaval that is moving out of my home of 20 years and moving cross-country to a new job in a new career.

That whole moving saga is coming to an end....soon I hope, and then I can get back to not living out of suitcases and boxes.......

......anyway, back to the real topic at hand which is a new d30 table!

The d30 Random Cavern Tunnel Generator is my response to seeing adventures where tunnels are treated as basic corridors. I know it is human nature to think more in 2d space when gaming, but it just felt....."off" for me, so this is part 1 of my response to seeing a "problem" and "fixing it". Quotes because this may just be my own interpretation. If none of this is a factor for you then by all means game on!

The initial challenge is just a simple matter of trying to wrap my head around the concept of trying to describe slopes to begin with. Is a 10% grade difficult? Twice as difficult as a 5%? Hell if I know......I started by brainstorming a bit and while I initially thought of grades like I'd see on mountain roads I eventually came around to thinking of things in terms of ski slopes and levels of difficulty used to describe them.

I was surprised by the varying levels and descriptors out there just for ski slopes, so I ended up looking for government-issued warning labels that were easy enough to tweak (and being governmental they would be Public Domain!). From there I was able to get some basic data to figure out slopes and assign them to categories. By pulling back a bit and looking at overall slopes across a given increment (100 yards seemed to work for me.....maybe it's an OSR thing?) I was able to find what I thought was a sweet spot for crunch vs. fluff.

A couple more sub-tables for number of individual slopes per given run and a ceiling descriptor and I was able to wrap things up. The emphasis is clearly on the floor of the tunnel because that is the surface players would have their PCs traverse. If they can freely climb along the walls or ceiling, then odds are non of this would matter.

While this is really all that I care about with regards to making up Cavern Tunnels, there are some additional charts and a graphical aid or three that I am going to put together as a part 2. Is it necessary? Nope, not at all, but I have the idea and the motivation so.........

If you want this particular d30 table, just click on any of the graphics in this post or use this link.