DM Emulator

Introduction

The purpose of the Dungeon Master Emulator is to run coherent, improvised adventures without an actual DM. Imagine a lazy DM, who says that he will not tell the players anything unless they ask him. The players would have to ask him anything that they need to know to decide on which actions they will take, such as "What does this room look like?" or "Is there a blacksmith in the village?" The game would be the same as usual, except the players would only be told what they think they need to know. Such DM can be simulated by Dungeon Seeder.

Based on formulae created by Tom Pigeon.

www.wordmillgames.com

Yes/No Questions

How to decide if something that you expect to see is actually going to happen? First, formulate a yes/no question. Then, evaluate the odds of it to happen. Don’t think too hard, just follow your intuition. Roll a d100 die. Look up in the DM’s decision table what number you have to roll for a positive answer, with a base chaos level of 5 (chaos is explained in the "Change of Location" paragraph). If the number on your die is equal or lower than the number in the table, then the answer is a "Yes"; otherwise it’s a "No".

When to ask such questions? Ask questions whenever you need to know something. Don’t ask questions in every situation, but also use logic. Don’t ask if there are clouds in the sky, unless you actually have a reason to believe there wouldn’t be any. As a general rule, don’t ask questions for every element of the world that seems neutral, i.e. that doesn’t seem to affect your character, whether in good or in bad. The most important rule to respect is the principle of impartiality. Neutral elements respect this principle, and it’s not very important if they are as you expect them to be or not.

Don’t ask several questions in a row. Don’t ask questions to confirm other questions. Usually, after a maximum of two or three questions, you should have a good idea of the situation. A yes/no answer often tells you more than you think. It gives you the general idea or mood of the subject of your questions, and from there you can use your experience and your logic to infer many more details. For example, you meet an animal in a city, and you ask if it’s a bird. "Yes". There’s little reason to then ask if it’s a pigeon, because it’s probably the only bird that lives in a city. In each situation, you could actually ask hundreds of questions, but that would slow down the game too much. Instead, once you have asked a few questions, you have respected the principle of impartiality, and you have the big picture: you can now take an educated guess about the details.

Random Events

When a yes/no question yields a double number on the dice roll, and the number is lower than the chaos level or equal, a random event is generated. Roll on the following tables an event, an action and a subject.

You can see that the table involves NPCs (non-player characters) and quests (any goal or mission). To know which NPC or quest is subject of the event, make a list of all the NPCs that you have met, make a list for all of your quests, and choose one at random.

Event Interpretation

Such events are particularly vague. You must interpret the words given to you to fit the situation. If you are still unsure, you can also get a colour to help you. You might think that it is difficult, or that you see many possibilities. Just choose the first coherent possibility that comes to your mind. Something will surely come up when you read the words and compare them to the situation. Accept the first idea, even if you don’t like it. A particularity of the brain is that it always thinks, so you will always find something, although perhaps you will have to first learn to listen to your thoughts if you are not used to it.

Your idea doesn’t have to perfectly match the words. They are just given to make your imagination work and give you a general idea of what to generate. If you really cannot interpret, then either drop the question or re-roll.

General Questions

Event interpretation can be used to answer general questions that cannot be answered by a "Yes" or a "No". You have to avoid asking too many of those questions, because unlike the yes/no questions, you don’t control the odds. Their result is always random and asking too many of them will give you a random game that you might not enjoy. However, if used with moderation, they will be very useful.

Examples

Situation 1: The player is exploring a pyramid. He asks what’s in the chamber that he just entered.

Roll: Inadequate, large thing, purple.

Answer: The chamber is occupied by a gargantuan purple worm, even though those creatures are never found in the area and they are even less likely to be found in a pyramid.

Situation 2: The player is investigating a crime, and a local affirms that he has seen who was the murdered. The player asks who it is.

Roll: Catch, magic.

Answer: The witness says that he has seen the local wizard commit the crime.

Situation 3: The player is listening to a bard in a tavern. He is wondering what the song is about.

Roll: Knowledge, time.

Answer: It’s a ballad about long-forgotten kings and knights and their heroic deeds.

Situation 4: The player enters a forest which wasn’t on his map. He asks what the forest is like.

Roll: Explosion, remnants.

Answer: It’s a luxurious forest that has grown on the ruins of an ancient empire. Between the trees, he can see the vestige of walls and towers.

Skill Checks

You can use skill checks whenever you feel that it is appropriate. For more accuracy, use skill checks when they can replace questions, e.g. a Bluff check can replace the question: "Does this person believe me?"

Change of Location

The chaos level starts at 5. Before your character enters a new location, e.g. travels to a new city, evaluate how surprised you were by the events. If you think that everything happened as expected, decrease the chaos level by one. Otherwise, increase it by one. The chaos level goes from 1 to 10.

You are also not sure that the new location will be as you expect it to be. Roll a d10 against the new chaos level.

• Alteration: The place is not as you expected it to be.

• Interruption: Before you reach the new place, a random event interrupts you.

• Nightmare: The place is not as you expected it to be: in fact, it even contains one or more element(s) that you fear and wanted the least to see there.

Multiplayer

Invite other players to your party to activate the multiplayer mode. You will take turns to describe your actions and ask questions. As an option, you can use the following methods to approve questions and answers:

• • Umpire: they must be approved by the party leader.

  • Veto: everyone in the party has 10 seconds to reject them.

Every party member will receive the same amount of experience.

Logs

If you want to save an HTML log of your adventure, click "File > Save Log". Do not remove the ".htm" at the end of the file name.