Bommyknocker Press

Shoulder Tables

Shoulder Tables

Rolling additional dice allows you to explore the shoulders of a probability distribution.

A table that specifically makes use of this fact can be called a Shoulder Table. It is useful for providing results that favour one polarity over another.

Shoulder Tables for Encounters

What does this mean? Look at this 'forest road' encounter table. It's from the excellent first post of new blog In Monstrous Company.1 Reading the post you will note that the lower range of results (2-6) are all beasts & monsters, and the higher range (8-12) are all humanfolk.

Roll Role
2 Q: A green dragon soars high above, searching for any combination of food, tribute, or solitude.
3 Roll again on the 'deep forest' encounter table.
4 T: A sphinx prowls this forest. She'll eat any humanoid that fails to answer her riddles, but primarily preys on foxes and rabbits that she can catch.
5 S: d8 clever foxes. They navigate the wood via fairy paths, so if they're followed closely they might reveal one by accident.
6 P: 3d6 rabbits. Generally just a good source of food, but in high enough concentrations they get irritable and aggressive.
7 Primary (or recurring character)
8 P: 2d4 peasants. They have some rumors and some shitty grain liquor to share if you're friendly and they're not in imminent danger.
9 S: d4 bandits. If someone looks weak, they'll do a smash-and-grab technique and then get the hell out of dodge, but they're not looking for a drawn out fight.
10 T: The taxman, and his guards. Strong enough that he's not bothered by bandits, and cunning enough to extort just about anyone.
11 Roll again on a neighboring location's table.
12 Q: The Count's son, on a hunt. Expects the world to work the way he wants it to, and expects you to do what he says.

The table is structured along the polarity of civilisation-wilderness. We can use it as a shoulder table by adding these instructions:

Polar Weather

Let's look again at the weather table from my recent post:

2d6 | WEATHER
2. TOO DAMN COLD
3. Real cold
4. Cold
5. Chilly
6. Mild
7. Pleasant
8. Warm
9. Balmy
10. Hot
11. Real hot
12. TOO DAMN HOT\

We can make it a Shoulder table by adding the following instructions:

This works because the table is structured along the polarity of cold-hot.

Other Poles

Any table structured along a polarity can support Shoulder Tables. To make one you need:

  1. Table type
  2. Category of Polarity
  3. Modification factor

Some examples:

Variation: Walking Shoulder Tables

Have you heard of Egyptian Walking Onions? It's an allium that my wife put in the garden. As the plant grows, the flower gets so heavy that the entire stalk nods over, and plants a new bulb in the earth where it lands. Over generations the onions migrate around your garden patch. The centrepoint is new, and the new range that they might bend over includes half of the old range and half of a new range.

Walking Shoulder Tables work the same way - as time progresses, the 'centre point' changes, and the area they cover is half new and half old.

Does this make sense? Here's an example.

Your party travels across a series of biomes: Hill -- Valley -- Prairie

They start in the Hills, travelling towards the Valley. The encounter table looks like this:

2d6 | Hill / Valley 2. [Hill]: Giants (playing petanque with millstones)
3. [Hill]: Molefolk (hard at work; mountains aren't built in a day)
4. [Hill]: Eagles (celebrating their Super Bowl win)
5. [Hill]: Shepherd (has gotten confused; her sheep are now floating away while a flock of clouds graze lazily)
6. [Hill]: Rabbit (limping; has lost its lucky foot)
7. Recurring NPC
8. [Valley]: Lopsided goats (males have short left legs, females have short right legs. Actually perfectly level so long as they cling to the valley sides)
9. [Valley]: Bear (stats as bear)
10. [Valley]: Sturgeon (unlicensed)
11. [Valley]: Hellbound Otterfolk (blasphemers)
12. [Valley]: Manticore (reading book of etymology and doubting self)\

As you can see, one half of our encounter table belongs to each Biome. When the party is in the Hill biome, but approaching the Valley, roll [lowest 2 of 3d6]. Around the midpoint, roll [2d6]. When they're firmly into the Valley biome, roll [highest 2 of 3d6].

When they pass the midpoint of the Valley heading towards the Prairie, you update the encounter table like so:

2d6 | Valley / Prairie
2. [Valley]: Manticore (reading book of etymology and doubting self)
3. [Valley]: Hellbound Otterfolk (blasphemers)
4. [Valley]: Sturgeon (unlicensed)
5. [Valley]: Bear (stats as bear)
6. [Valley]: Lopsided goats (males with short left legs, females with short right legs. Actually perfectly level so long as they cling to the valley sides)
7. Recurring NPC
8. [Prairie]: Buffalo (Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo)
9. [Prairie]: Prairie dog (chasing prairie cat, chasing prairie mouse, stalking prairie cheese)
10. [Prairie]: Jackrabbit (wielding jackhammer)
11. [Prairie]: Bobcat (driving bobcat)
12. [Prairie]: Pumafolk (grovelling to their leader, the Grand Pooh-Bah of Pumas)\

Why Shoulder Tables? Why now?

In a recent post I wrote on a method of express weather systems through dice mechanics. In summary:

A 2d6 weather table. If yesterday's weather was warm (>=8), roll 3d6 and pick the two highest dice. If yesterday's weather was cold (<=6), roll 3d6 and pick the two lowest dice.

I've been reflecting on the post and realised that it is an application of two separate mechanics:

  1. emphasis - rolling additional dice and picking certain results to emphasize part of a probability distribution.
  2. recursion - taking the output of a previous result and using that as an input into a new result.

Breaking this apart was useful - this post is about emphasis. I would like to return to recursion (heh) in the future.

Emphasis and Advantage

Shoulder tables use additional dice to dig into the far reaches of the probability distribution. The mechanic is a cousin to 5E's Advantage/Disadvantage (A/D). 5E has a lot of systems, but I would consider this the system's signature mechanic.

You roll a second d20 when you make [a d20 roll]. Use the higher of the two roll sif you have advantage, and the lower roll if you have disadvantage.

I love it for its rough-and-ready massaging of probability. It's not a precision tool - its precise effect on odds is opaque to most players (who don't spend too much time buildcrafting on reddit) - but it is tactile, quick to deploy and is a strong enough factor in probability that you can feel its weight when you roll it.

It has been famously criticised for forefronting mechanical engagement for players, to the detriment of engagement with narrative and problem-solving. I think that carries weight. But all of this makes it a perfect GM-facing tool.

Let's look at a comparison from anydice, of 2d6 vs [lowest 2 of 3d6]:

2d6 vs lowest 2 of 3d6

The points that stand out to me:

If this isn't tuned enough for you, just add more dice. 2d6 vs [lowest 2 of 3d6] vs [lowest 2 of 4d6].

2d6 vs lowest 2 of 4d6

Adding or subtracting modifiers would give a similar effect, but my feeling is that advantage-like mechanics require less paperwork. To have a closer look at modifiers check out Nova's discussion of them here in her new series, Make Dice Work For You.

  1. The initials P, S, T and Q on the table refer to the ecological concept of trophic levels: Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, Quarternary. It's a good post, worth checking out.↩

#dice #mechanics #tables