When you let DnD players generate their own spells

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QUESTING KNIGHT PATRONS
Allen Opperman, Angel of the Dawn, Doug Vieira, Dwayne Boothe, Dwiz, Elliot Heigert, fikle, J. Case Tompkins, James Endres, Jose Trujillo, Klozee, Kurtis Bright, LeMorteGames, marzan, Paulie, Ricardo Sedan, RollStats

[@QuestingBeast]

Get Knave 2e in PDF: bit.ly/Knave2ePDF Get Knave 2e in Print: bit.ly/QuestingBeastBooks Newsletter: bit.ly/TheGlatisant Patreon: bit.ly/QBPatreon

[@blackshard641]

Unnatural Darkening Stench sounds like something that tenants are required to report to their landlord.

[@artistpoet5253]

Also a good reason to pull over during road trips.

[@iododendron3416]

That's what you get when you build on an ancient burial ground.

[@Wraithing]

@@blackshard641 If you're in a building with unnatural darkening stench, it's likely your landlord already knows. GTFO, worse is probably on the way.

[@antonblake1476]

The landlord will just try to paint over it

[@DungeonMasterpiece]

*Pushes glasses* ACHKTUALLY, the max variable spell options would generate up to one hundred million possible spell names. Of course, that's a Schrodinger's 100 mil. Those million are different every time a different person rolls and thinks up what it means. One of my favorite parts of this book!!

[@salty-nick]

Clearly we need the full table of them, and a single d1000000 to roll them all.

[@TheGrandUser]

But, Sir, are you taking into account the tables for spells also have entries that reference other tables and that those tables also refer to other tables, and even in the cases where the same sub-table (or sub-sub-table) may be reference, the very path taken to reach it provides its own distinct context informing the nature of the spell. Even just taking a simple estimate by counting the number of the immediate sub-table references brings the possible combinations to over 4.5 trillion! To delve further and calculate the true combinatorial possibilities (and before individual interpretation!) would be to delve down into madness!! Or at least nerdity ;)

[@HangryDwarfPress]

I'm going to start rolling, and see if you're correct. Give me a minute...

[@Bluecho4]

Ever since looking into Ars Magica, I've loved the concept of building spells using one or more words. Really makes the player and referee be creative with a limited selection of words, to get something that might be useful.

[@DingusKhan42]

I got my copy in the mail a few weeks ago, and I love almost everything about it. I can tell a lot of conscious thought went into it. My first game with it went really well!

[@gpn962]

What did you run?

[@DingusKhan42]

@@gpn962 I ran the waking of willoby hall.

[@cipherpunk7409]

When I got the PDF, I wanted to try my hand at implementing the spell generator as a computer program. It turns out that the tables are so interconnected, I ultimately had to implement the entire book! Now I've got a framework that's really easy to extend and add new tables/generators to. Ben, thank you so much for your hard work on this book. It's one of my favorite GM resources now!

[@americanbagel]

I put all the tables into a note app called Obsidian, and I use the dice roller plugin to roll on all the tables, even inter-connected ones

[@KarolMarcjan]

A foam kopesh could cause any liquid it touches to foam and expand wildly. Imagine throwing that into a vat of acid.

[@b-tek5939]

If you had interpreted the dice the other way around, the Foam Khopesh would have been a Sand Khopesh. It's a bit Mystical Egypt tropey, but what a fun combination.

[@kickbackkid8866]

PLEASE make one of these guides for creating monsters too! This is such a great guide and helps me feel more confident in creating spells!

[@giuseppedagostino6854]

I can imagine a stoner wizard ripping a spell like unnatural darkening stench

[@TheBreadPirate]

This video is super helpful! I never thought of using the items lists along with spells. GENIUS!

[@romanthekat]

Arguably, that's the part I got the most excited about Knave 2e. Can't wait to get my hands on physical edition :) One of the first generated spells, 'The Intoxicating brine', was an insidious thing

[@ezraclark7904]

I love this book! It's so easy to prep a fantastic adventure. The king's new advisor is a sham, and hires the players to sneak into the castle crypt to steal the nails from the coffin of his predecessor, to make a potion bestowing their skills and wisdom on the incompetent replacement. The previous advisor was not as they seemed either! But was in fact a necromancer who has faked their death and infested the lower levels of the crypt with their minions. Can the players make it out alive? Will they keep the advisor's secret, or expose the treachery of not one but both of the King's advisors?

[@dahuntre]

This looks super fun. I love that you can use them for non-spells as well

[@Wraithing]

05:25 Ooh, I liked the internal organ relic roll for a light and hearth god: maybe a draconis fundamentum held within a mechanism to 'strangle' it, pumping out fire? I really like the chaotic spell book idea. Great fun.

[@Skanah_]

What is the hearth of the body but the heart? Maybe it's sheathes your body in protective light, emanating from your heart

[@Wraithing]

​@@Skanah_ …like care bears! 🐻 🌞 Vampire Hunter Bear? 😄

[@Skanah_]

@Wraithing omg, vampires cant cross thresholds and are hurt by sunlight. The god of light and heart would absolutely be an enemy of vampires, maybe has an order of vampire hunting paladins?

[@Skanah_]

Maybe the amulet and strangulation aspects is a protective neck band that protects from vampire bites for a short time, slowing the blood flow so they cant drain you. But only for a few rounds before you have to make con saves or pass out. Dangerous trade off for a dangerous foe

[@Wraithing]

​@@Skanah_ lol - now you've got the beginnings of a whole campaign from a couple of random prompts, a bizarre KZbin conversation and some imaginative concept engineering! Ain't roleplaying the best hobby?! 😁

[@ckmishn3664]

Easy way to give your players infinite spells: Magic Missile Level (x) { Flip Coin: Tails: "You cast Magic Missile Level" x "for" x "points of damage" Heads: return Magic Missile Level (x+1) } Magic Missile Level (1) As long as the player gets heads they get up to an unlimited number of levels of Magic Missile.

[@HangryDwarfPress]

I'm loving this book as I use it to populate my adventures with original traps and magic items. Sometimes the rolls are inspired, and sometimes they are inspiring. Such a great book.

[@ivanrichmond3524]

Don't nerf your khopeshes, Ben :D

[@venger833]

I really love your book with your large word lists, I'm in the process of doing a French translation to be able to play your game fluidly for solo RPG

[@joshjohnson456]

I've watched a few of these videos now, so I think it's about time to make the purchase.

[@MichaelJHinds]

1:57 DC 11+INT Is the wizard name just flavor? Then again, it might give the PCs a name of someone to track down (potential NPC) if they need help in the magical arts. 3:49 alternate idea: next melee hit on the spell target, the attacking creature must save or petrify.

[@Patrioticification]

Knave is simply amazing. I'm turning all of those into complete toolkit on Perchance and I always keep the book on the table. Great mechanics and tables.

[@chadcox7233]

Good stuff Ben, love this matrix. Not clunky like the 3e magic items build. It’s good and streamlined. Thanks for the vid

[@gpn962]

Great demonstration. Thanks

[@HowtoRPG]

Clever. Thanks.

[@vektracaslermd743]

This is so brilliant. I love this book. Also, it puts the mystery and horror back into magic. It should be a thing to be feared. "Oh no! The BBEG is casting a spell! What's it going to do!?"

[@dantherpghero2885]

I Love ALL Questing Beast videos!

[@MemphiStig]

Ye gods! Just putting together all these tables is a praise-worthy accomplishment. A foam khopesh could suggest that the original was stolen and replaced by a fake, especially if you wouldn't notice til you lifted it, which people might not do with a sacred relic of the great old gods. And even if the priests know it's a fake, do you think they're actually going to tell anyone it was stolen? At most they'd spin it like, "No, this is a decoy. The real one is safely hidden. We wouldn't want it to get stolen."

[@Mr.RobotHead]

I love those crazy tables and the idea that I can generate a spellbook and blend the PCs magical research into helping figure out exactly what those spells actually _do_

[@israelmorales4249]

It's really a lot of posiblities!, thx for the video!

[@toddpickens]

I love the idea of the chaos spell book

[@krgrvnr1]

Well done 👍

[@artistpoet5253]

I like mayhem in my games and encourage my players to go crazy. Knave is just the right kind of chaos for this!

[@beerbag9353]

Just commenting to say PLEASE check this out!! Got my physical copy last week and my fiancé can attest, I’ve been reading it pretty much every night looking exclusively at the spells and monsters sections. Most inspiring material I’ve purchased for my hobby since MCDM’s Flee, Mortals!

[@krinkrin5982]

From my experience playing Warhammer, in a system with infinite spellcasting, the players actually use less magic when they have a chance of catastrophic failure, even if it is small. ...oh you mean generating new spells.

[@TheKilogram1000]

Funny seeing Jorphdan (the ph is silent) on the wizard name list.

[@BigDrahma]

Skinner's Miraculous Box

[@witchesbruise8792]

Ben, I'd love to hear your thoughts on using random tables and inspiration during prep vs. for seeing what happens in the game (or if you believe in any distinction there). I like to use wide open and flavorful tables for prep (like those in Knave and Maze Rats) but if we use them during the game, my players feel like I'm just deciding by DM fiat if that they get something great or weak etc. I can see their point and I feel it differently but similarly on my end. During Prep I might put a Save or Die effect with sufficient warning and telegraphing in a dungeon. When I'm prepping, I'm devious and harsh. But then when I run the game I like to be "on the side of the players" and be really forgiving with my rulings etc. I'm a big softie then. I won't undo anything "previous me" wrote down, but I'll be lenient with anything creative that the players surprise me with. This dichotomy works for me because it keeps the world dangerous and keeps the game tense, but it also encourages creativity and keeps me loose enough that I'm just rolling with what the players do during the session. I'd love to hear if you have thoughts on prep vs. during the game and if you take on different roles or mindsets for them.

[@jollaffle]

Mixing up "Transporting" and "Vaporizing" has incredible in-universe implications for a spell. Like, Rudishan meant to make a teleportation spell, but it just ended up vaporizing test subjects instead! Whoops!

[@elroma7712]

You made magical tear gas lol

[@VosperCDN]

Hmm, #38 under Wizard Name - Jorphdan. is the PH silent also? 🙂

[@kalleendo7577]

Awesome!!!

[@lexington476]

2:24 Michael Jackson Style 😎.

[@irongolem123]

Ha, I didn't notice you put in "Jorphdan" (the ph is silent) in your list of wizard names. I see what you did there.

[@foxtorche]

I was wondering, how do people define the size, durations etc. of these spells? Do they write these down too, or just play it out what works best for the narrative?

[@yvindheilo229]

Get this book!