Wisdom in the Dungeon

 Here's a few thoughts on a system for quickly rolling up a royal household that's full of messy, juicy drama - in the vein of Game of Thrones, of the Greek Gods, or indeed, of real history. Simply make a numbered list of all of the important characters in the royal household. I'm going to run a quick example using a few Greek gods, as familiar figures. Zeus Hades Poseidon Athena Ares Apollo Aphrodite Hera Then, take the first character, and roll 3d8. The first number rolled is his confidant, the second his flame, and the third his rival. I got 4, 4, and 2. So Zeus is very close with his daughter Athena, in some unnerving ways - but incest is hardly out of place in a system inspired by Game of Thrones and the Greek pantheon! If you don't want incest, though, you can reroll, or simply have Zeus not have a flame. We also see that Zeus has a rival in Hades. Now, I'm going to skip ahead to Athena and roll her 3d8. I get 7, 2, and 2. So she's friends with Aphrodite,

I've been thinking about advancement systems in TTRPGs.  By far the most common system I've come across is experience points, with experience points won by defeating enemies - or, sometimes, by overcoming threats in a more general sense. This has never quite worked for me personally. Sitting down to calculate the precise number of experience points I ought to award, and keeping track of how many a player has, and how many they still need - it just strikes me as unneccesary bookkeping that I'd rather avoid. The same applies to the system popular in the OSR, where experience points are awarded for gold brought back from the dungeon. It's still maths, and it's still bookkeeping - and it happens to be a dissociated mechanic as well. A fighter gets better at fighting, or a wizard at casting spells, simply by entering a dungeon, pilfering some unprotected loot, and returning.  Milestone-based advancement has been my go-to recently, where I award players level-ups at set m