Structuring Tables

Here are the tables that are used to get to the actual quest tables, in the game. These tables are the skeleton on which the Abalastow Compendium is made. Within this, you can learn each table's name, and how likely it is to get to any given table.

Structure Table Layouts
1	Abalastow Compendium
1	New Beginnings	The Party Leader finds that they may not be the correct one for the day. Re-choose a Party Leader
2 to 11	Cardinal Quadrant	The Party sallies forth to the Cardinal Quadrant of Activity.
12	The Master	The Party is guided by The Master to his table, in its Prime form.
13	The Harbinger	The Party finds the Harbinger of poor experiences. The game is OVER. Stop rolling and do something else.
14 to 21	Actual Quadrant	The Party heads into the Actual Quadrant
22 to 26	Potential Quadrant	The Party is drawn to the Potential Quadrant
27	Ordered Reality	Drawn into a universe of true Order, The Party may choose which table to progress to, of Cardinal, Actual and Potential
28 to 29	Potential Quadrant	The Party is drawn to the Potential Quadrant
30	The Ending	The Party is able to truly see what should come to pass. The Party progresses to the Mastery Quadrant.
2	Cardinal Quadrant Prime
1	Begin Again	Discard all previous rolls and begin the quest anew, with the same Party Leader
2 to 3	Frivolous Amusements
4 to 5	Earthly Follies
6 to 7	Fiery Passions
8 to 9	Shallow Oceans
10 to 11	Flights of Fantasy
12	Cardinal Mastery	Proceed to the Mastery Quadrant Prime
13	Harbinger of Cardinality	Return to the Abalastow Compendium. Remember, if you rolled Cardinal Rules, you keep the new Rule, or anything from a similar table.
14 to 15	Enjoyable Expeditions
16 to 17	Seeking Victory
18 to 19	Poolside Pleasures
20 to 21	Critical Stuidies
22	Rock-hard Abs
23	Cardinal Rules	Roll on the Cardinal Rules table for your rules modification, then roll on this table again
24	Rock-Hard Abs
25 to 26	Promethean Acts
27	Cardinal Order	Choose a Table (NOT a special roll) from the tables available
28 to 29	Pen and Ink
30	Cardinal Ending	Proceed to the Mastery Quadrant (from a non-Prime Cardinal table, proceed to Cardinal Quadrant Prime)
3	Actual Quadrant Prime
1	Begin Anew	Discard all rolls and modifications and re-roll from the Abalastow Compendium
2 to 3	Random Travels
4 to 5	Bright Liasons
6 to 7	Vital Supplies
8 to 9	Fresh Ideas
10 to 11	Jumbled Joysticks
12	Actual Mastery	Proceed to the Mastery Quadrant Prine
13	Actualized Harbinger	Return to the Abalastow Compendium table, NOT discarding any Rules, Restrictions, or Alterations
14 to 15	Plain Sight
16 to 17	Sustaining Victuals
18 to 19	Worthy Expenditures
20 to 21	Shining Candlelight
22	Warm Explorations
23	Actual Restrictions	Roll on the Actual Restrictions table
24 to 25	Warm Explorations
26	Snowy Sojourns
27	Ordered Actuality	Choose a Table (NOT a special roll) from the tables available
28 to 29	Snowy Sojourns
30	Actual Endings	Proceed to the Mastery Quadrant (from a non-prime Actual table, proceed to the Actual Quadrant Prime)
4	Potential Quadrant Prime
1	Potential Beginnings	Return to the Abalastow Compendium and roll a quest anew, shedding all Rules, Restrictions and Alterations
2 to 3	Uplifting Debate
4 to 5	Ancient Wanderings
6 to 8	Thorough Centering
9 to 11	Altering Society
12	Potential Mastery	Proceed to the Mastery Quadrant Prime
13	Potential's Harbinger	Return to the Abalastow Compendium, keeping any Rules, Restrictions and Alterations
14 to 15	Moonlit Liasons
16 to 18	Structured Thinking
19 to 20	Depraved Depths
21 to 22	Chancy Activity
23	Potential Alterations	Roll on the Potential Alterations table
24	Chancy Activity
25 to 26	Hidden Plans
27	Ordered Potential	Choose a Table (NOT a special roll) from the tables available
28 to 29	Rain-soaked Days
30	Potential Endings	Proceed to the Mastery Quadrant (if not at the Prime table, go to the Prime table instead)
5	Mastery Quadrant Prime
1	Master's Beginning	Return to the Abalastow Compendium, discarding all results of previous rolls
2 to 5	Pleasant Vistas
6 to 9	Wicked Schemes
10 to 11	Convergent Pathways
12	True Mastery	Choose a table of your choice of those available OR go to Chaotic Changes. If on a non-Prime Mastery table, go to Mastery Quadrant Prime
13	The Master's Harbinger	Return to the table you got here from, keeping all Rules, Alterations, and Restrictions.
14 to 15	Convergent Pathways
16 to 19	Divergent Goals
20 to 22	Changing Fate
23	Chaos Mastery	Go to Chaotic Changes
24	Changing Fate
25 to 26	Omega Sector
27	Ordered Mastery	Choose a table from those available.
28 to 29	Omega Sector
30	The Master's End	Roll the die again; take the result, one above the result, or one below the result as your roll.
6	Chaotic Changes
1	Chaotic Beginnings	Return to the Abalastow Compendium, losing all results of previous rolls
2 to 5	Potential Quadrant Prime
6 to 8	Cardinal Quadrant
9 to 11	Mastery Quadrant Prime
12	Chaotic Mastery	Choose a Quadrant to progress to
13	Chaotic Harbinger	Proceed to the Abalastow Compendium Prime, retaining any Alterations, Rules, or Restrictions
14 to 16	Potential Quadrant
17 to 19	Cardinal Quadrant Prime
20 to 22	Actual Quadrant Prime
23	Actual Quadrant
24 to 26	Mastery Quadrant
27	Ordered Chaos	Choose a Prime Quadrant to progress to.
28 to 29	Actual Quadrant
30	Transcendant Reality

A "Prime Quadrant" is a Quadrant containing all of the possible quests for that Quadrant. The normally used Quadrants, in the final game, will reflect the customization allowed by choosing which assumptions the Abalastow Compendium can make about your party explicitly. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. More to come soon, including examples of a few tables, and then an Alpha Version of the game that will only contain Prime tables (and therefore will not be customizable, like the final version).

Abalastow Compendium: A Guide to Exploring Reality

Welcome! This page is about my upcoming game, Abalastow Compendium. Within a day or three I'll be posting an "alpha version" of it, for general consumption, released under a Creative Commons license. So, what is Abalastow Compendium?

Abalastow Compendium is possibly many things to many people, but first and foremost, it is a game. The "board" is anywhere that's accessible to you, and the characters are the real people you have playing with you. The objective is to broaden your experiences, and just plain have a lot of fun. It works like this:

First, through some random method, you select a Party Leader. They're the person in charge of the quest, and have a final say in any major decisions regarding it. Then, a quest is randomly determined by rolling a 30-sided dice on a very large set of tables, with quests involving pretty much anything. Once a quest is determined, as long as it's not something that one of the party members morally objects to, the Party must sally forth and attempt to complete the Quest, in whatever way amuses them most.

Most quests can be completed within an hour, but some may take longer, and there is a rarely-accessed Table that contains quests that could well take the rest of your lives to complete. For these complex quests, approximately one month of free time should be the minimum amount of time spent, but for most quests, one hour is the amount of time that should be spent as a minimum, unless the quest is truly completed faster than that.

The tables in Abalastow Compendium are meant to be customizable by the Party. The game makes certain Assumptions in each Table, and it is intended to allow the Party to choose which assumptions are correct and are not correct. Once these decisions are made, a simple rubric can be used to generate new tables "by hand", or a computerized method of table generation can be used. I plan to release an implementation of such a computerized method publicly as well.

So, why play Abalastow Compendium? There are lots of reasons. Some, for example, might view it as a divination method for what a party should be doing at that exact moment. Some might just wish to expand on their experiences. Others might simply want to do SOMETHING but need a prod to tell them what. It is my opinion that playing this game will improve the life of anyone who plays it, in the long term, by helping them learn more about themselves, reality, and the world around them, but don't take my word for it. Try it yourself. After all, it's free to use, and most likely, the worst thing that happens is you waste an hour.