Trying to make a more useful Oracle...

[Chimera245]

And since I'm sure there's some obscure supplement book out there that introduces the "oracle" player class, I should point out that I'm talking "oracle" as the general term for "automating the DM position for solo play".

I've seen a ton of oracles, and have noticed that most of them rely on a yes/no question format to work.

You can't ask your faux-DM "What do I find in the guard's pockets?", you have to ask something like "Do I find the keys in the guard's pockets?" instead.

And if you DO get a more free-form oracle, the answers are often vague "word combination" type systems that take heavy interpretation to get an answer from.

Player: "What do I find in the guard's pockets?"
*rolls a pair of d%, then consults tables*
Oracle: "Disentangle Loneliness"
Player: "Uuh...."

So I'm trying to throw together an oracle that's more focused on practical answers than vague word-salad, and more open than strict yes/no binary.

Here's what I've got so far. Tell me what you think:

You roll 2d6, and look up an answer based on the six "question words": Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. As it uses 2d6, there's a bell curve with middle answers more common, and outer answers less common. If you get doubles on the dice, you also roll on the "plot twist" table.

Who
2 No one
3 A big group
4 A small group
5 An enemy
6 A stranger
7 Someone that makes sense
8 Someone you recognize
9 A friend
10 Someone you're looking for
11 Someone you don't expect
12 Someone who shouldn't be here

What
2 Nothing
3 Something you don't understand
4 Something you don't want
5 Something bad
6 Something unexpected
7 Something that makes sense
8 Something predictable
9 Something good
10 Something you want
11 Something you know well
12 Something that shouldn't be possible

Where
2 Nowhere
3 Lost
4 A place you can't get to
5 Somewhere you've never been
6 Somewhere far off
7 A place that makes sense
8 Somewhere close by
9 A place you go often
10 A safe place
11 A place you shouldn't go
12 A place you didn't think existed

When
2 Never
3 Repeatedly
4 Late
5 When you least expect it
6 Recently
7 Whenever makes sense
8 Soon
9 Right on time
10 Early
11 Right now!
12 Always

Why
2 No particular reason
3 On impulse
4 Because of bad info or flawed logic
5 In reaction to something else
6 An unexpected reason
7 An obvious reason
8 A good idea at the time
9 To gain something
10 For justice or revenge
11 A convoluted chain of events
12 It's a mystery

How
2 Dumb luck
3 Exploiting a weakness
4 Planning and scheming
5 A clever idea
6 By spending resources
7 A way that makes sense
8 With some outside help
9 Hard work
10 Sheer willpower
11 Exploiting an advantage
12 Without even trying

Plot twist
2 Everything goes to crap
3 A bigger fish appears
4 Someone betrays someone
5 Something goes wrong
6 Something is a red herring
7 Checkhov's gun goes off
8 Something is more than it seems
9 Someone unexpected shows up
10 Something goes right
11 Discover something important
12 Deus Ex Machina

And then, sometimes you actually DO ask a yes/no question, so here's this.

Yes/No
2 Yes and no
3 Absolutely not
4-6 No
7 Sorta-kinda
8-10 Yes
11 Very much so
12 It's complicated…

What do you think so far? What gaping holes have I inadvertently left in the system? What can I improve?

[sandmote]

The concept seems interesting, but I would really go through and systematically set up a specialized table for common subjects. For instance, individual tables for things like a person's pockets ("the keys for getting around their workplace") to searched loot (think skyrim chests) to thematically grouped enemies (giantkind, a particular alien race, or an organization, as fitting the setting). If you're getting "disentangle loneliness" on a search check I'd consider the system to be completely borked in the first place (if you're reading the tables remotely right, anyway).

For searching a person's pockets, for instance, you'd have a modifier for "relevance to plot" and then a run through from "nothing," to "what you were looking for," and "roll on the mundane loot table N times." This reduces your decision making figuring out how reasonable the person is to have what you're looking for.