The Keep on the Gaming Lands

Aedric, Sire of Beast and Storm

2011-04-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

As the gods crafted mortals in their own image, so too did Aedric craft the beasts in his. The strongest of the gods had little use for words, so his children could not speak. He fought with his fists and teeth, and so too did his children rely on tooth, claw, and talon.

In time, Aedric's children came to hunt the humanoids crafted by the other gods. The crude spears they clutched did little to ward away the griffons, chimera, and other beasts Aedric had crafted. The other gods grew angry. Looking upon Aedric's creations, they crafted a mighty spell to undo their power.

Each of Aedric's creations were split asunder, their power scattered across their new forms. The soaring griffon yielded the eagle and the lion. The vicious ferreg gave rise to owls and bears. Hydras split into swarms of snakes, while perytons spawned deer and vultures. All of the most common creatures of the world so arose.

Few of Aedric's children escaped this scourge. Only the most common of them survived, and stories persist of truly terrible beasts that still lurk in forgotten corners of the world. Each and every last animal can trace its roots to Aedric's brood, and few can imagine what creatures they once formed.

For his part, Aedric swore revenge against the gods and their children. He threw himself into the sky and transformed into a swirling vortex of air to rend and tear the first cities to rubble. Before the gods could stop him, he become one with the cloudy, peaceful sky. Thus, the first storm ravaged the land. Since that day, Aedric appears again and again to punish the land, rising from the serene clouds to deal his punishment before fading again before his brethren can catch and punish him. Over the long years his wrath has faded, but at times it boils up again into a blizzard or hurricane.

Needless to say, the worship of Aedric is at best met with suspicion and fear if not outright persecution. As the lord of storms and beasts, he offers his worshippers protection from his wrath and the brute, physical power his creations embody. His clerics forswear metal armor and prefer simple cudgels, clubs, and maces to more sophisticated weapons. More tellingly, they refuse to bathe, cut their hair, or engage in similar trappings of civilized behavior. To the clerics of Aedric, embracing the way of the beast is key to achieving their god's inner mysteries.

In battle, the lesser priests can take on the forms of common beasts. The more powerful of his followers can adopt the forms of his true children, such as hydras and griffons. The highest ranking clerics conjure air elementals and take the form of terrible, living storms.

Aedric's clerics war against the other gods' mortal followers, though they can set aside their grudge if a greater threat presents itself. In particular, they view gnolls, manticores, and other abominations spawned by The Defiler as a heretical mockery of Aedric's creations.

Aedric's worship flourishes in the distant barbaric lands, far from the Realm of Ten Cities. Rumors persist of hidden cults that lurk in the cities, plotting to unleash a great invasion of beasts to overrun the civilized realm.

Games are Idioms

2010-10-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on EN World, but re-posted here since people on that site seemed to like it.)

I think you can learn a lot about a game by listening to how people describe it after they play it. It shows you how they interact with, see, and process the game.

For instance, last weekend I played Carcassonne. I had some lucky draws I was able to exploit by managing my meeples well. I was able to keep churning through cities and roads, completing stuff at a steady enough pace that I was able to drop some farmers early without hurting myself in the late game. My opponent built a couple of huge cities to narrow my lead, but my edge in farmers sealed the game.

Compare that to a description of our lunchtime Keep on the Borderlands game from Tuesday. The characters had been ambushed by wererats at the Stumbling Giant (the tavern in the keep) the session before. With the help of the guards, they figured out that the wererats posed as halfling merchants and had visited the keep several times before. Oddly enough, though the guards at the gate reported that the halflings always left with a heavily laden wagon, the gnomes they traded with never sold them all that much copper and silver ore. The gnomes were surprised at the guards' description of the loaded wagon.

The PCs had arranged a meeting with the keep's ruler. Unknown to them, the ruler's trusted advisor disguised himself and sought out the PCs to question them. Faced with an inquisitive stranger, the party's wizard slashed the man's arm with a knife to see if the non-silver blade would deal any lasted damage.

It did, and the session ended with the characters entered the ruler's audience chamber to find the "wandering tracker" they had harassed standing at his side.

If you look at my second description, I think it's something you find for most RPGs and other immersive games. I'd describe playing Mass Effect in a similar manner. There's something very important there, a mode of thinking and experiencing the game that the mechanics should support. It's definitely something that influences the Essentials process and a lot of my design.

It's something that I think of as the game's metaphor, or its idiom. To an outsider, D&D is a few people sitting around a table, rolling dice, consulting books, speaking in funny voices, and maybe pushing miniatures around a grid. To the people in the game, it's a tense expedition into an ancient ruin, made all the more deadly by the bloodthirsty, recently awakened vampire that stalks the tombs they explore. That's an important part of the game. Without it, the game is little more than what it appears to be on the surface.

What You Know, Who You Know

2010-05-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

There was a thread on EN World a few months back about the role of sages in D&D. In AD&D, there was a fair amount of material in the DMG about the services offered by experts in various fields. If the characters needed to learn the history of the Forgotten City of Thar, they could plunk down some cash and hire the services of an expert.

Over the years, that sort of expertise has shifted from NPCs to characters. Non-weapon proficiencies, and later the skill system integrated into D&D, gave the characters the opportunity to become experts themselves. The sage as an important element of the game faded away.

On one hand, that makes things easier at the table. The DM can salt a dungeon or other location with strange runes, crumbling statues, and other bits that allow for skill checks as a way to add depth, background, and hints to the game.

On the other hand, sages provided a few nice benefits. They are a great way to give the party an interesting, non-combat challenge, a fun NPC to interact with, and a world that feels like a living, active place outside of the immediate bounds of an adventure. They set up a plausible situation where the PCs have to make an NPC happy in order to achieve their goals.

There's a rather easy way to combine the two approaches, giving the characters the benefits of skills like Arcana or History while making sages (and similar NPCs) useful, interesting resources. Simply put, most experts combine off the cuff knowledge with a thorough understanding of how to find an answer. That can easily extend to the PCs.

When the characters discover strange runes carved on to a seemingly impenetrable steel door, a skill check points the way to the expert that can tell them about the runes. The character's knowledge isn't absolute, but it does carry with it an understanding of the experts, important books, and other lore surrounding the topic.

Even better, you can frame that knowledge with an interesting choice. Perhaps the characters can recall two experts who might know about the runes. Yulgash the Exile's knowledge is unmatched, but he dwells in the Forest of Brambles ever since the townsfolk caught his servants pillaging the graveyard. Tharan the Radiant is a close second, but as a high priest of Pholtus any inquiries to him might generate unwanted entanglements. Giving the characters real options is an important part of D&D, and this is one more way to introduce that.

I Am Not a Storyteller

2010-04-22T23:52:00.001-07:00

My monthly AD&D campaign has confirmed something I suspected after observing my two 4e campaigns.

I am not a storyteller. I do not like establishing plots or events before we sit down to start playing. I like drawing maps and making notes about what lives where and why. I like sketching out NPCs. I like putting together fictional environments with all sorts of events on the verge of kicking off. But I don't actually like writing about those events, and I'll gleefully hack things to pieces and rearrange them to suit whatever idea pops into my head.

I am the god of this tiny, virtual universe, and if I decide at moment the characters enter the dungeon that there are three-headed kobolds there instead of the cyborgs I wrote about in my notes, there's no power in all the cosmos that can contradict me.

I DM because I want to see what will happen next, maybe as much as the players. Hell, probably even more than them. That interplay around the table, the unraveling of plans, the sudden bursts of inspiration, all of those things are what keep me coming back to the table.

That probably also explains why my #1 pet peeve is a player who quotes rules to me. Think the rulebook has all the answers? Then let's see that rulebook run a campaign!

The AD&D game really brought this all home to me. It's been a lot of fun, in part because I didn't take it all too seriously. It also helps that I have some great players. Erik Mona is a roleplaying MVP in my book. He's exactly the kind of player I like having at my table. His character is always doing something interesting, even if Stephen's character keeps murdering the NPCs he tries to interact with.

On another note, playing AD&D has been an interesting experience. I've found that I run it much like I did back in the day. The players use the character options from the Player's Handbook, I use the monsters and magic items from the DMG, but the rules I use behind the screen are basically OD&D/BD&D and lots of fiat.

How Hammerfast Got a Hex Map

2010-03-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

A few reviewers and forumites have noticed that Hammerfast, a book I wrote that just released this month, has a hex map in it. The hex map details the area around Hammerfast.

I believe that this is the first hex map in an official, non-magazine D&D release in a really long time. I'm not sure if a hex map ever appeared in a 3e book. I'm sure the magazines printed one at some point, but I can't recall a specific issue or adventure.

Some folks might think that the hex map is there as a call out to old school gaming. The truth is actually far more sinister, far more intriguing, and far more shocking.

Actually, it isn't. The story behind the hex map is reasonably boring. This is it:

In writing the book, I realized I had to create a map of the area around Hammerfast. I suck at drawing. I'm really, really bad at it. I also hate freeform outdoor maps with scales measured in inches or whatever random increment the designer picks. They're useless to me. If I need to know the distance between East Farmbutt and Castle Hamfist, I don't want to break out a ruler. I want to count hexes.

When I drew the map I created it on a sheet of hex paper. When I submitted the art order, the art director asked me if I was serious. I said yes. I ranted a little about needing use a ruler to measure the distance between East Farmbutt and Castle Hamfist. I don't think anyone really cared. They just wanted to make sure that was my intention.

So, that's why there's a hex map in Hammerfast. And when the characters decide to tramp around the wilds surrounding the city, you don't need to use a ruler to figure out how long it will take them to go from one end of the map to another.

A Tale of Two House Rules

2010-02-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

Last week I posted two of the house rules I was going to use for my AD&D/OSRIC game. We played yesterday, and I'll have a full recap later. For now I want to talk about the house rules and how they went. In short, one of them worked so well that I can't imagine not using it. The other I never even used, because once we started playing I didn't care enough to bother with it.

Delta's Target 20 system was nearly flawless for use in combat. I'll use it whenever I play AD&D or OD&D. It kept things moving quickly, especially once I had the player's ACs memorized.

The really nice thing is that it kept questions and downtime to a minimum. When a character attacked, I reminded the player of the target's AC and that was it. After that it was die roll, and either an immediate damage roll or an announced miss.

There were plenty of times when I didn't even bother with the math. If the die came up a 17 or higher, I knew it was a hit. I didn't ask if the players had the same experience, but I suspect they did. We were moving through combat rounds at a breakneck pace.

In contrast, I didn't bother with the initiative rules. At least, not yet. I think there was a grand total of one spell cast in combat (bless, by Rob's half-orc fighter/cleric), and the initiative system really focuses on spells and keeping casters on their toes. With that insight in mind, I might tinker with it a little more and focus exclusively on casting.

Oddly enough, after years of running iterative initiative having everyone roll each round was fun and interesting. There were plenty of times, at least from behind the DM's screen, that initiative order was a big part of the tension. With things moving so quickly, I just had each player roll a d6 and act on that segment, starting with 1 and running simultaneous actions in the event of ties.

My experience with these house rules brought to mind an old essay by Vincent Baker. I'd link to it, but I can't for the life of me think of any terms that might bring it up on Google. In essence, Vincent argues that each rule a designer adds to a game should make the game more enjoyable. The best design is one that, if the players use all the rules, they have the most fun.

Obviously, that's a platonic ideal, but in play the two house rules showed that principle in action. Delta's rules made things move faster and let us get in more orc-bashing. My initiative rules would've brought the game to a halt and forced players to do math that had a dubious potential for making things more interesting. Thus, one rule lived, and one rule died.

OSRIC House Rules

2010-02-23T17:17:00.001-08:00

I'm running OSRIC this weekend, and like any DM worth his salt I'm adding house rules to the game. Here's what I'm using:

1. Delta's Target 20 System: To me, this is a no-brainer. It sounds incredibly easy to use and keeps the descending AC system in place. I'm not going to go with the rules for thief skills and saving throws, but for attack rolls it looks great.

I linked to Delta's blog, and you can find the rules download there on the right hand margin of the page.

2. Initiative: OSRIC gets a lot right, but I'm not crazy about the basic initiative mechanic. In OSRIC, each side rolls to determine the segment on which the *other* acts. That's counter-intuitive to me. I appreciate how the mechanic functions, but I can't embrace it.

I also have to admit that I always loved speed factor for, frankly, inexplicable reasons. So, that's what I'm using! Here are the rules I'm going to use. If they crash and burn in play, I'll just go back to the OSRIC version.

* Each PC or group of monsters rolls a d6 for initiative.
* The result is the segment on which you decide what you want to do.
* When you make your choice, you add your action's speed to your initiative. The result is the segment on which you act.
* If more than one person tries to act on the same segment, the action is simultaneous.
* If your initiative goes into double digits, subtract 10, and that's when you act on the next round.

Modifiers
Dagger, other small weapons: +0
One handed melee weapons: +1
Two handed melee weapons: +2
Loaded crossbow: +0
Unloaded crossbow: +3 (includes time needed to load; you can load and not shoot for +3)
Thrown weapon or bow: +1

Movement: This is a little tricky. You can move 1/10th your speed per segment and take another action, adding the modifier at the end of your movement to determine when the action takes place.

Special Polearm Rule: If you have a polearm and an enemy charges you, you can immediately attack it on that segment but that costs you your turn that round.

Delay: You can delay your action by as much as you want.

Spell Casting: Modifier equals the spell's casting time in segments. You're considered casting the spell from the time of your base initiative until the segment on which you cast the spell. If you're hit between those two segments but not during them, the spell is lost.

Everything Else: DM's judgment. I'm toying with some weird items and gear the PCs could find for sale in Cort, the town I made up for the game, like a mini-ballista called an ogre stopper that is +0 to fire when loaded, but +20 to load and fire.

Keeping Tiles in Place

2010-02-11T20:09:00.001-08:00

I wouldn't be surprised if this is old news to anyone, but I recently started using toolbox liners as a base for dungeon tiles and Paizo's map packs. They're very handy for keeping individual tiles in place, especially if you play on a kitchen table or other glossy, finished surface.

I haven't had as much slipping with dungeon tiles, since they're a fairly thick stock, but the liners really come into their own with the map pack tiles. Those tiles are fairly thin and slide like butter on a tabletop. With the toolbox liner, they stay nice and snug. I originally tried mounting the on foam board, but the liner makes that pointless work.

Anyway, hopefully someone will find that useful.

Tonight's Session in Pictures

2010-02-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

I snapped a few photos of tonight's session. Here are two of them:

From Gaming Photos

The warden does her job, keeping the githyanki busy while the rest of the party seizes control of the ship's helm. The warden would be stunned by a githyanki knight, be she'd get her revenge by leaping on to the forecastle and critting him twice in a row.

From Gaming Photos

Later on, the party tangled with an enormous dragon. While the warden didn't enjoy being in the dragon's jaws, she did provide flanking for the eladrin avenger on the far side of the wyrm (and vice versa).

Build Your Adventures in OD&D

2010-02-03T17:33:00.000-08:00

As those of you who follow me on Twitter might know, I wrote up a dungeon for OD&D to run at this year's D&D Experience. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to run it at the con. However, I learned a useful lesson going forward: From now on, when I design an adventure I'll first approach it as if I'm running it using OD&D.

This approach might seem a little weird, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. OD&D keeps characters simple. They don't have loads of spells, abilities, or magic items. The monsters are built in a similar way. An orc swings its sword or fires its bow at you, and that's about it. Critters like beholders and dragons are a little more complex, but they're the exception, not the norm. There are no skills to roll, just descriptions of what a character tries to do.

When you pull those things back, you're left with only one option for making a dungeon or adventure interesting: Compelling locations, mysteries, puzzles, weird phenomena, *stuff* that the PCs can poke, prod, and inspect. These are all the things that make D&D compelling. They show off the spontaneity, immersion, and creativity that arise in the exchange among players and DM.

In Search of the Unknown is a great example of this effect in action. The dungeon in that adventure is empty of monsters and treasure. The DM is supposed to add that stuff. Instead, it features an overgrown garden of massive mushrooms, a chamber of mysterious pools, hidden chambers, details and color that suggest the dungeon's history, and other elements that make it an interesting place to explore. Reading the adventure, even without monsters and treasures, is fun. You want to know what's in the next room.

That's what this approach embraces, creating a dungeon environment that's interesting without any monsters around. It builds an environment that encourages the players to think of the scene from their character's point of view and act appropriately. It adds enough detail to get things started, and relies on the players choices, rather than the mechanics of skill checks or powers, to drive the action.

Once you have those details nailed down, you can then go back and add in monsters, treasure, skill DCs, and what not as appropriate. If you are running 4e, this approach has probably already yielded some interesting dungeon features that the monsters (and the PCs) can use when a fight breaks out, but you should also have plenty of areas for exploration and experimentation, nice changes of pace from the funhouse effect of one fight after another.

Swinginess and Balance

2010-01-18T11:20:00.000-08:00

There's a thread over at EN World where a poster asks what "swingy" means in terms of D&D. Here's the definition for it that I use:

A swingy system is one where a single bad or good die roll dictates the outcome of an encounter for a player or the entire group. If you roll a 1 on your save against a ghoul's paralysis, you're out of the fight unless the cleric has the right spell to get you back on your feet. As with almost everything in RPG design, a swingy mechanic has its strengths and weaknesses.

The biggest problem with a swingy game is that it produces outcomes that crowd out the rest of the system. 3e had a huge emphasis on pre-fight buffs and spells taken specifically to counter rare but catastrophic outcomes. It really favored players, because it was far more likely that they could plan and optimize to take advantage of the system's swing rather than fall victim to it. The reverse was true for DMs, who have multiple critters to manage and villains to create from scratch.

However, swing has a huge benefit. It makes every die roll tense and dramatic. It drives players to the edge of their seats and keeps them there. If you look at 4e, with its efforts to reduce swing, you see a common criticism of overly long fights and battles that are decided long before they finish. Some of that might come from encounter design, but at its root the critics are pointing out the lack of swing in the game.

Personally, I like tense die rolls, but I don't want all my rolls to have that tension. For instance, gnolls in 4e get a big damage bonus if they gang up on a PC. In one fight in my Temple of Elemental Evil game, the gnolls spread out to engage the characters. Once the fighter was bloodied, though, the gnolls used their next turn to move over to him (taking opportunity attacks along the way) and wallop him from barely bloodied to below 0 hit points. That had exactly the tension I like. When the first gnoll hit for a lot more damage than normal, the players all leaned in to watch the next two attack rolls. In 4e, that swing is moved from a single die roll (Save or die!) to a series of die rolls (If two of these three gnolls hit the fighter, or if you blow your next two saving throws, it's lights out).

Oddly enough, while balance and swing may seem like polar opposites they go hand in hand. A perfectly balanced system would be dull and a wildly unbalanced one leaves players and DMs essentially inventing their own game. By the same token, a wildly swingy game might as well use a coin flip to resolve entire battles, while one without any swing is as fun as watching paint dry. Both are boring.

Balance establishes a level playing field between characters and gives a DM a clear sense of a critter's strength compared to the PC. Swing steps in and throws all that stuff out of whack on a session by session basis. It determines that in this fight, the rogue is the hero who leaps over the crowd of orcs and skewers the evil priest with his rapier, while the fighter stumbles around with a dark mantle stuck to his head. It lets the 6 Intelligence cleric spout out the answer to the Lorekeeper's question on arcane theory while the wizard sputters and flails. It makes for memorable moments, because it produce rare, interesting, and big moments.

Balance sets the stage for swing. In a well-designed game, the players cannot control or eliminate swing. It's the wild card that reminds them that the best laid plans sometimes fall apart, while even the most hopeless struggle can turn on a die roll or two. It's the unpredictable element that makes games exciting.

How to Lose Players

2010-01-16T19:26:00.001-08:00

Riffing off James Raggi's idea.

Here's one for 3e/Pathfinder DM's:

The local temple known for selling wands of cure light wounds has been infiltrated by a cultist of the death god. The wands seem to work as normal, but 24 hours after receiving his first heal from it, a character takes 1 point of Constitution damage per cure he received from it in the prior 24 hours.

The Issue of Game Balance

2010-01-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

Game balance is the hobgoblin of the D&D designer's mind. It's a shiv to the ego's gut, a reminder that even the best design will spring a hole. While balance has always been an issue, it's really important when you look at D&D post-2e's splats and skills and power. That's when players had enough choices, and enough control over those choices, that they could easily build huge gaps in power between them. You could build broken characters in earlier editions, but the DM (by design, IMO) had a lot more power to reign things in. It's a lot easier for a DM to say "Your wand runs out of charges" than "The wand is out of charges, you can't buy it anymore, and that feat you're using is gone."

A lot of gamers really don't care about game balance, and that's OK. A lot of DMs have learned over the years to fiddle with the game to keep things even, and that's a godsend to many designers. Your audience is trained to forgive mistakes!

There are also plenty of players and DMs who have no use for game balance. If things are out of whack, their playstyle is such that it doesn't matter. Who cares if the berserker can kick anything's ass in melee, if the campaign is a mash-up of Romeo and Juliet crossed with The Longest Yard. Fighting isn't the point, so all those unbalanced fighting abilities the berserker uses don't matter.

If you do like combat, though, then game balance is very important. A DM needs the system to provide some framework for building encounters, or at least judging their difficulty. If each class has wildly different combat abilities and the game doesn't account for that, the system falls apart and the DM's judgment and experience have to take over. That probably means lots of trial, lots of error, and hopefully a patient enough group that a DM learns to balance the game using his own set of metrics. Of course, if a few PCs die and classes rotate in and out of the group, the balance act starts all over again.

So, some players and DMs don't care for game balance, but others want and need it. In fact, a lot of people want it. And the really nice thing is that a well-balanced game doesn't take anything away from people who don't care about balance, while making people who do care about it happy. The key is making the people who don't care about balance happy, and that's another bundle of trouble.

A well-balanced game means more than simply making all options equal. A well balanced game offers a lot of distinct choices and vivid options, without *needlessly* restricting them. That's really the trick - where does that needless line rest? 4e catches a lot of heat for this. For some people, wizard spells that obviated skills were bad because they replaced rogues in those critical situations where the rogue had a chance to shine. Others didn't care, or rarely had rogues in the party, or had enough chances for the rogue to shine that the wizard didn't steal them all.

It's a tough line to draw, because D&D is really a large number of games placed under one umbrella. Some people like lots of combat in their D&D, others enjoy free-form roleplay with teh occasional die roll. To attempt to distill D&D down into one experience that makes everyone happy is difficult.

In a way, though, game balance has to draw lines and partition things. Game balance exists at least in part within the context of a specific campaign. When you try to balance the game, you have to create a sort of platonic ideal of a campaign and work from there. Do some people think it's cool that wizard spells make skills worthless? Sure, but that might not be the baseline you design to.

Balancing D&D is hard and boring. Few people will thank you for it when, by some miracle, you get it right. Everyone will tell you how you've messed up, either by nerfing things, making things bland by balancing them, or taking away toys they liked playing with. It's precisely the job that designers are paid to do so that individual DMs aren't stuck with it.

At the end of the day, though, if you balance the game just right everyone's happy. The guys who don't care about balance get lots of options and toys to play with, because you picked the right lines and didn't take away stuff they liked. People who like the challenge of breaking the game work harder to bust the game's math. They have a steeper mountain to climb! The players in the middle get to have fun picking options based on what looks fun, interesting, or that fits a character concept. You're not stuck with a lame character because you think it would be fun to play a samurai. DMs get to run engaging campaigns without taking on too much work that the designer left for him.

So, that's why designer should keep tilting at the game balance windmill. It's hard, rarely rewarding work, but that's what we're paid to do. We take on the tough, boring tasks so DMs can spend their time doing the fun work of running a D&D campaign.

Kill the Planes: The Abyss

2010-01-07T17:05:00.000-08:00

While I realize that the planes have a long tradition in both fantasy and D&D, I don't particularly like them. The idea of going to another world is interesting and all, but why bother setting all that interesting stuff somewhere else? Why not just cram it all into the world?

For instance, the Abyss is a scary place. It's filled with demons and extends far below the normal planar realms to who knows where. The thing is, though, by placing it into this planar structure you rob it of some of its value. Clear out part of your setting, punch a huge hole in your world, and voila, there's the Abyss.

That may seem like a bad idea. After all, what stops the demons from overrunning the world? When you think about it, though, you face all the same questions if you anchor the Abyss in the planes. The frame of reference shifts, sure, but the basic concept is the same.

Instead, the Abyss is a yawning pit one hundred miles wide. It drops deep into the earth, far deeper than anyone has delved. It cuts into the Underdark, and demons emerge both there and at the surface to kill and maraud. A number of ancient fortresses watch over it, but few of those are still manned by the orders of paladins that built them. Today, many are now occupied by renegade wizards, necromancers, and demonologists.

As one travels down the narrow ledges that circle the Abyss's outer rim, one can see great spires of black rock that rise through the Abyss's central void. Here, demon lords battle for territory along narrow, stone bridges and within the chambers and caverns that honeycomb the spires. Here and there, gates along the Abyss's wall lead to massive caverns warped and changed by the Abyss's influence. These layers are shaped by the demon lords that claim them and range from howling, frozen wastes to verdant jungles. Miniature suns hang in their skies, creating proto-worlds within the stone of the earth.

Luckily, the mightiest demons need the aid of mortal spellcasters to leave the Abyss for any period of time. It is a place infused with great magic, and without it they would die like a fish removed from the water. Still, legends tell of a time when a great, red comet will split the sky and herald the rise of demonkind. According to the legends, this comet is the Queen of Chaos, the mother of all demons banished in eons past by the gods to the outer realms of the sky. When she returns, she will lead her children on an endless war of conquest across the world.

The lands near the Abyss's rim are demon-haunted and mostly abandoned. Cultists, wanderers, and madmen make their homes there, as do many gnoll packs that can reach the size of armies. The gnolls will forever remain a thorn in the side of the realm, as even the most ardent paladin would think twice before leading an army into the Abyssal lands to slay them.

The Underdark is so dangerous because, by whatever strange laws govern the Abyss's power, the mightiest demons can enter it through the Abyss's lowest precincts. This makes travel there perilous at best, and it also provides the drow with easy access to demonic aid.

Placing the Abyss in the world opens up a lot of potential for adventure. What if the Abyss's influence starts to grow? What secrets are in the fortresses that once watched over it? Low level characters can venture into the twisted lands around it and maybe even its uppermost layers, while a journey into the Underdark can turn into an excursion to the Abyss with one wrong turn.

More On Resistances

2009-08-28T17:38:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking a bit about resistances lately, and I think I figured out a solution that I like. I'm sure someone else has come up with this before, so apologies if I'm stealing ideas here. Anyway, here's my idea:

Energy Mastery Feats
Energy mastery feats represent a character's specific training with, affinity for, or close bond with a specific type of energy. They offer two benefits. First, they give a damage bonus when you use your chosen damage type.

Second, if a creature resists or is immune to that energy type, you gain an added bonus against it. It's basically the reverse of the idea of giving a monster a boost when you blast it with its favored energy type. So, here's an example:

Dark Soul Devourer
You get a +2 bonus to damage rolls when you inflict necrotic damage.
If you hit a creature and its necrotic resistance or immunity reduces your attack's damage, that creature is dazed until the end of your next turn.

That's not necessarily the exact mechanic I'd use, but it gets to what I'm talking about. My initial idea for this specific feat was to describe someone whose soul was tainted with necrotic energy, and in harming undead (or whatever) they draw the undead creature's life force (such as it is) into their own. But, it's Friday, I'm about to head home, and it's been a long day. You're getting what you paid for!

I Went to GenCon

2009-08-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

For the first time since 1999, I went to GenCon as a plain old gamer. No press pass, no looking for freelance work, no manning a booth for me. I played a bunch of games and just did what I wanted to do.

Of course, I picked up a sinus infection before the con, so I had to take it easy on myself. I'm not sure I made it to more than one of the events I originally signed up for, but it was easy enough to cash in my tickets for generics and system credit. I guess that means I have to go again next year, since I have $8 worth of event ticket credit!

Thursday: I ended up cruising the dealer's hall in the morning and ate lunch with the indomitable Rob Schwalb. That afternoon I played a game of Chainmail, the pre-D&D miniatures game. The game was a blast, and it's pretty nifty that I can now say I've played it.

That night, I ran a D&D game for a bunch of friends. They tracked down a necromancer who had stolen a sacred relic, battled orcs and bandits, and managed to survive despite at one point having 7 hit points between 4 characters. Good times!

Friday: More gaming, starting with a miniatures game. Song of Drums and Shakos is a Napoleonics skirmish game. In 2 hours, I learned the rules from scratch and got in two games. Highly recommended, along with the fantasy version Song of Blades and Heroes.

Once the game wrapped up, I launched an ultimately fruitless quest to find 15mm Napoleonic and fantasy minis in the exhibitor's hall. After lunch with Paul Tevis, I got in a session of the BattleTech grinder. I had an UrbanMech shot out from under me and lost a Hunchback to a back shot from a Cicada that nailed the 'back's ammo bin. After that, I took to the field in one of my all-time favorite 'mechs, the Axman (not the lame LRM-15 variant, but the original AC/20 configuration) and made up for lost ground. I cored a Warhammer, ripped a Raven in half, and killed an Enforcer with a single AC shot to its ammo bin.

That evening was dinner at Buca with friends and wandering the con and chatting for the rest of the night.

Saturday: This was my D&D day, with an RPGA game from 8 AM to 4 PM. We had an all-changeling party, which was fun, and my barbarian was perfect for a city inexplicable built around a giant pillar of fire. His basic hook is that's he's dumb but overly thoughtful and rages when stuff doesn't make sense to him. With an 8 Int, that's fairly often.

After the game was a late lunch, another circuit of the dealer's hall, and dinner and drinks with a number of game industry folks. We swapped stories about pets and weird fans. Good times!

Sunday: The final day of GenCon always has a bit of a melancholy tinge to it, at least for me. I played some more BattleTech with a friend, took care of a little last minute shopping and trades, and then headed to the airport. Between ice cream at the terminal and a nifty, final conversation about gaming with a few folks, it was a good end to the con.

Loot: Of course, half of the fun of GenCon is browsing what's essentially a giant, gamer's mall.

I bought/traded for:

1. A few of the Pathfinder metal minis and one of the few flip-mats I don't already own from Paizo. Can't wait to see the Reaper Pathfinder line!

2. A bunch of Reaper minis. I love browsing their booth at the show.

3. A pile of Shadowrun and BattleTech books. The SR Seattle book is pretty nifty.

4. Eclipse Phase! I can't wait to dig into this game. It looks really interesting, and what I've read so far has me wanting to play it.

5. A Dragon Dice starter set. I've wanted to check out this game since it first came out, and the starter was less than $20, so why not?

6. Who Would Win? from Gorilla Games. I picked this up based on a recommendation from Monte Cook. It looks like a great party game.

7. Action Castle! My major failure at the con was my inability to convince anyone to play this.

Honorable Mention: Gaming Paper. I didn't actually buy a roll, since I didn't think it would fit in my luggage, but I was really impressed by it. It's more than just simple paper. It has a parchment/scroll-like texture to it, giving it a pretty nifty feel. I'm going to order some once my gaming budget regenerates.

MIA Award: 15 mm Napoleonics and fantasy figures. I didn't find any at the show! Of course, I didn't exactly spend hours searching (I had games to play!) but I figured there had to be some somewhere.

GenCon 2009

2009-08-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

I'm heading to GenCon as a gamer this year, rather than as a pro, so I'm playing lots of games and goofing off the entire show. Good times!

Here's my current gaming schedule:

Thursday
9 AM to 1 PM: BattleTech - Chaos Style
2 PM to 6 PM: Battlestations - Pirates of Trundlia
9 PM to 1 AM: Horror Hero

Friday
10 AM to 12 PM: Song of Drums and Shako - Eggs for the Major
2 PM to 6 PM: Shadowrun - Mr. Johnson's Table
7 PM to 9 PM: Dragon Dice - Novice Event

Saturday
8 AM to 4 PM: D&D - Stirring the Embers

I have tickets for a few other events, but I think I'm going to cash them out. Also, this schedule is by no means final. I signed up for stuff, but if other things come up I'll switch stuff around. I figured I'd fill my schedule and try new games as a default in case nothing else comes up.

I'm also planning on bringing a few games and stuff to run if the chance comes up. My plan is to bring a 4e conversion of the first d20 adventure, Three Days to Kill, plus another adventure or two. I might bring a copy of the 1st level of Monte's Dungeon-A-Day dungeon and run a 4e version on the fly. I'll have characters, minis, and everything I need on hand in my handy little haversack.

Other Games: Jungle Speed, Shab-al-hiri Roach, a few decks of TCGs (L5R, Magic), and maybe a few card games.

So, are you going to GenCon? What are you looking forward to?

Ascending vs. Descending AC

2009-07-15T16:17:00.001-07:00

One of the things that struck me as a big improvement in 3e compared to prior editions is its ascending AC system. Back in the day, a lower AC was a better AC. You rolled a die, and either looked up the result on a chart or used THAC0 to figure out what AC you hit.

3e used an ascending system, where a higher AC is better. You rolled, added modifiers, and the result was the AC you hit. It seems patently better, but like a lot of things that changed over the course of D&D's history, it's better only within the larger context of the 3e rules, rather than in the context of D&D as a whole.

In 3e and 4e, there are lots of modifiers that go on top of that die roll. Not only do you have modifiers that apply to every roll, like ability score mods and magic items, but spells, conditions, flanking, and so on. There's a decent chance that 25% or so of the attack rolls you make during a session require some additional modifier beyond ability score and a magic weapon's plus.

In that situation, descending AC is a terrible idea. The table lookup or THAC0 math is just an extra step of work. Why not just use the final result?

However, strip away the fluctuating modifiers and the descending AC system comes into its own. At that point, all you need to do is record your to-hit numbers vs. AC on your character sheet. The process of roll and look up is, IMO, much faster when the players work up their own little attack matrices, faster than dealing with any math on the fly.

From the DM's side of things, you can do the same by tracking monsters on index cards. Just write down each critter's line of attack results, and you're done. The real drag with the system, IME, is using the table, but that's easily fixed.

As a side effect, I think this explains why the notorious weapon vs. armor type table in AD&D received so much flack. James Wyatt is the only person I've personally met who used it. It exacerbated the system's shortcomings and pushed it away from its strength.

The question then becomes, do you like lots of potential modifiers or not? And that, IMO, is a matter of taste.

There are a lot of little transitions like that between 2e and 3e, most notably the sudden explosion in power of spellcasters, that I think have a really big effect on D&D's direction in the past 10 years. In a lot of cases, the changes came about because of shifts in mechanics that have subtle effects on distant portions of the system. For instance, IMO the change in initiative made casters into unstoppable beasts, but that's another post for another time.

An OSRIC House Rule

2009-07-11T21:36:00.001-07:00

Here's a house rule you can use in any version of D&D where you roll stats and roll hit points. It works best with stat generation methods that are restricted to rolling six times, whether its 3d6 or 4d6 drop the lowest. It's better in the latter, but you're probably aiming for "better" characters anyway.

Luck
Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good. Your arrow finds the crack in the orc's armor, the ogre's club catches on the stalactite just as he's about to brain you. Luck gives you a small pool of points that you can use to assuage the cruel vagaries of fate.

When rolling up a character, you receive a luck point for each 1 you roll. If you use the 4d6 method, you get the point even if you drop the die with the 1 on it.

When you're done rolling up your character, record your total number of luck points. That's your luck score.

Whenever you roll a d20 to attack, you can chose to spend a luck point to re-roll the attack. You can also spend a point to force an enemy to re-roll an attack against you. Spend the point after you learn if the attack hit or missed.

You can spend a point of luck to re-roll a thief/assassin skill check.

When you gain a level and roll hit points, you gain 2 luck points if you roll low enough.

d12 or d10: Gain 2 luck if you roll 3 or less.
d8 or d6: Gain 2 luck if you roll a 1 or 2.
d4: Gain 2 luck if you roll a 1.

I came up with this idea while rolling up a series of OSRIC characters for fun. I was tracking the number of 1s I rolled (it's a talent of mine when rolling characters) and tried to think of some way to make that interesting. I kind of like the idea of a gimpy adventurer surviving because of dumb luck.

More Gaming Photos

2009-05-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned that I love using my Dwarven Forge? Here are a few snapshots from tonight's game:

From Gaming Photos

The PCs had to make their way through the sewers beneath the city of Greyhawk.

From Gaming Photos

Umber hulk attack!

From Gaming Photos

Xalor, cleric of Iuz, and servitors.

From Gaming Photos

The characters prepare their assault.

From Gaming Photos

Xalor's view of the chamber. A mob of dread warriors emerged from the central chamber when the PCs approached it, while an animated statue rushed around the other side of the chamber to attack from behind.

In the end, the PCs were victorious. On to 16th level!

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

2009-04-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

I am now on Twitter. I'm vaguely addicted to it, especially since it gives me an excuse to pop off random observations or thoughts during the day. Also, each Thursday I toss up a question about 4e, just to see what people are doing with the game.

Origins Awards

2009-04-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

The nominees for the Origins Awards have been announced. ICV2.com has the list.

For many years, the Origins Awards were mired in in-fighting, plagued by favoritism that stuffed categories with embarrassing nominees, and largely use as a battleground for gaming industry factions to wage their wars.

It's refreshing to watch as, over the past three years, the awards have reformed themselves. Are the lists perfect? I'm sure there are categories where you could argue the merit of overlooked games, but I don't see any gaping holes.

At the end of the day, though, I think the Origins Awards are where they need to be to serve a useful purpose for the industry. I see large and small press games, games that cover a wide range of play styles and tastes.

Nice job, GAMA!

Notes from Monday's Game

2009-04-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

A few random observations from my Monday night game:

1. It's always funny when the wrong monster becomes the star. The session led off with a battle, after a flashback to establish a bit of background for the villain. Here's what the PCs faced:

* A cleric of Iuz
* A necromancer
* A devil the two summoned
* A demon the necromancer summoned on round 1

The devil and the demon, despite being lower level than the two casters, were the stars of the show. I think I rolled below a 15 for the devil once. The cleric's big trick was using an illusion to escape with his life (and a map writ on burning dragon hide). The necromancer managed to die horribly in 2 rounds, thanks to the avenger.

2. The best part of the early sessions of a campaign lies in watching one particular die roll or trick shunt the campaign along a path. Such as:

* The aforementioned cleric's successful escape, thanks to some blown Perception checks
* The avenger's laying a spell on the cleric that lets him track him basically forever (thrown on the cleric without any idea he could escape so easily)
* The PCs' seeing through the captured elf diplomat's lies, tracking him to a clandestine meeting with the thieves' guild, confronting him, and watching him die when the demonic heart forcibly implanted in his chest tears his innards to shreds

All those sequences came down to die rolls or player tactics, and they've had a big effect on how things have (and will) play out. I think a good campaign has that throughout, but early on it's more obvious.

3. I started the campaign with a short dungeon crawl, then shifted to a lot more story and investigation. I think that worked well. It gave the players a chance to learn their PCs and work out their basic tactics, plus it set some stuff up early on (the escaped cleric, the rescued diplomat, tensions within the church of Corellon) that paid off in last night's session.

I liked the tempo switch of starting with a small dungeon that had lots of fights spiked with story bits in between, a flashback to establish the villain, a big fight with that villain, and then an extended roleplay/investigative session.

Last night's session ended with the PCs caught in a trap sprung by a treacherous wererat who was supposed to lead them through the sewers to the villain. Running one hour sessions at work has trained me to design just enough concrete stuff to keep things at a brisk pace.

In essence, I try to end each session with a clear line to the next scene. I can spend a lot of time on that scene, knowing it'll take 1/4 to 1/3 of the next session (figure fight/confrontation, plus immediate scene afterward), then line up the possibilities for the game to go from there.

Anyway, that's what's up with my Monday campaign. I should post a bit about my lunch time campaign, too.

Gaming Pics

2009-04-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

One of the fun things about running a game at home, as opposed to running at the office, is that I get to bust out the Dwarven Forge. Here are a few photos of tonight's set up.

Here's an overview of the strange temple complex the characters uncovered:

From Gaming Photos

What's the best way to convince a captive duergar wizard to translate the Abyssal runes scrawled on to the lid of a tomb? Tie him to a table, then prop the table (with the duergar hanging upside down) over the lid. In the party's defense, when they asked if he would translate the runes, he answered, "Of course, but you'll need to untie me to bring me to the burial chamber, right?"

From Gaming Photos

The session ended just after the PCs made contact with the spirits of four ancient priests of Corellon Larethien, learned the nature of this place, and were flooded with the priests' memories, a process that left the characters with two distinct lifetimes worth of thoughts jangling in their heads. They also learned how to open the door of water to enter the evil shrine that this place was built to keep sealed shut. Unfortunately, an evil wizard and a cleric of Iuz had already entered the place. The wizard conjured a devil, and the fight is on. At least, it will be next week, as the session ended just as the devil showed up.

From Gaming Photos

A Basic Goal of DMing

2009-04-20T13:10:00.001-07:00

The best thing a DM can do (thinking specifically of D&D here), is to do his best to push the party to absolute, utter defeat*, and then watch them try to wiggle their way out, with the party's victory determined solely by their choices and abilities.

Discuss!

(Of course, given how good I am at judging response rates, this is the post that no one will comment on.)

*With defeat defined by the campaign and the group's play style. It could be death at the hands of a growling demon in the lowest level of a dungeon, or the evil archduke's successful ascension to the empire's throne.

Why Do I Like Going to Cons?

2009-04-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Because I like meeting fans, of course.

From Blogger Pictures

And Another Legend Passes...

2009-04-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

(I originally posted this yesterday, but pulled it when the news of Dave's passing turned out to be premature. Sadly, it appears that was but a temporary reprieve.)

I just read over at Grognardia that Dave Arneson has passed away.

I met Dave back in 2007, when the guys at The Source Comics and Games in Minnesota flew me out as part of World Wide D&D Game Day. I had dinner with him, and had a chance to chat with him a bit. My only regret is that I forgot to bring anything for him to sign.

To be blunt, history has largely cast Dave as Gary's second banana, but it's clear from any study of D&D's roots that while Gary tended the flame in those early years, Dave struck the spark. In a perfect world, things would've played out differently. The two elders of our hobby would've guided the game for years, a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser of the tabletop.

Alas, we don't live in a perfect world, but an infinitely human one. That which should be, and that which can be, all too often never come into alignment.

Gygax, Arneson, Moldvay, Bledsaw, these men were more than the pillars of our hobby. They are the pillars of an entire new way of thinking about games, about how we interact with *stuff*.

User generated content? The fundamental concepts of the multi-billion dollar gaming industry? These guys invented it. Maybe the world will forget their names, Hell, maybe it already has, but it'll never forget what they made. These guys taught us that what's in the book doesn't have to be what's played at the table, that the best stories are the ones we make ourselves, that what's on the shelf doesn't compare to what's in our minds.

Rest in peace, Dave, and thanks for blazing that trail.

Skill Resolution

2009-03-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

I've had a though inspired by Rob Kuntz over at Lord of the Green Dragons and the indomitable James Maliszewski at Grognardia.

One of the benefits of a well run old school game is that it requires more active effort on the players' part to interact with the game environment. For instance, if the characters come across a pool of water in a dungeon room, modern and old school D&D take two different approaches:

Modern D&D: The characters make Perception checks. On a success, they notice the skeleton deep in the pool, half-buried in the mud.

Classic D&D: The characters haul out a 10 foot pool, poke around at the base of the pool, and dislodge the skeleton.

In the first case, the players apply the game system to the environment.

In the second case, the players use their experience/skill, along with an assessment of the environment, to come up with a plan of action.

On the face of it, the second case is more immersive and engaging, but I think the first approach does have its benefits. It's faster, and it establishes a protocol of sorts between the players and the DMs.

When a player says, "I make a Perception check to inspect the pool" the intended outcome is clear. If there's anything weird in the pool, the player wants to know. The old school approach has the potential to short circuit that. Perhaps the DM expects a specific action (dredging the pool's bottom, as opposed to poking at it with a 10 foot pole) to uncover something of interest.

IME, that disconnect can undermine an entire game session, with the players stuck Zorking an object or NPC until they hit the specific action the DM is looking for. The skill system helps avoid that by creating an abstract level between intent and action.

I think a middle ground approach nets you the benefits of both new and old school gaming, but it takes a little work for a DM. Here's what I propose: the players make a Perception check, but success only points them to their next action, an action that requires them to approach the situation in a more immersive, engaged manner.

Here's an example:

The players enter a room with shelves of books along its walls. The players make Perception checks to search the room. One of the players hits the DC. What happens next?

Modern D&D: The characters find a secret cache of gems.
Hybrid D&D: The characters notice that four of the books on the far right shelf are clean, while the rest of the books are covered in dust. It's still up to the players to figure out what that means (there's a secret compartment in the wall behind the books).

If the characters poke at the books in greater detail, you can continue to make skill checks but only in response to the PCs' actions. For instance, one of the characters removes the books and flips through them, looking for clues. A History check reveals they are relatively new volumes on herbalism. Another PC pokes at the bookshelf, and a Perception check reveals the hollow space. Finally, a Thievery check allows a character to inspect the wall and points to how to open the space.

The overriding idea is that the PCs' skill checks give them information in proportion to the resolution level, as in screen resolution, of that check. Broad checks give broad information, while specific checks give specific data or overcome obstacles.

Now, like a lot of techniques this one has drawbacks. A bad DM can use it to hen peck the players with endless skill checks, and it can lead to some drawn out scenes. However, used correctly I think it preserves the strengths of a skill system while allowing for more immersion and more direct, concrete interaction between the players and the game world.

The important thing, though, is that this method forces the DM to insert detail into the space between "I make a skill check" and "This is the end result".

Carefully Prepared Improvisation

2009-03-17T16:18:00.001-07:00

I've messed around with a few things in my latest round of encounter design for my Greyhawk game. I've also drawn on 4e's ease of mathematical use to help implement these things. Here's an example:

In my Greyhawk game today, the characters fought against a priest of elemental evil in a chapel. A shell of elemental energy surrounded the priest and a statue in the center of the room. The shell was composed of cold and earth magic, spawned by two glowing orbs of energy that were on opposite ends of the room.

The PCs had all sorts of fun pushing the wights and ghouls that guarded the chapel into the energy shell. It froze and battered the undead. That is, until a ghoul died in the energy shell. Then the shell grew dramatically, catching the PCs in it. Their safe position at the room's edge wasn't so safe anymore.

In addition, a successful Arcana check told them that if 2 more creatures died in the shell, or if the priest died within it, the energy spheres would unleash a pulse of elemental energy. That was a bad thing, though it wasn't exactly clear how it was bad.

So, the fight turned into an attempt to kill the undead while keeping them out of the shell. The high priest started provoking opportunity attacks and fighting recklessly. It had 2 hp when its next turn came around, so it leaped into the shell and died.

There's nothing special about all that stuff (well, aside from proving an enjoyable fight to run), but something that I found neat happened behind the screen.

I didn't script any of that stuff out. I had some general notes that the energy field would do wacky stuff, like grow and move, but I made a point of not writing down exactly how that would happen. Instead, during the session I found a dramatically appropriate moment and found a reason for the energy field to expand.

DMs who are any good at their hobby know that improvisation is a big key to keeping the game interesting. The players do unexpected stuff, but so should the DM. I've had a lot of fun the past month or two stopping two steps short of fleshing out an area, instead noting the general *stuff* that makes the place interesting and leaving detail to the PCs. I figure if they can spring stuff on me to ruin the PCs' plans, I can spring stuff on them to ruin theirs.

The key to why this has been fun, as opposed to arbitrary, is that I've never gone back on something I've already said or used in my description. I think that lets the players make informed decisions.

This advice is, I'm sure, no news to anyone who has run a lot of OD&D or AD&D. The OD&D sessions I ran last year were an extended exercise in that method. What I like about 4e, and one of the things that I'm most happy with the design, is that the game has transparent, easily understood math that makes this stuff easier than ever. I have a ton of room to improvise as a DM, while the players get lots of crunchy bits to play with.

The Lego Box Campaign

2009-03-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

I've seen a few people mention that they'd like to see a sand box book from WotC. Goodman Games has published Robert Conley's and Dwayne Gillingham's Points of Light, so that's an option if you want a Wilderlands-style experience.

You can also build what I think of as a Lego sandbox using pieces from the WotC books. I term it a "Lego" sandbox because you have to piece it together from a number of sources, and it isn't as expansive as the typical sandbox, but I think it could be fun.

Start with the Nentir Vale from the DMG.

Next, add in H1, H2, and H3. For H1, place Winterhaven on the map and place the encounters outside the keep as appropriate. However, you can set up Kalreal as the leader of the monsters in Shadowfell Keep. Rather than an imminent threat, he's rallying creatures and gathering power, but still some time away from summoning the thing in the gate.

For H2, use the Seven Pillared Hall as described, but treat each leg of the dungeon as a separate section of the Labyrinth, placing them on the map and letting the PCs stumble into them as they wish.

For H3, simply add an entrance to the dungeon as you see fit and let the players come and go as they please. The monsters can be trapped inside, or you can space out their lairs and turn it into a big dungeon, with each thematically linked area a different region.

Each of those adventures already has a location on the Nentir Vale map. Really, all you're doing is pulling the plot out of them and treating them as location based adventures.

Next up, pull out your copies of Dungeon Delve, Draconomicon, and Open Grave. All of them have lots of micro adventures that you can place on the map. The delves are all generally location based (or you can spring them on the players as events) and the mini-adventures in the other two books are lairs that you can place as appropriate.

All you need now are some random encounter tables and you're good to go. You probably still want to flesh out some areas of the Nentir Vale, but you have a half-decent start on stocking the entire area.

As I said at the start, this isn't a comprehensive, true sandbox, but it is a pretty good start. It'll at least get you from levels 1 to 10 using almost entirely pre-published stuff.

The Curse of the Missing Player!

2009-03-14T21:50:00.001-07:00

Here's another whacky idea I had.

Ever have a session where 2 or 3 players couldn't make it, forcing you to cancel? That happened with my Greyhawk game two weeks ago, and it's always a bummer.

I've been thinking about ways to keep playing with only a couple players that doesn't penalize that absent PCs. On the other hand, I also don't want to risk hosing the players who made it to the session by killing off their PCs because Ralph the cleric didn't show up.

Here's my idea. I'm going to couch it in terms of 4e, but I think it applies to any version of D&D.

If you're using the DDI character builder, have the players archive versions of their PCs for each level they have gained.

Plan ahead for your campaign a bit, keeping in mind at least the outline of NPCs, treasures, or whatever that's going to show up in the next adventure/dungeon level/whatever, basically whatever comes after the current stretch.

If you're short a few players, run a flash back. The present players bring their lower level PCs. Ideally, find a break in the campaign's past that would allow for some action away from the main events.

The flashback can do a few things:
1. You can incorporate hints and pointers to future events. Maybe a couple PCs out for a night of drinking have a run in with the wandering slayer that they'll face in the near future.

2. You can drop hints to treasures or enemies that might help the PCs in the current adventure. The PCs in the flashback find a weird stone covered with runes. When the normal campaign starts next week, they enter a chamber where the stone proves useful in finding a secret door that the party might otherwise have overlooked.

3. You can give out bonus XP. The PCs who showed up get a little bonus, but not so much that they shoot ahead of the rest of the party. Since the XP is for lower level encounters, it doesn't create a big gap.

You have a few restrictions that you might want to follow: it's hard to kill a PC (he's alive in the future!) and handing out big treasures is a little weird (I forgot about that +7 holy avenger I had in my backpack!). You might want to focus on skill challenges or lower level encounters (2 3rd-level PCs might face some level 3 minions, or a pair of level 2 monsters).

This framework provides an easy excuse for an adventure aimed at only 2 PCs without messing up the current adventure. However, the flashback still advances the game. The players get to the play the campaign without messing with the campaign's pacing or plot.

No Minis, No Problem

2009-03-11T23:48:00.001-07:00

This is a little bit of a weird idea, but bear with me.

If you want to try playing 4e without minis, try this. For each of the PCs' powers, give the players the flavor text for the powers and nothing else. Same for magic items (you'll have to handle flavor text for magic item powers).

Let players track everything else about their characters - hit points, stats, and so on. They can still roll attacks, and maybe the shortened powers still have attack bonuses and damage expressions, but the other details are behind the screen.

You (the DM) track the mechanics for their powers.

Now, when a player uses a power, in most cases you can just apply its effects as per the power card. However, if a power uses forced movement, you can describe an appropriate effect that fits the situation. It might be something simple ("the orcs stumble away") to more extreme ("the troll pitches back and down into the pit.")

Basically, if you don't want to use minis the DM is taking narrative control over setting the scene. In that case, just go ahead and give all that control to the DM.

It's more bookkeeping for the DM, but it avoids the disconnect that can set in when the DM has full control over the scene, and likely isn't tracking things with exacting precision, and the players are throwing effects into the game that rely on precision. Rather than fight that, tuck that precision into the DM's pocket and let him play with it as it best fits the scene he's building.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of an RPG where the players' resources had no mechanics, only descriptive elements, and the DM's rulebook had all the actual mechanics. I think it goes back to AD&D, when the combat rules were in the DMG, not the PHB.

Anyway, just a crazy, random thought that bubble into my mind.

In Search of the Unknown

2009-03-06T20:35:00.000-08:00

In my last post, both Lizard and and Irda Ranger (sorry, but your EN World handle is how I think of you!) brought up some points I've wanted to talk about for a while now.

The 4e DMG is not a book about world building. It was never intended to be one, and it consciously avoids the topic.

The reasoning behind this move is quite simple. The DMG is meant to be the first step for a 4e DM, and in particular a *new* DM. One of the big advantages D&D has over other games, particularly computer games, is that someone gets to be the DM. A lot of games nowadays allow you to be a dwarf fighter, bashing orcs over the head and looting dungeons, but D&D (and by extension all RPGs) is the only game that lets you control the orcs, place loot in the dungeon, and draw the dungeon map.

We avoided focusing on world building because we wanted to avoid giving DMs the impression that they had to do lots and lots of work to run a game. Now, you can put a lot of effort into your game, and IME more effort means a better game, but we didn't want to daunt a beginner. A new DM can run a perfectly fine game by stringing together some encounters and focusing on the tactical, rather than strategic, end of the game.

As an aside, that's also why there's a sample starting area and a rather simple beginning scenario. Now, it's tricky, because the DMG has to serve both existing D&D fans coming in from earlier editions, and new players, but the idea is that established DMs already have info on worldbuilding from other DMGs and other resources.

Now, on to the second topic and the inspiration for this post's title: exploration. There is woefully little exploration in many of the current crop of 4e adventures. I don't think it's by a design that sees exploration, or the stuff between encounters, as bad. The seed of that design mode has good intentions - give DMs as much for their buck as possible, with bang equating with encounters (usually fights) rather than descriptions and background info.

I can see how those two trends dovetail to generate some of the criticism of 4e. The two are separate, but both do have reasons (though you can debate the legitimacy of those reasons) behind them.

The Curse of the Absent Host

2009-03-04T22:31:00.001-08:00

So, basically, whenever I'm on deadline I suddenly get the idea to post in my blog. I finished up PH 3 last week, and between that deadline and my last post I've had zero time to even look at this blog. Of course, that's when I get 28 responses to something I write.

So, let's tackle some of the things that came up in the comments:

Noism: I agree that painting WFRP as heroic is crazy, but that's how we played it. With a lot of RPGs (most notably Shadowrun) my high school group houseruled the hell out of them on the fly. In a lot of ways, we ran all our games (even AD&D) almost entirely by fiat. I vividly remember ignoring AD&D's combat rules left and right. I'd pick a number that a player had to roll to hit, and if that's what they got, that was enough. We did the same thing with almost every game we played.

2e's Goofiness: Perhaps it's the Greyhawk DM in me, but I direct you to Child's Play (the crappy module, not the charity), Gargoyles, and Terrible Trouble at Tragidor. Case closed! Or not, since one man's goofy is another man's form of government. I'm willing to accept that if you were an FR fan in 1989 (or passed on GH), that goofiness passed you buy.

And now, the meat of this post: I am calling complete bullshit on everyone who wants to try to tell me that 4e obsesses about combat to the detriment of everything else. Does it have comprehensive rules for running fights and building encounters? Sure. Just like every version of D&D that's ever existed.

Are characters built to excel at combat? Obviously, yes, just like how the skill system is built to allow any character at least a shot at making any skill check. 4e seeks to make sure that nobody is ever 100% helpless or useless due to player decisions made outside of a game session.

The truth of the matter is, though, that if you read the DMG, it talks a lot about working with your players, building plots, and roleplaying. I think the perception that 4e is an endless series of fights could come from the preview articles, which focused on the mechanics of encounter building because those are areas where 4e features a lot of improvements. I could easily see that happening if you read the articles and only skimmed the DMG. I admit that's what I'd do, because I've been playing D&D long enough that I rarely read D&D books cover to cover. I tend to skip around and read the bits that I need to run the game.

However, I find the idea that the DMG pushes a combat-combat-combat agenda an untenable position. It goes out of its way to talk about props, roleplay, puzzles, and catering to a diverse array of play styles.

AD&D 2nd Edition: 20 Years Later

2009-02-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Back in 1989, AD&D 2nd edition hit store shelves. Greywulf mentioned that Zeb Cook's intro was dated January, 1989. So, 2e is nearly old enough to drink.

I'll always remember 2nd edition as a missed opportunity. I have no idea what sort of restrictions or goals the designers worked under. Was backward compatibility deemed the most important element? What did TSR's designers see as the game's goal?

As a 14 year old when the game came out, my reactions were mixed at best. I liked some things (THAC0, expanded spell lists, a more flavorful ranger class, the bard as a class, the color art, the layout, the clearer rules, non-weapon proficiencies, rogue skills) but hated others (no demons or devils, a really annoying binder format for monsters, goofy art, plentiful attack spells for clerics).

The worst sin in my eyes, though, was the tone. The PHB, and many of the books after it, made it clear that there was a right way to play AD&D and a wrong way.

The right way centered on talking in funny voices, spending hours shopping for gear or chatting with J. Random NPC, and generally carrying on like a bunch of spastic Ren Faire rejects. If you liked goofy puns, pop culture references, and joke monsters, this was the game for you.

The bad way involved combat, dungeons, loot, kicking in doors, and kick ass characters. If you like, I don't know, dungeons, and perhaps dragons in those dungeons, get lost. Beat it. This is not your game.

To me, the RPG world had been turned upside down. I loved AD&D. Yet, it was pretty obvious looking at my gaming shelf that things were due for a change. Here was AD&D 2e, babbling on about story and bad puns. Over there was Warhammer FRP. It had an orange mohawked dwarf on on the cover, splitting an orc in half with a battle axe.

Hmmmm. Which game should I play?

Really, it was only the 1e books I already owned, and the quality adventures in Dungeon, that kept me interested in AD&D. By the end of high school, though, I was pretty much out of gaming as my active hobby.

Looking back, in my eyes 2e was a missed opportunity. Cut out the condescending attitude and the love of all things goofy, and the game was a reasonable update of AD&D. The mechanics were easier to use in many places, but the stench of one true wayism and a commitment to the worst aspects of gamer humor undercut the game.

As the line matured, a lot of good stuff emerged like Dark Sun and Planescape, but I can't help but believe that 2e did some deep damage to the D&D hobby, damage that wouldn't be truly repaired until the launch of 3e.

So, happy 20th birthday, AD&D 2nd edition.

I Hate Resistances

2009-02-14T17:48:00.000-08:00

During the development of 4e, I argued against including resistances against energy types. My argument was pretty simple:

Resistances create a disparity in value between energy types, but only if the DM uses a particular mix of monsters. Fire attacks blow in the campaign that has lots of red dragon and azers, while cold attacks such in an arctic campaign.

Story-wise, resistances mess up intuitive themes. Take my second example from above. If you were playing in an Arctic themed campaign, you might think it's a cool idea to play an ice wizard. Well, if you're fighting lots of ice creatures, that's actually a terrible choice. The folk of the frozen north should study and use fire magic. The desert nomads use ice magic. Sure, you can explain around that, but it's a jarring inconsistency. I'd rather have the flexibility to do it how I want.

Now, there are some story reasons for resistances. The fire elemental can walk through magma without harm, but you can easily get around that by placing all the mechanics in the right place. For instance, the elemental might have the "magma born" ability, which lets it ignore fire damage from terrain.

In place of resistances, I prefer two mechanics.

First, I think it's OK if a monster has limited access to damage denial. Maybe once or twice a combat it can reduce the damage from an appropriately themed attack.

What I'd prefer, though, are special abilities and bonuses that trigger when you use the "wrong" energy type. Blasting the red dragon with fire hurts it, but it also lets the dragon use its breath weapon again. Using a cold attack on the frost knight gives him +5 AC for a round. Blasting a ghoul with necrotic energy gives it an action point.

I like those sort of drawbacks because they make battles more interesting. You can try to finish the dragon off with your fire attack, but you risk giving it a powerful counter-attack. You can more easily dial the power of such abilities up or down, whereas resistance in even its weakest form (resist 5) is powerful at low levels and still quite useful at epic.

So, that's my stance on resistance.

Powers as Roleplaying Tool

2009-02-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

I've started to stat up a few major villains for my Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, the guys that the PCs will face when they reach the finale of the heroic tier portion of the campaign. While thinking things over, I had a flash of insight.

Back in the day, I read a novel called A Gathering of Heroes written by Marion Zimmer Bradley's brother, Edwin. While I'm sure most of you have never read or even heard of it, the book had a big influence on my attitude toward D&D. Namely, I loved how EZB depicted his villains. I can still vividly remember how each of the main, evil guys fought and frustrated the heroes.

My favorite bad guy from the novel is Svaran the Black, a warrior of middling skill who also happens to fit perfectly into an impenetrable suit of armor that the bad guys steal from the dwarves (it's a very typical fantasy setting, though overlaid with elements of Celtic myth that I find appealing). Svaran's armor allows him to fight recklessly and relentlessly.

When the protagonist, Istvan, finally defeats Svaran, our villain suffers a moment of pathetic recognition when he understands Istvan's gambit and realizes that he's about to die. The mighty Svaran, slayer of heroes, general of the armies of evil, squeals like a baby and begs for mercy. IIRC, he even pleads, "I'm not supposed to die. I'm invincible," or something to that effect.

EZB was a good enough writer that he pulls off the scene, using the main villain's only line of dialog to evoke both a sense of pity and sweet revenge. Sure, Svaran killed several heroes during the novel, but in the end he's just a coward hiding in a suit of impenetrable armor. Istvan notes several times during his battles against him that Svaran is a middling warrior who would've been an anonymous toady to evil if he hadn't been the only guy who could fit into the armor.

As a reader, Svaran's death both illustrates some interesting depth for the character while also providing a satisfying victory.

I've been thinking of doing something similar for my NPCs in 4e. Sure, they'll have the typical spells and tricks to make them daunting enemies, but I'd also like to insert a few powers that are a mechanical expression of the NPC's personality and role in the campaign, built along with quotes or other material to go along with the attack.

To use Svaran as an example:

* Svaran can make a basic melee attack as an opportunity action, but he must allow the target to make a basic melee attack against him as a free action. He fights recklessly, relying on his armor to deflect blows. Each time he does this, I roleplay him a bit, describing his arrogance and overwhelming confidence, how he completely ignores attacks as they clang against his armor.

* When he's bloodied, that ability goes away, but instead he now gets a new attack he can use to strike anyone who hit him in melee the round before. He fights with increasing desperation, growing more cautious but desperately attempting to make each attack count.

* When he's down to his last few hit points, he misses his next turn and utters the line above.

The idea is that as the PCs tangle with him, his personality and role in the story inform how he fights in a direct, obvious way. A few other ideas:

* The PCs face a vampire and his succubus lover. If a PC harms the succubus, the vampire gets a huge attack and damage bonus against him on his next turn.

* A psychopathic dwarf assassin fights with a disturbing lack of emotion. If he hits a PC, that PC suffers penalties on attacks against him. When the dwarf is bloodied, he snaps into a psychotic fury. He can attack only the PC who bloodied him, and gains some temporary hit points to let him shrug off the inevitable opportunity attacks as he rushes at his victim.

* Two NPCs are hated rivals. If they can catch each other in area attacks, along with at least two PCs, they do so.

I like the idea of these "scripts" because they make a fight different. Sometimes, the tactically smart play for an NPC is boring and flavorless. If every NPC fights as well as the DM can run them, you lose a lot of what makes an NPC unique. Ideally, the players think of the fight in terms of the NPC's personality ("That dwarf was crazy! He ran across a pool of acid to get to Baldar.") rather than in terms of powers ("That dwarf had a nasty sneak attack abililty.")

Otherworld Miniatures

2009-01-16T16:07:00.001-08:00

Hey all, I don't normally plug products in this space, but I wanted to pass the word along. Richard Scott at Otherworld Miniatures has run into some health problems. If you've ever considered ordering any figures from his award winning, high quality line, why not drop a few bucks on them and help the guy out? I can personally recommend Otherworld on every level, from sculpting and casting quality to customer service. Whether you're an old school gamer or just like cool minis, check out his stuff. Thanks!

(Crossposted from my LJ.)

Monday Gaming

2009-01-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Hey look, photos of a gaming session. We're playing right now, and things look grim for our heroes!

EDIT: With a little luck and a vicious series of attacks against the floating brain in the jar that was harassing us, we pulled through!

From Gaming Photos

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

I have the barest sliver of a wireless connection, so I'll keep this brief. Here's my little Christmas gift to you, a new monster prompted by someone on RPG.net (I think Peter LaCara). The idea is that if elves are related to the eladrin, what is the Feywild equivalent of a goblin?

My answer the boggart. I'm sure that name has been used in D&D before, but I'm coopting it for this annoying little beastie. Have fun, and merry Christmas!

Blindheim

2008-12-23T22:45:00.001-08:00

Here's another conversion of a "classic" (in my eyes, at least) Fiend Folio monster: the blindheim.

End of the Year Part I: Gaming Resolutions

2008-12-23T00:18:00.000-08:00

I had two options for today's post: either talk a bit about magic items in D&D in response to today's post at Grognardia, or shamelessly copy Amityville Mike at the Society of Torch, Pole and Rope.

I started to wax eloquently about magic items, but then stopped when I had an idea that might grow into something larger. So, here are my gaming resolutions for 2009:

1. Paint enough kobolds, orcs, hobgoblins, undead, and gnolls to have metal minis on hand for those monster types.

2. Get back to running my OD&D megadungeon, Kardallin's Palace. I ran two sessions at work, but stopped once the next phase of 4e work (and my lunch time Temple of Elemental Evil game) took up my time.

3. Play or run Traveller.

4. Play a game of Divine Right.

5. Keep my 4e Temple of Elemental Evil campaign running throughout the year.

6. Start my 4e Keep on the Borderlands sandbox game.

7. Stay on top of creating item cards for all my D&D games, and make a point of using them in the game. This is tangentially related to James' post, but I've had some success in making up index cards to represent each magic item I had out in 4e. The card has the mechanics on one side, and a (story) description of the item on the other. This method made items interesting when I put energy into it, but it is a fair amount of work.

8. Post here at least once a week.

9. Stay focused enough to complete these tasks, rather than fall victim to gamer ADD.

Next up: my gaming wish list.

The Adherer

2008-12-22T00:47:00.001-08:00

I'm messing around with Google docs. Below is what it belched out when I tried to publish a document to this blog. If you want to peek at the original Google doc, I've published it for public consumption. Let me know if this is a handy way to get stuff out there. In the future, I think I'll just post notices here of stuff that I've cooked up.

Anyway, here's the original. Or at least, I think that's the URL.

Adherer

BASIC INFORMATION

Appearance:
This strange creature has wrinkly skin that hangs from its body in
thick folds that resemble a mummy's wrappings. This creature is
covered in a thick, sticky substance it secretes. An adherer usually
preys on insects and other creatures that it can trap on its skin. It
then slowly digests trapped prey by bathing it in acid that flows
from its skin.

World
Info: Adherers are aggressive creatures originally found deep in
the Darrana jungles. They were unknown in the region until shortly
after a doomed adventuring expedition led by Lord Tallark Greyfaire
departed for the plateau of Karrn. Lord Greyfaire claimed to possess
a map that led to a great treasure. The dragonborn clansmen of the
region refused to provide guides or porters for the expedition, as
local legends hold the plateau as sacred to Torog. Greyfaire and his
men never returned, but soon after the first adherer was spotted in
the jungle along the plateau's western fringe.

In the years since, beast handlers have trapped and trained adhere for
use as guards. Their ability to disarm and capture intruders without
immediately killing them have made adherers useful as guard beasts.

Miniature:
Bloodhulk.

Adherer Level 5 Controller

Medium aberrant humanoid XP 200
Initiative +3 Senses Perception +3; low-light vision
HP 62; Bloodied 31
AC 19; Fortitude 18, Reflex 16, Will 16
Speed 6
m Slam (standard; at-will)
+10 vs. AC; 1d8+4 damage and the adherer grabs the target.
M Adhering Crush (standard; recharge 5 6)
Target grabbed by the adherer only; +10 vs. Reflex; 1d8+4 damage and the target loses its standard action each turn until it escapes from the adherer's grab. The adherer also loses its standard action while it has a target trapped in this manner.
M Adhering Hide (immediate reaction when hit by a weapon melee attack; at-will)
+10 vs. Reflex against the triggering attacker; on a hit, the target's weapon becomes stuck to the adherer. Creatures using natural weapons are grabbed by the adherer. A creature can free a stuck weapon with a Strength check as a standard action (DC 18).
Acidic Secretions
A creature that ends its turn grabbed by an adherer suffers 5 acid damage.
Alignment Unaligned Languages None
Str 18 (+6) Dex 12 (+3) Wis 13 (+3)
Con 14 (+4) Int 9 (+1) Cha 11 (+2)

It's All in the Details

2008-12-12T09:52:00.000-08:00

This is why I love writing D&D stuff:

"With an Arcana check (DC 23) the PCs learn that the entire plateau is, in fact, the broken shaft of a spear used to pin some monstrous creature to the bottom of the Sea of Howling Souls."

Tip o' the hat to Amityville Mike at The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope for this post. It proved useful this week in working on an adventure.

I think that's one of the things I love best about working on RPGs. There's no layer between designer and the end product, or the methods used by "customers" and producers. Really, we're all producers. Some of us just do it on company time.

Gates of Death

2008-12-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read any of Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories, well, I'm not surprised. They've been out of print for years, and the few collections printed in the recent past go for outrageous sums of money. I prowl the Planet Stories forum at Paizo on a weekly basis, hoping that they've managed to secure the license for a reprint. So far, no dice.

I've read only one Kane novel, Dark Crusade, and it provided a number of ideas to help populate my campaign:

1. I want to create a number of "freelance NPCs", basically rival adventurers who can serve as foils to the characters' plots. Think of it as semi-character driven sandboxing.

2. I've designed a series of gates throughout the region that allow rapid transport across the area, turning a week-long trip into a one day excursion.

There is, of course, a catch. I don't like the Star Trek/science fiction-esque feel of a teleportation transit system. It's too cold, clinical, and technical.

Instead, these passages are called the Gates of Death, and for good reason. When the gods and titans warred over the world, it was only partially completed. Here and there, titanic and divine creatures still labored over the world. The world spider was one of these creatures. It and its brood wove the firmaments of time and space.

The Death Gates are areas where the world spider and its children still lurk, realms where time and space run at odd angles. To a mortal, this lets you take a journey of 100 miles in 50 steps. Nice, isn't it?

Sadly, the world spider and its children are trapped within the gates. They've gone mad over the eons, as they are trapped within creation while the gods and titans are consigned to the planes. Thus, while a journey through the Gates is but 50 steps, it is 50 steps of pure, maniacal, panic as a horde of eons old spider demons rushes after you.

Legends hold that the world spider has lost track of the extent of its domain. Passages twist and turn, leading to chambers and realms untouched since the dawn of time. Further legends whisper that, hidden within that awful maze, are doorways that contain the treasure troves of gods, lands where gold grows from the soil like grass, and a library in which every single truth of the world is kept hidden.

So, that's how I'm handling gates in my campaign.

Kane's adventures also prompted a few other ideas, but I'll get to those in future posts. If you have a chance to read any of the stories, I highly recommend them.

Outdoor Survival!

2008-12-03T23:20:00.001-08:00

As a little, early Christmas gift to myself, I bought a copy of Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival board game. For those not in the know, Gary suggested using the Outdoor Survival board as a map for the overland environs in a D&D campaign. If it worked in 1974, I think it'll work just fine now.

The game board is going to serve as the regional map for my Keep on the Borderlands sandbox game. Here are my impressions of the map so far:

Pros

It's a mounted gameboard, making it more durable and giving it a nice, solid feel. As a physical artifact, I like the heft of it. It'll just feel nice to lay it down on the table and ask the PCs where they want to go.
It has plenty of mountains, swamps, forests, and other nooks to explore. It looks like a wilderness ready for exploration.
It lacks an obvious scale, so it's easy to simply treat the hexes as huge regions or tiny bits of wilderness. There aren't any huge bodies of water, so any map that needs oceans or seas is right out, but otherwise it's flexible.

Cons

The map comes in three pieces. I would've preferred one big map.
There are 10 cabins scattered about the map. Most of them are on the center map piece. They might be a distraction if you choose to ignore them. Otherwise, that's 10 places (ruins? settlements?) that the map imposes on you. I don't mind it so much, but it could prove a bit restrictive.
There are deer icons all over the map, presumably markers for the Outdoor Survival game. They're a little distracting.
There's a lot of blank plains on the map. I'd prefer more mountains and forests.
The hexes aren't numbered. Either I'll to number them myself (and mark up my precious map!) or make a smaller, reference copy of the map in my notes. This is easily the biggest drawback, IMO. I think I'll sketch a copy in my notebook, but it would've been nice to use hex reference numbers instead.

Still, overall I'm happy I dropped the money on a piece (albeit a tangential one) of D&D lore. I'm excited to run a sandbox game in 4e. The game's design makes it perfect for that style of campaign. 4e's emphasis on a structure - the standardized math, spread of monster level vs. PC level, and treasure independent of encounter type - make it easy to throw together a lot of material quickly and to build the world on the fly.

I Like Dwarves

2008-11-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

Ever since I read The Hobbit I've been fascinated by dwarves. I love the stunty little guys! As I mentioned in the last D&D podcast, I've been messing around with some dwarf sub-types. Here's one of them:

Iron Dwarves
Hailing from the deepest reaches of the mountain depths, iron dwarves are basically redneck dwarves. They seek out the furthest veins of precious minerals and even venture down into the Underdark in pursuit of precious metals. Few non-dwarves have even seen an iron dwarf, as these greedy, grasping creatures only show up in civilized realms (usually dwarf towns) long enough to sell their ores and invariably spend all their accumulated wealth on strong drink and similar diversions.

Iron dwarves rarely become adventurers. After all, life on the fringe of the Underdark is an adventure unto itself. Between dodging drow and mind flayers, surviving cave ins, and digging mine shafts that could suddenly open up to a cave filled with dire corbies or ochre jellies, iron dwarves have enough problems to deal with without seeking out trouble.

Iron dwarves that do become adventurers are invariably derided as soft and weak by their kin. Sure, charging into a dragon's lair might be dangerous, but real dwarves earn their fortunes the hard way: by ripping them out of the earth with pick and shovel.

Game Stuff
Iron dwarves use all the normal rules for dwarves, but with two exceptions:
+2 Strength instead of +2 Wisdom
When an iron dwarf uses his second wind, he can choose to forgo regaining hit points. Instead, he may regain the use of one his expended encounter attack powers.

Terms of Confusion

2008-11-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

It's easy in designing a game, particularly an RPG, to overlook the importance of building a good vocabulary for your game. It's not a particularly exciting or thrilling part of the process, but if you screw it up you can turn your game into an annoying, unplayable mess.

When you slap a label on a mechanic you're creating your game's jargon. This applies specifically to measures like hit points, tools like skills and weapons, and anything else that the people sitting at the table, playing your game, need to refer to.

My rule of thumb, after working on a number of games and seeing terms soar or flop, is that similar mechanics need very different names, particularly mechanics that run into each other alot.

In 4e, temporary hit points are a poster child for this. They look and act a lot like hit points, thus the shared name, but if you treat them like hit points the game goes haywire. The problem is that, unless someone reads the rules in depth, it's very easy to overlook that word "temporary" in temporary hit points. With a similar name and 90% similar mechanics, it's easy to mesh the two together.

On the other hand, a shared name is useful as long as you apply it to a mechanic or measure that uses it correctly. In D&D, there are 10,000 things that are given a level, but it's rare (despite "Use of the Term Level" headers in early versions of D&D) for people to confuse the term. Magic items, monsters, characters, dungeons, and so on all use level the same way: higher level means more powerful. In that case, a single term keeps things simple and clear. It helps that it's hard to figure out a way to conflate a level in a dungeon with an item's level. The two don't interact in a meaningful way!

So, those are my brief thoughts on naming mechanics in your games.

The 1e Monk

2008-11-23T18:03:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted some ideas for my 1e house rules. Of all the classes in the game, the monk needs by far the most work. The other classes range from fine as-is to "needing" a few tweaks just because that's what I feel like doing.

The monk violates one of the core precepts of class-based RPG design: it pulls a bait and switch. Most well designed classes stake out their core concepts and remain within them. In terms of game play, playing a fighter at 1st, 3rd, or 8th level is a relatively similar experience. You're good in melee, you have lots of hit points and a good AC, and you're probably at the front of any battle. Magic-users/wizards, clerics, and thieves/rogues all have similar, consistent identities.

Some games succeed in introducing some fundamental shifts in a class, but that's rare. AD&D and BD&D gave characters access to land holdings and groups of retainers at higher level, but most (all? I don't have my books with me...) of the classes underwent that change. It wasn't a shift in how the class played so much as a shift in how the *game* played at higher levels.

Rebuilding a class's identity over the course of gaining levels is bad for a number of reasons:

A player might like the class at certain levels, but hate it at others. That makes for a lame experience. The player either grits his teeth at low levels, or loses interest at higher ones. Note that AD&D classes that had an "initiation" phase, like the wizard, don't fall prone to this trap. Sure, a 1st-level wizard is weak, but the key is that at high levels the wizard plays mostly the same. He has more spells and more powerful ones, but it's not like he transforms into a melee monster or a healer. The class naturally improves at its core abilities.
Balancing power at high levels with weakness at low levels is a bogus design trick. The monk's weaknesses at low levels become strengths at high levels. Chewing through hordes of weak monks at low levels is cold comfort when a high level monk rips Orcus in two. The magic-user does gain in power at high levels, but its basic weaknesses remain the same. The class simply improves its core abilities. The monk's weaknesses go away. That's why the magic-user works, and the monk doesn't.
The monk lacks a clear identity. Is the class a martial artist that excels in melee? The 10 AC and 2d4 hit points dispute that. Is it a replacement for the thief? Maybe, but at high levels the monk replaces both the thief and the fighter. When a class shifts so much as it advances, it either starts without a niche in the game or it expands to cover more than one. In either case, it meshes poorly with the rest of the game.

These three points are major guideposts in 4e class design. I think we did a good job of defining each class and working within those definitions. The classes feel different in play, and each has a distinct identity.

In comparison, 3e fell into this trap with its item creation rules combined with the rules for wands. A low-level 3e wizard, sorcerer, cleric, or druid plays much, much different compared to a high level caster with access to plenty of long duration buffs, wands, scrolls, and potions. Whenever you see a shift like that in a class-based design, you're probably looking at deep issues with the class or maybe even the system.

It's interesting to note that the other class dropped from 1e to 2e, the assassin, suffers many of the same problems. The assassin is a crappy thief with a cumbersome, difficult to integrate assassination mechanic grafted on to it. On the other side of the coin, the bard went from a strange, optional mishmash to a core class in 2e. The bard has a pretty clear identity in fantasy novels, one that was strong enough to make it a class that cleanly severed its druid/fighter/thief heritage.

Here's what I'd do:

1. Pick a a few core mechanics for the monk and stick to them. I think I'd focus on the monk's thief abilities, good AC without armor, and multiple attacks with unarmed strikes. I'd give the monk 2 unarmed attacks per round at 1st level, but never let him go beyond that number. Damage would start with 1d6 and improve to 1d8, 1d10, and 2d6 at its highest point. A monk's AC would start around 6 or 7, improving to AC 2 at its best, and allow for Dexterity to improve it.

2. For the assassin, I'd first make the thief more of a Gray Mouser than a... whatever character the thief is actually supposed to be. I'd institute a mechanic to give the thief an equal AC footing with the fighter despite light armor, maybe some sort of active defense. I'd drop backstab, because...

3. The assassin would drop the assassination tables, but then steal the thief's backstab ability. That'd be the class's core ability, with an improved bonus to the attack roll and an increasing damage multiplier with level.

4. I'd drop the thief's abilities entirely, instead embracing an OD&D approach of using traps to challenge players, rather than a character's stats. This is one area, though, where I'd mess around with the fundamentals of the game. As DM, there are plenty of times when deciding if an orc sees a character trying to sneak past him is entirely open to my fiat. There's little the player can do to affect the situation, making the dice an ideal arbiter. I'd give monsters a perception-based defense, similar to AC, and give each class a sneak rating that improves with increased levels. Like the attack matrices, you might have a sneak matrix broken down into categories, like this:

Thief, monk, assassin, ranger, the best sneaky characters.
Magic-user, illusionist, druid, the average sneaky characters.
Fighter, paladin, cleric, the anti-sneaky characters.

So, those are my thoughts on the monk, assassin, and 1e in particular, and class design in general.

Because the King Wears Green Boxers!

2008-11-17T09:25:00.001-08:00

In response to my last post, fire snake aries asks:

It sounds like you're really good at improvising and adapting the area and what its inhabitants do depending upon what happens. I try to do that, but it's tough! I always seem to find myself thinking, "Uhh... I have no idea what should happen now."

When you make these dynamic decisions on the fly like that, how much of it is simply you thinking, "What would actually, logically happen here?" and how much is more like, "What can I do that will be cool, but won't be too unreasonably hard on the PCs?"

I always want to make the players feel like they're dealing with a real, living place with occupants which interact with one another organically, so that there are definite ramifications to their actions beyond simply the current encounter. YET, I always worry that if I really do this, it will almost certainly end in a TPK. How do you balance that?

I felt rather clever when everything went down the way it did because of a little technique I've applied to my dungeons.

Back in the day, there was a ton of DM advice about creating a history for your dungeon. The idea was to think of the dungeon before it became a ruin, determine the rooms' uses, and then push time forward, account for the ravages of time and wandering monsters, and use that to drive what the place looks like when the PCs enter it.

I do something a little similar when placing monsters in a dungeon. I try to answer the following questions:

1. Why did these guys come here?

2. What keeps them here?

Answering these questions is useful, because it helps set the stage for quick decisions and improvisation. In the kenku's case, the answers were:

1. The kenku are thieves and bandits looking to make some easy cash.

2. Iuz's lieutenants pay them to act as spies and raiders.

During the last session, it was a lot easier to plot the course of events with those two things in mind. The kenku were in it for the money and they were here because they got paid. Why wouldn't they run to help the wizard?

The simple, but boring, answer is that they just didn't hear the alarm gong. I decided that I needed something more interesting to keep the action going. If they heard the gong, why wouldn't they come? That suggests conflict or some active plan on their part.

The risk to this approach is that you might create stuff that you never need to use because the PCs just kill the monsters when they meet them. For instance, in the same dungeon the PCs fought a band of hobgoblins. The hobgoblins had traveled to the moathouse from the south looking for mercenary work. I had built up an entire skill challenge that allowed the PCs to bargain with the practical minded, hobgoblin commander. They ended up just killing most of them.

OTOH, if I create a monster background that I like and it never comes into play, I just recycle it for the next dungeon.

Really, it's just building in details that seem a little pointless but have the potential in play to come in handy when you have to improvise. I don't obsess over the details, but rather look for some simple, one sentence explanations that can come in handy. It's all about the useful parts of simulation (depth, detail) without the bad parts (drowning in minutia).

Why I Love D&D

2008-11-13T22:15:00.000-08:00

Today's session of Temple of Elemental Evil reminded me how much I love D&D.

The characters were in the dungeon beneath the moathouse, locked in a fight with a doppelganger wizard who had posed as Burne. Immediately before the fight, they had accidentally triggered a gong that rang and alerted the entire dungeon level. Luckily for the PCs, they had already defeated most of the creatures on the level. Or, if you're a pessimist, they had unluckily only defeated most of them.

So, while the PCs fought the doppelganger and his orc guards, a pair of ghouls rushed down the hall to attack the party from behind. The characters managed to close and bar a door to hold back the ghouls for a few rounds, just long enough to defeat the doppelganger and the orcs. They had one round to get ready before the door finally splintered to pieces and the ghouls charged in.

By the end of the fight, half the party was down and everyone was badly injured, but the characters were victorious. They trudged out the escape tunnel from the dungeon and made camp. As one PC was down to 1 hit point and zero healing surges, the party felt a trip back to Hommlett was too risky. It was near dusk, and everyone was in bad shape.

This is when things got interesting.

See, I had spent a fair amount of time stocking the moathouse and its dungeon, and my inconsiderate players had skipped half the encounters. I had all these monsters in the dungeon, and the cruel, cruel dice had dictated that only the two ghouls had heeded the ringing gong.

On the fly, I decided that the kenku that the dice had determined took their sweet time responding to the alarm were upset with the doppelganger. They figured that, if they tarried and the wizard died, they could clear out the treasure in the dungeon and take over the place.

So, as the PCs rested, the kenku went to work. With the ghouls dead, I judged that the kenku were able to command the skeletons that still remained in the crypts. The kenku then organized a search party to make sure the PCs weren't still around.

That led to a brief fight in which the badly injured, really hoping for an extended rest party managed to cut down all three kenku. There was another tense moment when some skeletons almost stumbled across the party's camp, but the undead failed to notice the characters.

At that point, with one search party gone the kenku decided that the characters were still close by. As dawn broke they went on one, final sweep of the dungeon. As the characters woke up, the shrill, high pitched screams of dying kenku echoed from the moathouse.

The kenku had found something the PCs had missed. Something terrible, something hungry, something angry.

Anyway, I love D&D because when the session began we had the party trapped in a room with two ghouls outside, trying to batter down the door. It ended with the characters outside the moathouse, wondering what's going on. I never could've guessed that we would've ended up with the kenku ransacking the dungeon and unleashing a very, very bad thing.

Keep on the Borderlands: Environs of the Caves

2008-11-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

So, if you followed my WotC blog you know that I'm currently running a 4e game based on Temple of Elemental Evil. I've messed around with the plot a bit, added some new villain groups, and shifted around some NPCs. I run the game twice a week at work, during lunch, though Player's Handbook 2 has zapped many a session as of late. Luckily, we can finally play again tomorrow.

In addition to the campaign at work, I've been hankering to run a game based on Keep on the Borderlands. I love being able to run D&D at the office, but I sometimes miss the depth and complexity that four hour sessions allow. With one hour sessions, I try to keep things a little modular and fast-paced, so that every session has a nice beginning and end point.

Anyway, tonight I put together an overview map of the Caves of Chaos. As with my Temple campaign, I've changed a few things around to keep things interesting and to have a bit of fun with. A straight conversion of the Keep is fine, but I want to add some more depth and backstory to the dungeon as a whole. In addition, I want the campaign to have a strong sandbox element within the bounds of the Keep, the Caves of Chaos, and the area around the Keep.

So, a few things I changed:

The ravine of the caves is far larger. It looks much more like something out of this image, rather than a narrow box canyon.
I placed a small lake in the middle of the ravine, flanked on both sides by steep ridges that form a barrier between the ravine's entry and its rear area.
There are several sites of interest in the ravine, including the ruins of a small fort once occupied by an order of knights tasked with watching over the caves, a few strange pillars dedicated to the Lords of Chaos, a mysterious wizard's tower, a necropolis, and a small hut where an undead ferrymaster takes pilgrims of chaos across the lake mentioned above.
A strange mist hovers over a region at the far end of the ravine. A ring of standing stones surrounds the mist. No one has ever entered the mist and emerged to tell the tale.
I came up with a background for the caves, explaining its history and why humanoids congregate here, but it's not quite ready to go.

So, that's what I did with my Monday evening.

My Old Flame, 1st Edition

2008-11-07T16:51:00.001-08:00

I have to admit, I still love 1st edition AD&D. Sure, the rules are whacky and labyrinthine, but there's an undeniable core of fun that beats at the heart of the game. Sure, I love 4e (duh!), but there's something nifty about 1e. Whether it's the art, Gygax's prose, or the fundamental simplicity of the game, I'm always drawn back to it.

The thing is, I've been playing D&D in its various forms for over 25 years now. There are things in AD&D that still really bug me. I have half a mind that, once I get a replacement laptop, I'm going to embark on my own, personal redesign of bits and pieces of the game. Not a redesign in the sense of adding a skill system or rebuilding things from scratch, but more from the perspective of having played a lot of (A)D&D and learned what I think works, and what I think doesn't.

Really, the list of things to change is short and almost entirely wrapped up in character classes. To whit:

The fighter could use some other toy to play with. Rangers and paladins are strictly better, and that bugs me. I'd want to see something simple and in keeping with the spirit of AD&D, more like "+1 attack when using a weapon you are proficient with" than a feat or maneuver based approach of 3e or 4e.
The thief, oh the poor thief. From those who curse its appearance in OD&D, to people like me who really want to play the Gray Mouser without feeling like a chump, I'm not sure this class really makes anyone happy. I'd look to do a radical revision, though I'm not sure exactly what I'd want. Remove the proto-skill system? Make it a fighter sub-class more in-line with a swashbuckler? I'm not 100% sure.
The assassin is stuck in the same boat as the thief. This is the class I'd like to see embrace the backstab/assassination mechanic. To me, that's interesting, but I think the thief's backstab makes the assassin semi-pointless.
The monk! OK, I love the concept of the monk, but I always disliked Gary's implementation of it. The monk falls into the same category as the magic-user, in that you have to manage to survive low-level in order to gain massive power at higher levels. However, the magic-user's fundamental weaknesses remain at all levels. Whether a lowly prestidigitator or a mighty wizard, the M-U breaks into a cold sweat when a nasty ogre shuffles up to him. The monk, on the other hand, carpets over his weaknesses with innate, constant abilities. Having played a monk at low and high levels, it is essentially two classes. That shift in playstyle bugs me, and is far too bald a filter between a weak and strong character. I'd seek to balance the monk, strengthening it at low levels and toning it down at upper levels.

I'm not sure I'd change much else. Sure, initiative needs to be fixed up, but that's not something I see as critical. After all, people have played the game for decades without that getting in the way. The class issues are more topics that, for me at least, make the game less enjoyable.

In Search of the Unknown

2008-11-06T17:37:00.001-08:00

Now that PH 2 is off my plate (well, mostly; it killed today's Temple of Elemental Evil session), I've had more free time to doodle around with stuff. Lately, I've been stocking Mike Carr's In Search of the Unknown, the lesser known but still popular companion to Gary's Keep on the Borderlands.

The really fun thing about the module is that, since it's a "teaching" adventure that lacks monsters, it spends a lot of time focusing on interesting details of the dungeon. For those out of the loop, the idea is that the PCs find a map to the subterranean lair of a pair of long vanished adventurers, the magic-user Zelligar and the fighter Roghan. There's a room overrrun by fungus, a chamber with lots of weird pools to mess with, and so on.

My favorite bits concern the secret chambers of Zelligar. They have lots of little bits that point to Zelligar as a less than nice guy. His lab has an empty coffin, the skeleton of a slain enemy, a tapestry made of human skin, and a few other baubles.

I really liked the idea of Zelligar poking at things best left alone, so there are a number of extraplanar critters in the dungeon and chambers with weird, demonic themed puzzles and oddities.

Today, I picked up this Dreamblade miniature on the free table at work. It looks cooler from the opposite side - it has a big, steamroller splattered with blood. I liked the idea of Zelligar leaving behind a really nasty guardian to kill intruders. So, with that in mind, here's what I did:

If the party takes a short rest in the dungeon, roll 1d20, +2 per prior short rest taken during this expedition. On a 15 - 19, the party faces a wandering encounter (I haven't placed monsters in the dungeon yet). On a 20+, the Doom Crusher appears 2d10 squares away from the PCs and moves to attack. It cannot open doors, and scrupulously avoids destroying the furnishings and decorations in the dungeon. Otherwise, under Zelligar's 30+ year old orders, it attempts to crush intruders as an encouragement for them to leave.

I'll work up stats for it soon, but I'm thinking of making it a level 10 elite in a dungeon aimed at level 4 characters. I'll also add in some signs of its presence, like a crushed chaos warrior or orc here or there, pulverized skeletons, shattered armor and weapons scattered in the halls.

James Wyatt is Hardcore

2008-10-25T12:44:00.001-07:00

I've acquired the habit of carrying a 1e Dungeon Master's Guide to meetings at work. James calls it the Gygaxian Bible, and I think there's something to that.

Anyway, while waiting for someone to show up to our meeting, I rolled up a 1e character using James' 1e Player's Handbook, which he had also brought to the meeting. Determined to delve into the full AD&D experience, I puzzled over the weapons vs. AC chart to pick out two weapons for good old, 7 Charisma, 7 Intelligence Algar the half-orc fighter.

As I looked over the table, James said, "I had a unified table that combined weapons vs. AC with the standard combat matrices."

So yes, my fellow gamers, someone did use those tables. James Wyatt: more old school hardcore than you.

(And as an aside, I found something rather interesting about the tables that makes me want to use them. It's kind of neat to kit out your fighter with a scimitar for orc hacking, and a halberd to pull out when a high AC or big monster shows up. OTOH, I once asked Gary if he used those tables, and he insisted he put them in AD&D only because some people on the TSR staff insisted gamers wanted that level of realism and detail.)

A Magic Item for... ME!

2008-10-17T11:40:00.001-07:00

I love playing fighter/wizards. Here's a little toy I've invented for my own use in 4e, to help out that multiclass combo:

Runeshield Level 2+ Magic Item

This iron shield is covered with arcane runes. In the hands of an arcanist, these runes glow with yellow fire.

Level 2: +1, 520 gp

Level 7: +2, 2,600 gp

Level 12: +3, 13,000 gp

Level 17: +4, 65,000 gp

Level 22: +5, 325,000 gp

Level 27: +6, 1,625,000 gp

Property: This shield functions as an implement for any arcane class, but its wielder must be proficient with shields of the appropriate type in order to use it as an implement. It adds the listed enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls for arcane powers that use implements. Note that the enhancement bonus applies only in this situation. It does not apply to AC or Reflex.

Property: The shield grants a +4 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks provoked when you cast an arcane spell.

Skill Challenges as Tool for Putting Demogorgon on Dungeon Level 1

2008-10-06T10:40:00.001-07:00

Here's a stray thought about skill challenges. Back in the 1e days, you'd hear all sorts of stories about dungeons where Orcus and Tiamat stomped around on level 1. Meeting those monsters is, obviously, instant death.

In 4e, you could do the same thing, but if you want to give the PCs a chance to live, use the encounter as a skill challenge. You could even make it a level 1 (or whatever is appropriate) challenge to give the PCs a chance and work the big bad guy into the story.

For instance, the PCs open a door to a summoning chamber in the abandoned wizard's lab, and out bursts Demogorgon. Before he returns to the Abyss, his two heads demand that the PCs do him a favor. Cue the skill challenge (success, you're in Demogorgon's debt; failure, he eats a few PCs).

There's no reason why the superstars of D&D's monster world can't show up early in a campaign, and the skill challenge system is a good way to use them in situations other than combat.

Borderlands Style Adventures

2008-09-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

I am a terrible blogger. I intended to post here three times per week, but a number of factors combined to undermine that plan almost from the start. I'd say "I promise to post more often," but I'm not sure that's going to hold up.

Tonight is one of those nights where I'm too tired to paint a miniature or read, but I'm too keyed up to slip into a TV assisted, vegetative state. There's also a funny tension in this blog. I've recently been made the lead designer for D&D, so there's less incentive for me to post new rules here. I can use those at work!

Instead, let me ramble a bit about adventure design.

The last session of the Forgotten Realms campaign I play in reminded that, while I love my twice a week, lunch time Greyhawk campaign, there's a lot to be said for a nice, juicy four hour game session. In particular, long sessions are great for what I think of as Borderlands style adventures, adventures that give the PCs a long list of shallow options.

Melan's excellent post on megadungeon mapping has been kicking around in my head since I first read it. In particular, his analysis of Keep on the Borderlands stuck in my head for a while. I really like the idea of an adventure that gives you a lot of places to go, even if those specific places are simple and even linear. In particular, I think such a design shines if those simple, straightforward spots have some level of interconnectivity, again, even if the connections are simple. Those could range from the physical (the ogre's den has a secret door leading to the orc lord's throne room) to the social (the orcs hate the gnolls and are looking for allies against them).

The appeal, IMO, lies in the raw possibilities of bouncing around the map, delving here, allying there, looting here. I think there's some element of sandbox gaming at play, but on a smaller, more focused level. Rather than the world as a sandbox, this style of design focuses instead on a single city or adventure site, with the connections I mentioned above a critical part of the design. The adventure is like a pool table cluttered with balls, with the PCs a cue ball careening across the field, knocking some balls into pockets, slamming others into each other. The key is that with every action by the PCs, the "board" changes.

By keeping the individual components simple, it's much easier to manage the scope of changes and reactions across the entire adventure set up. It's easy to manage changes within the individual caves in KotB because each one is so simple, basic layouts of rooms wedded to rosters of (mostly) homogenous tribes.

The complexity of this design rests in the relationships and interactions between the individual, simple nodes. In addition, particularly in 4e, you need the flexibility to keep each node at least somewhat challenging for the PCs. Given that the characters gain about 1 level for every 10 encounters, you have to balance the number of nodes in the adventure with the PCs' level progression. It'd be great to offer the PCs 5 or 6 places to investigate, but you need to limit each node to 3 or 4 encounters to keep those nodes in a 3 level band.

While the Keep on the Borderlands is the best known example of this design style, I think the approach would shine for urban adventures. The connections between locations can cover a broad range of social, political, and military alliances, both including and forming against the PCs.

It's interesting to me that KotB-style design is relatively rare. Most published adventures rely on a plot with a clear beginning, middle and end, or individual dungeons. A borderlands-style design has the cosmetic flaw of appearing simple, since the individual pieces are simple. The value of the design rests in its emergent properties. It plays, rather than reads, well.

So, that's my rambling for tonight.

Roll for Initiative! Wait, No, Don't Roll!

2008-09-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

Over at The Art of the Near TPK, Gregor talks about his take on 4e initiative. The post reminded me of an initiative variant I've thought about using.

There's no more rolling for initiative. The characters all take their turns in whatever order, then the monsters. You can ready actions and what not, but that has no effect on when you take your next turn. There's no delaying, since both groups go in whatever order they want. There's a clean up phase for the party as a whole after the party's turn, and one for the monsters. Durations key off those end points.

The nifty thing is that it takes care of any weird complexity with delaying and durations. Let's say an NPC monk dazes the paladin, and the daze lasts until the monsters' next clean-up phase. It's clear that the paladin is going to lose his next turn. He can't delay to avoid it (not that you can in 4e, but we had to put in some semi-convoluted rules to make sure that worked out).

OTOH, if the cleric has a spell that can end the daze, you don't need to deal with the complexity of delaying to make that happen. On the party's turn, the cleric just goes before the paladin.

As Gregor points out in his post, that allows for a lot more teamwork and coordination on both sides of the screen.

Anyway, rolling for initiative was too popular for me to get this, or any of the other, changes I had in mind for 4e.

Giant Ticks!

2008-09-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a post on Jeff's blog, here's my 4e take on the giant tick. In this case, I'm tackling it as a hazard rather than as a monster, so I guess that makes it more the "noticeable larger than normal but perhaps not truly giant" tick. I'd peg it as about six inches long, not huge by any means, but pretty scary when you think about it.

Barrow Tick, Level 6 Hazard

A barrow tick is a common dungeon predator, particularly in areas where ogres, trolls, and giants dwell. The tick attacks the first creature that moves within 10 feet of its position. It leaps out in a blur of movement and attacks with a poison that deadens the victim's sense of touch, making it possible for the tick to feast undetected.

One the tick attacks, it slowly drains the victim's blood. Unless the tick is removed or killed within a minute of its initial attack, the victim loses 2d10+8 hit points. Each time the victim takes a short rest while the tick is still present, he loses another 2d10+8 hit points. If the victim is unlucky enough to take a long rest without noticing the tick, the poor sod loses all his healing surges and is at 1 hit point when the rest ends. The tick, for its part, departs after such a feast.

The tick makes Stealth checks to remain hidden from view, but any close examination of the victim reveals its presecence. The next time the victim takes damage, he also realizes that he has lost blood (the DM should inform him of his new hit points total) and may make Perception checks to notice the tick on him. The tick is general clever enough to attack itself to the victim's back or some other spot that makes it hard to notice.

Barrow Tick: +8 attack vs. Reflex, Stealth +14, speed 5, AC 18, Fortitude 16, Reflex 15, Will 13, the tick suffers a -4 penalty to all defenses while it is attached to a victim, hit points 1, though the barrow tick never takes damage from an attack that misses; 2d10+8 damage on initial exposure, another 2d10+8 after each short rest.

Edit: Changed damage from 25% of max to a normal damage expression. Since this is a level 6 hazard, I aimed it to do about 25% of a 6th level PC's hit points. That makes it scale easier. I can just adjust the damage upward or downward for different levels.

RPG Carnival: Homebrew Alignments

2008-09-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

Donny_the_DM has decreed that the theme of this month's RPG Carnvial is homebrewing. So, let's talk alignments.

4e has breaks alignment down into lawful good, good, unaligned, evil, and chaotic evil. Prior to that, D&D used an axis of good - evil and law - chaos. I saw BAH! to both. Alignment is pretty much ripped screaming from Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories, particularly the saga of Elric of Melbinoné. The awesome thing about Elric, IMO, is that he can and did directly interact with the great powers of Law and Chaos, the very beings that formed the basis of the Multiversal struggle that Elric and the other eternal champions were caught up in.

What's this mean for your campaign? Well, here's how I'm handling it.

Rather than use alignment to describe good or evil, it instead describes the power source that your character sees as the most important piece of the cosmic pie. If push came to shove and only one power source could rule, which one would your character pick?

Of course, that means that the power sources have to stand for something. Well, here's my stab at it:

Divine (Deity-centered)
A character who embraces the divine alignment places the gods above all else. Divine characters typically worship a single god. They place their god's teachings and dictates above all other concerns, and actively battle members of rival faiths.

An adventurer with the divine alignment tithes to his church, seeks out enemies of the faith to slay, and relies on the church hierarchy for guidance.

A commoner with the divine alignment attends church services, prays regularly, tithes to the church, and obeys the church above the rule of law (unless his church is the law).

If the world ended in a final battle, those of the divine alignment would stand by their gods and fight for them.

Arcane (Self-centered)
The arcane alignment places its faith in its own adherents. Magic is power, and those who can master it are a cut above the rest. The other power sources can be explained and understood just like magic, with sufficient study and research. There's no reason to worship a source of power. Instead, such well springs of might exist to be studied and used. This attitude extends to everything else. The world is full of useful tools, and those who can master them deserve to do as they wish, without interference from others.

An adventurer with the arcane alignment is in it for himself. He seeks knowledge and power, primarily to improve himself and his skill. If he has to choose between helping himself and helping his companions, he is at least tempted to take the selfish path.

The commoner with the arcane alignment is probably a hedge mage or a would-be arcane apprentice. He sees the mastery of the arcane arts as the key to power, power that he wants.

If the world ended in a final battle, those of the arcane alignment would rely on their own power to survive. They'd try to leave the other factions to destroy each other, either to continue their studies in peace or to make a bid for cosmic domination that only one being can win.

Martial (Mortal-centered)
The martial alignment eschews external sources of power. Training, focus, and drive are all that these characters need to achieve whatever they want, and whatever they might want is a diverse list indeed. Most martial characters pick a mortal cause to embrace, whether that is the concept of democracy, their own personal drive for tyranny, or the freedom and peace of their home village. Martial characters fight for something rooted in the mortal world of men. They tend to view those of different alignments with suspicion, as they can never understand the impulse to rely on talents and power that comes from an outside source.

An adventurer who follows the martial alignment is a crusader for some cause, though that cause could be his own coin purse. He gets into dangerous situations because he is driven to by some overarching goal. It is the fate of martial characters that, when they resolve one cause or quest, their drive and ambition pushes them to find a new, grander and more epic one.

A commoner who follows the martial alignment similarly fights for a cause, and if given a good reason could very well become an adventurer. The farmer who volunteers in the local militia, the street urchin who picks the pockets of a merchant, and the peasants who hide their wounded king from a band of assassins all follow the martial power source.

If the world ended in a final battle, those of the martial alignment would rally to their causes. A great swordsman might stand watch over the vale he was born in, sworn to slay any god or archlich who dares enter it, while the queen's elite knights rally around her banner to ensure the realm's survival.

While the alignments map to the power sources, that doesn't mean a PC's power source is his alignment. A warrior who considers himself the greatest swordsman in the world might wander in search of skilled warriors to slay in battle, thus proving his skill. While such a character might use the martial power source, his alignment is arcane. He studies his craft, improves it, and thinks of himself and his skills first and foremost. A wizard might be an ardent worshipper of the sun god, using his spells to blast the priests of the god of devouring darkness, while a cleric might pray to Thor, but she studies divine magic to heal and protect the people of her home city.

There's room for the other power sources, and perhaps factions such as the Abyss, the devils of Hell, and the Far Realm.

British D&D

2008-08-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

A recent post on EN World about Fiend Folio and its influence on the 4e Monster Manual reminded me how much I love the British AD&D and basic D&D modules from the 1980s. They had a feel to them, a combination of distinctive art, interesting maps, and fun stories that combined the make them stand out from the American offerings of the day.

Here's why I like those modules so much:

They had interesting plots and backstories that had an effect on the adventure. When you found the weird artifact, it's backstory provided the framework for the adventure.
Cool, interesting, high magic stuff played a fun role in the adventure. The elemental air "subway system" drove home the power and accomplishments of the ancient civilization whose ruins you set out to explore. It also gave you a sense that you were going somewhere distant, and maybe getting back would be hard.
The adventures had an epic feel without going over the top. You helped defend castles, spoiled the machinations of the most potent force for evil in the Grand Duchy, and saved an entire order of monks. It was never just a matter of beating up some orcs.
The art was evocative. It depicted classic D&D stuff in a recognizable manner, yet still retained its own distinct feel.
The maps were clear, easy to read, yet drawn in an evocative way. They looked like maps someone drew, rather than maps printed by the local tourism board.

Speaking of adventures, I'm chomping at the bit to see more on the Raiders Guild, the coolest thing I heard about at GenCon. The framework for the adventures sounds great, and I think it's the most promising third party product I've heard about since the OGL came down the pike.

(BTW, Axe Initiative Games has posted their writing guidelines for those of the would-be or currently-are writing persuasions.)

Random Tables: Wide is Better than Tall

2008-08-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you might have the compulsion to create random tables to help spur your creativity or to throw off the cuff surprises at both yourself and the players. Tables are also useful tools for instant content generation.

In my experience, it's tempting to make a table that uses a d20 or d100. Big, long, sprawling tables look impressive, but they're inefficient. Instead, make several short, squat tables that work together to generate a result.

Let's say you want a table to generate the appearance and mannerisms of NPCs in Waterdeep. Here's what you do:

1. Come up with three or four general traits to describe the NPCs. I'm going with race, gender, size, appearance, and disposition.

2. Create a table for each trait. Aim to use d6s, or maybe a d10 if you're inspired.

3. When it's time to use the tables, roll once on each table and combine the results. Voila!

Here are my tables:

Race:
1. Human
2. Elf
3. Eladrin
4. Dwarf
5. Halfling
6. Tiefling
7. Half-elf
8. Dragonborn

Gender:
1. Female
2. Male

Size:
1. Thin
2. Tall
3. Short
4. Fat

Appearance:
1. Dirty
2. Well-dressed
3. Travel worn
4. Immaculate

Disposition
1. Happy
2. Angry
3. Helpful
4. Sullen
5. Grumbler
6. Pessimist
7. Optimist
8. Sarcastic

I built those tables off the top of my head in about 5 minutes. Here's the cool thing - they might not be awesome tables, but they have the potential to generate about 2,000 different NPCs. With a little more work, I could build out a few more categories and fill in the existing tables with more options and more vivid words.

So, sometimes being lazy is more efficient than doing lots of work. You could create 500 different NPCs and stuff them into a table, or pick 26 words and use the mighty, mighty powers of multiplication to turn them into thousands of outcomes.

A Simple Algorithm for Generating DCs

2008-08-18T10:05:00.001-07:00

As has become something of a habit for me lately, I wrote an adventure on the plane ride home from GenCon. Lately, it's rare that I have 3 to 4 consecutive hours to do anything other than (sometimes) sleep.

I'm a big believer that laziness is the mother of insight. Many folk see a tendency toward sloth as a bad thing, but if not for sloth, we'd still be living in caves, hunting brontosauruses, and hiding from thunderstorms. It's the human capacity for laziness that drives us to make short term sacrifices (inventing science was no easy feat) for long term pay offs (computers for everyone!).

Thus, I found myself writing an adventure while wedged into seat 24D with a pencil box, a notebook, and two Forgotten Realms sourcebooks (the new 4e one and the DM's book from the old gray box). I had put my D&D books into my luggage because, frankly, I didn't want to carry them around.

The monsters were pretty easy to generate for the adventure - I either remembered their levels, or I built them from scratch (the formulas are easy peasy to memorize, and again my commitment to laziness pays off - I don't need to carry the DMG).

However, I was a little annoyed when working on traps, terrain features, and just general stuff that needed DCs. I couldn't remember the DC progression. I puzzled over it for a few minutes, then realized that my laziness had saved me once again. In an insight so obvious that I feel like punching myself, here's Dr. Mearls' Patented, Super Easy, Instant DC Generator:

1. Start with 10.
2. Add half the trap, encounter, or challenge's level.
3. Do you want only people trained in the skill to have a shot at success? If so, add 5.
4. Think of the stat a PC would need to have a 55% chance of success, assuming the PC is trained if you want only trained guys to have a chance of success. Add that stat's modifier.

Voila! Instant DC.

Here's an example:
In a dungeon aimed at 6th level PCs, there's a locked door. It's a really good lock, so only a rogue or someone trained in Thievery has a chance to open it, but someone who is trained doesn't need much natural talent to open it.

So:
10
+ 3 (half of level 6)
+ 5 (assume training)
+ 1 (a Dex 13 character who is trained should be able to handle this one)

Is a total DC of 19. Voila! An untrained character with a good Dex still has a 30% chance to open the lock.

If you know the PCs' stats, you can achieve a fine control of the DC by using the process above, plugging in the PC's stat mod, then adding 1 to the DC for every 5% you want to drop the success chance.

The nice thing about this method is that it pushes you to think of what the PCs can do, and it's simple enough (IMO) that you can use it on the fly.

OK, back to taking care of all the chores that have piled up since I've been away. I'll talk about GenCon later this week.

In Praise of Wandering Monsters

2008-08-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

Wandering monsters have been a fixture of D&D since the beginning. I can't even begin to explain how or why Gary included them. Did his players have a tendency to dither outside dungeon chambers? Was he bored and looking for an excuse to throw a gelatinous cube at the party? Who can say?

(Well, I'm sure someone can say, and if they want to roll in here and say it, fire away!)

My old gaming groups never used wandering monsters. There was enough adventure in the rooms of our dungeons, and enough of our adventurers took place in urban settings, that we never saw the need for them. The resource model for earlier D&D editions was such that, from a strictly mechanical perspective, each wandering monster meant one fewer monster the group could handle before heading home.

Wandering monsters do add the element of the unexpected for both players and the DM, and there's always the chance that something cool and memorable happens when you add situation A, condition B, and wandering monster roll C.

The interesting thing to me is that, of all the versions of D&D, 4e is perhaps best suited to make the most of wandering monsters. The characters lean heavily on their ability to take short rests. Wandering monsters are a spanner in that works. To wit:

When the characters take a short rest, roll 1d20. On an 19+, a wandering monster stumbles across them at some point during their rest.

(Insert a table of wandering monsters here, based on your adventure.)

Voila! Each time the PCs rest, there's a chance they fail to regain their precious encounter abilities and hit points. Instead, they're looking at a mob of angry critters. Even if the party is safely holed up in a room, and the monsters pass them by after a few tense Stealth and Perception checks, you've added a compelling element of uncertainty, danger, and chaos to the adventure.

If you want to get fancy (and who doesn't want to get fancy?), you can tie your wandering monster checks to a skill challenge. Let's say the check starts at 15+. Each success in the challenge bumps that threshold up by 1, each failure drops it by 1. You could use Perception, Stealth, Streetwise, and so on, along with judging the PCs' actions in the dungeon, to manage the challenge.

So, time to dust off those old wandering monster tables. They're more useful now than ever.