When you're burned...

A long time ago my sister told me something she read. I can't find the quote and have no idea where she go it, so this is almost certainly misquoted and unattributed.

"There are two ways to start a story. Either the hero is at the top and the story starts just before he falls, or the story starts 5 minutes after he hits the bottom."

I've always liked that. For roleplaying games, I like the second option better than the first.

Or really any game.

I like it for a number of reasons. For one thing, it gives the game an immediate driving goal. Usually that goal is "don't die". Anything is threatening. The players have nothing and are literally one kobold away from death.

The other day a friend of mine, well three actually, told me about how much fun they were having with Skyrim. Apparently, it starts with the character escaping from execution and then the game lets the player do...whatever they want. But, that's it. Moments after not dying, you have a world to explore.

Right now I am reading the John Carter books. Those books begin before John goes to Barsoom, but really, the story begins when he wakes up, naked, on an alien planet. The Chronicles of Narnia do the same thing. Others take away the hero's memory as well, like in the Bourne Identity or The Long Kiss Goodnight.

There are plenty of ways for characters to start with nothing in the game. I love using the amnesia thing. It's worked so well so many times I want to use it all the time. To date, I don't think I've ever used the "Trapped in Another World" thing. Maybe I should. I've done others, like having the heroes escape prison or whatever right from the bat.

Either way, I am fairly sure that, unless I get otherwise inspired, most of my games will have this conversation during character creation.

Player: "So how much gear can we buy?"
Me: "I wouldn't worry about that."

Why Savage Worlds is e6 (8, 10, etc)

Last time, I talked about E6. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the way E6 deals with "high level" is basically the same as Savage Worlds.

That is, once a player in SW gets to Legendary, they just start collecting edges and (slowly) improving traits.

Which is pretty much what E6 does. Just, you know, feats instead of edges. Because naming them different is damn near the only real difference.

There's a feat for that

while E6 and SW came to the same basic strategy, they got there in different ways. SW has some inherent limitations because it relies more on rolling dice than adding modifiers. There are only so many dice, so you have a semi-stable "upper limit".

E6 got there because d20 relies on modifiers and few dice. Thus, there is no true upper limit. As the game progresses, the modifiers get more and more complex until the system just breaks under the strain. E6 bypasses this by creating an upper limit around where the math is still efficient.

Either game is more or less fine, I'm not claiming one is superior. I just think the design strategy is interesting. I don't care for Savage Worlds damage system, and d20 (especially Pathfinder) is rules heavy. Both are flawed, but both are good.

Sounding Boards

Today I spent the greater part of the day (that I should have been doing work) talking D&D with former student. We talked at length about systems and designs and house rules and gaming groups. All that nerdy stuff. Total waste of the day in terms of productivity.

went kinda like this.

While the former student and I diverged on numerous points, we had a great deal in common as well and shared our knowledge bases well.

He reminded me of this thing called "E6" which basically caps the level progression of D&D at level 6. After that you get some feats that can raise your power level a bit but not much. The concept is to take advantage of the "sweet spot" of D&D somewhere around level 5 to 10...before the bookkeeping gets out of hand and the characters become super heroes.

On the surface I like it in concept. I still hate certain aspects of the base rules (attacks of opportunity) and find feats to be conceptually sound but flawed.

Still, from a GM who likes more gritty games with low magic, this is tempting.

For example, I've already got the rules revision I like done. Within the framework of and E6 game (although, with a Pathfinder core I think E10 would be reasonable) I could be satisfied. Most of the stuff I dread will be off the table and the rules remain more or less streamlined.

Most of the arguments I have against this sort of power cap break down the minute I ask myself how many times I've ever run a game over level 10? The answer is few. Then, I ask how much I actually enjoyed the game after level 10? The answer is fewer...maybe none.

So, maybe it's not such a bad idea.

The Maelstrom

I'm changing the name of the "Pathfinder Lite" project to the "Maelstrom" project.
In the olden days people commonly made some house rules for any given campaign. Often people said "Hey, we're playing Gary's Greyhawk Campaign" or Jim's "Dwimmermount Campaign" rather than saying "We're playing D&D".

Nothing wrong with either, but there were certain assumptions in each. I am moving Maelstrom toward that sort of thinking. For the Maelstrom campaign, it's a rules lite version of 3rd edition. I'm not even drawing an association toward Pathfinder anymore since most of the bones come from either the SRD or blatant theft from 4e (which really, the bones of which are in 3e so it's only sorta blatant.

A few things I will tell you about the new rules, a "What to expect" for what's coming. First of all, the entire Combat chapter is 9 pages long. Compare that to Pathfinder's 28 pages (with itty bitty font) or 4e's 32 pages (with reasonable font).

What's new?
There are 3 action types (Standard, move, and free). FYI Pathfinder had 8 types (including one called "Not an Action").
No Critical confirmation, you roll a 20, you get a crit. Simple as that.
I will use a whopping 16 combat conditions. (down from the SRD's 38 and Pathfinder's list of 34).
I'm going to use 4e's Combat Advantage...because I like it better than "flat-footed".
Cover and Concealment are simplified. Rather than pages of deciding how much cover, the GM just decides and offers a +4 to +8 bonus.
Attack of Opportunity are gone. They are goofy and annoying.
Most of the Special Actions (aid another, bull rush, charge, grapple, etc) have been stripped down to a simpler mechanic.
Natural healing uses the short/extended rest mechanic (or variation thereof) from 4e. I never liked the 3e natural healing.
There is no Dying, recovery, stable, etc mechanic. At 0 hit points, you die. Pure and simple.

Sandbox: The Map, part 3

I've been busy working on the campaign setting rules (which, at the moment is a twisted combination of several incarnations of D&D). But, I've also got the bones of the "world" map done. I took this:

and turned the parts into this:

I really like the spiral image of the island chains, it immediately makes me wonder what hell is at the center. If anyone is interested, the South-central island chain is Sheol. It is has the highest density of island and the greatest number of island. It's packed. In some cases, there is less than 5 miles from one island to another. I imagine the currents are insane and treacherous.

Other good news, based on the design of the map I have a name for the campaign.

The Maelstrom.

The only major change I am considering is moving the 3 wild island on the corners into one corner. Part of me really likes having them broken up and scattered to the corners...and the mystery of why there is not one in the other corner...and why they are not part of the spiral.

But, aesthetically, maybe they would be better clumped in one corner. For now, they remain in the corners.

Pathfinder Lite: Barbarian

When most people think about why they want to play a barbarian, most will tell you barbarians are cool because they rage. Rage allows them to do more damage and take more damage for a short while. Some will mention their big ol' d12 hit dice or the Damage Reduction, but those features are along the same lines as rage.

Basically, they picture this.

You know what they do not think about?
Trap Sense.
(and to a lesser degree, uncanny dodge).

Seriously, why is this a barbarian class ability? At best it should be an optional feature among the list of Pathfinder rage powers.

Pictured: a total lack of trap sensing.

It's not that the feature is unbalanced or anything, it's just totally misplaced. As a Rogue or Bard ability, it makes perfect sense. But a barbarian? I just don't see it, nor will I continue to keep it as part of the barbarian design.

Up till now, I've ignored the uncanny dodge thing. But I wanna attack the whole concept of using feats as class features. Yes, it's central to the fighter. The whole point of the fighter is feats. I get that. But, if one the main features of a class is a feat...I don't know it just takes away from the uniqueness of the class. So I want to avoid that sort of nonsense as much as possible.

Careful, or they will dodge you...uncannily

Finally, I want to address something I looooooooove about the Pathfinder barbarian but need to get rid of. The rage powers aspect of the class introduced in Pathfinder is awesome...but to reduce the complexity of the game I want to get rid of that sort of thing. I want class features to be pretty well set. I don't want character creation bogged down by a new choice every few levels. You select a class and that's what you get, simple and set.

But, since I love them so much and removing basically everything except Rage and Damage reduction is not the goal, I decide to replace the trap sense and uncanny dodge with rage powers and fill in the rest of the class with the simplest and most straightforward rage powers. What I end up with is the following:

Barbarian
    Barbarians excel in combat, possessing the martial prowess and fortitude to take on foes seemingly far superior to themselves. With rage granting them boldness and daring beyond that of most other warriors, barbarians charge furiously into battle and ruin all who would stand in their way.
Hit Die: d12
Skills: Choose training in either Physical or Survival.
Weapon Proficiency: Simple & Martial
Armor Proficiency: Light, Medium, and Light Shield
Features:
    Fast Movement: A barbarian’s speed is faster than the norm for her race by +10 feet.
    Rage: A Barbarian can rage for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + his or her normal Constitution modifier. At each level after 1st, he or she can rage for 2 additional rounds. Entering rage is a free action. An extended rest renews the number of rounds a barbarian can rage.
    While in rage a barbarian gains: +4 to Strength and Constitution, +2 to Will saves, -2 Armor Class, and +2 Hit Points per level (which are used last and disappear when the rage ends).
    When the rage ends, the barbarian is fatigued and suffers -2 to Strength and Dexterity until he or she takes an extended rest. If the barbarian does anything that would further fatigue him or her, she is exhausted and suffers -6 to Strength and Dexterity until he or she takes and extended rest.
    Animal Fury: While in rage, the barbarian gains a bite attack. The bite attack is made at the barbarian’s base attack bonus -5. The bite deals 1d4+Str damage for medium sized barbarians (1d3 for small barbarians).
    Powerful Blow: While in rage, once per encounter, a barbarian gains a +1 to a single damage roll. This bonus increases by +1 at levels 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18.
    Renewed Vigor: While in rage, once per day, the barbarian heals 1d8 + Constitution modifier hit points. For every 4 levels the barbarians healing increases by 1d8 (to a maximum of 5d8 at level 20).
    Raging Physique: While in rage, the barbarian adds his or her level to all Physical skill rolls.
    Swift Foot: While in rage, the barbarians speed increases by +5 feet. This increases to +10 feet at level 10 and +15 feet at level 18.
    Damage Reduction: At 7th level, a barbarian gains damage reduction. This reduces the damage the barbarian takes from each attack. At 10th level, and every three barbarian levels thereafter, this damage reduction rises by 1 point.
    Raging Damage Reduction: While in rage, the barbarian’s damage reduction increases by +1/--. At level 14 this increases to +2/--. At level 20 this increases to +3/--.
    Greater Rage: At 11th level, when a barbarian enters rage, the bonus to his or her Strength and Constitution increases to +6 and +3 to Will saves.
    Fearless Rage: While in rage, a barbarian is immune to fear effects.
    Indomitable Will: While in rage, a barbarian gains +4 on Will saves.
    Mighty Swing: While in rage, the barbarian does maximum damage on a critical hit.
    Tireless Rage: Starting at 17th level, a barbarian no longer becomes fatigued at the end of his or her rage.
    Mighty Rage: At 20th level, when a barbarian enters rage, the bonus to his or her Strength and Constitution increases to +8 and +4 to Will saves. 

like a boss.

Pathfinder Lite

I am working on two gaming projects right now that kinda go hand-in-hand.

The first is a sandbox (which I've finally named "Maelstrom"). The second is a revision/reduction of the 3.x D&D rules. At it's core is Pathfinder, which I feel to be the best (rules as written) version of the 3rd edition.

The only issues I have with it are it's enormous bulk. Not just the physical size of the text (575 pages) but also the cumbersome rules inherent to 3rd edition. Microlite kinda proves that 3e need not be so bulky and I'd like to trim pathfinder down.

I'd like a rule set that new, inexperienced players can enjoy and more seasoned players can respect. Not Iron Heroes, but nothing so drastic as Microlite.

I know I will be getting rid of things like the 3 kinds of Armor Class (flat-footed, normal, touch), attacks of opportunity (more trouble than they are worth), and other unnecessary complexities. I want to bring in some of the standardizations of 4e where I can. For example, the burst and blast mechanics of 4e.

Pathfinder Lite

Ability Scores
Barbarian
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Fighter
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Sorcerer
Wizard
Spellcasting

Dreaming it up

What I want from an RPG is the following:

1. SIMPLE character creation.
2. Interesting character advancement and customization.
3. Clear cut rules and simple encounter design.
4. Quick and lethal, but not too lethal, combat.
5. Easy system customization, modification, and expansion...mostly expansion.

When I started writing this I knew I wanted things, but I figured the list would be longer. Then I wrote it down I was shocked that this was all I thought of.

I'm kinda disappointed with myself.

Player Records

I love d20.
I love the "old school revolution".
I love d6.
I love Savage Worlds.

I don't really believe 'system' has anything to do with fun at the table. Well, not as much as some people believe it does anyway.

I've bemoaned the parts of RPGs that I don't like. I hate feats, I hate goofy system mechanics, I hate easily broken mechanics, I hate confusing subsystems. But, I've noticed something about my problems with systems.

The parts that erk me and cause problems at the table come in 2 flavors.
The first is badly designed mechanics. (3.0 grappling is the go-to example) That's usually an easy house-rule fix.

The second is character creation. This is the big one that I find commonly problematic in most systems.

d20 is a particularly bad offender. My belief is that character creation should take a 1st time player no more than say, 15 minutes to be up and ready to go with at least a marginal idea of what they can do well.

if only it was this easy

Now, that's not just me being lazy. I have several good reasons to want (very) easy character creation.

1. Character Creation needs to be fun, but quick because it rarely stays fun very long.

3e character creation is just too complex. If you don't do a few things right, right from the start, and plan things out well, you will not be getting into that prestige class later on. (we'll talk about advancement in a minute).  4e character creation is just...it's just horrid. It's everything 3e was but with more searching through pages and pages of unrelenting crap for that one good power. God forbid having to learn the dozens of powers.

Elf paladin.

2. If character creation is not fun, or takes a long time, the death (or even injury) of the character in-game is hard to swallow.

You ask the player to put time and energy into a character. Then, you kill them.

why did I play a bard!?

I'm not saying a GM should not kill and maim characters. Quite the contrary. The problem is that the investment to make the character is so high that losing the character is a hard pill to swallow and some players have a hard time dealing with that. If the GM decides to not kill characters (or allow them to die) then the player may lose interest in the same way that 'god mode' is only fun for a while.

3. The more complex character creation is, the more complex character advancement is.

This means that every few sessions, you get the joy of redoing the same kind of stuff you did during character creation. While gaining new powers is cool, if you gain too much from too many sources (race, class, level, prestige class, etc.) then it gets to be a lot of bookkeeping.

Thanks to the interaction of my character's race, class, and feat selection, my taxes will rock this year.

I could go on, but my point is that the player's end of the rules (especially character creation) needs to be relatively simple. 4e did a great job of making the GMs job easy, but made the player's side of things a bit nightmarish.

My goal in the future is to make sure whatever system I use requires very little in the way of character creation. I want the bookkeeping and such to me almost invisible and automatic. Not without options, but a careful balance between options and over-complication.

Sandbox: The Map, part 2

So I was working on the Map some more. I've come to a few specific decisions.

1. I don't want the islands to be too big. Each hex is about 5 miles or so. Irony games wanted them to be much larger so that each island was about the size of the British isles. That's too big for my needs. I'm good with many, small, islands.

2. Rather than the rigid 10 x10 grid, I am going to arrange them a little more chaotically. This is more aesthetically pleasing, but, that's not the main reason. The main reason is because I love world maps more than I thought. Originally, I figured this huge archipelago was in the middle of some sea and there was a main land somewhere. But, as if my mind simply rejected such a notion, a thought burst to my mind in a spray of flowers and sunshine. "What if these islands are the only land masses on the entire planet."

Do. Not. Compare. 

3. Doing a world map in Hexographer is doable, but not easy. Nor is arranging the islands from the one picture I have. I can do it, but I think I need to move it into fractal mapper to make it work. Making larger, hexographer based island maps (as opposed to maps of island chains or the world map) will be better. So in the end I want one ("pretty") world map, seven ("pretty") chain maps, and 100 or so maps of the individual islands. For now, I will focus on the world map, and then chain and island maps as they become necessary.

4. I'm going arrange the island into 7 chains plus another "group" of islands known (for now) as the "wild islands". The chains are geographic, not political, and have names familiar to people I've played with before. They are Aesir (northern), Eden (east-central), Mageddon (western), Nod (eastern), Sheol (south-central), Shinto (southern), and Zion (west-central). The wild islands are scattered all over the place. This arrangement puts Aesir, Nod, Shinto, and Mageddon in the cardinal directions and Sheol, Eden, and Zion in the middle.

5. The original Irony maps are already pre-set up with 3 nations per map. Quick math will tell you that means right at 303 nations. I may not need that many, some 'nations' may exist on more than one map, but I like the pre-set borders. Especially because several of them have 'contested' areas. In other words, areas where active wars are taking place. I need to have an easy framework to build nations, and I think I do, but more on that in another post. I am going to ignore the names of cities and towns from the original Irony maps. The maps were good, but the random name generator was horrid.

Sandbox: The Map, part 1

There are numerous sources about making maps. The cartographers guild, for example, is a great source to learn how to map well and see numerous examples of maps. Hence, I really have no desire to get into realistic map-making.

In fact, I'm not much of a huge fan of being overly "realistic". Take World of Warcraft for example, that world map makes no damn sense.

madness

Arctic regions butt-up against deserts. The size of it is, at best, vague and somewhat crazy. Does anyone care? nope. It serves the game. The same is true for a sandbox map. It needs to be 'realistic' enough to not ruin the game, but ultimately needs to serve the game.

So what are the needs of a Sandbox map?
The Map needs to be big (but not too big), filled with lots of things to do and see, and to help the player's characters rock out.

About to Rock Out

Now, my first impulse is to make a new map and explain how I designed it in a series of post. But, after a moments though, I decide I don't want to do that because I want a map that could (in theory) be ready to play a little quicker than that. So I should use one of the legion of maps I already have. After some though, I chose a map I have, didn't make, but needs some cleaning up.

Long ago there was a website called "Irony Games". IG was fantastic. It had dozens of game aids. Not the least of which were it's maps. Tavern maps, world maps, clearings, islands, and space map that is simple insane. The IG galaxy was bigger than you can imagine. Sadly, it is lost to the ages. IG is no longer up, and no matter how hard I try, finding the resources once available is futile.

But, before IG went quietly into the night, I map this map:

Remember how I said they had island maps? well, they had 101 island maps. This map is a 10x10 of 100 of them and I have the 101st here:

Originally I added a name to each map using the 101 names of Ahura Mazda. Later, I decided I didn't like those names and needed more than 101 of them (since some of the island maps are actually 2 or 3 islands. So I will need to redo that.

Also, the map quality is, at best, poor and simplistic. It has good bones, but poor execution. I want to import it into hexographer. That will let me make changes, add to it, change up the terrain, name things better, and effect other needed changes. I like this idea because the map is large, but each island is relatively small. It's similar in concept to games like Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and others. Exploring an entire island is completely reasonable, likely several islands. Exploring the whole map is much less likely.

Similar, in concept, to Wind Waker. Not similar visually.

Map Love

I love maps. I mean seriously. I love them way more than you think I do when I say I love them. Take all the love you have for any map, ever, and I swear I love maps more than that. Let me show you how much I love maps.

Inverted Earth

This is one of my more elaborate hexographer mapping projects. It's extremely time consuming and sometimes exhausting. Maybe I'll blog on it in detail sometime. It's huge. Doing the Euro-Asia Sea may just kill me. All those brown lines are mountains that make the Himalayas look like a joke.

Scion

This is another "unfinished" project I did with Fractal Mapper. I used the Manual of the Planes as a concept for a physical map. One of the rare times I let land be on the edge of a map (I like complete continents). I actually ran a game in Arcadia and Acheron using this map.

Heredis

This is Mo's favorite map (that I made). I've actually run some stuff using this map. It was another fractal mapper map I did. It's essentially complete. I could add too it, but I likely never will.

Beyond these little projects I have dozens of other maps. I have an entire folder for map on my computer. We are talking about hundreds of maps ranging from single buildings to entire worlds. I have one map that puts all the TSR/Wizards campaign settings on a single Earth-sized planet. The detail on that one leaves something to be desired and I'd love a high-rez version. I've tried a few times to put as many maps as I can into a single world, but usually the size of the project just crashes whatever program I am running. I know some ways around that of course (and on this machine it's not as much an issue).

So when the first step of a sandbox it "Map" I get a surge of happiness, followed by a surge of terror. I have to pick just one map?

Building a Sandbox

Before you can play in a sandbox, you must build the sandbox. But, before you build a sandbox maybe one should have a plan first. That's what I want to work on today. If I am going to build a sandbox, I want to have something like a plan to do so. I'll almost certainly need to change the outline as I run into problems, but a framework is probably a good idea.

Arbitrarily I want 7 steps.

1. The Map - A map is essential to a sandbox setting and the obvious first step.
2. "Civilize" the map - That is, put cities, towns, and villages on the map.
3. Points of Interest - Add in dungeons, ruins, battlefields, and interesting places to the map.
4. Name it - make sure place on the map have names (including geographic features).
5. Monsters - Decide what God-forsaken nightmares live where (and normal animals too).
6. Details - Flesh out the civilized locations.
7. More Details - Flesh out the wild locations.

There is a fairly decent chance I will change and/or expand on this.

Steps:
The Map: Part 1
The Map: Part 2
The Map: Part 3

Estevan and the Estevan Warriors

Mo could not come to the game today because she had a horrid night at work last night and did not get home till about 10 and didn't get to bed till like 11:30 or noon.

But the session was fun all the same. Ali and Joel got a new set of cards for Savage Worlds. The cards are awesome and I will find a way to convert them to...well any and every system I ever play, ever.

My character is totally not this.

The session itself was exactly what they promised last night. An episodic mission from the Wall. Our group was ordered to go past the wall and find some remains of the rangers who were lost beyond the wall. Along the way we found a Frost Wolf killin a Dire Wolf. We took care of Frost and saved the Dire Wolf. I named him Obsidian in honor of a past game (Sid for short).

We got ambushed by a bunch of hippies wildlings. My wolf and I both killed one each right off the first round. Very cool. I played my card, which was supposed to be me saying something so intimidating that it basically stops combat. I couldn't think of anything cool to say. I needed a random table of witty sayings. :(

Once we dispatched the hippies wildlings, we camped and in the morning we continued North. After a bit in the woods we found a scary tree. Sev (Joel's character) and ... Lucian's character... attacked the tree...for some reason. It hit them back and then we walked around it and left it alone. Odd encounter that.

Who ya gonna call?

Finally, we found a clearing with a bunch of bodies and a sword that looked like it was from a Ranger. Bea's character, Myra, touched it and it came to life. Well, a ghostly figure appeared and attacked us with the sword. Sev tried to hit the ghost...that did nothing, so I shot the sword. That worked a bit better.

After several rounds of beating on this thing we finally wore it down and broke the sword. Having secured what we came for (remains of a ranger) we headed back. To Sir. Al's disappointment, we survived and I gained my wolf companion.

Good session.

Resources

These are the three best links I know of that form the basic frame work that I will build from.

1: Jeff Rients' How to Awesome up your Players: This is one of the better starting points for playing an RPG I've ever read. Not really about world building, but if you start with this mindset, I think you are good to go.

2: Reynard's 7 Sandbox Essentials: A very nice summation of the basic concepts for a Sandbox without getting bogged down in minutia. 

3: Bat in the Attic's "How to make a Fantasy Sandbox": An extensive (if somewhat incomplete) break down of step by step Sandbox building. While a decent outline, it gets lost in the details.

Books I will most likely draw from include Sandbox-ish settings like
Greyhawk - The original sandbox. 
Wilderlands of High Fantasy - Old school sandbox.
Ptolus -  As close to a sandbox as Monte Cook is going to get. Almost too much detail to be a true sandbox though.
Liberty - Another good 'city' sandbox. Irritating they never released more than the 3 supplements. I need to buy the Arcane Quarter...
Scarred Lands - Kinda like Greyhawk's younger brother.
Violet Dawn - Very Sandbox-ish and much in line with Wilderlands. 

That is far from comprehensive of course, and I don't know how much I will actually draw from any of those sources.

Sandboxing

Through most of my gaming history I've been into world building. I like doing it. Sadly, the majority of my gaming style was more about telling stories than making worlds. The game was a story (and so was the setting). There is nothing inherently wrong with that from a self-serving, having fun point of view. The only issue from a gaming perspective is that it is self-serving.

GMing should be fun, and world-building should be too, but at the end of the day the GM is there to facilitate the game for the players. Or, if you prefer, the GM has one kind of fun and the players have another. The GM may enjoy writing histories and stories about his setting and players may even enjoy reading them at some point (unlikely as that is). But, when the game starts most players are ready for their characters to do something. This does not include reading or listening to the thousand-year history of...whatever. 

My job: panels 1-6. Players Job: 7 & 8. 

Over the last year or so I've adopted a more 'old-school' point of view. I'm not sure I'm part of the 'old-school revolution' other bloggers talk about, but I respect the movement. I have exactly zero interest in crafting a 1-20 adventure path for my players that more or less railroads them into a plot. 

I'd much rather spend my non-gaming free time building a sandbox world for them to rip to damn shreds.  I want my players to feel free to pursue what is best in life. (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women). I want the world to exist not to provide the players a story they play out (like a video game) but rather a place for them to rock out and be awesome. I want the effect to be from the players not towards them. 

To that end I plan to begin working on a sandboxing project. I've been reading up on this sort of approach and I feel I have a good enough grasp of how to do it to get to work. I'm not sure when (or even if) my players will get a chance to rip it to shreds, but I hope they do. Just like building a block fort, the best part is knocking it down and watching it fall. 

Taking a Break

I stepped down from GMing with my group last session. I needed a break. I've been GMing for a long time now. Most of the group seems pretty happy about my GMing, but I got to the point where I was not. I felt like it was poor quality stuff (regardless if it was good or not). I was burned out basically.

Nothing recharges my GM batteries like being a player. It, almost magically, reignites my imagination, creativity, and drive. One session (and mostly character creation session) and I was already thinking new things. I have numerous theories why being a player (even for just a few hours) has this effect, I imagine more than one is correct while the others are just psychological bat-shit.

Regardless, the session was (for a character creation session) fun. Not much happened, and having two GMs is weird but oddly effective. It's just mind-boggling cool to watch Joel and Ali seamlessly co-GM without so much as a hiccup. I was never confused who was actively GMing and what was going on. I seriously doubt I could co-GM as a general thing and sure as hell could not do it that smoothly.

We're using Savage Worlds for a fantasy setting (loosely) based on the Game of Thrones setting. Regardless of my opinion of that book, I think the setting is interesting and Joel and Ali's liberal interpretation is likely to make for a good game. I suspected it to be largely story-driven, but it seems they intend for it to be more episodic and disconnected than that. I applaud that plan as I doubt our group is truly capable of a solid story-drive epic-plot sort of game.

yeah...it's not a bear, but it will do.

And frankly, I am glad of it. I've grown a great deal away from the mega-plot games and want to deal more with episodic, sandbox-style games. They tend toward my world-building side, my general disinterest in any story a GM gives me (I'd rather make my own by Rocking the pants off whatever setting my character is in). I tried to get the GM to let me have a lion or a bear companion (either I could ride) but (as per a completely fair and very cool GM decision) I rolled up a dire wolf (which in SW is too damn small to ride). Still, dire wolf. Then we did a PvP beat fest that took the rest of the session and ended with most of us on the ground. I went down first because I didn't do a damn think with my character that made them particularly combat effective.

Still, I think you can grasp from my writing was I enthused about the session. I'm looking forward to actually getting my wolf into play and kicking some...whatever the bad guys in GoT are. I know there is a big ass Ice Wall to ward off something nasty, no real idea what they are. I don't plan on exploring their motivations or tactics much either. I suspect it will largely break down to me shooting arrows into whatever the hell my wolf is gnawing on.

My Group is a Pain

A gaming groups are a strange and varied breed. Mine certainly is. One of the most challenging things about GMing is understanding the players motivation. Having a master degree in psychology helps that, but when in my case I'm not sure how anyone could do it without one.

Let me explain. The motivation of everyone at the table is presumably to have fun. But what is fun and how do you have it. A (remarkably scientific) exploration of what makes a game fun was conducted by XEODesign examining games in general, but video games more than anything else.

They idenified 4 kinds of fun...and graphed it with this little tidbit of insanity.

Without going to far into it, you can easily figure out that RPGs fulfill all of these in many situations. Hence the longevity of the hobby.

But each of my players gravitates toward one over the others. (I'll use character names from the most recent game).
Cassidy: People Fun. Cassidy comes because she likes to hang out with people. The other forms of fun are inconsequential. The game itself has little or no real impact, although "Easy Fun" is secondary. Movement toward Hard or Serious fun has a risk of lowering her interest.

Joel: Easy Fun/People Fun. Joel is hard to figure sometimes. Of the two he seems to gravitate toward Easy Fun over People fun, but the line is thin. He appreciates Hard fun, but Serious Fun tends to put him off somewhat.

Ali: Easy Fun. Like Joel, People fun is almost as important, but the line is dark enough to allow a more certain assignment (barely). Hard Fun is less interesting to her, but not off putting. Of all my players she is the only one I can imagine enjoying Serious Fun, and very well may. Including that, however, is next to impossible without seriously impacting other players.

Lucian: Hard Fun. It's not even a question here. Like most of my players, Serious Fun would turn him off like a lamp. He gets into Easy Fun, and like the People fun, but often enjoys activities that have little or none of either.

Bea: People Fun (?). Bea seems to enjoy the social nature of the game, a close secondary is likely Hard Fun with Easy Fun being third. They are fairly closely clustered and likely varies depending on her day-to-day social interaction needs. Serious Fun is, at best, dis-interesting and at worst, off putting.

Myself: Hard Fun. Given my own limited ability to self-explore honestly, that is my best guess. Most of the games I gravitate toward seem to capture the elements of 'hard fun' over other kinds. Like most of my players, Serious Fun is 'meh'. I can imagine myself enjoying it, but not on a regular or general basis.


So how the hell do you GM for a group like this? It's a challenge to be sure. Let's suppose I dropped my "Easy" fun players. I'd likely get bored with the game because it would be mostly story-driven with only a limited amount of gamism involved. If I dropped my "Hard" players, I'd get sick of the story-less gaming.

Most of my players enjoy the People fun on some level. This tends to be the dominant factor in our games. In many cases we don't even get to the game, we just hang out. We could just as easily play Wii and have as much fun. The "hard" and "easy" motivations would eventually cry out for something besides chatting, but once satisfied that would subside.

The truth is, I have an easy group to GM for. The "people" fun happens naturally and as long as some of the other funs are there, everything will be fun. The balancing act between "hard" and "easy" is really secondary since most everyone is just happy to hang out.

Oklahoma Campaign Setting

would have to be this, but damn it I would play the hell out of a Dino-rancher in the wild frontier north of the red river (which in this version would flow red...with blood)

Online Gaming

And I don't mean WOW.

I love wow, I think wow is great. I think lots of online RPGs are great. I think most FB games are good, rpg or not really. They do the job of entertaining and allowing us an escape from the more dull parts of our lives. Say what you will about escapes from reality, but they fill a nitch.

I've done TON of RPGs online. From when I moved from OKC to when I moved back essentially ALL my gaming was online. Every scrap of it. There was nobody local to play with. Well, nobody I knew.

Like most things, there are advantages and disadvantages of online gaming.
Advantages:
1. time and location are largely irrelevant. You game from wherever you are whenever you feel like it.
2. The game has a lifetime record from start to finish. Easy to keep notes on.
3. consistency to the story and the depth of that story are usually greater than in live games.

Disadvantages:
1. Because the only reward is the game itself, the social benefits of the live game are lost.
2. Because of the turn-based nature of online games, combat can take a long time. There are ways to bypass this, but those methods remove player control somewhat.
3. The game usually progresses slowly.

I've noticed a few other things that work well for my online gaming.
1. Two players is better than 1 or 3 (or more).
3. More than 3 players is almost always a bad idea.
4. Players who want a greater deal of strategic control over their character usually get tired of the game.
5. PBEM (play by e-mail) works about as well as play-by-post to a forum or group. E-mail has a tendency to be more stable, but people seem to forget to reply or check forums if things get slow.
6. Supplementing PBP/PBEM with play by message seems to be good for the slow points or whenever everyone is online and capable playing.
7. Tracking character sheets is kinda tough, but there are numerous solutions.

I've been thinking of trying an online game using the tools of FB. Make a group for just the GM and 2 players. It has a built in 'group chat' automatically. Character sheets can be kept as notes...but I'm not sure how easy that is to modify.

Here's a thought

We all know I hate feats. They were added in 3rd edition and caused nothing but problems. Novel and interesting at first but broken, tedious, and boring after a while.

but I like the powers from 4e. yeah, know, they are not perfect either, but still, make for some interesting effects.

Dropping feats from 4e is easy. They don't do much anyway.

But what about dropping feats from 3e. That causes lots of problems (for example, the fighter). but what if you drop feats and replace them with powers? Would that work? How? How not?

Post Baby Gaming

So I was thinking, actually I've been thinking about this for some time (off and on). I'm not sure how much live gaming I'm going to be able to do. The weekly Saturday thing is probably staring down the barrel of it's last few months.

After the baby(s) are born, getting together on a weekly basis will be nearly impossible for the first few months. Even after that, transporting a child (or two) to Norman once a week at 7pm is, at best, a hassle. At worst, ridiculous.

Up till now we met at Jonathan's because...well...they had kids. So unless they got a babysitter it just wasn't going to happen anywhere else. With us having kids too the only functional solution is that someone gets a baby sitter once a week. Depending on who does it that's not a cheap solution.

So I'm not sure what is going to happen with the live game after baby(s). I'm pretty sure it will mark the death of anything that could be called a 'campaign'. It will likely mark the beginning of more online activity and one-shots. Maybe Saturday afternoon sessions. I'm really not sure how it will play out. I'm not too worried about it either.

Like a d6

So, having made my peace with 4e and moved on to other gaming jazz I come to d6.
Most of my players seemed to like the d6 system I did. Which is good because it was a cosmic butt load of work. Still, I never could get really happy with it and I never got equipment happy. Having some time to not think about it has given me insight to some of the problems that irritated me to no end.

Let's look at those for a second. First, I never was a huge fan of the initiative system. I have come to peace with it, but it feels clunky. I can live with it for what it is though.

The counting of dots just had to go. Yes, I like having big ass numbers too, but counting every damn dot (plus modifiers) was a bitch. The modifiers made it worse too. I never liked 'pips' or 'dots'. Those little numbers are what make d20 the pain in the ass it is. Too many stacking little bonuses. Just roll some damn dice and to hell with the math I say!

So, on the advice of Jonathan and Alice I started tinkering with the d6 rules again. (No, I am not switching this campaign from Savage World to d6. It's not happening. If you begged me to do it I wouldn't). One of the things I decided to do was remove as many static modifiers as I could. I wanted dice to be the thing. I got rid of 'pips' entirely. They are just gone. If something modifies a roll, it does so as a number of dice.

I changed how dice work a little too. Instead of a purely additive roll (roll x dice, add the total, compare to number) I added some rules bulk for what I think will play out on the table better.

Roll X dice, count # of dice rolling 4, 5 or 6 ("successes"), compare successes to a Success number (that is, how many successes you need for whatever to work).

The goal is to save the counting of 37 numbers. I had to redo how damage works and a few other things but so far it's been a pretty easy change.

three simple steps...then a new room

Making 4e what I want in 3 easy steps.
1. Cut monster HP in half across the board
2. Feats = Gone (maybe allow a few some how, but really, more or less gone).
3. Use the magic item fixes from Essentials (lose the dailies per day by level, lose milestones, introduce rarity/random item).

That will pretty much do it for me.

NEW ROOM

Jonathan was beating me around the ears a bit with my obsession of 'fixing 4e'. I'm glad I have a friend who is into mechanics so I can have those conversations. Plus, even when I don't think he understand what I am talking about, he helps me think up other ideas.

This one relates to Karen's "Roll a crap load of dice" idea too. Jonathan basically suggested that fixing 4e is a waste of time, and fixing up some other system is likely a better plan. I'm not 100% sure I agree to that, but it is a valid thought. I mentioned he may be right, and the main reason I am obsessing on 4e is because so much of it is actually good and there is so little to fix in savage worlds.

He then went on to discuss how the whole d6 thing was pretty good (sans equipment, which I could just not get a solid grip on). It might even make a better base for what I am looking for in general.

So that get's me thinking. Dungeon crawl d6? What if I did take a core mechanic like d6 and did things to make it what I would want to play/run in a dungeon crawl. Something to think about. Now that I found a set of house rules that 'fix' 4e for me, I need a new thing to monkey with. Maybe this will be it.

hold on, this is better

I'm obsessing on this a little, but I think I have a better plan for 4e magic items.

First, lets just scrap what's already there. They suck and suck some more. Let's keep the levels (and the static bonuses they provide to various numbers) and slots. But let's redefine what they do.

Weapons (including implements) provide attack and damage bonuses and Striker Powers
Armor provides AC bonus and Defender powers
Hands provides Controller powers
Neck provides Leader powers
Feet provides Striker Utilities
Waist provides Defender Utilities
Arms provide Controller Utilities
Rings provide Leader Utilities
Wondrous items (including companion and mount slots) work as is. consumables work as is.

Each item has a rarity based on what power or utility it provides.
Common: at-wills
Uncommon: encounters
Rare: dailies
Very rare: paragon encounters
legendary: paragon dailies
epic: epic destiny daily

Bonuses (to attack, damage, or AC) are based on the items level (as normal 4e). The value (in gp) of an item is based on the level and rarity.
Common -10%
Uncommon -5%
Rare = base
Very Rare +5%
Legendary +10%
Epic +20%

Examples:
Longsword of Nimble Strike. This is a +1 longsword that allows any character to use the Ranger ability “Nimble Strike” as an At-will power. It is a common level 1 item.

Plate Mail of No Mercy. This is a +6 suit of Plate Mail that allows any character to use the Fighter Ability “No Mercy” as a daily power. It is a rare level 29 item.

Fort/Ref/Will bonuses become static and not tied to an item. You just get them.

Making random tables for this is simple. It makes items much more valuable and generally more useful.

Let's talk 4e

I have a very complex love/hate relationships with it. The basis of the love is a really nice streamlined system that works incredibly well at low levels. The hate basically breaks down to how it becomes after a few levels (beyond 10 is a mess).

The crux of the problem is synergistic effects. That is, everything a player does starts to be effected by far too many options. Multiple feats, magic items, equipment, class choices, etc. all working together. In some cases this is broken, but mostly it is just overwhelming. At the table is means more accounting and math (which other than slowing the game down to a crawl as you total up the bajillion bonuses and effects) and that is boring.

The next problem is encounters take to long. Part of that is because of the first problem, but a larger factor is that hit point totals (for monsters and players, but mostly monster) become really high at some point. This means that players have to optimize to do a ton of damage or the encounter will take forever and get very boring very fast.

The last problem is the effect the first two problems have on the role playing aspect. Because character improvement is driven toward optimization because of high hit point totals, decision are made not for story effects but for game effects. That is not inherently bad, but irksome. Because encounters take forever (in some cases regardless of optimization) the time available for story factors is limited and players (including GM) tend to rush through it to get to the encounter so they can get through the encounter.

I believe these problems may have simple fixes.

The first is caused by too many options that in and of themselves are not broken, but the interaction between them is easily manipulated and the end result is overwhelming. The GM is simply not capable of keeping the vast array of multiple players abilities under any sort of control. There are entire worksheets that describe the interactions of multiple effects into a single ability. This is great for people who enjoy that sort of thing, but many people do not.

The second is just a reflection of an attempt at game balance and a belief of how damage should work and how long encounters should last. I believe a flawed execution and, frankly, easily fixed.

The last problem is one of necessity, easily corrected by correcting the first two problems.

The solution to the first problem is found by examining the source of the problem, that is, an over abundance of options. I personally have no concerns with race, class, or class abilities. There are numerous interactions, but not enough to warrant concern. Feat and equipment (specifically Magic Items) cause the majority of problems in my view.

I propose the following solutions.

Regarding Feats, the PHB (4e) describes feats as providing a small static bonus to some other number already on the character sheet. This is usually true, but not always. Some feats allow access to a new ability (such as certain divine feats) or character option (such proficiency feat or multiclassing feats).

These small static bonuses are part of problem number 1 because numerous small bonus mean numerous little math problems. Example of my meaning. It is easy to add 100 + 100. You do it in one operations. It takes longer to add 100 + 10 + 15 + 3 + 25 + 18 + 4 + 20 + 5. They are effectively the same, but take far longer to reach the same result.

The second concern is the introduction of stacking bonuses. By d20 rules, bonuses of the same type do not stack. Meaning you need to know not only the bonus, but also the type of bonus for any given bonus.

My easy solution to feats is that any feat that provides a static bonus is simply dropped from the game. Leaving only feats that allow new abilities or character options. The first retort to this will be that it will effect balance and the second will be that many classes will have no viable feat options.

My response to the first retort is the solution to balance can be found in my answer to the how magic items should work and my solution to magic items. My answer to the limitation of feat options is a slight change to character advancement. Simply put, feats may be exchanged for class abilities via the following table.

# of feats Exchange for...
1 class At-will power
2 class Encounter power or Class role At-will power (an at-will power from a class of the same role)
3 Class Daily Power or Class role Encounter power
4 Class role Daily power or Any classes At-Will power
5 Any classes Encounter power
6 Any classes Daily power

The option to allow cross-class powers obviously reduces the importance of multi-classing feats and I don’t care.

Regarding magic items, a nearly complete revision of the entire system is required, or a complete elimination of them from the game. Magic items, as written, are almost entirely without merit. As a simple solution that avoids too much revision I propose that magic items serve the role of providing small static bonuses to some other statistic sans any other effect. Some magic items (such as the Holy Avenger) are best revised into artifacts, especially if they are almost required by a given class (such as the Holy Avenger).

The actual execution of this revision is more complicated than I care to address at this point. The main factor being that I do not want items to provide powers (that is the role of a class). Magic items simply make the class powers work better. I am even willing to allow Magic items to provide static bonuses to ability scores to avoid item powers of any kind.

The simplest solution is to ignore the text of any item that requires the use of a daily item power. This will, of course, make numerous items meaningless and greatly disrupt the ‘level’ of many (if not most) other items. In the absence of a complete magic item revision, I accept that as a worthwhile alternative. A quick fix of increasing the items static bonus by some amount would likely correct that in most cases.

The second problem (monster’s with too many hit points) I would be best served with a complete revision of how damage works. As that would require a complete revision of every monster and power in the book...I don’t see it as a viable option. I do suggest 2 options.

Reduce hit point by half across the board. In general, this seems to work.

or

Minions can take 1 hit, Standards can take 2 hits, Elites can take 4 hits, and Solos can take 8 hits.
A hit is any time damage exceeds Constitution + a number based on Monster Role (10 for brutes, 8 for soldiers, skirmishers, or controllers, 6 for lurkers or artillery). If you fail to exceed this number the hit does no damage.
If a character exceeds this number by double, it counts as two hits (or an extra hit for each multiple of this number). Critical hits add 1 to this number.
Healing surges replace 1/4 of total hits. Healing effects replace hits in the opposite way damage takes them, the minimum is always 1.

I prefer the second. It would mean you would need to make 8 successful hits against Orcus (surviving nobody healed him...which is unlikely).

Character’s could survive a number of hits equal to 2 + half their level. The ‘damage threshold’ for characters is Constitution + class hit points per level. This makes players somewhat more resilient than monsters and I am very okay with that. It means less time spent healing up between encounters.

The final problem I believe could be solved by these house rules with no further modification.

Speaking of Old School

I love Hero Quest.

If you don't know, go here, and you suck.

I love the simplicity of it. The heroes are clear. The goal is clear. The rules are clear. Sure, you can do some roleplaying if you want, but in the end...that monster needs to die and that treasure needs looting.

There is not deep story arc. No long character backgrounds. Just a simple plot to explain a simple goal.

"These guys are bad and have stuff the good guys want...go gettim."

How is that not a work of damn art?

Just thinking about it makes me want to play it. Or, if it's just overly simple, play an honest-to-god, beersoda(mo is pregnant)-and-chips, dungeon crawl using just about any system you have.

Maybe it is because the game I am prepping is modern fantasy and very character driven, or maybe I just read to many old school gaming blogs. It is very likely I think about playing Hero Quest to much.

But seriously. One of these days I need a gaming group that would sit down, turn on some pointless anime or movie to half-watch, bust out some high carb food and play a dungeon crawl. I tend to run epic-story-driven games and attract players who love them. But one day I want to emphasize the GAME in role-playing game.

Old School

Recently I was reading some old school gaming blogs. Guys who basically play house ruled original D&D, white box. The 1974 version (or older).

I occurred to me I've never seen the OD&D stuff. That's not really a problem, but reading the blogs sparked my curiosity. I suppose I had thought about it previously, but in an age before the internet. I mean really...if it were not for the internet finding a copy of the books (there were 3) would be basically impossible. Out of print doesn't even begin to describe how rare those books are now. It's not like they were well made either.

But, I live in 2011 and I can get pdf of the original rules in under 15 minutes. (I think it took 10). How cool is that? F-ing cool.

So, I started reading the first one.

Ho. Ly. Shit.

Let me quote 6:

"Number of Players: At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabouts."

Ok. So the MINIMUM is 4 players and the MAXIMUM is 50 (!!!!) and the suggested number of players is TWENTY? (!!!!!)

I once ran a game for 10 guys. It last about 2 hours and nothing got done and we were not following any real rules. We were just screwing around. But 20! Who the hell has ever done that! Is OD&D actually set up to handle that kind of insanity? I seriously doubt it. I have a soft player cap of 7 and a HARD cap of 8. That's using a rules light system. If I were running 4e I'd never (EVER) go over 6 and dread anything more than...well...it's 4e so...I'd just dread it.

Other than that, the rules suggest basically 2 of each dice except for d6s. It suggests (wait for it) 8 to 40 (1) d6s. I want to know when the sweet donkey fuck I will need to roll 40d6! What the hell is the scope of this game?

A few random things

The card I have my WoW account linked to expired. I didn't bother updating Blizz. I hadn't played in like 2 weeks. So I just kinda let it go. It's not that I don't have time, I just don't care. I leveled through the Cata stuff and I was just doing the dailies for gear and running the same random dungeons. It was all super repetitive. I mean WoW is kinda built on doing the same things over and over but end-game cata is more so I think. Just kinda lost interest in running Tol Barad...again.

I thought about giving this Rift game a whirl. People seem to love it. I'd have to run it in boot camp though. That is doable, but meh.

In the mean time I have been working with hexographer and some world building. Once I get the oceans done I might post a graphic of the world.

I also switched my next campaign from a medieval fantasy to a dark 'modern' setting with a heavy horror vibe. I started watching Fringe and the more I watch it the more I think the game is going that direction with a bit of super-natural tossed in for flavor.

Eventuality

My World of Warcraft account was hacked last night or yesterday. Not sure which. Just about everyone I know who plays the game has had their account hacked. You can run Antivirus software, change your password every month, use an authenticator, whatever you like but when it comes right down to it; if you can't handle being hacked, don't play WoW.

It will happen. Sooner or later, it. will. happen.

I embraced this long ago. So when it happened. I was cool. I had been playing SC2 for the last month anyway. I wasn't neck deep in any major objectives. Not playing till my account is restored is a completely viable option for me.

The hackers were cute though. Left my 3 high level toons with their tabards on. My main had a bouquet of roses in hand from the valentines day event. They also dropped me from my guild. Nice. Thanks, I'm sure that helped you get more gold somehow.

Your Welcome

This right here is so wonderful.

Big version here: http://inkwellideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/rpgchart1.gif