I just finished reading this post on Exchange of Realities, by Ravyn. I’ve never before heard of such tradition, and believe me it was entertaining to be informed such. I believe that the reason why such practice is popular stems from a couple things you mentioned:

• rarity of the occasion
• spectacular offers
• competition

Now bear in mind that these three do not have to be real in order to be effective. I remember a paper that I had read some years ago while I was doing Sociology at the University that made a province wide analysis at supermarkets and big store behaviours when it came to making really great offers. The results were fascinating…

First of all, the offers were very limited in scope: you had to buy this product in this particular quantity, and there were only these many in stock. Second, the payment had to be done in a particular way, cash, or maybe a certain credit card or certain number of installments. Third, the offers were a lot of times… not offers at all! A “50% OFF!” had been preceded by a 200% increase in price or a gift that came with a product had been preceded by increasing the price of the product (thus paying for the gift.) Fourth, the offers had very limited time frames. Thus maybe the offer was valid only this Thursday, or (like this Black Friday event) only for a few hours on a particular date. Finally, even if the offers were real and the timing was gentle enough the dynamics (and the geography) of supermarkets made it that they payed for themselves since most times you ended up buying things that were not being offered at reduced prices (and that, a lot of times, had price increases as well.)

That being said, people still rushed towards this apparently miracle offers with reckless abandon. Why? I believe the answer is a mixture of all the elements above. One the one hand there is a miraculous object (the offer, the sale) that appears at the reach of mere mortals for a brief momment (the rare occasion.) But not just everyone can place their hands on such dear price… oh no, only the brave and worthy who pressed on despite of the difficulties could obtain so dear a blessing! It was then, not only a competition amongst themselves, but also within themselves. Thus they were able to feel good, to feel better than (others) because they had the strenght and the wit that was needed to obtain the price.

Now, is the ‘insaneness’ of Black Friday really a deterrent for this brave souls? Nay! Tis the very thing that makes it so alluring in the first place. Even if the price is no price at all, how much money would you pay for the feeling? “I’m saving so much! I won’t let that supermarket people screw with me no more! Now I have more money to get [blank]!” Of course, as I’ve said, a lot of offers are indeed big deals (I’m not saying that everything is a ripoff per se) and this adds to this “feeling good” that I talked about.

Let’s go back to RPG characters (as suggested by our dear Ravyn.) Most likely (but not always), these are extraordinary people, and certainly they are simply more relevant (in a narrative way) that the common Joe/Jane. How could they let such a wonderous opportunity go? Wouldn’t actually be shameful, wouldn’t people laugh at their pretended might and their flaring courage if they would not lead the charge? Or maybe the people would feel resentful (“Bah, she thinks she’s too good to take advantage of the sales, does she?”) Maybe she fanatically see’s this Black Friday as an evil plot that drowns the town in a hecatomb of savagery and chaos…

So, my good people (and of course, Ravyn in particular.) I will ask once again, what can Black Friday do for you?

Fred.

Recently I’ve been a tad naughty regarding my idea of finishing the Rules Cyclopedia. I have not abandoned the project but I’ve also stayed away from actually reading the book. I believe that this stems from a lack of precision in my objective in doing so. In particular since my current role-playing situation is pretty much devoided of… well role-playing, I believe I have this subconscious little feeling that even if I do end up reading the bloody bastard (although heck of a book) I will have no person to play it with.

Whatcha looking at, punk?!

So boo hoo apparently I have no players, big deal, huh? Well thank you very much for asking, you imaginary sarcastic bastard, because I do believe it’s quite a big deal. See this is the issue: my gaming friends and I pretty much stopped role-playing together, probably from a mixture of different tastes and the fact that each one felt that getting together to watch a movie or play a videogame was much more FUN. What’s more, I get the feeling that my on-line group of role-playing buddies won’t be role-playing for long, since we’ve had more problems to consistently game than Mother Teresa to go to the butcher’s. And she’s bloody dead.

To add to that ill cooked soup I must say that there is a very annoying and insidious idea creeping into my brain right now: Why the hell am I writing about role-playing games if I’m not getting any role-playing done?  So you (my obsessive and guilt inducer imaginary friend) will forgive me if I haven’t felt so inclined to go back and read how elves get half damage from breath attacks when they get to level 9, but hey sometimes it seems a little irrelevant.

There are several options to my dilemma… one of them would be to attend to a local role-playing club, the thought of which makes me feel like that old widow in pretty much whatever movie that feels ‘rusty’ at the thought of getting intimate (it means having sex) with a man again. Or maybe it’s the almost flawless record of crappy role-playing and less than stellar afternoons that my experience with these places has.

By now you will probably say that I’m just a bitter man, and if you want to play that game I’ll tell you that the sky is blue. The point is that organizing all this shebang is just getting tiring and frustrating… and I HAVEN’T EVEN BEGUN!

This is obviously not getting me anywhere. So next step is to set up a game plan for my short term role-playing future (which also contains writing for this little place I have.) And to make sure I really push that “reader’s involvement” envelope as far as I can take it, let me ask for your opinion on the matter. My next post will deal with the possible game plan, and I’m pretty excited about the idea of sharing my thoughts with fellow role-players here since (in a mastermind manner that would make Napoleon Hill proud) I’d like to step on the shoulders of giants (the community) to try and solve this drought that accurses my gaming land as of late.

So, while the plan is cooking, what are your thoughts on this “starting over” state that I find myself in? What are the venues you’ve found successful in the past? What would you do and what would you avoid?

I’ve always been on the fence when dealing with proposals for more realistic mechanics. On the one side, I want a kind of realism that could be called coherence: that is a matching of expectations between what the gaming group expects as a probable outcome from combat and the results produced by combat mechanics. On the other hand I want to stay faaaar away from GURPS like exactitude: I don’t want anything to do with the idea of simulating real combat with mechanics so that they, by themselves, would mimic whatever concept of reality.

I’ve been reading this livejournal post today and I must say that I’m intrigued. The writer has some good ideas (surprisingly I’ve thought about some of the same things while reading the Rules Cyclopedia, but I’m sure most of us have) on what are some of the things that just don’t feel right with the action as it is. I don’t agree with some of the solutions proposed, not because of any mathematical error (whatever that might be,) but because I feel it adds unnecessary fiddling with the system.

I do, however, want to recap on some of the points he makes and which I believe are issues that rub me the wrong way:

1- Shields should NOT just lower 1 AC. The shield was an essential part of medieval combat and certainly the element around which defense was built on most one handed weapon set ups. The fact that I can better lower my AC wearing a tough leather armor than I could do by wearing a good shield is simply amazing and, sadly, not very accurate.

Then again, I must still decide how to handle ‘hits’ in combat (and the idea of HP) and the whole AC concept. Regardless of that (and how it might influence the actual mechanic) I want to make sure that shields play an important role. Of course, a shield is not a magic barrier: they’re heavy, sometimes cumbersome, and being hit on the shield with certain weapons plain hurts (much less than being hit in the head with the same weapons though.) Once again, I’m not so sure I need a mechanic to reflect this, but I certainly do not want a mechanic that produces results that go against it.

Choose your character!

2- As far as HP goes, I’ll probably go the abstract route. I especially want to avoid the idea that you can chop, stab and puncture someone (of high enough level) and they’ll just keep on fighting. Any significant wound inflicted in combat is probably going to take you out of the fight altogether. I’m thinking that HP will reflect a sort of stamina, or some kind of “narrative shield” if you’d like: wounds can maybe only be inflicted when the char has 25% or less of the HP or something like that. Still undecided about this one.

In any case I don’t think I’ll be aplying his rules here. What I’d probably like is to have HP directly tied to Constitution… so that it can be ‘trained’ just as someone could develop strenght or higher agility. Just a thought for now. Any ideas?

3- This point speaks for itself:

This is really the most interesting bit…it may also be stolen from somewhere (Pendragon?). The basic idea is that survival is achieved by not being hit, and in a normal combat, one maneuvers to an opponent’s disadvantage such that, when all is said and done, striking your opponent generally means that you are not struck back (…)

(…) you could argue that if you aren’t threatening your opponent, he will have an easier time striking you.

Oh I like that idea… the mechanics that come later, not so much. On that topic I’ve been trying to track down the episodes of “Conquest“, which was a History Channel show that dealt with usage of medieval weapons and such. I’ve already watched the one about axes and boy is it a fountain for ideas! Just by watching one episode (the one I talked about) you can see that what the writer proposes is pretty accurate on some cases. You can find most of them on Youtube.com although the weird thing is that I’ve only found Spanish dubs so far (no issue for me, but might be for you.)

Any thoughts my fellow gamers?

Fred.

After a bit of a dry spell I’ve decided to dig into this vintage gaming piece of roleplaying. Introduced first to the old AD&D book by my new (on-line) roleplaying group, I started to get interested in the old D&D books. The sticking point… they’re fun to read! Who would have though about that?

One book to rule th... I hate Tolkien.

The idea of reading this book came to me from an old RPG.net forum thread. Apparently the forum goer wanted to use this product to focus his reading and try to avoid a sort of roleplaying focused ADD and this 300+ pages behemot was his tool to get a good three months of laser beam like focus. My selection has only partial ties with his reasons: I don’t have roleplaying ADD (in his form at least, I’m not -currently- jumping from game to game… I’m devoting hardly any time to rpgs at all) but I do believe that I have this inconvenient problem in other areas of life. The goal is to devote more time to a hobby that has been recently been neglected and what better way to do so than with a really old and non-mainstream (although really cherished from what I’ve been reading) book from the old D&D times?

Well… yeah, maybe it’s not the perfect idea but let me repeat this: the book is fun to read! Specially when compared with 3rd and 4th edition. For some reason (hey the 4th edition book is sitting there gathering dust for a reason) it feels like such a terrible drag to read the bloody tomes! This book (and prolly this style of play) is like a breath of fresh air to my eyes.

While this book might not be for you, for a lot of the lads and lassies of the RPG Bloggers Network I feel that this might be the case, I believe it will be both an entertaining experience to go through it and also a big learning opportunity. And for that, I thought it’d be a hell of an idea to hold you hostage to the process. Wohoo! My goal with this is to have a few games (prolly one shots, so I don’t scare my usual rping group with the proposal) in about mmm… a month or two down the line. I believe that should be quite enough time to get everything ready, have some interesting locales fleshed out and hype the fuck out it in order to brainwash my friends into playing a roleplaying game again.

Send your ideas, cheers and flames! Also, check out the char sheets!

A minimalistic flavor for the modern age.

Should we really get rid of the fluff? This is a valid question since fluff, in the form discussed in the previous entry, does a lot of things for a lot of people. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been writing and re-writing a sort of practical article to follow the points I raised in the previous one. I found, however, that I kept running into a problematic spot. There was a question that kept coming to mind: How can I address fluff in a less than positive light (as I was trying to do) while at the same time aknowledge that there’s a kind of gaming that uses it and that works fine as it is?

My plan is to take a step back and try to look at the forest. Examine the reasons this apparent dislike of fluff exists in the first place to pinpoint what are the effects that we’re trying to avoid, and to see if these effects are even problematic or not for different styles of gaming.

Let’s get Dense

Roleplaying for me is about a form of exchange. It’s about building a text by a double movement of reacting to input and producing input in a repeated fashion. I consider this movement as choice, and this is the reason you will read me (all over certain sites) saying how for me roleplaying is all about choice. I’m trying to keep things simple here; so far I’ve just said that for me roleplaying is about a number of decisions that build on the others that came before them.

Of course you will find that the kind of choices to be made are pretty narrow (or really huge, however you decide to look at it) in reality. This is because there is a limiting framework for choices that comes from a group of contents that is shared in a bigger or lesser degree. Genre of the game in but one of this contents or elements, roles around the group (as in what is each player expected to do -including a GM if there is one-) are also examples of this framework.

Mechanics also work at the choice level. Usually they will either work before choice (which is usually what I mean by ‘being a framework for’) or at some point during the choice. On the first case we have some dissociative mechanics that could tell you (for example): the next is a heroic scene that includes failure for the leads… go. On the second case we can find action resolution mechanics: you produce certain text but the mechanic produces a number of the elements of choice (that is, you decide that you’ll try to climb the ladder but you don’t decide how successful you were at doing so.)

In most games there is a combination of freeform decision + mechanical input in the process of choice (although there are games that are totally freeform, and there are games where you’re limited to choosing which mechanic you wish to use.) This is perfectly fine. Or it might not be for you, but the point is that it’s up to you.

The Domino Effect

Now let’s say that whenever you make a choice there are both mechanical and non-mechanical elements that actually form the “finished product” sort of speak. What I want you to focus on is that each choice builds from the choices made before. Some definitions to keep things clear:

choice: choice is the combination of mechanical and non-mechanical elements that result in new text being pushed forward. Choice comes from story and it always framed by story.

text: text is the result of choice. Is the shared input that is pushed into the social arena of the game and that creates an effect (whether important or minimall is not relevant) on story.

story: this is the mental coherent product of your experience to text. There is no thing such as perceiving text “as it is”, each person builds a different meaning of it depending on a number of variables. The important thing is that the story happens on each players mind, and it’s not exactly what you say or what you talk about at the table. However, for all practical purposes we will pretend that whatever differences might there be between personal stories are not important enough for all practical purposes and if they are, we assume that they will come to fore (and be dealt with) eventually.

For all practical purposes, we can consider the movement in this direction:

story -> choice -> text -> story -> etc…

Of course, as I previously mentioned there are a number (usually much bigger than we think) of often unspoken elements that frame this whole shebang. I’ll just name them “stuff” to remind us that we’re here to make a point and that maybe we don’t want to post a mental masturbation on an RPG blog.

stuff (story -> choice -> text -> story -> etc…)

Again, what I want you to focus on is that choice is the result of story (of whatever elements and associations is made of) and choice is the driving force of roleplaying.

The problem with fluff

It’s time to take a look at the big picture. The problem with fluff, for me, is at the level of stuff. Fluff is irrelevant, or rather is hierarchy is lower than other elements inside the game and thus it is less important than them. This, in itself, is not a problem at all!

Consider a tabletop wargame or even a computer RTS. In both camps you will usually have a sturdy set of rules, in these cases the idea is to achieve enjoyment through challenging the players on the tactical level. To accomplish this objective usually great care is given to the balance of the different elements, to the variety of ways to accomplish game objectives etc, etc… You will also find that, in modern times, a great deal of care is taken on ensuring that these games have an interesting background and story, that the different elements are coherent and they interact well with this universe as a whole.

However, if something needs to break I’ll bet that the story, background and flavor is the one breaking. Why? Not because there is a sort of essential inferiority in them, but just because they’re less relevant (or less important) to achieving the kind of game, the kind of experience and the kind of fun that was the objective in the first place. And you will also find that most times, this is no big deal! Astonishing.

The reason is in the stuff. There is a certain level of shared awareness for the answer to the question “What’s important here?” that’s more easily shared in these environments. The problem with fluff appears when there are unresolved issues at the level of stuff.

If there is not a certain level of clarity at the level of stuff about what is the hierarchy of elements that compose play, the results can be highly detrimental for the objective of the game… which I assume is having fun (in a particular way.)

Why is this? Think about it. This hierarchy is what decides how choice is handled, what elements are more important and what elements are less important. Since at almost no point will the several elements match in a sort of divine harmony this information is highly useful for all the players involved. If there’s no clarity the choice might be founded in ideas that just don’t hold true for the rest of the people involved. The issue here is that a lot of times the text can be quite similar. And even if it’s not, since story does equal text, there is the probability of a divergence that grows unnoticed until a clash occurs.

Most likely this was one of the reasons that battlemats are so useful. Battlemats are based on a very reduced set of rules (if some of you have played freeform roleplaying, this point will be most evident) that handle combat. These are complemented by a visual aid that can help players pinpoint exactly what’s going on.

The problem is that with roleplaying games, we’re also assuming that this battlemat and these minis are only representing some other thing that’s happening some other place (which is usually our imagination and not the kitchen table.) Since the rules obviously do not directly represent this other thing in other place (if they did there would be no point) there is a big big need for a clear hierarchy for when (not if, but when) discrepancies occur.

Final Words

The question now is not “what’s fluff?” but rather “what is fluff for you?” For me the ‘crunch’ has always been the ‘fluff’. This did not mean that I did not use mechanics (of a wide variety), it meant that the mechanics (or rules or whatever) where the first to break whenever there was a clash. For me, the mechanics were always functional: they allowed me to better (easier, more efficient or more interestingly) tell a story. If this didn’t happen (at any particular momment) the mechanics were gently shut down until the issue was resolved.

Funny thing is, it worked… and I know first hand that the exact opposite can work as well. So get rid of the fluff! Don’t feel guilty about it, it’s there for a reason. You will find that most times you won’t have a problem with the interaction of the different elements that compose play, but somewhere along the line you’re bound to have some issues (regardless of rule system.) So get a clear picture of where you are, and make sure the communication channels are open and you’ll sail through the rough spots in no time.

Fred.

Fluff has bad nutritional values. It’s not surprising to hear a lot of people claiming that they “don’t like books with a lot of fluff” or that “that kind of gameplay is too fluffy” simply because they have been experiencing this kind of nourishment and sometimes assume that everything non-mechanical (something which is also defined rather poorly -some other time though-) is by definition fluff.

I disagree (read: you’re wrong.)

Join me in this first trek into the territory of gaming evil as I try to sweep the fluff out of our gameplay. Also, I’d like to say ‘hello!’ to the readers coming here from the RPG Bloggers Network, I hope that you have a good time reading the articles in this site. As always comments and critiques are more than welcome!

Poking the Monkey

I’d like to start this journey (of furious bloody battle) with a territory that will be familiar to a lot of you out there. It’s also fast and easy to use the wonderful Dungeons and Dragons 4th Ed. to illustrate the points that I’d like to make, so for now open your PHB or simply follow me into this quote.

The Lance of Faith power reads something like this…

“A brilliant ray of light sears your foe with golden radiance. Sparkles
of light linger around the target, guiding your ally’s attack.”

A while back, a lot of nifty people have voiced the nifty feelings they got from 4ed because it enabled them to re-shape this (meager and terribly insufficient) flavor text into something else, which gave them the ability to suit the lead’s exploits to his history/personality/whatever. I used to comment on such ideas with a very good hearted “Hey great idea… but be careful” based mostly on the fact that they were talking about changing fluff (painfully easy because of its very nature) which is akin to making the abnormally huge mastiff that lives next door wear a pink cowboy hat… it makes you say “Oh! what a cute little puppy!” but doesn’t prevent you from screaming like a madman when he rips your arm off.

Of course I try not to live inside a hole of my own digging most of the time, so I know that there were a lot of good suggestions regarding what kind of mechanics could be tweaked and what kind of bonus could be given. I see this as very valuable and rest assured that I’ll be applying this in my next D&D session. The thing is, that I’d only consider doing something like that with my D&D game because it’s practically (read: actually) a boardgame with 4ed rules (which by the way handle this very well.) A lot of people (some of them work at Wizards of the Coast) seem to either want to play a cowboy hatted boardgame with salad dressing or just fail to see the complexity in the (meager and insufficient) flavor text for Lance of Faith.

Dissecting the Beast

Let’s take a moment to analyze the possibilities of Lance of Faith, shall we? We will do so by looking at the very definition found a few paragraphs above.

“A brilliant ray of light sears your foe with golden radiance. Sparkles
of light linger around the target, guiding your ally’s attack.”

First, the effect of your summoned ray (beam?) of light is to sear your foe. Looking at the dictionary we have a couple of interesting definitions for the word: a) to dry up, to wither b) to scorch or burn the surface of c) to brand or cauterize with a hot iron d) to make callous or unfeeling; harden pr e) to cause to quail or feel humiliated.

I’m going to assume that the guys that made the PHB are actually talking about “to scorch or burn the surface of.” Even then, the possible uses of this power are very interesting. So far we know that the deity has given the cleric a free ride with the usage of both directed heat and light, although the intensity of both might be more or less regulated. I’m sure you’ll notice you can do a lot with these two elements, examples follow:

light: use as a source of light in otherwise dark environment (the obvious), use as a glamour if the lance can actually be shaped as a lance (which is not indicated but possible), blinding enemies, pointing at something from a distance (think laser pointer), add some miraculous backing to your persuasion/intimidation attempts (by careful use of the light as FX)…

heat: boil liquid (if able to be sustained indefinitely), heating an object (to force the person holding it to drop it), heating yourself or someone else (if it’s possible to control the degree and duration of the heat), accelerate certain chemical reactions), activate particularly sensitive mechanisms (a nice way to avoid the “pull the lever” effect, and free to use for some clerics)…

These are just minor examples (and I haven’t even talked about the fact that it’s actually ‘radiant’ light and heat, which could serve to create more options) but they should give you an idea of all the interesting things that can be done by starting from a very bare bones description. We’re not finished however, now to the more whimsical part of the description:

“(…) Sparkles of light linger around the target, guiding your ally’s attack.”

Now this is more interesting because it’s not so evident. First of all we have sparkles of light that linger around the target, that should tie in very well with our light usage before, but can also give us more uses since the light is now independent of the cleric sustaining the lance or not. The fact that this light is somewhat magical and can make someone more accurate is much more interesting.

How does the light guide the attack? Does it show what part of the body is less defended? Does it make the lead more proficient at doing the physical action? Does it provide some “clarity of mind” or other psychological advantage? Does it bother the enemy in some way, making him lower his defenses? Also to think about: Does the favored character notice the effect immediately? What if the character is of a different belief than the god providing the boon? If this is a perceptual effect, could it be used by blind characters? If so, can it be used to fight while blinded? Also, since hitting the enemy is just an accuracy based physical action… What other uses can this power have? Can I use it to better pick a lock or (in modern times) better cut the cable that will (hopefully) defuse the bomb? If it tells about weak points, can I use it to learn about defects in armor and weaponry? What about objects like doors or walls (certainly a great use for an architect)? And if you want to be a little more esoterical, Could I use it to learn about weakpoints in plans or billing reports?

Fluff Again?!

Saw all those questions? They are completely and utterly irrelevant… why you may ask (I hope you’re asking)? Because it’s fluff we’re dealing with. It’s the same kind of narrative stuffing you’d had if every time you played chess you pretended you were an army general in World War II. Regardless of how coool it could be, I’m sure you wouldn’t call it a roleplaying game.

(pause to let the angry people stop screaming.)

While that was an exaggeration used to illustrate the point, I feel that this issue (and the rather problematic complications of it for something that calls itself a roleplaying game) is more often than not not taken into account while looking at the powers/magic/abilities/whatever for the characters in D&D 4ed. The way the game has been designed, each of these is an encapsulated “press the button” kind of effect that has been placed there to be used while killing stuff. This would not be an issue if all you did was kill stuff (which pretty much sums my boardgamey D&D game) but I assume that you’re not. And EVEN if all you did was kill stuff, the system still breaks down, just look at the list above: why can’t I blind an enemy with the light? why can’t I heat their dagger to make them drop it? why can’t I use it as a torch if I don’t have a mage that throws cantrips even in his sleep?

This is not merely a problem with Dungeons and Dragons but that particular game serves as an excellent example. Fluff is irrelevant, and that’s why it’s so easy to do whatever you want with it. But whatever you do it doesn’t really matter… IF it stays being fluff.

But it doesn’t have to…

See you on the next part of the series.

Because I’ve seen some general confusion regarding this topic, I thought I would shed some light on an issue that seems to be corroding the minds of the youth worldwide…

3 Simple Things

Dragon Ball: fun and wacky.

That is a rather fun and wacky series about a weird little guy that travels around the world with a greedy and liberal (liberal as in “I’ll loose my panties if it get’s the job done”) girl trying to find some mystical stones that can grant you a wish if found. Along the way, we have a cast of very memorable characters and a rather witty humor. Good times.

Dragon Ball Z: dull and pointless.

That is a rather stupid and endless series of dick measurement and “gee I wonder if the same think that happened with the last ten thousand bad guys is going to happen again” moments that stole quite a few days of my young life. It has its moments, and they are trying to stay afloat in a sea of mediocrity.

The mother of all evil!

This is the single worst plot device that I’ve ever seen… certainly the first that I saw in a movie/tv series. You D&D people have nothing on Dragon Ball… they started messing with fluff and crunch waaay before you did, and did so in such a way that I’m sure you wouldn’t dare to try. It’s in your face! much like that Wizard that can’t help the stressed out fighter because he “might want to use the Sleep spell later” or the cleric that can’t use his Sacred Flame to cook some sausages.

Final Words

No scouters, that’s for sure. And be on the lookout for meta-game considerations that creep into your game. Nothing breaks suspension of disbelief like someone telling you that you can’t hit the orc in the arm because “the rules don’t support that.” Quick one today, be on the lookout for more roleplaying goodness soon.

Fred

I’d like to tackle the magic item creation process with the spin that I usually take for my games: start with meaning and derive mechanics. I’ve tried to make the nature of the process abstract enough to be applied to any particular system in which you’d like to introduce a magical (or the equivalent of that) creation and still be practical enough so you can just sit down and follow the steps.

As always, the goal is efficiency: the procedure that follows strives to be simple and easy to follow and also produce solid, usable results. So get a pad of paper, notebook, PDA or text program and let’s do some forging!

You are here

The way I see it, there are mainly three venues to start our item creation process. These three are, however, not equal starting points. They have an inverse relationship between ease of use and usefulness. What that means is that the easier it is to get started with one item, the less it adds to the whole process… for the most part. On the other hand, don’t worry about it, because you will have to tackle all three before we’re done, it’s just a matter of what helps you get started the most.

So here they are, from easiest to start with to hardest to start with (and, at the same time, from less juicy to more juicy.)

A) What the item is

B) What the item does

C) What’s the situation?

The first two items are pretty self explanatory although the last one can be tricky. To make sure we’re on the same page, let us briefly review what those items are together.

What the Item Is

Simply put, this asks for the physical aspect of the item in question. However, there is more than meets the eye. What if the item was a bronze sword and is now a flaming tongue of blue fire attached to a hilt (no blade whatsoever), or what if it was a book that was made to look like a ethereal purple hat?

We can start with a) what the item is now or b) what the item was (if applicable.) If there was a fundamental change you might want to get both a) and b) done now, although you certainly don’t need to. Whatever you decide make sure you include 3 details about the item if it is a reasonably common thing (from your player’s -not necessarily character’s- point of view) or 5 details if it’s something obscure.

Example:

The pair of gloves had some strangeness looming over it. You wouldn’t say that from a distance since it just looked like regular leather work dyed in dark paint, but if you touched them you would feel a cold smoothness that no regular skin has. What is more, the interior was cool and comfortable with a nice silk texture to it.

You can add as many details as you’d like, although I do not recommend going over board. There is something that I call the 1-3-5 rule that applies to descriptions in general. It basically says that when describing something (situation or a thing), you should make it so that it has either one, three or five characteristics or details. If I don’t remember incorrectly, it was based on a study that stated that we tend to better remember things that are structured with an odd rather than even number of characteristics. That being said, 1 thing is usually a tad little to make it ’special’ (although it can certainly be described like that to the players at first) and 5 it’s going to tax our brains a little too much. I find that 3 really hits the target as the best number and, as you see, it’s not very hard to produce a description like that.

What the Item Does

For a lot of people, this is the happiest part of the whole thing. Still, we have some notes and steps to go through.

1) Answer this question “What makes this thing magical?”

You need to answer it in a way that would make sense for the characters (remember, those are the imaginary beings running around in the imaginary fantasy, not your snack munching friends.) If you are stuck try this: describe the item in the way an old drunkard would if more booze was offered for the description. You do not need to be precise (it’s often useful if you’re not) and you can lie, cheat and twist reality as much as you’d like.

2) If you have a list of spells or powers that magic items have to be built from… Refrain from using anything on that list for the description!

If you sit down and write (oh yes, this is all written baby) “Bastard sword of magic missiles” I will personally send my ninja pandas to bite your sorry little ass off. We will get to the specifics (in case your system absolutely, totally and completely needs them) when the time is due.

3) You don’t need to be specific.

If you listened to me in step number 2 (if you didn’t that knock on your door are the pandas) you’ll start noticing that most times magic is (or can be) thematic. You will notice even more when we deal with the third item on the first list (the situation), but for now do yourself a favor and start thinking in broad terms.

You can certainly have a “sword that bursts into flames” as a concept idea, but since we’re here why don’t you take it a little further. So you have a fire sword, what else is related to fire? Heat, light, passion, movement, demons, hell, knowledge. Not only you can think of this, but also think of all the uses you could give to each one of this elements. You don’t need to write a manuscript, but make a point of writing a little list like this one, since it will give you a core area or a magic theme for your item, even if you don’t end up using the things listed directly. Remember that the item does not exists as just as an encapsulated effect slapped on top of a piece of gear.

Example:

You fellas should watch out with this mittens, they’re not for the everyday customer ya see? I got em from a man who got em from a man who took them from our late Duke Orson… The duke was a strange and dark man and many a fearsome hunk feared his presence. But here’s the thing, he never took the bloody things off! My cousin Silvia, she’s done well fer herself ya see… she’s a professional courtesan and shares beds (or floors, or carpets… ya get my drift) with at least 12 big names round here.

So the thing is, she shook the blankets with Orson once or twice and told me that he always worse these darned gloves, even in bed! She also said that it made her sick to be touched with them. She is a pro but it must have made her really sick, because she never saw the Duke more than twice even though the money was shiny and plenty!

What’s the Situation?

If you have read the blog before you will know that I like this question… a LOT. This category (or item, or whatever) is the best in terms of input-output economy (more on this later) but sometimes it’s also the hardest to come up with. This item has several sub-areas, but they can roughly be divided in two groups.

A) What is the situation now?

Where is the item? How did it get there? Has the magic in the item changed? Is it “out of charges”? Does the person/s who have the item, know what the item does? What is it being used for? Is anyone looking for it? Is anyone trying to hide it?

B) What was the situation then?

Why was the magic item created? Who created it? What was used in the creation? How was the process conducted? Did it require any pacts with otherworldly entities? Was it eventually used for its original purpose? What was it used for? What happened afterwards?

The questions previously listed are merely examples to get your mind started but you can add and subtract as many as you would like here. Also the division between A and B assumes some sort of of time separation between the creation of the item and present day, this is not mandatory and you may disregard anything that doesn’t make sense to you.

Thinking about all of this at once is not a very good way to go. It will be daunting, and you’ll try to make a ‘cool story’ which is absolutely not the way to go. What you need to do is to brainstorm and get a lot of ideas on paper or whatever medium you use. Remember that having ideas and trying to think if they’re good at the same time is not a good idea, so go for quantity instead of quality here alright?

At some point (which might take minutes, or only 3 seconds) you’ll hit something that really strikes your “Oh my good, I’m soooo doing this” chord. When you get there, keep the same process but now start brainstorming new things about that particular situation. Do so until you feel you have enough material. Again, it does not have to make much sense, nor be really pretty. We’re going to take care of that in a second.

“But how are we going to do that Fred?!” I’m glad you asked.

Enter the ‘Why’ Method

Yes, I’m sure you saw it coming. Specially if you’ve been here for a bit. The ‘why’ method is my personal power tool and we will be using it in this case as well. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can click [here] and read about it. If you’re too lazy, it basically means that you’re going to take all the little details that you’ve produced so far and are going to ask either Why or What to them.

Example:

The gloves are very smooth and cold.

A) Why is this? Why are they specially smooth and cold?

B) What is this? What kind of smooth, what material does it resemble? How cold is it, does it ‘burn’ to the touch?

You can then apply the same process to each answer that you get. It’s easy, it’s fast and you can get excellent results with it. I do recommend you read the article since it has a bunch of tips, ideas and examples to get you started. What I meant at first about the items that are easier to start with give you the least final input, meant that starting with the situation will give you the most amount of material to apply this with.

Example (for What’s the situation?):

The rain dashed through a circular opening, ran vertically through 100 feet of dark and rotten space and landed mostly on top of Orsen. Malvas Orsen was enjoying one of Duke Argard’s most precious belongings, a little (not really) contraption he proudly named “The Poison Funnel.” The poison funnel was a sort of tower, it was certainly a sort of enormous cylinder, that had been erected in a hill near the castle. The unlucky fellows who were sent to the funnel found themselves at the bottom of a strange building which was smooth as silk and made from stone cold as ice.

This, of course, was not the extent of the fun to be had there. The tower walls were partially hollowed and were home to hundreds, thousands of small icara spiders. These fiendish critters were not local and god only knows how much Argard had to pay to have them brought to his realm. The spiders were little fragile things, but their poison was terribly effective on the human nervous system. It didn’t actually kill outright, but it provoked acute jolts of pain that most times made a grown man faint. When faced with as many as the tower had, the person would literally die of pain, their brain collapsing and their heart beating to oblivion at 100 miles per hour.

For Orsen, however, this was not the case. He sat at the bottom of the funnel, eyes lost staring straight ahead, his mind in a completely pure and unblemished place of anger. He sat there through boiling middays and chilling storms, he sat through bites and scratches and pints of deadly poison. You see, Orsen had been betrayed. He had served the noble who then had stolen, raped and later murdered his wife… and now he was being dispatched in this foul way because Argard did not want to be remembered of the unsuccessful romance.

Orsen had been left totally and unrepairably alone. He woke from his catatonic slumber at the fourth day, still alive and surprisingly strong. He also found that there were mountains of dead spiders around him, they had died by biting him. Orsen would later find that his very flesh was poisonous and his blood pure venom, there was not time for it now. He worked as if possessed by a strange presence, and in all probability he was. For a full day and a full night he worked and at the beginning of the fifth day he was wearing the fruits of his labour. Born from the skins of a thousand dead icara spiders were the dark leather gloves that he would wear from then on until the day of his passing.

Come Again?

Alright, to recap. You’ve selected one of the tree items (what the item is, what the item does, or what is the situation?) and have written a few things for it. You then grab those things and apply the ‘why’ method to them a few times to get more information. At this point, you are probably stepping out of the boundaries of your selection and into another category (maybe you started with the item and are now thinking about what the item does, or you started with the situation and are now thinking about the item), this is completely kosher. You now start doing the same process with your newly entered category, which will be both easier and faster since you now have a background to work with.

If you’re stuck, you can do one of two things: a) apply the method a bit more, and try asking different questions (see original article) or b) jump to a different category and start from there. By the nature of the process (and the way we think about things) you will probably start to build the big picture in your brain even without actually trying to build the big picture in your brain. That’s the beauty of the system.

If you’ve been following us, I’m sure you’ve seen that I started with a simple pair of gloves, stated a simple possible magical effect for them and then went on expanding the background for their creation. Also you might (I certainly do) look at all we did and see that you can now think of several other things the gloves can do: enable the user to climb walls like a spider, have a venomous touch (or some other torture like effect), have stealth effects (as spiders are usually related to that), have some sort of effect related to lust for blood (since they could be the embodiment of his desire for revenge.)

That is just off the top of my head, but I’m sure you get the point. The process takes us from one item to the other, and then takes us back to tie all the loose ends and reconsider our first thoughts. If you’re thinking that this might take a long time to do, think again: it took me from 5-10 minutes tops to come up with the item (all three points); think of all the setting information, plot hooks and possible NPCs that we now potentially have from that simple exercise!

Final Words

I must say that I wrote this piece after I read [this] article in the much recommended SOB by Chad Perrin. So thanks Chad for the inspiration. I hope you’ve not only enjoyed reading this but that you can also take what we’ve talked about here to your games and use it like the tool it is to help you get things done easier and more efficiently. I would also love to know what you guys think: what works? what doesn’t? anything that you would do better? This articles are a permanent work in progress, one that can be immensely improved with your help.

Of course, if you liked this make sure to subscribe and keep tabs on all the roleplaying goodness.

Fred.

After a fantastic week of undisturbed migraine, I come back to the land of the living to bring you a live report on a recent play of Dungeons and Dragons. This time, it’s the heroic tale of both Julius the brave Warlord and Rhynae the insightful Cleric as they faced a pseudo horde of greenish hell in…

There is a Goblin in my Soup!

What sleight of hand will destiny have in store for our heroes, what fiendish plots unravel behind their backs? We will know this and lots more… some other time. This time, raw and uncut, we get to marvel as both these paragons of justice trample over a happy goblin family having lunch.

The Setup

My friend John came over today (which was an excellent excuse to not do my work for the University… bad Fred, lesson learned though) at about dinner time and we had some time to spare before he had to get back. He knew I had been reading some of the PHB so he suggested making a little encounter to have some healthy murderous fun. I couldn’t agree more. So with my limited knowledge we set out to make a couple of characters…

Actually I had already made one, which was for my girlfriend (who requested “all those numbers” to be taken out and simplified tremendously -a petition to which I agreed-) so we only had to make one character. John decided he’d have a warlord (he had previously read about that class and wanted to give it a go.) So we used this very thorough character generator and created Julious, an Inspiring Warlord. Since I foresee some D&D aficionados in the audience, I’ll leave some pertinent stats:

Julius, Herald of Awesomeness and Inspiring Warlord

STR-18 | CON-12 | DEX-8

INT-12 | WIS-10 | CHA-18

Hitpoints: 24 | Bloodied: 12 | Surge: 7 | Per day: 8

Skills trained: Athletics, Endurance, Heal, Intimidate

Feat: Enlarged Dragonbreath

At-Will: Furious Smash / Wolfpack Tactics

Encounter: Dragon Breath / Guarding Attack / Hammer & Anvil

Daily: Bastion of Defense

Wielding a shield + flail combo and dressed in snappy chainmail.

John is a kill-happy kind of guy so he was all ready to distribute some righteous hacking amongs the monster population… but wait!? What foul creature should suffer the wrath of our hero. I had not read the encounter building options (such as, what types of creatures will be a balanced encounter to what party) but the good thing is that we really didn’t care that much, and we could also add or substract as needed (in the end, we found out that we needed to add more bang to the enemies.) Still we needed a punching bag, I resorted to the best way I knew to get a result quickly…

Me: -”Hey John, give me a number from 20 to 280…”

John: -”136! … wait, why?”

Me: -”Goblins!”

Poor guys didn't see it coming!

Cheers all around! What better fiend to slay than one of the most popular creatures spawned by D&D adventures? While I started reading about the goblin options, John took pen and paper and set out to create a favorable habitat for mayhem. The result, was a peaceful little goblin residence, where the goblin family (the vicious, evil and decadent goblin family) dined joined by Pete the goblin warrior. But little did they know that their hired help, Lola the goblin blackhand was in service of a rival merchant family who wished this prosperous goblins ill and planned to poison the household!

In the end this was irrelevant, since we went in and scorched everything that moved, but it’s nice to know that the world turns even when you’re not there. By the way, the blackhand was there just in case the encounter was too easy for us (which it eventually was.)

Like I said before, the second character I had made during Saturday morning and was meant to be used by my girlfriend if I ever get her to play. It was a cleric (I wanted her to have healing powers) of Pelor that was built to be a ranged type of fighter who rains boiling death upon her enemies using the power of the god-sun… or something like that. A brief stat list follows…

Rhynae, Priestess of Pelor and Wielder of the Golden Beams

STR-12 | CON-14 | DEX-11

INT-10 | WIS-18 | CHA-13

Hitpoints: 26 | Bloodied: 13 | Surge: 6 | Per day: 9

Skills trained: Arcana, Diplomacy, Heal, Insight, Religion

Feat: Defensive Mobility / Pelor’s Radiance

At-Will: Lance of Faith / Priest’s Shield / Sacred Flame

Encounter: Divine Glow / Healing Word / Healing Strike

Daily: Guardian of Faith

Wielding a trusty mace and dressed in stylish chainshirt under indigo tunics.

Adventure was assured and we were up to the challenge. We were also in front of a neat little door (that lead into the neat little house the goblins had built for themselves… in a lapsus of non rabid violence that is) and we pondered our choices. We could see if there’s any windows or perhaps some backdoor, or maybe we can climb to the roof and…

I saw John’s (who had drawn the map) face and knew what the answer was right away: “Alright, you can go ahead and kick it down.” Not only did he kick it down, he rushed forward and delievered a flying kick directly into the door’s jaw that made it explode in tiny pieces that were sent flying, splinters filling the distinctly unfurnished room ahead of us…

The Little Goblin that Could… Not

What are you planning to do with that fireball?

Let’s call him Davey, he’s an upset little goblin. Davey is not well liked by his siblings because he hasn’t been doing well at school, everyone in his family thinks that he is a dishonour to the household since he spends more time fencing with his friends than doing math, or accounting or things like that. Since they didn’t like him, he usually didn’t get to eat with the rest of the family: his brothers and sisters thought they needed to have a guard / buttler at the door in case someone showed up at lunch and so here he was. Davey had great dreams though, he would leave this place and build a future for himself…

Alas, life does not always go as planned…

“Ayyyyyyyyaaaa!” *sounds of door breaking and splintering, all the broken pieces flying about in the room*

“Light everlasting, smite this foul enemy of the day!” *a golden ray pounces on Davey frying his head in a matter of seconds*

That was a bit fast I should say… John was dissapointed because he wanted to chop him to pieces but I had fried the little guy in the first round, I assured him there would be some chopping ahead. The next room was filled with happy goblins, dining a very tasty meal. They were so interested in the delicious dish that they were oblivious (rolled to check) to the recent passing of their family member.

Dining Room Brawl

Like a food fight!... with flails

There was a door connecting the entrance hall with the dining room, so I tried to listen and see if I could get an idea of what the opposition looked (sounded) like and how many would we be facing. I got a good result actually… it lead to a fruitful discussion that ended in John suggesting to kick the door (again) and charge everyone on sight. I wasn’t too trilled with the idea (I don’t charge very well), but he was excited so I went along with it.

The door didn’t break, but that was ok because it was open. John (or should I say Julius?) did manage to make quite a bit of noise, so the goblins stopped with the forks in the mouths and looked at the pair of towering heroes with a look of hatred and rage, irritation and desdain… a look that said “How rude!“

The battle went pretty well, having some of the goblins block our way while their bretheren looked for weapons and joined the battle at a later time. Sadly, the goblins that stayed were only armed with pretty harmless forks and butter knives, but I assure you that they did try their very best (and managed to harm Rhynae more than once.)

The real threat here was the goblin warrior. With his combat ability he can do 1d8+1d6+2 damage with his javelins if he moves 12 feet (3 squares) before throwing one… a potentially devastating number when compared with our HP totals. Luckily for us, he was a lousy shot and didn’t really manage to hurt us from afar. We eventually ended cutting through most of the minions (and I repeatedly failed to Sacred Flame them… until I suceeded and found out that I could only give 1 temporary hit point to Julius) and rushed the warrior, but then the goblin blackhand (and part-time cook) joined the fray. He ran through the walls, he jumped on us and did lots of shifting… all of which was rather unsuccessful but very colorful (and it did manage to make a few cuts, although could never take advantage of her sneak attack.)

I decided to try the Guardian out, since we were only playing that encounter, and found out it’s an excellent zone control tool (we houseruled that it could also make attacks of opportunity besides his regular ability) although not tremendously useful to actually deal damage consistently (having only done so once in the entire encounter.) Also Julius ended up doing basic attacks most of the night since his powers relied on me being adjacent to him or the opponent and I was usually in the rear, trying to fry things with my Spear of Faith.

Finally it was just us and the goblin warrior, who managed to put up a decent fight but ended up having to run after a very good couple of damage rolls by Julius and by my guardian (doing 14 and 12 points of damage respectively). He almost almost managed to run away, he had avoided the attacks of opportunity and was going for the door (we agreed that if he reached the door he would have escaped alive.) But Julius jumped in and finally used his massive dragon breath (guys, Area 5 -with the feat- is just obsene) and toasted our little friend against the wall.

Final Words

The encounter was a success, and much more entertaining than my previous adventures in D&D land. We both though we needed to make things a little harder (we were never in any real danger) and we decided we’d be making this a weekly or bi-weekly game. Most likely we’ll be doing only ‘adventuring’, that is almost no roleplaying (we still feel the system just breaks down for that), just exploration and combat plus treasure and buying stuff… like a D&D board game.

So, what do you think? Any tips or ideas for our next adventure? I’d love to hear them.

Fred

We’re picking up the pace in the second episode of Gorilla Jam where we take a look at the makings of a D&D character. Each time we’re moving closer and closer to roleplaying heaven, but before we get there, it’s time to have a little taste of the crunchy D&D cereal bar… remember kids, crunch well to grow up into your paragon years!

This time we tackle the second chapter of the book and have a look at “Making Characters.” Although it should be more accurately named something like “How to Begin the Long and Wonderful Process of Making Characters” I support Wizards of the Coast decision for a shorter and cleaner title. But enough of my rambling, let’s get ready for… eh, more of my rambling!

Introduction

Feel the Vibrations! FEEL IT FEEL IT!

In case you have just stumbled upon (no pun intended) this post, here is the idea and some ground rules. I’ll be reading all the core rulebooks for the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons (that’s 4th Edition) and I’ll share with you my thoughts and experiences as I go through the tomes. Also included will be solo play, group play and even (provided I get some friendly gamers) running the game myself.

After all this debacle I’ll be doing some “house ruling” on the lovely lad to see if we can move away from the cool tactical minis game. Once again, this is not a “D&D is bad” kind of series and although you will see personal comments that might not be flattering that just reflects my thoughts at the time of the reading.

One last thing, the links for all the articles in the series will always be found in the original topic to make sure that you don’t miss any episode. Have fun!

Player’s Handbook

Chapter 2: Making Characters

Alright! Let’s tackle the second chapter of the book where we will hopefully start making our own characters… Notice all the joy and excitement? All the willingness to play along? Well that’s me alright, and I’m about to crash into a schizophrenic book. Let’s see if you can pinpoint the differences, I’ll even give you a little help:

Your first step in playing D&D is to imagine and then create a character of your own.

Chapter 2 | Page 12

You choose a race (…), a class (…), and distinct powers such as magic spells or divine prayers. Then you invent a personality, description, and story for your character.

Chapter 2 | Page 12

No? Nothing? Must be me then, let’s move along. In any case, it’s pretty much the standard fare for the first pages so there’s nothing that we haven’t seen before (well, that’s just for people who have played an RPG before… if you haven’t then let me assure you that what the book is saying is not in any way groundbreaking) although I assume it gets the job done. Well… that’s not entirely true. I have some reservations with things like this…

Throughout this book, we use the word “you” interchangeably with “your character.” As far as the rules of the game are concerned, your character is you.

Chapter 2 | Page 12

The second sentence is what I’m interested in. You see, it might just be my personal history coming to haunt me, but I’ve been basically screwed when playing D&D before by DMs that weren’t too clear on the fact that I am not my character and specifically that player knowledge is not the same as character knowledge. Not only me though, I’ve seen it with tons of people. What I’m talking about is the situation where your “tactical genius” makes mistakes that even a newbie Age of Empires player would laugh at, or when your smooth and cool con man (as in confidence man -as far as I know-) basically fumbles every social interaction just because the player is shy or not good with words.

For you planning on running a game, a word of advice: DON’T DO THAT!

By the way, I do get that the book is putting a little weight in the “Think of the hero you’d want your character to be (…)” and tries to reassure the player that the game statistics are only there to frame that character. However, in the last game a friend run (heavily inspired in D&D -mostly the same but with a home brewed world-) one of the players wanted to be a tinkerer (some sort of inventor), a resourceful guy that was all wits and “none of that hokus pokus stuff” and that didn’t know the pointy end of a sword. Now, believe it or not, it ended up being a great adventure type character (as far as I’m told)… I just want to know what class you’d have told the guy to play in D&D. So get it straight game, if you need to select race and class first then don’t pretend you can do whatever you want… just tell me that I can do whatever I want, within certain precise limits, and it’s freaking Christmas alright?

Ah! I was expecting this part… I’ll let the game spell it for me.

Your choice of character class also determines your character’s role—the job your character does when the adventuring party is in a fight. You should pick the race and class  combination that interests you the most. However, sometimes it’s a good idea to first consider the role you want your character to fill. For example, if you join an existing game and none of the other players are playing a character in the defender role, you would help them out by  playing a fighter or a paladin.

Chapter 2 | Page 14

I bet you thought I was going to criticize that, but I’m not going to. I mean the game is for once getting its facts straight and making some sense. Good for you game! If you were always about killing stuff and tactical battles (you can make a comment to flame me now) it was about time you put your foot on top of it. That doesn’t mean that I like that, but now it’s just a matter of personal choice, nothing wrong with my monkey friend here (I’m being so sweet I disgust myself.)

Next we have a short description of races which clumsily mixes biological features with societal characteristics (but then again, D&D has always done this.) We have 2 different kind of elves now (well technically we have Eladrin and Elves but you get the picture) and, of course, the ever popular “inter-species breeding” poster boys, the Half-Elves. The rest of the cast is what you would expect although I can’t find the Gnomes anywhere (edit: I am told that they’re not in this edition… and that I live inside a freaking bubble) and we have the Tieflings (demon thingies) but apparently no Aasimar (angel thingies?)

The classes descriptions (I’m on page 15 by the way) are… lacking. Let’s have a look at the cleric.

Cleric: Courageous and devout, clerics are holy warriors and healers (…)

Chapter 2 | Page 14

Alright, so we’ll be struggling to keep the faith in times of despair and deal with the loss of hope on our community as the savage world creeps marauding fangs into… oh sorry, I forgot the rest of the description.

(…) If you want to blast foes with divine powers, bolster your companions with healing and magical power, and lead them to victory with your wisdom and determination, play a cleric.

Chapter 2 | Page 14

Ahem… so let me rectify what I’ve said. Alright! It’s time to blast the opposition with shiny disco balls! Sorry, for a moment there I got into the wrong genre. The ‘real’ class descriptions will come later (in the classes chapter) so I’ll just take this as an appetizer. It does a good job of enticing you to play the kind of character you’d enjoy most in combat… which apparently we will be doing lots of. If you think about it, this is another point for the game as it’s being rather clear with it.

Role

Not exactly role models...

We go on to talk about role, and if you’re going to play this game you better pay attention. It’s both an interesting and efficient concept to use (in a tactical minis game.) The idea is that depending on what class you’ve chosen, you not only get your own way to kill stuff, but you get the role that you’re expected to take (and are more proficient at) in combat. This includes the defender (tank and aggro managing), the leader (buffer and party support), the striker (most damage per second -or dps-) and the controller (area nuker but with emphasis on status effects) role, and they are one of the fundamental axis for the tactical element in battles. The description between parenthesis is for our more MMORPG crowd.

Now if I were bitter (but I’m not), I would raise the proverbial eyebrow at having this character -> class -> role thing so hardcoded into the roleplaying game. But since I’m not bitter, I won’t.

On different matters, the distinction between at-will, encounter and daily powers really seems interesting from a narrative point of view. It emulates (or I guess it will emulate, or maybe I wish it will emulate) that movie/book feel that has the sorcerer casting his most terribly dreadful spell at the crucial moment (instead of blasting crates with it at every turn) and the warrior summoning all his prowess for that one last ditch effort that suddenly multiplies his ability and manages to overcome those apparently impossible odds. I mean, we’ve seen those everywhere and they generally work pretty well… it’s pretty much a staple of action anime series for crying out loud.

The next section details the attributes in a very… D&D way. Pretty much it tells you what each one means and when you’ll be using it, as well as telling you which classes use which attributes the most. Also, Strength is still the most relevant thing when it comes to how well you handle a stick. We also have the concept of defenses, which pretty much does away with the old saving throws by providing a passive number for attacks or situations to beat (and hopefully streamlines the dicerolling a bit.) They also do seem to be trying to get rid of the “monk problem”; I’m talking about needing to have a lot of high attributes to be effective (which apparently was endemic to the old monk class), so that’s something right?

As far as mechanics go, I’m not a math genius so you will probably excuse me if I don’t find everyone of them absolutely appealing or appaling. I’m going to read them (of course) but I won’t be commenting on them except if something comes up and bites my behind. So for generating scores I will only say this:

Method 1: The super duper man.
Method 2: Why are there odd numbers again? I mean, they don’t count for anything and the system might as well be calling you stupid if you set your ability score to one.
Method 3: Some people like this, however…

If the total of your ability modifiers is lower than +4 or higher than +8 before racial ability adjustments, your DM might rule that your character is too weak or too strong compared to the other characters in the group and decide to adjust your scores to fit better within his or her campaign preferences.

Chapter 2 | Page 18

Why the heck am I rolling the scores anyways if I can’t have a character that sucks or that is a typical “L337 dUD3 7|-|47 0wnz j00Z” (elite dude that owns you)?

Kodak Moments!

I finally decided to tell D&D how I feel...

We get to a juicy part here!

The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game is, first and foremost, a roleplaying game (…)

Chapter 2 | Page 18

Yeah! Rock on book!

Jaden the 4th-level human fighter is a perfectly playable character even without any embellishment, but Jaden the Grim’s personality—brooding, fatalistic, and honest—suggests a particular approach to negotiating with NPCs or discussing issues with the other characters. A well-crafted character personality expands your experience of the game dramatically.

Chapter 2 | Page 18

I believe I’m going to start naming these things as the FUB moments. Those little pieces of heaven when you can’t help but saying “Fuck you book…” I mean, how hard is it for you to make up your mind? Are you “first and foremost, a roleplaying game” or just a tactical game where you can slap some roleplaying icing on top to “expand your experience of the game“? Make up your mind or get an editor.

Then there’s alignments… I don’t even know by now. I’ve had so many problems and discussions regarding alignments in the past editions that I’m just happy that I can go unaligned and develop a personality during play and then decide if that fits any of the other molds. What I can say is that the alignments provided should have a more practical approach to them and give a set of things that good/evil and lawful/chaotic aligned beings will certainly do and will absolutely avoid. I think the text gives you an idea but there’s a lot of precision missing there (and maybe it’s on purpose.)

We’re getting into god’s territory here at page 20.

Each deity has a vision of how the world should be, and the agents of the deities seek to bring that vision to life in the world.

Chapter 2 | Page 20

Then I think it would have been a good idea for you to have more than one paragraph and 3 bullet points as your description for each deity. Just a thought though.

The game has little gems like this one right here:

Your character needs only a few personality traits that you can use as roleplaying touchstones, key traits that you can focus on and that are fun to play.

Chapter 2 | Page 23

Good idea game, a text that touches upon that is sitting on my computer as an unfinished “Elements of Role-Playing Characters” article. The following sections are very good and provide some useful pointers and tips (both for new players and for some veterans alike) that could help anyone with fleshing and roleplaying a character. They’re not anything spectacular, but it’s like when you go to see a movie you expect to be horrible (not that this is the case) and it has some very nice moments in it, you tend to really appreciate them.

In any case, there are a few moments where the book shoots itself in the foot…

Is your character tall, short, or in between? Solid and muscular, or lean and wiry? Male or female? Old or young? These decisions have no real impact on the game (…)

Chapter 2 | Page 24

Thank you book, once again, for reminding me that you don’t really care about this roleplaying stuff anymore than I care for learning grapple rules.

There’s a big section on the different kind of checks that you can make. It has examples and it’s quite easy to read and follow, another point for you book. As far as mechanics go, you know always have half your level (rounded down, so half your level ups are completely irrelevant in this regard) to your rolls so, you know, you get better at everything by leveling up. I’m still on the fence with this one, I think it works with the ‘feel’ that D&D is trying to give (you get more badass all around when you get higher in levels.)

Dessert

Ah... Such a guilty pleasure!!

Next (page 27) we have the all time favorite! Yes boys and girls it’s gaining levels! Some say we want it more than we want food and everyone agrees it’s better than sex! Alright, alright I’m dropping the cute act. It was just my way of kicking back after the game threw this roundhouse kick my way…

The game assumes that you’ve been learning these powers in your spare time, studying musty tomes or practicing a complicated series of maneuvers.

Chapter 2 | Page 27

Well I guess, it wouldn’t make much sense if you don’t assume those things, would it?

In game terms, though, as soon as you gain a level, you can immediately use your new powers and feats.

Chapter 2 | Page 27

Roundhouse kick to realism and suspension of disbelief! KO! Flawless Victory! Fatality! D&D wins and he is probably pissing on your grave. Another thing that surprised me is that you have a limit on how many of these powers you can use at once, or rather be active on your character at once. Like, unless you’re a human, you can’t have more than two ‘at-will’ powers and things like that. It would seem to me that (even though they could be compromised from lack of use) there would be no apparent reason to limit yourself thus and certainly not a coherent reason within the setting. So all I’m left with is to think that this is some game balance tweak… Any input on this is greatly appreciated.

Retraining is a godsend on the gameplay level, for me at least. I can’t tell you how many times I felt (playing D&D 3ed in an incorrect way I’m sure) that the game was practically laughing at me for choosing the wrong feat/gear/spell and so on. At least you get to try some things out and change them if they’re not your thing. Of course what works on the gameplay level is pretty awkward on the narrative level… specially when we’re talking about skills. I’m sure you can all flood me with ideas on how to make that work, but the fact that remains is that the book as is doesn’t give a damn about that issue.

Finally, I kind of like the “Three Tiers” section. It’s very fluffy (see, I put the word in here… happy now?) and it gives you a good idea of what you can expect from the game as well as enticing you (if you’re into that thing) to crave for more and more MMO… I mean D&D goodness.

Intermission

So, how do you like this so far? I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of points, especially on the mechanics part. I’m not really DA MAN to be evaluating the game on that front so if you have any ideas or tips, or maybe your own opinion of the game, go ahead and comment on the article. All comments are welcomed whether you agree with me or whether you think I’m a brainless Dodo bird heading for the cliffs. I’ll see you next time with the races chapter which (this time it’s true) will probably be a shorter read.

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Fred