A One-Shot of Ice and Fire

I have mixed feelings about licensed material forming the basis of an RPG. In some cases, where the universe of the base material is sufficiently expansive (such as Star Wars) it can work. But if the source material is too closely wedded to certain characters (as with Serenity/Firefly) then I am less inclined to enjoy it. The appeal of the original world is simply too closely tied to the personality of the original characters and every game using the setting is going to feel derivative.

That makes Green Ronin's latest venture into the world of Westeros from George R.R. Martin's series of novels a tricky proposition. Part of Martin's genius is his gift for creating rich memorable characters. On the other hand, Westeros is incredibly detailed and there is such a dedicated fan following that it is hard to fault anyone for making the attempt. There have already been several forays into game design for Martin. There was a previous RPG using the D20 rules. There is a strategy board game, and a card game as well. So Green Ronin has their work cut out for them to distinguish themselves and make a game which will have an impact on this crowded market.

This past Saturday was Free RPG Day and Green Ronin released a preview set of their rules for the game and a test module to be run on the day. I was sufficiently intrigued to run it at Gamescape North in San Rafael and I am extremely pleased to say that this game delivers on everything it promises. I have not been so excited about a new RPG release in quite a while. Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (SIFRP) is a gritty, elegant, profound game that hits the nail on the head in terms of mood, mechanics, and material. 

If you are familiar with the books you'll know what a mismatch the D20 ruleset was for this material. D20 is all about combat simulation and heroic adventuring whereas Westeros is a place of intrigue, politics and gritty realism. No one should ever take a sword blow and shrug it off as a mere 1d8 hit points damage. Players should fear the very real danger that live steel presents and prefer to solve problems with their wits and careful planning. This game needed a a ruleset that would deliver on a crunchy in-depth intrigue system and Green Ronin has done just that.

Intrigue deserves a post of its own, but I will summarize here. Every character has ratings for Intrigue Defense, Status, Persuasion, Deception, and Composure. Aspects like Disposition and Frustration come into play, also, and you will be choosing to use techniques like Bargaining, Charm, Seduction, Taunting and so on... As an Intrigue progresses in exchanges parties will gradually lose their composure until one person gets the better of the other and gets what they want, which could include information, could be a new friend or ally, or it could be to cause their opponent to lose their cool and do something rash. The possibilities are endless. The system is slick. It is fast to learn and run and it provokes players to be better roleplayers - which is the highest compliment I could possibly pay to it.

Green Ronin also succeed on the fluff. They've obviously paid close attention to Martin's world and done their best to evoke it in mood and flavor without just using canon material. The module they sent had great characters with depth and complexity to them, portraying all the roles the books suggest - a Maester, a Septa, a Bastard, a Knight, a Lord, a Squire... Their descriptions of places and suggestions for NPC's were on target as well. I do have one criticism of their module design which is that it was way too vanilla to be an adequate introduction. I understand the philosophy that you want to have an introduction be simple since players will all be learning the rules, but I think it is shooting yourself in the foot. You want your first impression to be as good as possible and so they should have put together a module that was far more detailed and highlighted the things about the system that are unique - particularly intrigue. Instead they threw us a story about bandits which could have been in any D20 game.

So, of course, I modified the module heavily. Instead of being mere bandits, they were men hired by a family still loyal to the Targaryens to waylay and kill a Knight on the way to the tournament. There were family feuds and hints of a plot to bring a poisoned blade to the upcoming tournament at King's Landing - perhaps to kill King Robert in the Melee! I made 9/10 of the game about these intrigues and threw in a little combat with the bandits just to spice it up. Green Ronin could certainly have done more with the module to impress folks, but I'm just happy with how  easy it was to concoct all of this intrigue on the basis of the system they've made.

This game gets 5 out of 5 stars from me for sheer originality and grace. It is totally different in feel from any medieval fantasy game out there right now and I hope it sells like gangbusters.

Hunter: the Vigil

I don't know if you guys got a chance to check out White Wolf's offering for Free RPG Day, but it was a Hunter: the Vigil introductory scenario, and there was enough in there to get a good idea of what the Hunter game will probably be like, as well as how White Wolf is going about scenario design these days.

It looks like Hunter: the Vigil is going back to the roots of Hunters Hunted, rather than Hunter: the Reckoning. In Hunters Hunted, you were just regular people who hunted monsters. You did so for various reasons, and at most possibly had mild psychic powers, but ultimately you had to use your brains and teamwork to survive. Hunter: the Reckoning, in contrast, had a lot of character options that were freakishly overpowered and a other options that were almost worthless, and not a lot in-between. It was pretty easy to build a Hunter using the Reckoning rules who would never experience any danger from any supernatural. That...basically guaranteed a lack of fun (though I've heard the computer game was decent - never played it myself.)

In Hunter: the Vigil, you're back to being regular mortals built with the basic World of Darkness rules. Instead of super powers, you have two special advantages when facing down the monsters. The first is Tactics - a Tactic is a way that your hunter cell has developed where they work together to augment themselves against supernatural attacks, or to work as an efficient and effective team. The two that the introductory book mentions bolster you against mind control powers and make you a better investigator, respectively. The other thing that you can do as a Hunter is risk Willpower. Instead of spending Willpower, you can risk it, meaning if you succeed you get two Willpower back, but if you fail, the failure is treated as a dramatic failure.

For scenario design, White Wolf seems to be outlining and clearly delineating scenes. Each scene has a rating of Mental, Physical and Social, corresponding to what the scene will focus on and how it will challenge the player-characters. It also has a short introduction and a paragraph of "Storyteller Goals" and another paragraph of "Character Goals". I like what I've seen of the scene design system because it lends itself to a style of storytelling that I think works well with White-Wolf's games - a kind of semi-cinematic drama. I also like thought going into what the goal of a scene is from the storyteller side and the player side.

Overall, I think Hunter: the Vigil looks promising. Its a return to grittier and more frightening Hunter stories, where you pit cunning and courage against the supernatural powers of creatures of darkness. That's what I want in a modern-day Hunter game. When it comes out in August, I'll be looking at getting myself a copy.

4th Edition D&D - Milestones - House Rule

I think I found a way to adapt my ideas about alignment - be devouring and co-opting the 4th Edition milestone rule. I want to steal the Milestone idea, and make it a lot more meaningful.

In the current rules as written, your character reaches a Milestone when she has completed two encounters without taking an extended rest. When you reach a milestone, you receive an Action Point, which can be spent to take an extra action in an encounter or to activate some Feats or Paragon powers. Essentially, the system is rewarding you for not resting after every encounter, the classic tactic from 3.5. I think this is frankly sort of unnecessary.

Now, when I think "Milestone", I think of some kind of important stage in someone's development. A Milestone is something like graduation or marriage or the birth of your first child - not room #2 in a dungeon delve.

I think that, once a player has defined her character's Alignment, she should then define four Milestones that are related to that Alignment. Her Action Point pool is equal to the number of Milestones she has achieved. These Milestones should be ranked in order of difficulty or importance, so that each successive one is a greater challenge than the past.

A Milestone should probably be some kind of really important decision or challenge that the Alignment will force on the character.

I need to give this more thought, but I like the germ of the idea.

D&D 4th Edition - Character Creation + Hacks

I recently sat down with my home group to create some characters for 4th Edition D&D. I've got a wide range of players, from those who are really interested in rules and systems and even number-crunching once in a while, to players like my lovely wife who couldn't care less about system and has fun playing off the top of her head and improvising. She'll take notes on the setting, draw maps and little pictures of what is going on, write down NPC names, but mostly ignore her character sheet.

Considering this, I thought that just sitting down with the very detailed D&D character sheets for number-crunching wouldn't work so well, so I came up with a worksheet for character creation. It basically lists all of the big decisions you have to make as a player creating a character, and using it I can do the number-crunching for my two players who just won't have fun doing it themselves. (In case you couldn't tell, I'm on the end of the spectrum that is excited about systems and I don't mind having an excuse to create more characters.

The worksheet had a very simple layout (I suck at layout something fierce) and had the following prompts on it with lines after them (italics mark house rule elements):

Character workseet for

Who will be playing

Ability scores

Alignment: As mentioned before, I'm looking at ways to rework alignment so that it...doesn't completely suck, or at least cease to actively hinder good roleplaying

Character race

Character keywords: I wanted players to choose keywords from their racial description or class description, or just come up with them. I had three blanks for these, and got things like Determined, Terse, Pragmatic - good stuff

Character class
Class subtype
Role

At-will abilities chosen

Encounter abilities chosen

Daily ability chosen

Trained skills

Feats

Equipment

Monthly upkeep: I don't love dealing with detailed equipment, so I lumped food, ammunition, shelter or tents, camping gear and an adventurer's kit into a lump monthly sum that represents how well you've living. The levers were Squalor 20gp, Poor 30gp, Relative Comfort 50gp (the most popular choice), Easy Life 100gp, and High Roller 500gp (pun intended). If these totals seem high, I came up with them using the PhB equipment section to estimate what you'd go through in a month of semi-active adventuring, and added in the fact that adventurers sleep in inns a lot and don't cook much for themselves, which is a really expensive way to live.

Armor and shields
Weapons
Adventuring gear

Informational Contacts: I had the players come up with one informational contact, an NPC who would be in the game, for every point of Intelligence bonus they had. I just used this as a way to help me produce NPCs for what was a custom setting

Family/Mentor Contacts: for each point of Wisdom modifier, I had the player choose one family or mentor contact. Not sure why I keyed this to Wisdom - it just seemed to make sense. Wise people are probably on good terms with family and keep up helpful relationships with teachers...I guess

Social Contacts: obviously, this was one for every point of Charisma bonus they player-character had. I also encouraged them players to choose the same contacts so that they would have connections starting off. For each extra PC who had the same contact, the contact basically become twice as useful.

Starting Situation: We brainstormed the situation together. Thank God the players were motivated to do this. It could've been a disaster, but I wanted them to feel like they were participating, like they had ownership of the game overall, and weren't just being fed it.

Starting Setting: the setting brainstorming session was awesome. I think our setting is cool. It is basically a large and once-powerful island colony 99 years after a huge tsunami wiped out most of the main city. The survivors are now cut off from the empire that founded them. The island is a huge volcanic caldera millions of years old - the interior of the caldera is entirely uncharted, and much of it lies in the Feywild. The main city, Good Hope (going for a South African theme of sorts) has a large Tiefling population and a large Halfling population - Halflings were brought in by the drove as indentured servants to work in the colony, and have since liberated themselves and now control most of the agriculture on the island.

Color: this didn't happen, but I wanted some key words or terms from teh players about what kind of setting they wanted this to be. I got some color during the other brainstorming sessions, though, so I think it'll be something they're interested in. We'll see.

D&D 4th Edition, 3.5, 3 etc. - Alignment House Rule

I've been thinking about alignment and how to 'fix' it so that it is something that I want to bother putting in my game. I've already talked about D&D alignment in the past a few times, and have laid out the problems with its various iterations.

I came up with a fix, while hanging out with Aric at work today (another author on this blog), and I kind of like it. I want to see how it works in an actual D&D game, because I'll be damned if I'm using the alignment 'system' that 4th Edition has in place. In order to use this alignment system, I end up changing alignment to feed into an action-point mechanic. (As I imagine how this works, the closest thing I can come up with is Burning Wheel's Artha mechanic. I'm also thinking about H. Richard Niebuhr, as it turns out.)

What goes in the alignment slot on your character is what I'll call your "center of value". That is, it is what your character values most. This should be relatively abstract, so that it can be interpreted a few different ways during the game. Some examples we came up with could be "Personal Gain" or "My Code of Honor" or "Peace Between my People and X Neighbor".

You will regenerate action points when this center of value, this alignment, is threatened in some way in the game. What this does is it rewards the players for putting their characters into situations where their center of value is threatened. This also provides the DM with a source of ideas of ways to push the characters and challenge them in dramatic ways.

Now, once your alignment is set, you have three more things to write down.

1. The first thing to write down is a specific goal that is related to your alignment. This has to be something achieveable in-game, and the DM and other players have to agree to it, because you're obviously not going after these goals alone.
2. The second thing to write down is one important thing you are willing to sacrifice for the sake of your alignment.
3. The third thing two write down is one thing you are not willing to sacrifice or compromise for the sake of your alignment.

When you achieve the first goal, you add one to your action point pool, meaning you can have more than one action point saved at any given time.

When you face an opportunity to make the sacrifice you wrote down, you increase your total pool of action points.

When you betray something important for the sake of your alignment

So, here's an example.

Alignment: "Personal Gain"
Whenever this character sacrifices their personal gain for the sake of something else, they get an action point. So, if they donate their money to a village so it can buy medicine to halt a plague, that is worth an action point.

1. "I will become the most renowned rogue in the city."
When you become the most renowned rogue in the city, you increase your action point pool.

2. "I am willing to sacrifice my family's good name for the sake of personal gain."
When you have destroyed your family's good name for the sake of personal gain, you increase your action point total by one.

3. "I am not willing to betray loyal allies for the sake of personal gain."
This one will work whether you betray a loyal ally or not. If you betray the ally, then you increase your action point total. If you decide at the last moment to remain true to your ally and suffer the consequences, you also increase your action point total by one.

Without talking about these ideas in game-jargon - what the intent behind this is to reward players for doing cool things in game, for causing their characters trouble, for making the DM's job easier, and for keeping foremost in their minds what it is that their characters value most, what it is that drives them to be adventurers rather than shepherds or cobblers.

Right now this not a final idea. I might come up with better things to put beneath alignment. Maybe one thing at a time would be better. One important aspect of this house rule is that the players and DM come up with these as a group when you are designing character concepts. This way, your alignments will fit together well and will hopefully feed off of each other in dramatic ways.

I also want to have the option of "Unaligned", meaning you don't have strong values and are sort of easygoing and blow with the wind. This will mean that you won't regenerate action points at all, but I should add some kind of mechanic which will enable the Unaligned character to have action points as well.

As I said, this alignment hack needs some more thought.

4th Edition D&D - On the Offense of Omitting Gnomes

One of the announcements prior to the launch of 4e which generated the most uproar was the announcement that they would be leaving Gnomes out of the PHB and putting them in the Monster Manual instead. While there are plenty of people who are either indifferent or actively despise the Gnome there are also people who are passionate Gnome-lovers. Regardless of where you stand the Gnome has been with the game for a long time and many folks (including me) were more than a tad miffed to hear that the Gnome had been replaced by the laughable upstart races of Eladrin, Dragonborn (WTF!), and Tiefling.

While I still think this was a lame move, the edge of my complaint has been substantially blunted by the inclusion at the back of the Monster Manual of the four best pages in the whole damn core rulebook set - a variety of "monsters" done up in brief format as playable character races eliminating the loathsome Level Adjustment typical of such hacks in 3e. Since the flavor text in the PHB is such crap anyway (play an elf if you want to sling gobs of arrows!) these mini stat blocks are basically the exact same content as the official player character races in the PHB. In other words - play a Gnome if you bloody want to (I intend to!).

In fact, I actually like how they've done Gnomes in this edition. Previous editions of Gnomes always had a variety of silly little powers that basically never came up in gameplay and served almost no purpose. Remember how 3e had a hard time figuring out which class Gnomes should favor (illusionist? That's not even a class!). Basically Gnomes were suffering from an identity crisis. This is not true at all in 4e where Gnomes are sneaky little buggers with an awesome flavorful power "Fade Away" which allows them to become invisible if they ever take damage. It's a delicious little power that would compliment a Fey Pact Warlock very well. With a plethora of ways to be concealed or invisible, to teleport and to blind targets such a character would be all kinds of broken. Enjoy the expression of disappointment on your DM's face when he realizes he can't find or hit your character with any of his monsters!

Frankly, I hope 4e continues the trend established by those 4 delicious little pages and releases a slew of playable races in such a simple intuitive format. Since WoTC has clearly abandoned any attempt to provide deep and interesting fluff we can just embrace the fluid mechanics and make up our own fluff to cover the deficiencies. Gnomes are back baby!

4th Edition D&D vs. 4th Edition GURPS

It had to happen - a comparison between the 4th Editions of two major gaming systems. GURPS is not as big as D&D, of course, because no RPG is, but it is up there among the main systems that one would think of if asked to list some off the top of their head.

GURPS 4th came out a few years ago of course, and it is only coincidence that D&D, an older game, is also in its 4th edition at the moment. Still, I thought a comparison could be interesting. Rather than compare the games to each other (since they are different games in a lot of ways), I thought I might compare them to their predecessors.

Continuity

GURPS is one system that has a strong identity and hasn't changed radically in any of its editions. Point-based character creation, long lists of skills that represent task resolution, Advantages and Disadvantages, variable Magic system, lots of customizeability, etc. 4th Edition GURPS has a lot in common with 3rd Edition. It keeps all of the tropes of the previous editions and, in general, improvees on them or simplifies them slightly.

D&D, in contrast, underwent a big change with 3rd Edition, and in my opinion an even larger change in 4th Edition. Monks, Druids and Bards, who have been with D&D from the beginning, are no longer found in the core rulebooks. Gnomes are now monsters, and Eladrin, Dragonborn and Tieflings have been added to the core race list where they have never been found before. Rules changes are more significant than even 3rd Edition compared to AD&D 2nd Edition, in my opinion. In some cases these are simplifications or improvements, and in other cases I think the step was a step backwards.

Rules Changes

As mentioned above, the rules changes in GURPS 4th Edition were basically improvements on the previous rules set. Costs of some Attributes and Skills are changed and more templates are available in the basic books. Defenses are simplified slightly. Really, its the same game, overhauled.

D&D has changed a lot with the 4th Edition. Races, Classes, Skills, levels and leveling, class abilities, magic items, entries in the MM, encounter-building, fixed Fort, Reflex and Will defenses, 50/50 saving throws...this is not just building on 3rd Edition, this is a different game in many significant ways.

Production Values

Both 4th Editions were marked improvements on previous editions in terms of production values. The 4th Edition D&D core rulebooks are beautiful with better art and better layouts. They have better covers with glossy and matte surfaces. The use things like color-coding to help cue what abilities are and how they function, and their layout is a bit more logical than it has been in the past. There is also an improvement in the writing style and quality in some cases. 4th Edition GURPS also uses color coding, as well as little visual icons marking various types of Advantage or Disadvantage.

Overall, production values for the new D&D books are higher than everything out right now except for the new White Wolf Clanbooks, which are freakishly beautiful and well-done. But you really can't compete with White Wolf when it comes to production values and sheer beauty of their books. GURPS production values are much higher than 3rd Edition, but you can't expect Steve Jackson Games to keep up with Hasbro.

My Reactions

My first reaction when I read through the new GURPS 4th Edition books was "Wow, they improved everything and added almost everything I had as a house rule." I really liked the books. They took what GURPS does well and they did it better. I bought the two main books and the Fantasy book outright even knowing that my current group doesn't even like GURPS. I read them all and enjoyed them.

My first reaction to the new 4th Edition D&D books improved as I moved from the PhB to the DMG and finally to the MM. I thought "these are beautiful books that contain a different game from 3rd Edition rather than an improvement." The PhB hit me as a superbly-presented sideways move. They got rid of some good things and added some bad things, and vise-versa. The DMG went over a little better - actually, its the one I've read the least at this point, but I thought "Ok, this is a very good DMG; better than the last ones." The MM I really enjoyed. I liked the thoughtful and interesting re-builds of all of the creatures I've read so far, the new more efficient layout, the new art, and the racial stats in the back for all of the creatures I could think of wanting to play as a PC.

Conclusion

GURPS and D&D are very different games which have made very different moves with their 4th Edition offerings. GURPS takes the past and improves on it across the board. D&D takes the skeleton of 3rd Edition and builds what is essentially a new game. I'm pretty sure I like the new game a little better than I did 3.5, but it isn't an overwhelming conversion. I'm still running a 3.5/Pathfinder module for Free RPG Day, and I really like what Paizo is putting out for 3.5. As for GURPS, on the other hand, there's no reason whatsoever to keep using 3rd Edition unless you're too broke to buy 4th Edition.

4th Edition D&D - Holy Typos, Batman!

I've noticed a massive number of typos in the Monster Manual for the ability scores of the creatures listed. Ogres are a great example - a +2 bonus for an Intelligence of 4? +14 for a Strength of 23? These errors are all over the place in multiple entries, almost to the point where the mistakes are the rule rather than the other way around.

I'm sure they'll post corrections to D&D Insider once it is up and running, but wow, those are a lot of mistakes.

4th Edition D&D - Reivews - Kobolds

Like Goblins, Kobolds have been reworked in the 4th Edition Monster Manual, and I really like the change.

Kobolds

Like Goblins, Kobolds can also shift 1 square with a minor action at will. Kobold Skirmishers and Kobold Dragonshields have an extra ability called Mob Attack. What Mob Attack means is that these Kobolds get a +1 to all attacks for every Kobold that is adjacent to the target they are attacking. You can easily see how this will be bad news for a race that loves to set traps and then swarm all over you in large numbers.

But there's more. There is the Kobold Slinger who has his special shot. He can hit you with a Stinkpot, which deals damage and and imposes a -2 penalty to attack rolls until you make your save. He can also hit you with a Firepot, which deals damage and then deals a little bit of ongoing fire damage until you make a save. Lastly, there is the Gluepot, which immobilizes you.

So here's how this goes. First, at range, a bunch of slingers sling you, so that you are potentially at -2, on fire, or immobilized. Preferably, all three. Then, you are swarmed by Kobolds who are getting bonuses for every other Kobold near you. This swarming means that your Wizard or other Controller will have a lot of trouble clearing out Minions with blasts of arcane energy.

While being swarmed, you are still being attacked by the Slingers, who continue to shift to better positions and rain down stink, fire and glue for the duration of the battle.

You'd better hope there is no Kobold Wyrmpriest with them, because as an encounter power which is a minor action, he can Incite Faith, granting all Kobold allies within a close burst of 10 5 temporary hit points and letting them all shift one square as an immediate action.

Covered in poo, on fire, glued to the floor, and swarmed by shifty Kobolds who get stronger the more of them there are fighting you. Sounds like quite the way to die.

4th Edition D&D - Reviews - Goblins

These reviews are just going in whatever order interests me. If there's something else anyone wants to talk about, lemme know in the comments.

Goblins and Kobolds are two of the quintessential races for low-level PCs to pound on in D&D. Both races have been reworked in the 4th Edition Monster Manual, which I think is the best of the three core books by a significant margin.

Goblins

The entry for Goblins includes Bugbears and Hobgoblins. Bugbears have kind of a brutish, thug appeal. The Bugbear Warrior has the Skullthumper encounter ability which enables him to knock you flat and daze you until you can make a save. The Bugbear Strangler has the Strangle at-will ability that is basically a high-bonus grab followed by an ongoing 1d10+4 damage until the target overcomes its -4 penalty and breaks the hold. Bad news, and fun twists on the biggest Goblinoid.

The Hobgoblin has the usual soldier feel, with phalanx-fighting and formation-fighting abilities to use when fighting in military units. They also have Hobgoblin Resilience, which allows them to roll an immediate save against an effect that allows saves once per encounter.

The Goblins, however, have the scariest combination in my opinion. All Goblins have Goblin Tactics, which is an at-will immediate reaction to being missed by a melee attack. When missed, they can shift 1 square. Big deal, right? But incomes the Goblin Hexer, who has Incite Bravery. This allows the Hexer, as an immediate reaction, at will, to shift a Goblin ally another 2 squares whenever it uses Goblin Tactics. The shift is followed by an immediate attack.

So if there is a Goblin Hexer in your combat, every time you miss one of the Goblins within 10 squares of him, that Goblin can immediately shift 3 squares and make an attack. Goblin ACs are between 15 and about 17, so that means at 1st or 2nd or even maybe 3rd level, you'll miss a given Goblin 1/2 the time. So half of the Goblins you're facing get to shift an extra 3 squares and attack you.

That sounds like a lot of fun - for the Goblins.

Oh, did I mention that the Hexer can also Blind you with an at-will power that also deals damage? Because he can do that too.

Coming next - Kobolds!

Erick Wujcik Passed Away

This one is slightly more personal because I got the chance to meet him and game with him. One of the places he lives (he also has a home in China) was the city where the game store I work at is located, and he ran an experimental free form game for some of us who were regulars at the store or store employees.

Here is the obituary at the site set up to honor Erick.

I don't have much more to say. It has already been said better than I can. I drank a toast to him earlier tonight. It seemed like a small gesture in the face of death, but it was what we had to offer.

4th Edition D&D - Reviews - Alignment

Alignment is one of those things that I've thought of as broken for a long time. I've talked about it before, though the thinking didn't really go anywhere at the time. The best use of it alignment, to me at least, was in the original Dragonlance setting (and it still left something to be desired). That is one setting that left a mark on me in my formative gaming years during early adolescence, and it made alignment overt through two basic means - the Towers of High Sorcery and the Holy Orders of the Stars.

In the original AD&D campaign guide for Dragonlance, the one with Tanis on the cover having just killed the Dragon Highlord and taken his crown, there was actually a sort of chart that the DM was to use to track alignment changes. At the left-hand side was Good and on the right-hand side was Evil, with Neutral in the middle. Between each range was a grey "Transition" area. Each major act a PC committed would either keep them where they are or move them in one direction or another. When in the Transition area, the DM was supposed to give hints that they were slipping - toward a fall, or perhaps redemption.

The reason this mattered was that for Wizards and Clerics, alignment was key. Wizards had three orders, one committed to Good, one to Neutral, and one to Evil. The gods of Krynn were the same way - Good, Neutral and Evil sub-pantheons. The Krynn setting was all about balance, and Neutral usually functioned to throw its lot in with either of the moral poles when the other one became too powerful to be balanced.

Anyway, to make a long story short, that's as good as I've seen for alignment. Aside from that, players don't take it very seriously, except for the occasional jerk who wants to sandbag your game by playing Chaotic Neutral all the time, or the other kind of jerk who frustrates everyone by playing a Lawful Schmuck Paladin. (It doesn't have to be bad, but it usually is)

In 4th Edition D&D, the alignment system has been pared down to five options - Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil and Chaotic Evil. Not having their rationale in front of me, my first reaction to this is that it is, how do you say, "stupid". They have turned a weak-but-traditional alignment system into a weaker one that is a break from D&D's past. In fact, it seems to frankly be double-stupid.

No freedom-loving Chaotic Good heroes? No tyrannical Lawful Evil villains? No disciplined Lawful Neutral monks? No Chaotic Neutral lunatics played by obnoxious players? It seems like they have taken a weak system and hamstrung it.

They could have gone with what they have instituted with the Minis game, where there are Good, Unaligned and Evil alignments for each card, and you can't mix Good and Evil in the same army. That's simple, basic, and it makes some kind of sense, and it serves as a counter-point to the faction system they're using, of Civilization, Borderlands, Wild and Underdark.

From their description of the reasons for the change, I get the impression that Good has swallowed up Chaotic Good and Evil has swallowed up Lawful Evil. This just doesn't make sense, however. I like alignment better, if there must be a spectrum, as a double-spectrum of Good-Evil and Law-Chaos. It just has more potential to be descriptive and interesting.

The only good thing about the change is Unaligned. I like that idea, though in play so far, the players of Unaligned characters are basically treating it like Chaotic Neutral used to be - the quintessential alignment for doing random things and pretending that they make sense because they're 'in character'. In theory, however, I like the option of just being someone who doesn't have strong moral commitments either way - unlike True Neutral, which is often depicted as a commitment to balance of some kind.

My proposal:

I think that with this change, I'll feel more inclined to jettison the 'official' take on alignment entirely, and replace it with something else. What I'm thinking of is to have your "alignment" be the thing which is most important to you. Then, once you've said what that most-important thing is, I want to use an indie-game trick and reward you for putting that thing in jeopardy or putting it at risk in some way. That could be the way to earn a little bonus XP maybe, or perhaps the way to earn Action Points (which I've long used as a reward rather than a boring rechargeable point-pool). It is also a good way to find out, in a single word, how you might get the player's and character's attention in the game early on. You know where to start pushing at least, and that's an improvement on the system 4th Edition presents us with.

4th Edition D&D - Reviews - Tell Me What You Think

4th Edition D&D - Reviews - First Impressions

I should be sleeping, but instead I thought I'd start sketching out my first impressions of the new 4th Edition books. Like many others, I got mine as early as possible, and have seen certain PDFs that might allegedly exist which may or may not have leaked about a week before the official release.

This first bit will be pretty brief, and I'll get into more detail in later posts.


First, the Player's Handbook

The art and production values, layout and so on are top notch in my opinion. I've found very few typos and misspellings or syntax errors as I read through the text, and in general I think it is an upgrade from the previous editions physically and in terms of layout and overall design.

That being said, I can't say I'm happy with the direction they've taken things. I've already expressed my disdain for healing surges, and that feeling remains. They're unnecessary and don't appear to increase fun or verisimilitude, meaning they are useless and should be cut. The only concern I have is that encounters which WotC publishes for 4E will assume you have them, so they'll probably be a little tougher than they would be without the surges. Again, we'll see about that.

The WoW ripoffs continue with disenchanting magic items. I knew about this before-hand, but it was still disappointing to read about it. I shouldn't be surprised I suppose. 4th Edition is very clearly Tabletop WoW.

The Warlord is a crap class. You can quote me on that, and I'll stand by it. I suspected as much when it was described by WotC, and in reading through it, I am re-affirmed in my suspicion. Clerics do what the Warlord does, and they do it better and for better reasons.

I can't think of any reason to drop the Bard and add the Warlord. The Bard could easily fill the role of Arcane Leader and could do the Leader job in a far more interesting way than the Warlord does.

As it stands now, the Cleric, Fighter, Warlord, Paladin, melee Ranger and melee Rogue will all be literally jostling each other, shoulder-to-shoulder trying to squeeze in melee attacks against their foes so that they can use their abilities. For a game that's supposed to be tactical, I see a lot of clumping in the future, since there is no such thing as a Cleric who can stand back and cast or a Warlord who can lead from anywhere but the front of melee combat.

Also, a side note on saving throws - WTF? You just roll 10 or better on a d20? That's it? More powerful effects aren't harder to resist? And it breaks the established system of [1d20 + 1/2 level + ability modifier + other modifiers] that everything else functions on? Why the hell would you do that? Its just stupid.

Next, the Dungeon Master's Guide

I haven't gone through it as thoroughly as the PhB, but overall I think the DMG is a big imporvement on its predecessors. It offers a clearer method for creating encounters which are skill challenges or puzzles or traps and more directly ties experience points to these kinds of non-combat encounters.

There are much better rules for things like negotiation or interrogation - far more interesting than rolling Diplomacy and consulting the NPC Attitute Chart. You might actually have viable, interesting social conflicts which the rules let you do something with. Everyone I know had house rules for 3.5 to handle this, but its nice to have these rules in the book as well.


Finally, the Monster Manual

This book is the best of the three. Smaller stat-blocks give you all the info you need to run an ancient dragon in combat in 1/4 of a page of text. There are also a lot of new, interesting tactical options for basic fodder like Goblins and Kobolds. I can't wait to combine Goblin Hexers with Goblin Cutters, or to have PCs brought low by Kobold-swarms as sling-thrown bombs rain down on them.

The art is notched up once more. Some of it is recycled, like the Vampire art, and some of the redesigns, like the Troglodite, are steps backward, but a lot of the changes are good. I'm not sure why they changed the head structure of the Green Dragon but not of the other kinds of chromatic dragons, but I do like the new Troll look - a little more Tolkienian and hulking rather than lanky.


Overall First Impression

In an act of grand irony, I give D&D 4th Edition 3.5 out of 5 stars. Improvements in the DMG and MM don't out-weight the problems I see with the basic class and ability design in the PhB - and the PhB is the thing you reference most. I've also moved bit by bit farther away from a D&D style of game. I think if D&D is your game of choice overall, this might be more like a 4 out of 5.

One result of reading the new core rulebooks has been a slight surge in interest in both Pathfinder and in expanding on Hack20 to use in a future game. Hack4? Maybe. I defintely see the beginnings of a few new house rules.

Individually, I'd give the core books:

Player's Handbook 3/5 (excellent writing, layout, design - system is...ok. Should not have cut Gnomes. Should have Druids, Bards, Barbarians, and Monks in the core player book, or replace them with something a heck of a lot better than Warlords)

Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5/5 (excellent writing, layout, design, leaves a little to be desired compared to all that was in the 3.5 DMG)

Monster Manual 4/5 (excellent writing, layout, design, and an improvement on every MM or Monster-focused supplement to date)

4th Edition D&D - Open Gaming

I recently listened to an episode of Green Ronin Publishing's podcast on the future of open gaming, and it has me more than a little worried about what WotC is planning.

We know that the OGL is going to continue in its present form, for the most part. We also know that there is a Game System License that is coming which will cover 4E compatible materials coming out from third party publishers and small presses and whatnot. We also know that the OGL and the GSL are going to be different.

What I didn't know until I heard it on this podcast is that the D20 trademark license (in the article, scroll down to "Trademark License") might be running out at the end of 2008. What this means is that all of the books with the D20 logo on them from third party publishers will have to be pulped.

That's a hell of a New Years' present. I really hope that isn't true.

I think that the OGL was awesome for gaming. Its opened up dozens of venues for new publishers and new writers and designers to put out their work, and that is always good. It has provided even more of a lingua franca for the gaming community. Whatever you think of D20, there are thousands of supplements out there for it, some of which are pretty good and a few of which are truly excellent. While it hasn't led to earth-shattering advances in game theory and design, it does mean that when you sit down at a table with gamers you've got something in common right off the bat. I used D20 (specifically Eberron) as a starting-point for my current group because everyone knew how to play in that system. Since, we've moved on to other systems, but the common baseline helps a lot.

If I can speculate for a moment, I've gotten the overall impression that 4th Edition is...less of a labor of love than 3rd Edition was. There seems to be more of a hybrid of game enthusiasts and corporate number-crunchers at work here. I just see decisions being made which appear to be more calculated, and a lack of concern for the frustration being experienced around 4th Edition from third party publishers and fans.

I realize that WotC doesn't owe what are essentially competitors anything - or do they? There's something to be said for the idea that competition improves a system overall. I think the crew that came up with 3rd Edition and the OGL knew that, and that the current group...knows it less. And there are definitely decisions that WotC could make which might seem beneficial to them but which will hurt the hobby overall in the end. I don't get a clear picture of whether they care yet.

I fervently hope that the news about the D20 license isn't true. That would be what we call a bitch move.

Maybe the difference is this: some want to treat RPGs like they are part of an industry, while others treat it like a hobby. If it is in an industry - a tiny, tiny, niche "industry" - then this might be acceptable behavior. Most "industries" are nasty, selfish, cutthroat environments. If it is indeed a hobby, however, then this is not acceptable at all.

Maybe this is why I'll never be in business.

4th Edition D&D - Into the Shadowhaunt

Addendum: Having just run the scenario, I got good responses from all of the players involved who each said they had a good time. I gave away the minis they used for their PCs and the dice set that came with the materials from Wizards. I also gave one of the kids the actual scenario booklet to take home since he seemed interesting in using it. He can also benefit from my notes and underlining. I have to say, I had a good time running it. Combat is at least twice as fast as it was in 3.x, and it is also more interesting at 1st level by far. Healing surges functioned very strangely - at the end of the adventure, the players had spent 0, 10, 1, 8, and 3 going around the table clockwise. I still don't like them as a rule, but in running this scenario they were tolerable.

The main thing the scenario lacked was a skill challenge. It had a trap, a puzzle, and three major combat encounters. I would have really liked a skill challenge, maybe in town (the town they start in was unnamed, which wasn't a big deal but is the kind of thing that bothers me) as they find out information or negotiate or have other social interactions, or maybe a skill challenge involving reaching the Shadowhaunt, or once they were inside, with climbing or avoiding natural obstacles. Just to showcase the other major kind of encounter that is discussed in the DMG.

On Worldwide D&D Day this coming Saturday, I'll be running the official Wizards introductory scenario called Into the Shadowhaunt. Since I'm running it, I've had the chance to take a look at it before the Big Day arrives.

The last time I ran an 'official' scenario was for the re-release of the Ravenloft setting for D&D 3.5. That was a so-so experience. Half of my players seemed more interested in turning evil, and didn't like that the characters provided were all some kind of Good. I ran the game at the FLGS rather than for my home group, so I also had the disadvantage of not knowing all of the players who would be involved.

Into the Shadowhaunt is a better scenario by comparison. The actual writing is so-so, but I find that I'm really picky when it comes to game-related copy. It is a relatively brief little story with a few encounters - I don't want to give away too much. The minis were provided, so I got an early look at some of the 4th Edition minis. They seem like they will be slightly smaller, on average, than the 3.5 minis, but they also appear to continue the trend of steadily increasing quality in the sculpts and especially the paint-jobs of the minis that WotC is putting out.

As with any scenario that I run at the FLGS, a lot will depend on the players that I have. I know two of the four players signed up so far, and they are both excellent, so that'll be a big help.

A big challenge I see is running this scenario in a way that is interesting and engaging for the more experienced of the roleplayers. Its the classic style, with sections in italics for me to read to the players aloud - and I find that its always a better idea to figure out what the key information is in those italicized sections and just describe it more dramatically, or in my own way. I appreciate the consideration for less experienced DMs, but I've never found those printed descriptions to be useful for anything but the occasional laugh.