Monster Slayers: Heroes of Hesiod

I found out about this via Penny Arcade - it is a rules-lite version of D&D for kids ages 6 and up who aren't ready for the full rules-set (and who is, really?)

I'm really glad that they did this - it is similar in a lot of ways to what I've been trying to do in simplifying D&D while letting it remain D&D. This is simpler than I'd like to play personally, but looks like it could really work (though I think 6 years old might be a little optimistic - then again, I don't really understand kids).

Here is the link to the PDF, available for download from Wizards of the Coast:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/MS_HeroesHesiod.pdf

The artwork alone makes it worthwhile. Who knew a bullette could be so cute?

Complaints Delivered With Love

I moved to a new place, left behind the best gaming crew of my life, and settled into a new routine that didn't include any tabletop gaming. Boy did that suck.

So I resolved recently to change it. I found another guy in town who plays some D&D and we're gonna rustle up a couple other players for a monthly (maybe more frequent) game of D&D. I'm running it and I decided to go with 3.5 because... well I really don't like 4e. I had a lot of opinions about it when it came out, and God knows I've complained a bunch about 3.5 and D&D in general, but overall I've had more fun with 3.5 than I have with 4e. This got me thinking about my complaining as a habit.

You see, like all people I complain. I have lambasted D&D for being too clunky, too antiquitous. I rail against WoTC for stripping out the roleplaying and turning it into a fantasy board game. I am all about story-based games. I extol the virtues of Indie Press Revolution, or GURPS, or White Wolf... and some of my best games ever were basically homebrew systems. And when I complain about Attacks of Opportunity or Grappling or 2hours to make an NPC in D&D those complaints are genuine.

BUT...

They are also the complaints of a guy who really loves tabletop roleplaying, and D&D in particular. D&D was my first love, and there remains a deeply nostalgic corner of my heart that secretly enjoys searching through dozens of tables to get the information I seek, while my vocal public side decries bad game-design. I like crunchy tomes full of monsters, and rules to describe every stupid little situation you can imagine. I actually enjoy having so many character options that it takes a week to completely hammer out the details of my next PC.

Sometimes.

I'm sure the novelty will wear off again, once the "I haven't roleplayed in a year" energy subsides. Then I'll be trying to persuade my gaming group to move on to a better, more streamlined, more narrative-friendly system - like Mouseguard.

For now though... I have to go crack open my Psionics Handbook to figure out how the different modes of psionic combat work when I throw that Illithid at my players.

D&D Insider - WTF?

D&D Insider was supposed to go live when 4th Edition dropped - but its still "Coming Soon" according to their website. I have to wonder what the hell is taking so long? I mean, I wasn't excited to learn about the deaths of Dungeon and Dragon, to be replaced with a WoW-style online subscription model, but WotC seemed to be excited. And now they've just fostering frustrated fans one day at a time.

The lack of D&D Insider also means that organized play isn't happening in 4th Edition - no Living Forgotten Realms yet, and no Dungeon Delves. What this means for the game store I work for is that we've needing to designing our own Delves, and our organized play just...isn't happening yet.

In case you're having a similar problem, or are just interested, we're going to be posting about our Delve scenarios that we come up with. They sound pretty interesting so far - one is based on demonstrating how easy it is to make D&D 4th Edition look exactly like WoW, with a Delve based around the Scarlet Monastery using characters based on our WoW characters. Another is going to be based on Godzilla, with the Tarrasque attacking Sharn. I've come up with one that just uses the 4th Edition D&D minis that you get in the new starter set. We're trying to base them around groups of all sizes and all classes and levels, and to give them all interesting hooks.

There'll be more on what we come up with as we flesh them out.

In the meantime - WotC, get off your ass and have D&D Insider go live. After all that fanfare at last year's GenCon, you've got nothing? Really?

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.

4th Edition D&D vs. 3rd Edition D&D - The Drop

I was thinking about this recently, comparing the release of 3rd Edition D&D with the upcoming release of 4th. It occurred to me that when 3rd Edition dropped, I didn't know of anyone who was going to keep playing AD&D after they read the book and got their head around it. I admit that there are always some grognards who are going to keep with what they know, but the vast majority of D&D-dom made the change, followed by a massive flood of new settings, third-party products and so on. Almost no one kept writing modules for AD&D or for anything before 3rd Edition.

I'm not counting 3.5 at all because...well, it wasn't really a new edition, so its not what I want to talk about.

What I find interesting is that 4th Edition is different form 3rd in that a lot of people don't seem to be interested in making the change. 3.5 isn't a broken game, and Paizo is doing a lot to improve it with their Pathfinder rules , adventure paths and modules. They're also not making the change, and blithely continue to put out high-quality materials for 3.5. Other companies are equally leery, not the least because of problems which swarm around the 4th Edition manifestation of the open gaming license (more complicated, not as open).

In talking to gamers, I get a definite split between 3.5 loyalists and 4E enthusiasts. A few, like me, frankly are cool with both editions. At the store where I've started working, I'm happy to tell D&D players that there is no reason not to take up either 4th Edition or Pathfinder from Paizo. Either one looks like it'll be a lot of fun.

Its just interesting that the general consensus seems to be that a new edition of D&D isn't needed. It might be fun, it might be cool, but it isn't necessary in the way that I felt that 3rd Edition was a necessary move, given AD&D and the tremendous problems with that system. I had frankly stopped playing D&D entirely for a few years when 3rd Edition came out, and 3rd Edition is what made me want to play D&D again. My whole gaming group felt the same way, so we waited until our Vampire game came to an end and put together a 3E game, and it was a lot of fun.

Personally, I think this is interesting. I don't want the rpg industry to be a leviathan dragging smaller games along in its heaving wake. I want it to have mongrel vitality, and room for all kinds of gamers with all kinds of interests. I personally see 3E continuing to appeal to older gamers, while 4E I think has a chance to pull in at least some younger people whose first rpg might have been an MMO. We'll see.

D&D 4E Trepidation

I took a brief look at the D&D 4E quick-start rules on display at my Friendly Local Game Store today, and it increased my hesitation about the system overall. The main problem that I saw was that it is more clearly a rip-off of World of Warcraft than I'd previously thought. Rogue abilities they list are all pure DPS abilities. Predictably, Fighter abilities are all focused on tanking, taunting and defending and so on.

Most egregious to me was the fact that for Wizards, the three abilities they list are one Arcane spell, one Fire spell and one Frost spell.

A close second was the Paladin's Judgement ability, which has an immediate effect on the target and buffs the party. I mean, come on. You can rip stuff off of MMOs, sure, but do you have to be this blatant about it?

Copyright violation anyone? I mean, come on. There's already a D20 World of Warcraft game. Do we need another one? And given that its the most expensive its been for the full set ever, do I really want this more than 7 months of WoW? I'm not so sure. There are still cool things I'm expecting from 4E, but as I see more of it, I'm not getting that much more excited, which is a bad sign.

D&D 4th Ed Information

Here is an absurd amount of information on D&D 4th Ed, all in one place for your perusal. They've even put together a sample 4th Ed Phb. This looks like pretty much all there is out there right now that can be known about the coming edition, so check it out!

More D&D 4th Edition News

I got turned on to a new podcast, Gaming Steve. What brought the cast to my attention was an hour-long interview with Christopher Perkins (he's the bald one) from Wizards of the Coast about D&D 4.0. There was some information about what they're developing and thinking that I hadn't encountered elsewhere.

A lot of what he talked about is D&D Insider and Gleemax-related; more about the online gaming table, encounter and adventure-creation resources that they'll have available and so on. I have to admit that from his description, Gleemax in general seems less crappy than I'd thought up to this point. It looks like they're considering a few good ideas along with their bad ones I've already talked about (not in the order that they were discussed on the podcast):

1. Software that draws on a database of all of the rules that they publish that you can use online to build encounters and adventures. You will also theoretically be able to publish them for the community at large and possibly even sell them.

2. The opportunity to even potentially sell your scenarios and adventures, which serves as an entry-point into the industry as it has in the past.

3. A "Not Tournament Legal" setting for the online gaming table, which will be a category for things like house rules and tweaks to the game - so they can coexist fairly with RPGA and Living Greyhawk and so on. I'm not sure how they'll support these kinds of tweaks, but I'm glad that you're not bound to what is published - if all this turns out to be true.

4. Pickup games. This is cool, though something I'll probably never get involved in where D&D is concerned - too much time commitment required to have a decent game.

5. Support for discussion of other kinds of games. Again, I'm not sure how far they'll go with this kind of thing, but a general "Facebook for gamers" might be helpful. Sometimes its hard to find a game, and maybe having some kind of central hub for this kind of activity among D&D-style gamers would be good. Who knows? I fear hegemony, but I'm a pessimistic anarchist :)

6. The "completely new" rules reveal: all classes will have powers that are at will, per encounter and per day, not just casters. The power level will be equal to your character level - a 13th level character will have 13th level powers, on up to 30th level. I had guessed this from other sources, but its still interesting to know.

In general, if you are excited about the online functionality of D&D 4th Edition, check out the link above to the podcast itself and listen to it. You can even scan past the first 1/3 or so, which is also quality, but is much more focused on video gaming, which seems to be Gaming Steve's overall focus.

Is Wizards of the Coast Killing D&D?

My local game store, Gamescape North, runs a discussion forum for their customers and the local game community. Recently there has been a huge discussion going on about what WotC is doing with D&D 4th Edition. Check out at least the first post in the discussion before you read further.

It seems that WotC is not only doing nothing to support local gaming stores, but is doing multiple things to actively undermine them. Distributors like Amazon and Borders are getting D&D books weeks before local game stores are, and are able to order massive amounts of books and therefore sell them at less of a margin. Their announcement has also ensured that those 3.5 books will be almost impossible to sell over the holiday season.

WotC is also pushing this Gleemax/subscription model drawn from MMOs, which I think is asinine. As many have humorously pointed out, they'll be competing with their own MMO in that market - but it seems to be what they're intent on doing. To use their lame online dungeon software, you'll have to register unique codes from all of the books and expansions you buy - or else you can't use the rules contained in them.

They're also keeping third parties out of the loop on the OGL material. They claim that 4th Ed will be OGL, but I wonder whether it will be meaningfully so? As of now, since 4th is coming out, no one is buying 3.5 anymore and those are gathering dust on the shelves. Third parties are unable to develop new 4th Ed material because WotC is telling them nothing about 4th Ed. So I guess they just sit there twiddling their thumbs and laying off staff or something.

This is bad because the OGL has been great for the hobby. It has allowed an incredible number of creative people to contribute content and has spawned a number of new companies putting out quality material for d20. It looks like, even if 4th Ed eventually goes OGL, the time of rich contributions from third parties might be in a major decline.

Is this anything but a crass money-grab from people who have no interest in the hobby overall beyond their own profit margin? Sorta looks like it.

As I said on the forum linked to above:

Long-term prediction: WotC kills D&D, Hasbro realizes you can't really make money in gaming, and they sell the license to a better company as TSR did one upon a time, and life goes on. 5th Edition comes out at GenCon 2012 to great fanfare and huge paper-mache dragons. By then game stores have had to diversify somewhat, and the industry takes a while to recover, but the WotC D&D Reich has fallen, and we have our damn hobby back.

D&D 4.0: a Poll

D&D 4th Edition - Pros and Cons Thus Far

If you've been following the information on D&D 4th Edition from GenCon this year, available from WotC themselves, as well as other sources, you no doubt have some opinions about the game already forming. Here are mine thus far:


Pros (in no particular order)

1. It has been confirmed that the rules set used for Saga Edition is the closest one yet released to D&D 4th Edition. This will probably include the simplified Defenses, simplified Skills, and lack of iterative attacks in favor of a single attack roll per round with a damage bonus based on level. I think all of these are good changes that will make D&D a better game while it remains D&D. I am also looking forward to something like Talent Trees in D&D 4th Ed - another way to customize each class in interesting ways.

2. They have also talked about making low-level characters as fun to play as high-level ones, and also making high-level characters as simple to run as low-level ones. I'm not sure, of course, that they'll succeed, but this is a noble aim. Saga, for example, starts you off with 3x the base Hit Points at first level as previous editions, meaning its less likely that a single shot will kill you outright, and you can also endure a few encounters in succession without breaks between them.

3. Developers have discussed openly that they are moving away from a system where power is mainly based on magic items and equipment toward one where power is based on class abilities. This is fantastic news. Magic items in 3rd Edition and 3.5 were one of the aspects of the game that I enjoyed least. Everything becomes a scramble for loot, and DMing turns into a process of doling out magic items which are quickly bereft of any meaning or real interest beyond "ok, now my attacks do one more damage."

4. The Open Gaming License will continue for 4th Edition. I don't personally own much of the third-party material that has come out for d20, but I'm really happy that it will continue to come out. I like the opportunity for more writers and artists and designers to make money in the hobby and keep it alive and vibrant.


Cons (in no particular order)

1. I think everything they've shown about the internet functionality for the game, especially the online dungeon software, is pretty disappointing. If I want to play D&D online, I'll play D&D Online. I've heard its a fun game. If I'm going to play D&D, however, I want it to be with human beings who are sitting across the table from me. I would only game online in the way WotC depicts as an act of desperation.

2. I understand why WotC is moving toward a subscription-based service to replace things like Dungeon and Dragon magazines, to provide errata, and the like. I don't like it, but I understand it. It is the model to make lots of money in games, and I'm actually ok with D&D making lots of money. It means that D&D will hopefully continue to improve and expand, growing the hobby and all that jazz. I honestly don't know if I'll actually pay for the service - that remains to be seen. At the moment, it looks like paying for one or two things I want and having to pay for a dozen things I don't care about at the same time, which doesn't appeal.

3. It seems like much of the development team for 3rd Edition has disappeared - folks like Monte Cook, who were longtime gamers and lovers of the hobby who were brought in to design the new edition. My impression is that the current team is somewhat more geared toward the marketing end of things. This may be more effective business-wise - that remains to be seen - but I personally prefer the hobby to be in the hands of enthusiasts, for it to be a labor of love. This is of course idealistic foolishness, but what can I say? I want games for geeks, by geeks.


Conclusion - for now

I'll continue to follow the emerging stories about D&D 4th Edition. I still expect to buy the basic set, and when I move away from graduate school there's a good chance the first game I start playing with a new gaming group (or maybe, if I'm lucky, an old one) will be D&D 4th Edition. I hope they do a good job. It looks like the new Edition will be a concrete improvement on the old one (as far as I'm concerned), but we'll see.

D&D 4th Edition Announced

Well it was bound to happen and no matter how unhappy the gaming community gets about it Wizards of the Coast is going to charge on, because at the end of the day we're all pussies and we'll buy the new books even as we grumble. That's right, D&D 4th edition was announced at GenCon this year and they're beginning to put the previews up on their site right now. You can watch the official presentation at GenCon on YouTube.

Here is part 1, part 2, and part 3.

If you want to get involved in playtesting and rules discussions before the release date (which is May 2008 for the PHB) you can register for D&D Insider on the WOTC site.

Exploring the D&D site you can already see where they're going with 4th ed. They've decided to push hard in the direction of an online community. It's easy to understand why - it gives you a built in group of people who are going to swallow your marketing whole day and night. Rather than just sell books, they can sell little upgrades, tidbits of information, various networking "services", and meanwhile charge you a monthly subscription fee.

They haven't released too much about the game itself yet (though I suspect Doug is right that they foreshadowed some of the changes with Star Wars Saga Edition). Instead of talking about the game, they keep talking about these peripherals like the character generator and the online dungeon builder. I think this is a mistake on their part. Graphically they won't ever be able to compete with video games, so they're not going to gain market ground on that front. And for the rest of us - we LIKE the face to face aspect of roleplaying and the limitless bounds of the imagination as opposed to the mechanical restrictions of a computer. Why would I want to add this new computer tool to my game preparation, which won't be able to do what I can do in my head, and takes 10 times as long to do it? Mind you, I'm assuming about the time, but I've never seen a world-builder that wasn't ridiculously laborious. Even if they've got this application screaming it will still be limited by what it is programmed to do, whereas the human imagination is much more liberated. As for the ability to create visuals of characters, that hardly makes me want to play the game.

WoTC is making some of the right noises. 3rd ed is ridiculously clunky. There are many better game systems out there than D20 - it tries to be both a tabletop wargame and an RPG system and it kind of half-asses both, but making it much more complicated. So they could hardly go wrong by streamlining the system and making it more intuitive. The stuff they describe in their design column about making races important throughout a character's career as opposed to just at the beginning, and making fighter's weapon choices more significant is interesting, but mostly I'm not interested in whether they can come up with more peripheral mechanics. Mostly I want to see if they can resolve some of the core mechanics. Get rid of the Base Attack Bonus. Combine Saves and Defenses. Simplify Skills. Use a better system than Hit Points. Banish Attacks of Opportunity. etc... etc... these would be good things to tell us about.

D&D 4.0 - a.k.a. Star Wars Saga Edition

I recently had a chance to read through Star Wars: Saga Edition by Wizards of the Coast, which sports a revised d20 rules set that I think will become D&D 4th Edition. I'll just write briefly about some of the changes - I haven't played the game, but I skimmed/read the entire book with an eye for new mechanics I'd heard about and wanted to see for myself.

The class sytem has been pared down to only five base classes: Jedi, Noble, Scout, Scoundrel, Soldier. Compared to the previous edition of Star Wars d20, these classes are mostly the same - at first glance.

Skills are streamlined - you have a number of trained skills and your skill bonus is based on your level plus your ability modifier - no spending skill ranks at all. Another interesting change is that you have fewer skills. For example, Use the Force is your skill for using any Force powers. Acrobatics combines Balance, Tumbling and Escape Artist, and so on.

Saves and Armor Class have been combined into your three Defenses - Reflex Defense, Fortitude Defense and Will Defense. I like this decision - if only they'd gotten rid of the attack bonus, it would be even more reasonable, but you can't be perfect.

Talent trees have been added to all classes, making them somewhat similar to classes in World of Warcraft. Every level, each class gets either a new Feat or a pick from the Talent trees, and it is through Talent trees that you are able to customize your character, essentially resulting in 5 base classes and 20 modified class options. I loved the talent trees in WoW, and I love them in this game as well. They mean that, especially combined with Feats, that you can have four very different Jedi, for example, or four very different Soldiers.

Hit points are retained, unfortunately (I was a fan of the Wounds and Vitality system that the previous edition used), but they are made a bit more interesting by two things: Second Wind and Threshold. Second Wind is the ability to essentially recover a portion of lost hit points quickly when you have a chance for a brief rest - making them somewhat similar to my preferred Vitality. Threshold is a portion of your hit points which measures the amount of damage you can sustain in a single hit without being threatened. So, you might have 40 hit points but a Threshold of 17, meaning that a shot that does 18 hit points of damage is threatening. This is similar to the Wounds system, and is preferable to hit points a'la D&D.

I'm sorry to report, Attacks of Opportunity are retained.

On the more positive side, Destiny is an element that I think is a great addition to the d20 system overall. Each character has a Destiny, and Destiny points are awarded for actions which further this destiny. These points can be spent in a similar way to Force points for temporary boots in-game and help to mitigate the effect of unlucky rolls.

I haven't played the game, but having read it I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. If they dropped Attacks of Opportunity, the score would go up .5 right there, but the rating is for the game as it is written. About a year ago I played in an excellent Star Wars d20 game, and I think that this system would have made the game even better.

At the very least, if D&D 4th Edition goes this way, I think it will be a solid improvement on 3.5. I'm not sure I want to spend $100 to get the core rulebooks for another incarnation of D&D, but I can't promise I won't end up doing so against my better judgement...

P.S.

For the record, I think Wizards of the Coast will announce D&D 4th Edition at this year's GenCon (a good way to mark the convention's anniversary) and will have a year-long countdown to 4th Edition, to be released at GenCon in 2008.