DDXP and DnD Next

So I am finally expanding on my thoughts in regards to the D&D Experience (DDXP) and the new edition of D&D in the works, also known to almost everyone except WotC as 5E, to WotC as D&D Next (DDN). My guess is that WotC is avoiding the term 5E or 5th Edition to try to avoid the stigma of the edition wars. I can't say as I blame them, as long as they don't pretend that the fallout in the D&D community is one of the big reasons they have to dump 4E.

There has already been a lot of info in the gaming blogosphere about DDN and the info from DDXP. Like everyone else, I signed a NDA, so I won't be disclosing any crunch that wasn't talked about in the seminars, which were NDA free.


First of all, my impression from the playtest was very favorable. It felt a lot more like playing old-fashioned D&D as opposed to spending 3 hours trying to get through a tabletop approximation of a couple of WoW instances. We were able to get through several fights and our characters were in genuine peril. As a player, I would enjoy playing this system. As a GM, I could run it.

Any of my players reading this are thinking "sure, you could run it after you tamper with it, like every other game you run." That's one of the things that interests me about DDN, the intended modular rule design. It will be premade so that I can take rules systems I like and plug them into the framework. Yes, I'll probably make some modules of my own, especially since we don't know how many modules will be out at launch. My guess is enough to play the game, not they will hold some stuff back to make more books we'll want to buy.

One of the statements that caught my interest during the seminar was that they intended to include every class that has appeared in a Players Handbook, or the PHB1 in the case of 4E. That's a lot of classes. My first question was "do we need something like 20 classes?"

What really is the difference between wizards, sorcerors, warlocks and illusionists? Aren't warlords really just fighters with some leadership ability? Assassins are rogues that are more stabby and less thiefy. Barbarians are tough fighters (or rangers) with anger management issues. It seems like these could be handled with themes and class ability options.

I think the basic classes should be iconic. If you go to D&D players and say fighter, rogue, druid, wizard, they'll have a solid mental icon. Try sorceror, illusionist, and warlock and they'll probably look like the wizard. Say warlord and you'll get a blank look or a fighter. While I'm sure the designer are reluctant to let go of their 4E creations (and warlocks were actually my favorite class out of the 4E PHB1), the class list should be pared down.

I don't remember races being discussed, but my opinion is along the same lines. They should have the basic races and save the races created or added to the core rules in 4E (dragonborn, eladrin, and tiefling) for an advanced race option module.

I couple of other things in the seminar that I think hit the mark was their intended approach towards multi-classing and magic items. Multi-classing will probably work a lot like it did in 3rd edition, while magic items go back to being treasure and having some mystery to them as opposed to progression you can buy in a store.

So far I'm not in the playtest... and I guess even if I was it wouldn't matter as I couldn't talk about anything in it. But I'm keeping a hopeful mind regarding DDN and will buy the first round of books. Maybe WotC will turn me back into a game buyer as opposed to someone who peruses the internet looking for ingredients for his homebrew d20.

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D&D Next/5E - some thoughts

So unless you've been locked in a dungeon all week, you've probably heard that WotC announced the next edition of D&D was coming. Borrowing a page from Paizo's playbook, they were going to go to the gaming community for feedback, an open beta if you will.

The reason for this is that WotC alienated a large portion of the D&D player base with 4E, to the point that Paizo's iteration of 3.5 began outselling 4E. That made me think, what rubbed me the wrong way about 4E and caused me to give up my habit of buying D&D products?


So that you don't think this is just some Edition Wars rant, there were things that 4E got right. The math under the engine was balanced and easy to understand, putting together encounters was a snap for GMs, and monster stat blocks became easy to use.

So what didn't I like?

One of the first things that struck me was that WotC was going to scatter the "core" classes and races across 3 PHBs to make room for their own "new" classes and races. It felt like they were sacrificing the core game on the altars of establishing their own IP and forcing us to commit to buying the PHBs to get what we had before. I looked at dragonborn and tieflings as intruders that only existed to give 4E art a distinctive appearance, the warlord and the various new classes in PHB2 as interlopers that pushed out bards, druids and monks.

I didn't like that there were no more "simple" classes, as fighters took up just as much space as wizards with all of the power entries, while casters seemed dumbed down. The whole whiz-bang videogame feel felt wrong. Casters no longer had to worry about getting interrupted, targets were knocked about like soccer balls, and it seemed like everyone ended up with fairly similar powers.

The game lost its organic feel, become a game of structured encounters instead of stories. As a GM I hated the notion of a 16th level monster with 1 hit point, I never used the concept of giving players a wish list for their magic items, and I tossed out treasure parcels.

Fights, while balanced, took way too long. Combat over-relied on powers that forced movement on the grid, a grid that I almost never used.

What am I looking for from D&D Next? Give us back our core game with an organic world. Speed up fights and remove the reliance on movement inducing powers. Fights should feel like dramatic events, not entering an instance. Put some mystery back into magic. Quit trying to prove that D&D is your IP by flooding it with new classes and races.

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Pondering Inititiative

This post on Inititative got me thinking about how I handle Initiative in Skill20.

Right now, everyone declares actions, each side rolls a d12, and each combatant adds DEX bonus and if casting subtracts the level of the spell. This makes spell-casting a bit dicier and keeps things less predictable at the expense of rolling each round.

What the linked post proposes is that instead of rolling Initiative, use combat bonuses to determine order.

Since Skill20 doesn't use CB, I would have to use skills. In a way, it makes sense, as you would expect a highly skilled fighter to have the edge, and a more experienced spell-caster may well be likely to get his spell off quicker than a novice. The down side is that a halfway decent caster would be safe from lowbie monsters interrupting his spells before they went off.


I would need to keep the random element. Possibly have each side roll a d20 and individuals add their Skill/DEX asset to determine individuals scores (again, reduced by spell level for casters). That way Mr. Wizard wanting to fireball those pesky goblins would still be at risk if the dice were evil. The downside is that it might be too much swing.

A possibility is to make the opposition's Initiative static, effectively a DC to check against to see if you go first. So goblins with 2 ranks of Melee and a +2 DEX bonus would have an Initiative DC of 14 (10 + 2 + 2). If Mr. Wizard has 10 ranks of Magic, a DEX bonus of 1, and is casting Fireball (3rd level spell), he would add 8 to the Initiative die roll, meaning he would get his spell off on a 6 or better.

Hmm.

*Update*

I opened my combat rules document to type out new Initiative rules. My current rules for Initiative is one paragraph, two sentences. I decided to leave well enough alone.

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Skill20: Margin and Damage Spikes

I recently started a new sandbox campaign for my alpha testers and saw in practice how much damage can spike due to my Margin of Success rules. An opponent that has a 50% chance to hit can spike up to an extra 10 points of damage and average about 5 extra points of damage. This led to some ugliness when a handful of goblins with d4 damage weapons got a couple of lucky hits.

Characters with 14 or 16 hit points figured on being able to take a few d4 jabs over the course of the fight, none of us realizing the average damage going to be 7-8 and possibly as high as 14.


While I managed not to kill off any characters (though one player got to try out the dying rules), I realize I might need to mitigate damage a bit, even though the spikiness is, IMO, more realistic. And I need to do it in a way that won't overly complicate things.

Ideas:
Go On The Defense
My players had asked if there was a way to go all out defensive when they realized they were in trouble. Using a defensive maneuver that gives +4 Melee Defense reduces the odds of being hit and the margin. Assuming a 50% opponent, an opponent that hits now would have an average margin of 3 and a max of 6. I am debating halving the margin damage done to a character using this maneuver, though I may make that a feat.

Improve Armor
Right now, armor is pretty straightforward. It gives DR, ranging from 1 to 6 DR. While upping the DR would be easy, I don't want plate mail tanks clanking about the battlefield immune to harm. I'm considering adding a bonus to Melee Defense, as that would reduce the margins. But I don't want it to get too high... see aforementioned tanks.

Cap Margin Damage
Another idea would be to limit margin damage to the maximum of the weapon. That would cap a d4 weapon to +4 damage, and a d8 to +8. So far I like this idea the least.

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Gen Con 2011 - Day 4

When I signed our group up for events, I didn't bother with Sunday. Usually between the previous days and late night Saturday, a lot of people are burnt out by Sunday.

Having stayed downtown and needing to be out of my hotel room by 11 actually got me going earlier than I might have if I had gone home. Instead I put on my Ren Faire garb and headed back to the ICC.


Sunday I took in a couple of seminars. One was about starting your own game company. While that's not on my to-do list, I love seeing "behind the curtain" of the game industry and the panel had variety of perspectives, from the guy who started a one-man company to one of the founders of Cryptic Studios.

The other seminar was about steam punk. The panel talked about the history of steam punk as well as various iterations such as diesel punk.

One of my annual traditions is to be in the Exhibitor Hall is closed. I went around and said good-bye to some folks and looked for any end-of-show bargains. Once the closing was announced, I made a last quick circuit, then headed out.

Dinner plans (that ended up falling through) gave me a couple of hours to kill downtown, so I went over to Scottie's and had a couple of beers while things wound down there in preparation for a private post-Gen Con party (that I wasn't invited to :( ).

Finally I headed home, ending another Gen Con. Time to put in my request off for 2012.

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GenCon 2011 - Day 3

The big event for Saturday was the Steampunk LARP in the evening. That left me a lot of time to kill during the day. I was lucky enough to be able to check into my hotel early, then headed over to the Exhibitor Hall. It seems like no matter how many times I walk the XHall, I find something new.

I met up with Nicole for a bit, who was also in costume for the LARP. We had our pictures taken a few times, though I don't think it was for my dashing bowler. :)




Normally on Saturdays I take in the costume contest, which eats up a huge chunk of the afternoon between the actual event and the long time spent waiting in line. This year going to the contest would have left me no time to eat before the LARP (and it turned out the contest ran long). Other than taking a few minutes to watch the pre-contest parade, I found myself with a few hours to kill and wandered the Con.

The LARP itself was a hoot. It was the best run LARP I've played in, the players were all great, and it actually had a set. Who knew playing a Steampunk Amish Mushroom Expert could be some much fun (even if my Amish accent devolved into full-blown German)?

In previous years Saturday night was dominated by the White Wolf Party. This year White Wolf opted to have a small suite party that was invitation only. Needless to say, I'm not cool enough to merit an invite. My friend Jason and I decided to check out some of the post-parties running downtown. We'd seen advertisements for a couple of them, and after hitting the House for a beer headed out.

It's always funny to see the reactions of "muggles" to Gen Con attendees in costume roaming the streets. Jason and I both still in costume from the LARP, and at one point ran into a couple of other players that had been in the same LARP. Our conversation drew a lot of curious looks from the downtown regulars.

We recognized several people from previous White Wolf Parties at the Ugly Monkey. We debated whether the $10 cover charge would be worthwhile, decided to give it a go, and left within an hour.

We returned to the Blu Lounge (it was almost empty during our first stop) since there was no cover charge for anyone in costume. At the door, some gangsta wannabe was being refused admittance over dress code. Jason and I were waved in past him.

Bowler hat $65
Vest $55
The look on some rap-thug's face when I get in a club and he doesn't... priceless.

The crowd had picked up and we ran into one the the GMs from the LARP and a lovely young lady who was a regular at the club and had attended previous Gen Cons. Fortunately there is no video when she, with the help of a few beers, got us on the dance floor.

I ended the night with the long walk back to my hotel, the JW Marriot. I think next year I'll pick one that is more centrally located.

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Gen Con 2011 - Day 2

Every year @knharter and I take in a mini painting class. It's always a roll of the dice, as we need to find one that will fit in with our schedule as well as be within our skill level. We ended up with the same instructor as last year, the very talented Mrika. I was a little concerned that we would just cover the same topics as last year, but thankfully there was plenty of new info to absorb.



The second event of the day was a 3.5 DnD game, Dinner With The King. We had a bunch of great role-players at the table, which was good because it was a RP heavy adventure. Early in the session my gruff barbarian voice drifted into Cookie Monster territory. "Bring me mutton and ale! On nom nom nom!"

Seeing as my chaotic evil barbarian was out to take the throne, it wasn't all polite dinner conversation. I lured the heir to the throne off to another room and let loose my war-cry "With Steel!" Half the ballroom silenced as heads turned our way.

After the game some power shopping ensued so that Nicole and I could finish our steampunk costumes for the Saturday LARP. After that was dinner, a few beers at the House, then home to rest up for Saturday.

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Gen Con 2011 - Day 1

I think this Gen Con I was signed up for more events than ever before. I feel like there was the right mix of free time set aside to hang out with friends and troll the XHall (Exhibit Hall) and time committed to games/events.

The big "thing" on Thursday mornings at Gen Con is the opening of the Exhibit Hall at 10 a.m.. I decided to wait a few minutes and avoid the pressing crush of gamers and backpacks before going in. The odd shape made it hard to judge, but it looked like the XHall was roughly the same size as in the old part of the convention center. Given that the vendor spots sold out, I wouldn't be surprised to see them open K Hall in addition to the ones used this year.

Two other differences were the lack of media guests and computer game companies. I would have thought Turbine, with D&D Online and Lord Of The Rings Online would have been there (then again they skipped last year also) and BioWare with The Old Republic coming out.


The first game of the day was a Pathfinder game, "We Be Goblins". Nicole, Mike , Weasel and I were all in the game and none of us had played Pathfinder before, but enough 3.5 had been played between us it wasn't a hindrance. Mike and I both ended up with pyromaniac bomb-flinging goblins. Our troop of goblins fought spiders, dogs, a horse (a which point we started making Bad Horse comments) and a goblin witch. When we found the witch's hideout we spotted a smokestack and I ended up dropping a bomb down it (while standing on a ladder leaning up against said smokestack - no one said goblins were bright).

The second game was Abney Park's Airship Pirates, a Steampunk RPG.



The system is pretty straight-forward and from what I heard is pretty similar to the FATE system. I ended up playing a character that was a what you would get if you took Inara from Firefly and added Saffron's conniving. The GM offered to let me switch the gender, to which I replied "that's okay, I can do dice drag."

One of the interesting aspects of the system was that each character had a pool of fate points to modify successes or change the plot. We each had eight points, and for six we could pretty much rewrite the plot of a scene which led to me taking the game off the rails when my character's twin sister sprung a trap capture all of the players. I told the GM I was spending 6 plot points to make the 50 guards sent to capture us that I was my sister and she was posing as me, so they arrested her and carted her off. To give the GM credit, he was pretty quick on his feet in adapting and figuring out how to get us to keep going through the plot now that we could no longer be coerced.

Greed is wonderful for motivating players.

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