Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-02-14
- Updated: Character Class Reference with PHB3 classes http://is.gd/7SU2d and Character Race Reference with PHB3/ Dark Sun http://is.gd/7SU5Q #
- Roleplaying Games as Tools for Story Telling http://is.gd/80SWc #
- RT @ATerribleIdea: Special Valentine's Day sale: Shambles $5.00 – Show how you love them by trying to eat their brains. http://bit.ly/aHhE4Z #
- RT @Wizards_DnD: Not sure what's in the Essentials DM Kit? This should clear things up: http://bit.ly/bkwdSb #dnd #
- Eight New Games from LEGO in 2010 http://is.gd/87ARD via @boardgamenews #
- It’s a Trap: The Art of Admiral Ackbar http://bit.ly/a5RbDp #art #design #starwars (via @labelreader, @R5_D4, @pkruvczuk) #
- #dnd on Microsoft Surface will be present at PAX East http://is.gd/8aAvE #
- DriveThruRPG customers donate $178,900 to Doctors Without Borders for Haiti Relief http://is.gd/8b6Ig #
- RT @loganbonner: Today I'm kicking off the 4E Success or Failure series, starting with epic destinies: http://tinyurl.com/ybpe9zb #
- Molyneux says major change in Fable 3 is removing XP and levels http://bit.ly/aeQ9RI No other RPG has ever thought of that before, right? #
Ecology of an Icon: The Ultimate Team
Bursting forth through an eruption of turf and soil, an iconic visage bears down upon its prey with terrifying speed and precision. The Umber Hulk mounted Bullette (referred to as the Umber Bullette) has been an iconic presence within the RPG world for years now, but how these two seemingly savage and completely different creatures came to coexist has only recently come to light. Below are the details on this unique relationship and the benefits of such a powerful union.
The Rider
The Umber Hulk’s menacing and savage appearance hides an unlikely intelligence. Umber Hulks primarily roam the endless labyrinthine tunnels of the Underdark, using their immense arms to burrow new tunnels through the solid rock. Many of the unnatural tunnels within the Underdark are believed to be Umber Hulk crafted. These enigmatic creatures understand Deep Speech as well as speaking their own unique language, on rare occasions when Umber Hulks live near the surface they learn Dwarven and Common to make their ambushes and hunting easier, however they struggle to learn the eloquent language of the Elves. These cunning hunters prefer to burrow close to heavy traffic tunnels then ambush solitary creatures, using their confusing glare to stun their prey, before viciously assaulting their prey. [Read the rest of this article]
From Talking Heads to Downloadable Endings: Modern Console RPG Trends
Although nostalgia will never let us fully admit this, many of the classic RPGs that graced that 8-bit era don’t hold up very well… there I said it. Try to play the original Final Fantasy without biting off most of your own digits in pure frustration, I dare you. It’s not that the stories weren’t worthy of praise, they simply couldn’t sufficiently be done on the technology of the day. Sure, games like Earthbound and Chrono Trigger during the 16-bit era still make for amazing gaming, but it was the technology of the console itself that allowed the game creators to tell their story without limitations; cartridge size allowed for a more complete story to be told, and console processing power allowed for graphics and sound to be more immersive.
These days, the power of our modern consoles has the ability to do amazing things never thought possible even ten years ago. Mass Effect has an amazing and sophisticated dialogue system where the decisions you make affect everything from the cutscenes to the way other characters interact with you. Hell, it even affects the gameplay of the sequel. We’ve come a long way from text boxes, kids. [Read the rest of this article]
Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit, Session 1, Part 3
See part 1 and part 2 if you missed them.
Look at them go!
The battle raged on for a few rounds. Damage piled up, and tension rose. Yet, like all great 4e games, PCs were able to showcase the awesomeness of their builds. Yan’s Warforged Fighter-Cleric Hybrid shone with his Stream of Life Daily power combo (trade a few temporary HP gained by a fighter power and heal a nearby friend by 18 HP… Each round) and his pennant’s Helm (spend a surge, gain no HP, all allies that see you can spend a Healing surge).
Franky’s Swordmage was all over the frakking place. While it does awesome things, I can see it as being pegged “DM’s most annoying class to deal with”. The Swordmage redefines the “Oh Wait” philosophy of D&D4e with its teleporting marking mechanic. Yet, you should have seen how Franky was happy playing that PC… so it’s worth it. I’m just going to keep an eye on it over several sessions.
Steph’s druid, being the only one with ranged powers , spent most of the fight shooting down the flying minions, as a controller was designed to do. Math’s Warden, with it’s very striker build, did what he did best: deal tons of damage and reminded me time and time again that terrible things would happen to my monsters if I didn’t include his PC in my attacks, which I hastily made sure I did.
Before I get to Eric’s Avenger’s Moment of Awesome, I’ll spend a few lines on Mike’s monk. While Mike achieved his own ‘Best supporting Actor’ moment that I’ll describe later, his PC has been under performing pretty much each session we’ve played. As Mike put it before the game, he wished that he could pull a fight-defining moment in a combat and that has yet to occur.
I suspect that there’s not enough Monk-supporting feats and magic items out yet, possible slight build errors with the PC and/or forgotten core abilities like Flurry of Blows. Regardless, that coupled with a streak of bad dice rolls and the way my encounters are designed (lots of PCs, about as many monsters, lots of non-monster elements) makes me feel an early PC change will occur. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll work this out soon.
So while everyone was in trouble (mostly), things progressed, monsters were hit and PCs healed.
Me Wrath! You Scrapmetal!
Eric: So with everyone inside the compound before the lighting towers recharged, I didn’t need to climb here right?
Chatty: No but you do see the chain beside you being rapidly winched up…
Eric: So I could climb way up there?
Yan: Don’t do that man!
Eric (thinking for a few minutes): Then can I grab the chain, give myself a swing over there (30′ or so away) and kick that Huge Clank so it falls over and I land this heap debris you drew on the map here, looking all cool and shit?
Chatty (Ruled of Cool and delighted): Sure, just roll your choice of Dex or Str attack vs its Fortitude. Either way it’s too cool to see you miss the swing, but you might not manage to knock the thing down.
He missed the roll, but he landed right beside the thing.
But he was only half done. In the next turn:
Eric: Can I detect what kind of Undead energies are animating that thing?
Chatty: Sure, make a Religion check (he made it). You sense 2 entities, one in the Clank’s chest and one in its Head, both corporeal and undead.
Eric: Can I use my abjure undead on the one in the head?
Chatty: Sure! Roll your attack. (Eric makes it and deals enough damage to kill one of the ‘things’ inside the clank). You see necrotic energies and pieces of rotting guts and flesh explode from the top of the Titan! The Clank lost its extra Minor attack.
You should have seen Eric’s stupid-happy grin. So worth the effort it took me to prep this setup.
Up next: The Crane goes to 11 and Yan’s Warforged goes to the Clank-Wash.
Let Me Tell You About My Campaign: Age of Awakening
About two months ago Dave decided to tell you about his campaign – the setting, world, how it all began, characters, planning, and some of his house rules. He set me up to share about my campaign also, as a large part of planning for both of our games was done together. In fact his game is being run in a world that I designed and handed over for him to take and expand upon as he saw fit. What I’d like to touch upon in this post is how I went about aging an old campaign world as well as the interactions of PCs and storylines between my game, The Age of Awakening, and Dave’s game.
Aging a World
As I explained in my post about being an inexperienced DM, my first attempt at running a D&D game was during my first year of college. After its very brief run I found myself with as detailed a back story for a group of long forgotten heroes as I had for the party and time period that I’d just run. The campaign featured no empire or ruling nation and simply had a spread out collection of barely associated townships. One of the locations was a prominent port city on the edge of a sea, but the lands beyond and around the sea were never explored. For my second campaign, still in college, the game was set entirely within a thriving city and the surrounding lands of a single kingdom with only the hint of the nearby sea. If the two maps were put side by side, you could begin to see the larger continent that I’d started in pieces with only hints and clues for what lie beyond. [Read the rest of this article]
Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit’, Session 1, Part 2
Now add an Autocannon Head Turret and a Shoulder Mount Missile Lancher
Prelude to a Nasty Shock
As stated in Part 1, the first combat encounter was designed to be among the hardest hitting one my players had yet faced in D&D 4e while still being designed with an XP budget that stood somewhere between level 15 and 16 (the PCs are still 14th). The goal was to totally challenge the PCs while having monsters close in levels (from 12-16) without having the players clamour for an extended rest right after.
All monsters had near maximized damage expressions (unless they caused status effects), so did the numerous traps and terrain elements featured on the elaborate map I drew for the event. I also had recurring effects that screwed with player movement: Slow, Immobilized, Forced Movement and Knocked Prone. I was however very careful to add no stun or dazed effect.
Flash Forward to Great Mecha Justice!
When Magma (Franky’s Genasi Swordmage) charged in, the towers blasted him with lightning, cooking him out of a few tens of HPs as he ran behind some cover inside the compound, far enough into the compound to see an ogre-sized clank standing near the factory’s entrance. Standing 10′ tall, it had a giant axe as its right hand, a Hammer as its left, a turret as its head and a rectangular box with 6 square doors sitting on its shoulder.
All the players screamed ‘Battletech!”.
As the players scattered on the very large map, smaller clanks appeared: Heavy-set, dwarven-like ones with Greataxes and insectile, hovering ones with a Gatling-like cannons.
Players: Now it’s Final Fantasy!
Chatty: Shut up! I’ll steal from everyone until the suits come!
The hover-clanks were minions that shot poison dart clouds that caused a Slow to Immobilized status progression when PCs missed saving throws. The squat Heavy-Clanks were 2-hit minions (killed in one 50 HP blow or 2 hits, regardless of damage) and the Titan Clank was an Elite with a few twists twist:
- An extra Minor action to use either:
- a Head-mounted Incendiary Autocannon (high damage, ongoing 10 fire) or
- a Shoulder-mounted Missile Launcher that dealt thunder damage, pushed 3 and knocked prone.
The fight started and another Titan showed up. PCs were lit on fire and tossed about by Thunder missiles and their game plan was as solid as a lace thong after a 5-alarm chili fest.
But things were just getting started…
The Claw!
At the end of the 1st round, I unveiled my next surprise. The Wrath of Melora, Eric’s Avenger, was climbing behind a lightning turret to deactivate it when:
Chatty: The immense crane sitting at the back of the map activates. Standing one hundred feet tall, you see its arm turn with great speed and a gigantic chain-claw apparatus aligns itself just over your PC
Eric: Oh Shit…
Chatty: Like those money eating machines kids pester us with, the Claw drops on you! (clatter, clatter) and misses you. It crashes on the dusty ground, piling up its chain all around it before the automated winch starts winding everything up.
Some other player asked: “Hey what are those little drawings at the base of the crane?”
Chatty: Hmm, they sure look like levers now don’t they?
Players: Oh look! A control box!
And, probably because everyone was in ‘oh crap we’re all going to die’ mode, they all promptly forgot about the Crane’s controls.
Up Next: The Wrath of Melora invokes the rule of cool.
Two Scoops
Not long after I turned 4, I had a really nasty allergic reaction to some medicine, and I wound up breaking out in hives and had to sleep with my feet on bags of frozen peas. No, I don’t remember why. I was 4. What I do remember is my grandma getting an Atari 2600 and playing Pitfall. Games back then weren’t complex – much less so than many “mini-games” today. Dodge this. Jump over this. Collect these. Shoot that. Get points. Any given game on the Atari didn’t typically last all that long unless you were really good at it. But despite the lack of depth, when I go back and play a lot of these old games, I find myself having fun. Sure, some of it is nostalgia, but these games aren’t aspiring to be anything more than what they are. Like any system, some games were better than others, but the vast majority of titles had rock-solid and addictive gameplay or they just simply didn’t make it to market. Take Activision’s Laser Blast. Dodge lasers. Shoot back. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent doing only those two things, and loving it.
As videogaming and I got older, games got better features and more personality. My family got a TRS-80 Color Computer, and I got introduced to games that weren’t quite as simple. I’m not exactly sure what my first videogame RPG was, but it was after I’d been exposed to D&D. That made the whole concept of getting experience points easy to digest. I’ll never forget the day I figured out during a game of Dragon Warrior that I could just wander around in a field all day and kill slimes and eventually I’d level up and be able to fight stronger monsters than I normally would. It was my first taste of grinding, and it was delicious. After that, grinding for levels/gold/etc. became de rigeur for RPGs. After all, who wants to walk into a fight unprepared?
The first time I ever got any inkling something was wrong was when a friend of mine was playing Asheron’s Call 2, and he was telling me about making arrows and selling them to people for in-game gold. The act itself didn’t strike me as odd so much as the time comittment. I was going to school and working 3 minimum-wage jobs at the time to pay the rent and tuition, and I couldn’t fathom wasting that much time on a fake job.
As I got older, and eventually married with kids, I discovered something about my gaming habits. The less free time I have available to me, the less I am apt to do things that I don’t find fun. Actually, let me amend that slightly. The less free time I have available to me, the more likely a game needlessly wasting my time is apt to send me into a berserker rage.
This finds me doing things that would shock and disgust me 15 years ago. If I spend more than 20-30 minutes on part of a game now, I’m likely to go look up the solution in a walkthrough. The cutoff for me is when I stop having fun and start getting frustrated. Can I figure it out eventually? Sure. But between working, hanging out with my wife, and playing with my son, I only get an hour or two at night to play videogames – if I’m lucky. I’m not going to waste it being pissed off. I no longer value the title of Hardcore Gamer at the cost of having a good time.
That is why I am going to address this next part to whomever it was that decided to change the planet-scanning mechanic in Mass Effect from a one-click “Scan For Minerals” in ME1 to the giant boring tedious time-suck that it is in ME2: You’re needlessly wasting my time, and you’re making me really mad. If you’re going to have a mini-game for this, at least have the common decency to make it fun. Star Control 2 made you run around the galaxy collecting minerals too, but at least you got to fly around and run from monsters while you collected the minerals. Your scanning “game” consists of seeing how long you can depress the left trigger before you develop tendonitis – if you don’t go insane from boredom first. The excitement from finding a big cache of Iridium wears off pretty fast after the first 75 times you do it. It is a black mark on an otherwise fantastic game. It is two scoops of plump, juicy Elcor turds in an otherwise delicious bowl of Space Bran. Issue a patch to get rid of it, and we will never speak of this again. We can all deny anything happened.
I’m glad we could come to this understanding.
Inq. of the Week: Gotta Mutate ‘Em All
With Player’s Handbook 3 on the horizon and all the classes revealed in some way, Bartoneus asked which one you were most looking forward to. Everybody wants to be kung-fu fighting, those Monks are fast as lightning (even if it’s a little bit frightening), they came in first with expert timing. Battlemind style came in second, and the yet to be revealed Runepriest is third. Ardents, those most psionic of leaders, fell flat.
While reports leaked out ahead of time, it was the D&D Experience convention where a full announcement was made about a new edition of the Gamma World RPG, based on the 4e D&D rules. During the announcement came one major surprise: they would make random “booster packs” available to supplement the mutations that happen in the radiation soaked Gamma World and the ancient technology that waits to be discovered. As soon as I heard about a collectible component, I leaned over to the people sitting with me and whispered “gamers are going to lose their shit.” [Read the rest of this article]
Gears of Ruin: The Ruiner’s Gambit, Session 1, Part 1
A Melorian Siege Burrower (AKA Terror Worm)
(I just landed an unexpected, but very welcome Seminar to prep for and teach in less than 2 weeks, posting schedule will be borked. Expect shorter, less frequent articles, thanks).
Last Friday’s adventure was great. It was mostly a 3 hour+ set-piece fight but I wanted to duke it out with the players in a no-holds barred slugfest. I cranked damage dealing to the absolute maximum I could without breaking the rules (a design goal of mine). I also did my best to screw with their game plan and use plenty of dirty tricks to give them their greatest challenge in months.
In fact, I did exactly what I wrote about last week.
It was gruesome, tensions rose and player nerves became frayed at times, but they pulled it off without making a single death save (and I tried real hard).
Someone Else is Crashing our Party
We finally started our Gears of Ruin campaign with the most awesome bunch of PCs. We started right where we left off, with the PCs resting for a few hours after their first contact with possessed military grade clanks (mechanical constructs). They rescued one of 2 agents of Baron Falkenstein’s Intelligence Ministry who urged them to the Factory-mine, some 12 miles further, to save his colleague (he tagged along).
As they moved toward the Baron’s rebellious compound, I described the absence of further opposition. Ad-libing 100%, I described various acid-eaten gigantic Mortars and broken Boulder-clanks. The PCs deduced that they had been destroyed by Melorians, the savage, self-replicating, bio-contructs created in the last decade by the previous incarnation of Eric’s Deva Avenger.
As they approached the site, the signs that Melorians were also going there became evident.
Franky: Well, that’s going to be anti-climactic, we’ll get there and the whole place will be a melted puddle of acid.
Chatty: Didn’t you like sleep only 3 hours in the last 48 hours? I’m trying to work with you man.
Unidentified Plot Twist at 6 O’clock!
Shortly before they arrived at the Foundry-Mine where the psychic signal, supposedly at the origin of the Clank uprising, was located, the Baron’s Spy NPC dropped a rock in the puddle.
Agent: My colleague just died! We absolutely must recover his Watch within 24 hours or his “Transience” (i.e. personality backup) will be sucked in the Elemental Chas with all he knows.
Rod Stone: How do you know that?
Agent (points at watch and grins): I’m not supposed to tell you that.
Rod Stone: Can that ‘not supposed to tell us’ tell you where your ‘not alive’ friend is now?
Agent: Wha?
Nar-Beth: Just lead the way to his body.
Agent: Huh? Yeah… That way.
The Falkenstein Works Foundry-Mines
The PCs crested a hill and came upon a the smoke-belching, clockwork-running monstrosity that was The Falkenstein Works Factory-Mines. A series of buildings and mine tunnels sticking out of a mountain. Surrounded by an electrified, barbed wire palisade guarded by tower-turrets. The courtyard was filled with refined ore, cranes, piles of crates and drums, huge mounds of dead bodies and clanks walking here and there, some very large.
The compound’s front gate had been crashed open but was apparently unguarded.
Holy Clank: Well, I guess we just need to see what those towers do before we charge…
A flash of light was seen to the party’s right, then a loud thuderclap was heard. A vague odor of ozone and burnt poultry reached them.
Holy Clank: Right, that’s what I thought.
Up next: Mecha in 4e!!!
Credit: Terror Worm image by artist Emerson Tung from The Wandering Men’s upcoming Untold: The Game.
Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-02-07
- Photos from the Athas Unveiled Seminar at #DDXP http://www.flickr.com/photos/davethegame/sets/72157623327330580/ #darksun #dnd #
- RT @direflail: This week's Dire Flailings: Stephen Colbert and The Rats of iCrap. http://bit.ly/cghaTa #
- RT @RockBandAide: PAX East exhibitors announced! http://bit.ly/anVfyl #
- Five Things You Should Never Say to Your DM from @geeksaresexy http://is.gd/7AS42 #
- More information about D&D Essentials line (incl. pic of Red Box 4e) and Gamma World for DDI subscribers http://is.gd/7ChLU #
- Great writeup of the Battle Interactive from #DDXP (spoilers for those of you planning to do it in the future) http://bit.ly/bb9gaI #
- PAX East needs RPG volunteers! http://bit.ly/ai6i0K #
- RT @AllenVarney: Mashup by @wjmacguffin of D&D 4e & PARANOIA is sure to win friends, influence people (Happy Bishop): http://bit.ly/9eadqQ #
- RT @geekgirldiva RT @io9 The 10 Worst Scifi Snubs In Oscar History http://io9.com/5463873/ #rant #oscars #
- RT @AllenVarney: Marvel Super Heroes RPG designer Jeff Grubb reminisces: http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2010/02/secret-origins.html #
- RT @blackcatinla: Spread it far and wide! Free 50 pg CthulhuTech Quick-Start Rules! http://Www.cthulhutech.com/downloads #
- RT @greywulf: Lair: Kill Bargle, again! http://bit.ly/b1JQJ0 #rpg #
- RT @unclebear: UncleBear Returns http://unclebear.com/ #
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