The Smallest Kid in the Sandbox
A writing teacher of mine once said that any writing you do is more than just a story or novel or essay; the act of writing is also entering a conversation with all the other writers who have ever or will ever write something as well. If I took that statement literally, I would be too intimidated to ever put pen to paper, imagining that I was actually shooting the breeze with brilliant minds like Dostoevsky, Faulkner, and Updike. However, this thought does help focus a writer—it instills the awareness that the act of writing is something worthy of taking seriously, even if the work itself is silly or irreverent in tone (or for a fantasy RPG).
The sentiment from that teacher is never far from my mind, but it struck me even more prophetic as I did more and more work in the game-design field—and in particular when that work brought me into designing within a shared-world environment. Even as the forward-thinking R&D folks at Wizards of the Coast do a little bit of public introspection on the past and future of the game of Dungeons & Dragons (and RPGs in general), and as the public interprets that introspection as a referendum on the next iteration of D&D, it strikes me how working on content for a game really is a conversation with past and future designers and developers. And, if game design is such a conversation, then designing content in settings such as the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Greyhawk is an outright public debate, including Springer-esque, chair-throwing, clothes-ripping brawls.
When I was given the chance to work as one of the Global Administrators on the Living Forgotten Realms campaign in 2008, I had the slightest iota of experience working on projects in other shared-world settings, mostly D&D ones like Eberron or Greyhawk, but also Babylon 5. Working on projects in those arenas was a bit unnerving, but the Forgotten Realms is a whole different beast. Not only are there years of gaming material lurking behind it, but whole libraries of novels hang over a designer’s head. And that doesn’t even touch the video games and other ancillary products.
After all, it is one thing to play around with the fundamentals of a shared-world when you are doing so for a group of players in a private (which can be a tough enough job). It is another issue entirely when you are being asked to tread upon fans’ sacred grounds; it is impossible to hide your footprints in a sandbox so public and sometimes overly scrutinized. [Read the rest of this article]
Redesigning the Epic Tier
Both Sly Flourish and I have talked a lot lately about the issues we’ve run into at epic levels in D&D. While there are certainly rules issues, I believe fixing them all would take up a lot more than single column. However, I do have some ideas on alternate ways to restructure how the campaign plays out to put the focus on epic in a way I find satisfying.
As I experienced in my campaign, I never felt like there was enough actual epic storylines to justify a full 10 levels. When every combatant was supposed to be earth-shattering, it drained much of the impact away from each individual one. Plus, unless you’re just going on a tour of gods to kill, the variety of monsters ends up being a bit tough to manage- one or two times fighting a balor and his epic demon minions is cool, but the third or fourth? It loses a bit of its cool factor.
So what I propose is an alternate campaign plan that doesn’t focus on trying to make all 30 levels of a game operate similarly. It breaks out the epic tier into several segments with different focuses, and even changes a bit how many D&D campaigns are run. A good part of the inspiration for this was a 2nd edition D&D campaign I played in that borrowed heavily from the D&D Immortals Boxed set. [Read the rest of this article]
The Scaling Woes of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons
30 Second Summary
D&D 4e is a wonderful refined combat-focused RPG but it scales poorly as levels increase. While many of the elements of 4e scale along a linear path, many powers and effects scale at a much greater rate resulting in large imbalances between PCs and the threats they face at higher levels. This makes it hard for dungeon masters to challenge PCs. The best way to stay ahead of this curve? First, stick to heroic-tier campaigns and second, stick to post-Essentials D&D source material.
The Linear Power Curve of 4e
Most of the progression of 4e follows a nice straight linear progression. Skills, attributes, defenses, and attack bonuses generally follow linear increases as PCs level. Other effects like combat advantage and a mark’s –2 penalty for attacking the wrong target scale linearly as well. No matter what level you play, a +2 or –2 bonus equates to a 10% greater chance to hit or miss. Whether you have combat advantage at level 4 or at level 28, that +2 bonus will always equate to an additional 10% chance to hit your target.
The Exponential Power Curve of 4e
Some effects in 4e grow at a steeper curve or even increase the curve each level. While a marking power is just as useful at level 28 as it is at level 4 (always equating to a 10% greater chance to miss), most defenders gain abilities to increase the number of monsters they can mark, increase the range of those marks, and increase the potential effects of those marks. What used to be –2 to attack on a single target turns into –3 to attack on five targets across an entire map and, should they trip the mark, they take a much more significant penalty. A marking defender becomes much more effective at higher levels than at lower levels.
Bonuses to attack and defense work the same way. A power that gives a +4 bonus to attack scales linearly from level 1 to 30. No matter what level the PC is, that always equates to a 20% greater chance to hit. But when that bonus becomes 2 + a wisdom modifier, now the curve goes up. The benefit of this power grows every time that wisdom bonus increases. Instead of a flat 20% bonus, it grows from 20% to 25% to 30% and to 35%. Warlords at level 30 can give a +9 bonus to attack. Stacking that with combat advantage and a power that once gave a 20% bonus makes an attack impossible to miss.
These are just a few of many examples where the power curve steepens. Blasts become wider. The number of attacks per round increases. Critical hits happen twice as often on each hit. The number of actions a character can take stays the same, but the number of powers they can use during those actions increases greatly. All of these increases are in addition to the increase in attack scores, damage output, and other linear progression.
Healing also scales along a much steeper curve than the damage PCs might receive. Leaders will find, as they level beyond 11, that their healing powers not only increase in the amount they heal (as they should) but the number of people they can heal increases from two at lower levels to as many as six later on (three on their targets and three on themselves).
In short, 4th edition becomes an easier game for players as the game’s level increases. [Read the rest of this article]
6 Years of Critical Hits: More Than Editions of D&D
Graphic by theyreusingtools.com
(Before you say anything, yes, I know there are unnumbered editions of D&D that mean there are more than 4 editions.)
In the past, I’ve done some pretty big write-ups. Feel free to take a trip back through the ages of Critical Hits:
This year, I’m going to go more straight to the point. Before I dive into the stats for the year, I’d like to call out two particular milestones.
We’re Almost Professionals Now
This is the year that blogging suffered a bit, but for a pretty good reason: we were actually game designing. For money, even!
ChattyDM’s adventure as part of the From Here To There adventure anthology finally saw print, and he had several articles published in Kobold Quarterly. ChattyDM and I both also started doing design and development work for Margaret Weis Productions, from the Dragon Brigade RPG (with some of our other awesome blogging friends too) which then lead into the upcoming and super-exciting Marvel Superheroes RPG (in playtesting now!)
We also had our work appear in DDI for the first time. From my contribution to the “Choose Your Fortunes Wisely” article, to “Rumble in the Valley” for Dungeon, and then just last week “Class Acts Assassin: Secrets of the Ninja” for Dragon. ChattyDM broke new ground with the level 0 rules in “A Hero’s First Steps” and the accompanying level 0 adventure, “Temple of the Weeping Goddess.” Expect more to come from us in the next year in DDI, too.
Meanwhile, more behind the scenes, Bartoneus, Vanir, and myself were selected to playtest some upcoming D&D products. This has posed an interesting challenge in some cases between our role as news-hounds for RPGs and confidential material, yet I believe we’ve found a good balance. To be honest, most of the things we get to look at have already been announced, so other than details (which are easy to keep secret) it’s not a big deal. It has definitely lead to at least one blog post that errs heavily on the side of being conservative though!
In non-RPGs, Dixon Trimline got to see publication this year with one of his short stories being published by Nevermet Press. And the new edition of my board game Get Bit! saw a very successful Kickstarter campaign, allowing the funding of special bonuses (like stickers) and to get the Sharkspansion created.
Of course, the already-pros among us kept putting out great work. As only a small sampling, Chris Sims has several pieces in this month’s Kara-Tur themed issue of Dragon, and Logan Bonner has been working on updating monsters and giving them added oomph.
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the pinnacle of XTREME ROLEPLAYING with the release of Logan’s Refuge in Audacity, hosted here and available for free. Free, that is, except for HAVING YOUR MIND BLOWN BY PLANET-DESTROYING RADNESS.
All in all, a good year. Much of our success I have to attribute to using Critical Hits as a platform, both for exposure and for honing our writing skills. If you want to break into the industry, I say: start a blog!
We’re An Award-Winning Blog
I think I’ve harped on it enough, but winning the Ennie was a huge milestone for us. We also greatly appreciated winning the RPG Site of the Year from Stuffer Shack. The DM Guys Ennie nomination was also a big boost, and something we’d like to get back to.
Onto the stats! [Read the rest of this article]
Five Wishes for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
Even if you live in a cave on a desert island, there’s likely some neck-bearded castaway next to you predicting and complaining about a 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We’ve heard it for five years and we’ll hear it for five more, regardless of what new games are released. Most recently, 3rd edition veteran Monte Cook returned to the R&D team of Wizards of the Coast, launching all sorts of new speculation.
For the most part, such speculation seems like a waste to me. We can pontificate all we want about what Wizards might do with a new edition, how it will be perceived, or when it will be released. None of that helps us run great D&D games today. Still, as I think about it, there is a short list of things I’d like to see in a new edition, things I can’t really fix with simple house rules. So today I give you this short wish list in the hopes that, somehow, these items get addressed in some future iteration of the game I love. [Read the rest of this article]
Roleplaying Resurrection
This past weekend (10/8 – 10/9), my bestest friend, Dave Cohen, actually agreed to come all the way down from RI to participate in the wild extravaganza that is DC Game Day. On Saturday and Sunday, we found ourselves navigating the shadowy incompetence of the Metro system, marching all over the northwest corner of DC, and occasionally rolling dice and playing games. DC Game Day has the feel of a mini-con, several games spread over two days of four sessions, friendly and intimate where strangers fall into easy conversation with one another. Dave and I spent the first session trundling down from BWI, and we played Savage Worlds Saturday evening, Gamma World Sunday morning, and Fiasco Sunday evening.
Savage Worlds is a hoot, a game that somehow manages to be both light and nimble while also being crunchy and numbery. I get that the primary–ONLY?–rule is: you need a four. “I want to shoot the 35′ Nazi bear.” “Roll the dice, you need a four.” “Do I see the trolls approaching?” “Roll the dice, you need a four.” “Can I blow up the barracks with my mortar?” “Roll the dice, you need a four.” Of course, it appeared there were lots and lots of conditional modifiers: there’s fog rolling in, so you’re at -2, but you’re using a scope, so you’re at +2, but it’s long range, so it’s -3, but you have “the drop,” so you get +4, and so on forever and ever, bang-boom.
For me, the real revelation of the weekend was Fiasco, a game I’ve heard many people rave about so passionately that you feel like edging away from them before the drooling and screaming begins. This game tends to elicit appreciation, in the same way that brainwashing encourages cooperation. Well, now I’ve played it, and… hold on, I’ve started drooling, which means the screaming comes next…
It’s been a little while since I’ve been any good at roleplaying. Despite being Vulnerable 15 to peer pressure, I used to have no trouble at all acting up a storm at the gaming table, because I knew that I would be hopeless at strategy and planning. When it came to my turn, I could kill it with the shuddery lip and the welling tears, the heartfelt speeches, the utter consumption and apprehension of my character. I would most often play clerics of some sort, because everybody loves a devoted holy man who won’t shut up about his god, right?
Of course, this was a long time ago, and I’ve grown considerably (in several directions), and I’ve come to realize that I just don’t have that piece of myself anymore. It’s tough figuring out the mentality and motivation of a pretend person, and then having to stick to that for hours at a time. Can’t I just roll a dice and tell you my result? That’s a whole lot easier.
And so, Fiasco. In Fiasco, there’s not really dice rolling, except for the start and middle bits, and trust me, those don’t count. It’s all decisions, decisions and storytelling, decisions and storytelling and improvisational roleplaying. Uh oh, there’s that word. Roleplaying. I’m going to have to sit at a table with other people and write a story out loud in the voice of a character that I just met, all while those other people are staring at me and judging me and hating me. This kind of thrown-in-the-deep-end roleplaying is a little daunting. No, wait, that’s not the right term. It’s gonad-shrinkingly terrifying. [Read the rest of this article]
The One-Page Character Sheet
I offer no apologies for my appreciation of D&D 4E, as it gives me everything I look for in a heroic roleplaying game. For me, it’s not enough to act like someone different, or take on unbeatable foes, or tick off numbers on papers. Don’t misunderstand, I love all these bits, but I also love the cooperative side of the game, how a goal can only be achieved if the party works together. So here is a game that I really do enjoy, and yet, there is this scar on my beloved which prevents me from embracing it completely.
The character sheets are <hyperbole>8000 pages long</hyperbole>.
My brain is old and dusty, and has lost any ability to retain information, and this game of mine has lots and lots of things you really do have to remember. There are triggers and immediate actions and opportunity actions and conditional powers and situational feats, and this is all spread across a half-dozen or more pages in no detectable order, resulting in the following popular phrase at the gaming table: “Wait, wait, wait, I think I can do something now,” following by shuffling paper. This is running neck-and-neck with the phrase, “Wait, wait, wait, I could have done something last round / last battle / last week.” [Read the rest of this article]
Piledriver: The Most Popular Game Ever Played
Piledriver. You’ve all played it, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, but you play it more than you expect.
I can’t name all the times I played Piledriver, but I can tell you when I first knew I was playing Piledriver. I had just bought Settlers of Catan and rather than any one of us sitting down and thoroughly reading the rules, we blew through the instructions, thought we understood, and began to play. We randomly placed our numbers down, built settlements without a care for roads, and committed all sorts of unforgiveable sins that butchered every attempt at elegant and balanced game design, but most of all we had fun. During the evening of play, a friend read the rules and said that we had basically played a completely made up game bearing only slight resemblance to Settlers of Catan. I don’t know why, but when it was revealed we had been playing wrong someone said, “Pileeeeeeedriver!”
And thus, Piledriver was born. [Read the rest of this article]
The Future of D&D Might Be Its Past
This morning, in Mike Mearls’s regular Legends And Lore column on the Wizards website, he made this big announcement:
Starting next week, I’m turning this column over to acclaimed game designer Monte Cook.
Followed by:
Monte has an unmatched design pedigree in the RPG field, and for that reason we’ve brought him on board to work with R&D in making D&D the greatest RPG the world has seen.
If you speculate that this is the lead-up to a new edition of D&D, I certainly couldn’t disagree with you. 2013 was even when I predicted the next edition would come out years ago.
However, I’m going to do what I almost never do an engage in some wild speculation here, with a good chance that I’m totally wrong and off-base. I think it’s an interesting idea, so I’m sharing it here. Keep in mind that I have no insider knowledge about this: this is solely my speculation based on public statements and the Gen Con seminars I attended.
So if it’s not just 5th edition, what else could it be? Well, we know that there has been this sentiment: making D&D a game that players of all editions can enjoy. Likewise, we know from various blog posts and such that the R&D team made a journey playing through all the different editions of D&D. (Even the D&D brand team was in on this, as evidenced by Shelly Mazzanoble’s column.) Likewise, there’s good money on there being an open playtest, which is being refined now through the new miniatures game and which had undeniable success in the Pathfinder launch.
My guess from all this is that we’ll see a product that I’m calling “Dungeons & Dragons: Anniversary Edition” that attempts to be the Grand Unified Game of D&D – not in the “this is the best edition ever” sense, but in the sense that it takes every edition of D&D made and puts it into one game. It would use a modular approach that allows you to combine aspects of each edition to make your own D&D, effectively, while also providing plenty of tools to hack whichever version of D&D you’re currently playing.
The closest analogue I can think of is the Vampire Translation Guide put out by White Wolf designed to bridge the gap between Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem. While that product covered many story concerns that I don’t think D&D: AE would cover, it would be something designed to bridge the gap between different rulesets. At the same time, I think it would have to be playable by itself, while also a manual that could be used with any existing D&D edition you’re already playing, while giving a menu of options for rules you want to tweak and change.
Such a manual (and it would almost have to become a whole game line in and of itself to support the amount of resources it would take) would certainly benefit from open playtesting, especially from people who play previous editions of D&D or have sworn off D&D entirely in favor of other alternatives.
And why would Monte Cook be an important element of this? Besides being a great designer in general (one of our favorites here at CH, in fact), he also underwent a similar D&D deconstruction when part of the team to build 3e, and who has continued to examine and tweak D&D in the years following. In fact, his company and Mike Mearls put out one of my all time favorite takes on D&D, Iron Heroes.
Now, I can’t speak to this being a great idea: while there is a large portion of the D&D community that loves to tinker, it remains to be seen if they would buy a product in such numbers to support the effort, or even if players of various editions would adopt the approach. Heck, I’m not sure if it’s something even I would play (though I’d certainly buy it.) It’s just a guess, but one I think is interesting. Have at it.
A Joyful Noise
I detest labels. Always have, always will. In high school I played D&D and worked with computers, but I wasn’t a geek or nerd. I excelled at sports, but I wasn’t a jock. I hung out with some people who were on the fringe of “normal society,” but I wasn’t a stoner or slacker. I did well in classes and got decent grades, but I wasn’t a preppy. But then again, neither were the people who were being called any of those names by other people who were themselves being called other names. Labels were just crutches for people who wanted to make themselves feel better about who they were, when they didn’t need to feel bad about anything at all.
So today ends what is being called “Speak Out with Your Geek Out,” and I am neither proud nor ashamed to say that I play roleplaying games, board games, card games, and other activities that some people consider geeky. When I play or run RPGs, I absolutely talk in funny voices and act out what my characters are doing and saying. I do so in public, and I don’t really care if I look like a fool. An NPC in a game I was running recently did the “dance of shame,” and you can damn well bet that I did that dance to—just like there was no one watching, baby! If that makes me a geek, then a geek I am.
Despite the flak I took in the 1980s for playing D&D, along with many others who shared the hobby then, I can honestly say I am a better person for my experiences with the game. Having some “normal” people telling me that I was going to hell or was mentally unstable because I played a game gave me an appreciation for all the people who did play the game. Even though these people might have been different, might have been what is now called a geek, they were certainly no more terrible than those who were judging and condemning without knowledge or experience. [Read the rest of this article]
