The 4th Power Project: Core Classes, Part 1
If you’re just joining us, take a look at the Kickoff and Core Design Elements before proceeding.
Here’s some actual crunch: the core classes. Just as in d20 Modern, there’s one base class for each ability score. This setup is intuitive, and also allows for the different kind of teams you see in so many shows and movies. (I’ve been really enjoying Leverage recently for inspiration.)
So that was the easy first step: put the names of those classes down. I stole a few things from the way 4e classes are setup: class determines some bonuses to defense, hit points (mostly, as you’ll see), healing surges, trained skills, core class features, and multiple builds per class. We don’t need a role (they sort of overlap), and we definitely don’t need power sources.
The first thing I added was the bonuses to defense: they formed immediate symmetry. HP followed close behind, which was based on story of each of the classes, as did healing surges and trained skills. Core class features and builds were last, and the most in flux. I tried to make 2 builds for each class that represented a different enough concept within that class (with room for more, of course.)
So here’s what I have. Comments plenty welcome. [Read the rest of this article]
The 4th Power Project: Core Design Elements
Last week, I made the big announcement, which boiled down to this:
I want to do a new version of d20 Modern but updated with 4e-style rules. And I’m going to share the process of making it with all of you, and get your feedback as I go.
But that doesn’t really tell you anything about how I’m going to do it. This week I’m going to tell you what my goals for the game are and some broad strokes as far as the rules go. However, I’m going to cover two things up front, which may disappoint some of you:
- This will not just be 4e rules, classes, etc. reskinned for Modern times. Not that I have anything against this approach (check out the write-ups for Greywulf’s “Endday” campaign for an excellent way this is being done in his campaign) but it’s not the game I want to design… for one, the work is mostly done already and isn’t anything you couldn’t do at home.
- Furthermore, 4th Power will not have all the same design goals and assumptions that 4e has. This is a big one. What it means is that I’m not just going to take the same structure from 4e and make new classes/feats/skills/bad guys to fit that structure in Modern times. In that way, it’s going to be farther out than d20 Modern was to 3e. The big reason for this is that it’s not the game I want to play. Second on the list is that a 3rd party publisher is definitely going to be doing this, with a bigger budget and bigger staff, so on some level I would be competing with it. (Amethyst may be the first of these to come out.) By changing up some assumptions, I can assure that my game is going to conflict with someone else’s game, especially in case WotC ever decides to do it.
That’s all vague stuff, I know. I just wanted to get it out there. Now let’s hit some specifics: [Read the rest of this article]
The 4th Power Project: Background and Kickoff
I am happy to announce a new series of columns here at Critical-Hits, authored by myself. It represents something we’ve never tried doing here before, coupled with a project that I’m quite excited about, and I hope you will be too.
If you’re an old, old fan of ours, you’ll remember how I mentioned the d20 Modern variant that I was working on while running a campaign of it at the same time. The genesis of that game was now 8 years ago when I ran Call of Cthulhu d20 set on the college campus that I was attending that ranks as my favorite campaign I’ve ever run. Then d20 Modern came out and it seemed like a natural fit for the next installment of the same campaign, but I could not help but tinker with the system and come up with my own advanced classes, feats, and so on. Then I moved on from that college and that group of players and moved back to Maryland. It would be a few years later when I would seriously try to resurrect the project by once again running a campaign of it. I wouldn’t call any of them failures, but none of them lasted long enough to tell me what I needed to know about the game overall, and moreso, I never devoted enough time to complete the game.
Well, flash forward a few years, and we have a mostly dead d20 Modern brand (updated by the excellent Modern20 but receiving little overall support) and a new system to play with in the form of D&D 4e.
That’s my long winded way of saying this: I want to do a new version of d20 Modern but updated with 4e-style rules. And I’m going to share the process of making it with all of you, and get your feedback as I go. [Read the rest of this article]
I Am A Liberal Gamer
If you know me personally, my political preferences are well known. But what I refer to today is my preference in game design.
I’m a big proponent of change in game design. If something isn’t working, don’t just patch it, teardown and rebuild. This puts me in opposition to what I will respectfully call the “Conservative Gamer” contingent, who prefer that games preserve much of their makeup from edition to edition. Their reasons are certainly strong ones: ensuring backward compatibility with existing products, keeping the game familiar to previous fans, and so on.
But, that’s not for me. I prefer to see innovation in game design. I’m all for taking an existing game in brand new directions, especially if the end result is new and interesting, but- here’s an important part of a successful redesign- while maintaining the core feel of a game. Not only that, but the tastes of audiences change as time goes on, and new editions should take that into account. I also feel quite strongly that in ANY kind of design, be it game design, graphic designer, programming, what have you, the fact that something is traditional is not enough justification by itself to keep an element in.
This all probably will not surprise many of you with my support of D&D 4e, Fallout 3, Twilight Imperium (despite my negative experiences with it) and more recently, the newly announced Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay edition. In every case, they took an existing game, and decided to take it in a new rules direction, often featuring new components and styles. I’m quite happy they did: in each case, they tried to bring forward the essence of the previous edition or editions while introducing new gameplay and appealing to a wider audience beyond those who already had the previous edition. To put it more bluntly: a new edition with minimal changes or only superficial changes is unlikely to bring in new players. Many gamers unfamiliar with a game aren’t really going to care that “Class X or Card Y was broken” in the previous edition, but now it’s fixed, so you should really play. They’re more likely to be brought in by “the combat system was streamlined” or “there’s a really neat new set of options.”
Of course, not all revisions are successful, and are going to always be judged on various personal criteria both by existing players deciding to switch and the new audiences they want to appeal to. Ultimately, I’d rather them try something new and fail then play it safe and have moderate success (though a game company’s accountants may disagree.)
Am I picking on fans of older editions? No, not at all. In fact, I think there’s a fair number of retro-clones that are doing exactly what I’m talking about, and are trying to bring forward the essence of an older game by emphasizing those aspects that they enjoyed and trying some new things in other areas. Nor am I completely an adopter of every new edition (Mage: The Ascension 2e forever!) but I don’t ever begrudge new editions of games coming out.
In fact, that gets to the heart of my main complaint about the other site of this argument: you can still play your older edition, or older edition with house rules and other patches… but if I don’t get a new edition, my only recourse is to make a new innovative game myself, which is a lot of work. And you know how I hate that.
Ultimate D&D Universe
This is an entry into this month’s blog carnival about Transformations and Transitions.
Reading over the interview done with the authors of Manual of the Planes and the Design & Development article on Cosmology (DDI sub needed), I couldn’t help but notice the focus (which we were first informed of all those months ago in the preview books) on making all the planes places to adventure. Planes that felt underused were done away with, and a new cosmology was created that both had some new planes, but still drew on parts that existed in previous editions- most notably in my mind, Sigil and the City of Brass.
The push in 4e was to take what were considered the “core” parts of D&D and incorporate them into one solid setting that all worked together, instead of the previous elements of D&D that were added on as time went on and more modules were published. In a way, the transition from the previous editions core setting to 4e’s core setting was an attempt not unlike the attempts by DC and Marvel Comics to clean up their continuity so as to allow new readers (players) an easier entry point and to recreate the continuity to fit together better. DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths was the trend-setter there, but the analogue that works better for me is Marvel’s Ultimate line. [Read the rest of this article]
Paying the Buy-In
The problem is a very simple one:
When starting a new campaign (or even just planning a one-shot), it’s tough to get people into a new game. Thus, the game usually ends up being D&D. Now, there’s nothing wrong with it being D&D, but with so many RPGs out there, I enjoy a bit of variety when I can get it.
Why is it so tough? Because the “buy-in” total for the game is too high.
What do I mean by that? The buy-in is anything that has to be contributed by the players (and GM) in order to make the game function. While buying the game itself and any accessories is one form of buy-in, that’s generally not the problem. The problem is how much has to be learned in order to play a new RPG. [Read the rest of this article]
Reiner Knizia: "Creation of a Successful Game"
Dr. Reiner Knizia, one of the best known and most successful boardgame designers, was one of the Guests of Honor at Origins this year. I showed up to one of his panels, entitled “Creation of a Successful Game”, a few minutes late due to late night D&D the evening before. When I arrived, he had already gone past his introduction and started into his powerpoint presentation. That’s OK, because I already knew who he was!
Here’s a transcription from my notes. As before, this is not verbatim, just my notes on his session. Taking notes proved more tricky than I expected since I had to do them on my PDA (my laptop deciding not to work that morning), the door to the event was quite loud, and there was a very loud demo shouting every few minutes downstairs.
All that out of the way, how do you create a successful game? [Read the rest of this article]
An Unusual Source for RPGs and Game Design
Here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while, and is worth revisiting as you plan your next campaign or sit down to design the next great game.
Our biggest source of traffic is, of course, Google. Thanks to all the tracking software whojidgts, we have a comprehensive log of the search terms used to get here (as do most people who run blogs and other websites.)
Occasionally, I look in these search terms and see things that are perfect to steal as game design ideas or to incorporate into RPGs. The concept is similar to using random generators for idea seeds and brainstorming. The difference, however, is that somewhere a human brain is searching for this thing, so there’s at least an audience of one (and the idea is more likely to be coherent, as opposed to a random mismatch.)
Here’s some examples that I like from our logs: [Read the rest of this article]
Precariously Balancing on the Edge of Game Design
Inspired by the discussion in one of my recent posts, I was surprised to hear that there are advocates AGAINST balance. The discussion was about RPGs, which have their own caveats as far as game design goes (which are crucial to the argument about why some feel it’s not important), but let’s start by talking about board games and move out from there.
WHITE, HOUSE LANNISTER, RUSSIA
In board games, you could break it down into two broad categories. There are symmetrical and asymmetrical games, and they’re not necessarily an absolute one or the other: most games will fall inside a spectrum between the two.
An easy example of a symmetrical game is Chess. Both sides start with the same pieces and the same options. Because Chess is a pure strategy turn-based game, the first player has an advantage. (It’s statistically minor based on the emergent complexity, but it is there.) Thus, the only point of imbalance is in who goes first. (I’m sure there’s some simultaneous play variant that eliminates it but changes the game significantly.) [Read the rest of this article]
Catch-Up Mechanics and that Damn Blue Shell
I think we can all agree that it sucks to be losing. In most games, it’s inevitable that someone will be losing. However, good games will try to convince every player that he has a chance of winning up to the very end (while still rewarding those who did well throughout the course of the game.) In addition to the psychological aspect, it also helps to minimize Kingmaker. Many games accomplish this by adding luck, which can bridge the gap between skilled players and less skilled players.
In fact, the style of game that does this most directly is the push-your-luck game (like Incan Gold.) In a typical PYL game, a losing player can just keep taking risks to try to catch up until the very end.
However, there are other games that take another, but still direct, tact. Some games contain a “catch-up” mechanic by which players are specifically hindered for being in the lead and/or specifically helped by trailing. The two most direct examples of this I’ve seen are Power Grid and Mario Kart- however, each of these have some issues in how they handle the implementation. [Read the rest of this article]
Loading ...
