Fighters & Flapjacks
If you ask me what my favorite D&D classes are, it’s hard to pick one. My tastes range from the mildly offbeat (Psions/Psionicists, Bards), the specific (Paladins but only if I don’t have to deal with a damn horse), the edition-specific (2e Wild Mages and 4e Ninjas), and exactly one true classic: the Fighter.
However, I’ve been playing RPGs a long time now. I’m quite experienced at playing RPGs and games of all types. This is why I react poorly to statements implying that the D&D fighter should be the class that you give the new player, because they’re so simple. I don’t necessarily want a class that’s overly complicated (and we all know a few of those out there in D&D history) but I do want one that gives me plenty of decisions to make inherent in the class itself. I want to think like a Fighter, choosing what move (and maybe, what weapon) is most appropriate to the situation. I want to think like Batman in Dark Knight Returns and (paraphrasing) “There’s 9 different sword strikes from this position. 5 of them kill. 4 of them paralyze for life. The last one… hurts.”
Why is this? I point to what I want in D&D classes as a happy marriage between concept and mechanics. The Fighter- the tough, armored guy that uses weapons to fight monsters- is one that appeals to me for whatever reason. (Possibly because Con is my dump stat in real life.) The concept is awesome and there’s many, many examples of it out there in heroic fiction. Mechanics help reinforce that concept, but also serve with how I interface with the “game” portion of RPG, in giving me interesting decisions to make, and a specific outlet for creativity interpreted through those mechanics. (Slight digression: I think D&D needs better mechanics for improvised weapons and using stuff from your environment. There have certainly been rules and classes that attempt this, but it’s never quite clicked for me, and I think that could help some characters a lot, as well as having the side effect of powering cool descriptive background stuff from the DM and making the situation overall more dynamic.) [Read the rest of this article]
The Architect DM: Seven Wonders of Your World
Whenever I get a chance I make a pointed effort to read about or look at a map of other DM’s and GM’s roleplaying game worlds. I find it fascinating to look at them both objectively and subjectively, to see things that I may never have come up with or elements that are similar to things in the worlds I’ve created. Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a handful of elements that pop up in the majority of people’s fantasy game worlds and these elements have been some of the inspiration for earlier world building posts in my Architect DM posts.
A great place to start with world building is to take inspiration or replicate an element from the real world. Today I’d like to talk about the concept of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and how more people should apply it to their game worlds. One of my favorite aspects of this idea is that featuring exactly seven aspects of a world seems to be a perfect balance between highlighting diversity and summarizing generalities.
Adding Wonder to a Mundane World
When I visualize the “typical DM’s D&D world map” I see something that has wiggly lines for coast lines, land split up by forests, mountains, and maybe some rivers or lakes, and a sprinkling of towns that seem to be placed randomly with some scraggly roads connecting them. I’ve tried to write several posts to help you design a believable and interesting world map from scratch or to adjust what you’ve already designed, so I’m not going to go into the general concepts behind fixing what I’ll call the “boring old D&D world”. If you have a question about general fantasy world design, please share it with me and I’ll address it in a future post!
What I think is missing from a lot of these game worlds and maps are featured elements that stand out from the background of the rest of the world. Though I referenced the Wonders of the Ancient World, these can be natural, man-made, or any other kind of wondrous element you can think up for your world. Add a Thunderspire into the midst of your largest mountain range, draw a giant tree in the middle of one of your forests (maybe even call it Yggdrasil, Teldrassil, or any other kind of *drasil you like), and show a prominent wizard’s tower as the focal point for a major city.
The Building Blocks of Story
Adding Wonders to your game world not only gives the players sign posts that help them navigate the world and differentiate one region from another, but they also present a great foundation for adventures and stories that you and your players can explore. This might feel like a shortcut or skimping on world building, but if you think about running a modern game in the present world it really starts to make sense. If your players visit Egypt, I don’t think they would be disappointed with the adventure focusing on a series of dungeons buried beneath the Pyramids. Or if you run a historic game and the players are sailing to Rhodes, you better believe they’ll want to hear about the Colossus.
The best part about adding these elements to your game world is that you can (and should) borrow liberally from real life. Add a Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls to your game world, just give them a new name or change a few of the key features about them and you’re set. George R. R. Martin did this in the Song of Ice and Fire series with the Titan of Braavos and it was one of my favorite elements of the series.
An Overly Wondrous World
I would probably argue that you can’t add too many wonders to your game world, but I would recommend sticking to a nice list of seven and seeing how your world looks after that. If you really want to add more features, I would recommend creating a list of seven natural wonders, seven ancient wonders, and seven modern wonders of your game world. From there you should have a fantastic spread of elements on which to build stories and to entice your players to explore the world with little extra encouragement.
The idea of presenting ancient wonders and natural wonders in your game world presents a nice view of history and can inspire wonder based on the unanswered questions they bring up. You can tie natural wonders to a god’s acts of creation or to indicate natural forces at work in your world. Ancient wonders can provide the perfect gateways for you and your players to explore your game’s history or to set up ongoing plots that give your world a nice “lived-in” feeling. Modern wonders can round out your world and can even interact with the ancient and natural wonders in your game world. Imagine a Taj Mahal built in the middle of Niagara Falls, or a fantasy equivalent of the race to build the world’s tallest building.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms D&D setting, but upon looking into it in the last few years while running my campaign I was surprised at the number of wondrous elements that were spread around the map. It felt like every region had its one special/unique element that defined it, and very little or even none of the world map was left over to serve as background for the important elements. For a published campaign setting I actually think this is fine, but if you’re creating your own fantasy world I wouldn’t recommend going the route of the Forgotten Realms. Instead, look at the maps for settings such as Dark Sun and Eberron and take note of the way wonderous landmarks are used to define certain regions. A perfect example is the Lightning Rail in Eberron, which immediately effects the DM and player impressions of the regions it connects and can inspire all kinds of adventures and encounters entirely on its own.
Click here for the rest of the Architect DM Series.
The Statistical Truth* About Gender And Racial Stat Modifiers
There has been a lot of controversy on these here Internets as of late about a Legends & Lore article that talked about things people wanted included in D&D Next. Specifically, a significant ruckus occurred in the direction of stat modifiers for gender and race. Wizards quickly quelled the hellstorm, and wisely revising their poll so as not to include silly things like THAC0 and sexism. Though the results of that first poll are now gone due to “technical issues”, there were still 330 or so people recorded as of yesterday afternoon that wanted gender and race stat modifiers included in D&D Next.
I’ve seen plenty of arguments as to why these rules are included.
These rules are more realistic, some would say. Women aren’t as strong as men. EVER. The prospect of a woman having 18 — much less 18(00)! — strength is just patently absurd. Plus, it’s a proven fact that women burst into flames when they don Gauntlets of Ogre Power. They’re not called Gauntlets of Woman Power, obviously. Dwarves never get sick. Elves are clearly more dextrous, because TREES. (Except for those new elves that jump in and out of the prime material plane when they’re not dreaming. They just get like, extra rewards points on their Visa cards.)
I hate to break it to these 330 people, but they are all wrong. Every last one of them. Not for some tree-hugging moral reason. Oh, no.
Because it’s simply not true.
Public Records Don’t Lie
There’s a factor in play here unknown to most: the Forgotten Realms keeps detailed census data on all humanoid creatures (and several adjacent planes of existence, otherwise the Visa Elves wouldn’t get counted).
To be completely fair, the stat-modifier apologists are right — if this was 1972. This data was accurate at the time of the first publication of Dungeons & Dragons. However, this was forty years ago — which, as any scientist will tell you, is long enough for evolution to muck about with pretty much everything. Just look at the ancient peoples of our own 1970′s. Primitives.
Humans are now the least populous race in the Forgotten Realms, comprising only 6% of the population. However, their curious nature combined with their propensity to attempt to mate with anything that appears to be alive, has caused a massive upsurge in the number of Half-Orcs and Half-Halflings in the Realms, clocking in at 14% and 18% respectively. Census data shows that the average STR score for Half-Orcs is 17, and their CHA has raised significantly due to better government-funded access to charm school education.
Half-Halflings, sometimes known as Tall Short Hairy-Men, have an enormous average INT score of 31 and are known for their use of powerful magics. However, they are also known for making their homes in large barrels filled with brine and pickles, leaving their bodies as they astrally project for their entire lifespan. To date, nobody has figured out how they mate, but both the barrel and pickle industries in the Realms have enjoyed constant growth for the last several decades.
Pure-blooded Elves and Dwarves in the Realms are much more scarce than they used to be. This is primarily because, in 1987, a genetic predisposition toward epic-level hay fever spread through the elven populations of the world. The elves fled en masse underground, where there was war until the mid 90′s with the dwarves. Nobody knows for sure what happened, but in 2001, colonies of lanky, bulbous, aloof, cantankerous, rebellious teenage Elf-Dwarves started to emerge from the Underdark. Census data at the time reported an average CHA score of 5. It was thought that this number might rise as the teens grew out of their awkward phase, but the most current census data reports that sadly, CHA seems to be the dump-stat of the Elf-Dwarf.
On the topic of gender, The census data on males is largely unchanged. The average male STR score is still 18, as it has been for decades, but 60% of the male population now has a seduce ability. However, the average modern woman in the Forgotten Realms, according to current census data, has a 24 STR score, 4.8 children, and can breathe acid.
* It’s an election year.
Photo Credit
Chatty’s Fort Wayne Adventures: Tales from the Elemental Chaos, Part 1
I attended the 2012 Dungeons & Dragons Experience convention in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I couldn’t afford to fly there so I decided to drive my dirty blue Hyundai Accent to a place near Buffalo, NY -a 7 hour drive from my native Montreal- to meet up with fellow Critical-Hits writer, WotC freelancer and all-time superstar Shawn Merwin. He drove the rest of the way and much fun was had.
The convention was awesome, I got to see many friends again, made new ones, ran my own adventure, and, of course, played a few games of D&D Next, the very early prototype of what the next version could be based on.
Like so many other bloggers and freelancers, I’ve signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement so I can’t discuss specific rules. Rather I will do what I like doing best: tell stories of the games I ran, sharing highlights and special DMing and player moments during that 4 day long event. Up first, the genesis of new heroes. [Read the rest of this article]
Keep Calm And WIS Check (DC 22)
Remember a couple weeks ago when nobody knew anything at all about the new D&D? Then came DDXP, and a couple things happened. One, a playtest that lots of people took part in and nobody can talk about due to NDAs. Two, a series of seminars that were very light on details and heavy on “big picture” stuff like “wanting to make a D&D game that you can play the way you want”. Nobody who knows anything is supposed to discuss details, but the thing a lot of people are missing is that most of the details are not simply hidden.
Lots of videogames in our modern Internets-enabled future world release beta versions of their games. World of Warcraft has their Public Test Realms (PTRs) for players to view and help test upcoming content. The game developer gets a bunch of free testers and data, and the fans get to try stuff out early. The R&D team at WotC is being all crazy and smart and doing their own playtests and asking us what we want from this thing before they build it. A lot of the puzzle pieces don’t even exist yet, and the ones that do could very likely be very different by release time.
At this point in the game, you should automatically assume anybody on the Internets aside from the people designing the game have no idea what they’re talking about. That being said, I think the modular approach that’s been talked about so much recently is showing its strength here. One of the things repeatedly mentioned at DDXP this year is a very light and flexible core set of rules, and a version of those was what we got to play.
I’m a programmer by trade, and this is consistent with what I’d do if I had a big project that needed to do a whole bunch of things. I wouldn’t start off by implementing functionality for everything it needs to eventually do. I’d start by building a base that only does the things nearly every piece will need, and I’d test it very thoroughly and get it as right as I can before doing anything else, maybe rewriting whole sections of the code if I had to. I have no way of knowing for sure, but my guess is we’re at that stage right now.
The unfortunate thing is that the core rules are in a state where they don’t feel unfinished when you play the game. It just felt like playing D&D. Right now, though, is not the time to worry about all the things we don’t know and remember instead what we do — that the system isn’t going to be ready for prime time for quite awhile.
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The NDA
At DDXP, the R&D team seemed absolutely genuine in their desire to give us all the game we want, and to get our input to do just that. One thing I don’t think a lot people understand quite yet is that they need a way to channel and distill our hopes and wishes for the new edition into a form more comprehensible than the Internet Firehose. Though I don’t know exactly how getting input from us is going to work, I’m pretty sure they will let us know the ways they’d like to receive it. We already have frequent polls from Monte Cook’s Legends & Lore column, and I’d imagine playtesting is going to be a huge part of this as well.
When I first went under NDA to do playtesting last year, I asked what I could talk about and what I couldn’t. I was, as bloggers are wont to do, trying to determine the maximum amount of stuff I could safely share with the world. I was told that I could say I was playtesting something as long as it had been announced, but that I shouldn’t divulge details.
This is an extra special kind of frustrating for us bloggery types. We are pretty much in a constant state of excitement and wanting to tell people about everything, and we have to be careful about what we discuss. Yes, there’s the NDA stopping us from spilling all the beans, but it’s more than that. It’s so tempting to speculate my little heart out, but all we wind up doing in these kinds of situations is giving people a tiny bit of context that spawns a stirge’s nest on a forum somewhere. We frequently tend to approach things as if we were going to review them, but it’s kind of like talking about how delicious the Thanksgiving turkey is when it’s halfway cooked. You’ll probably get salmonella, and then everybody else will think salmonella is a feature of D&D Next. (I can neither confirm nor deny if it is.)
In a weird way, I think the NDA saves us from ourselves. People are already pretty worked up about D&D Next only knowing a few crumbs of information that may even be out-of-date by the time of this writing. Imagine if we could all nitpick every little detail from afar up until the game’s release. It wouldn’t be pretty.
My function as a blogger, as I see it, is to bring gamers together. We do a lot of D&D coverage here at Critical Hits, but a large amount of what we do here is focused around making it easier for people to have a good time. Gaming has been a huge positive force in my life for a very long time, and I want to preserve that. That’s why I took this gig. However, it’s been my experience (especially since starting here) that stirring the pot — just getting people worked up about nothing — frequently does the opposite.
Keep Calm And Carry On
The thing I keep worrying about is that WotC is setting out to unify the editions this time out. They’re going to find out what we want and bring everybody back into the fold. We are an extremely opinionated audience with a very wide variety of tastes that we have a tendency to fight over. What happens if they can’t do this because we won’t let them?
In my mind, there’s a few things we as a community need to do while the next D&D is being developed. We need to play by the rules, and we really need to relax.
Nothing about the new D&D gives me more hope than the fact we’re seeing playtests this early. Stuff people hate will be addressed and fixed long before release, and the things people want have plenty of time to make it in. It gives me the same feeling I get when I’ve had time to really do a project right, saving myself a ton of headaches down the road.
This is an opportunity for us to be heard, so let’s make it count.
Image courtesy: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/
Exploring D&D at DDXP
With the D&D Experience (DDXP) and the first public play of the new D&D rapidly fading away in the rear-view mirror, I have reams of topics I want to discuss. And, of course, 99% of them are in one way or another protected by the NDA that all participants signed. The open playtest announced by Wizards of the Coast is on the horizon though, and then informed discussion is going to pick up dramatically. Until then, there are still aspects of D&D that we can still explore with an eye toward the future.
What I learned—listening to the seminars, playing and DMing, and just sitting and talking with all sorts of people—is that for me the best part of gaming (and the best part of life) is the exploration. During one of the seminars, the D&D Next design team talked about the three pillars of the game: combat, roleplaying, and exploration. I had been thinking about the game in similar terms since the new iteration of D&D was announced, but I never broke it down into that precise configuration. When I started thinking about it in those terms, I realized what I had missed most from my D&D play experience since Second Edition: exploration. But it wasn’t really just about a single form of exploration: the one most commonly associated with the phrase “exploration” is when the players delve into a strange dungeon and draw a map as they go. But there are countless forms of exploration in the game, and the sense of wonder that each form of exploration provides can build a multi-layered experience, taking a roleplaying game from good to great. But I will come back to exploration later.
A Little Bit of DDXP
Some parts of the D&D Experience I can talk about. The most important and exciting of those topics is not necessarily the game itself, but the gamers. I know I’ve probably said this before, but I am nothing if not redundant: I love gamers. Sure, some of us are tools—or can exhibit tool-itude when certain events align, like when we are conscious and in front of a keyboard. But for the most part, everyone I played with was in the “non-tool gamer” category. Everyone was excited to talk about the new rules and the feel of the game during the D&D sessions, but everyone also rolled some dice, acted a little goofy, and contributed to a fun story experience for everyone else at the table. When managed properly by the DM, each player’s exploration of the game and his/her own character’s exploration of the game world adds to the story and the fun.
The convention and the exploration started for me before I even arrived at DDXP, as I shared the six-hour ride from my place to Fort Wayne with fellow Critical-Hitter Phil “ChattyDM” Ménard. I had met him only once, at this past GenCon for a total of 90 seconds. Within an hour we were in tears of laughter, sharing thoughts and ideas about game design, life, and the joys of a single store that can offer the best of America: pepper spray, stun guns, and sugar-free fudge. (The difference among the three? Stun guns don’t leave you retching and gagging while it incapacitates you!) Also, from this moment forward the “orc and pie” trope shall be known in my games as the “orc and wedding cake.”
After a fun first game of 4e D&D in the Ashes of Athas campaign with my fellow members of the Ravenous Halfling Horde (“Halflings always tell the truth because their bodies are too small to contain lies”), it was exploring all of the editions of D&D all the time.
A Great Deal of Exploration
Based on my experiences with previous editions, I wanted to look at how exploration has been a part of the game throughout its history. At DDXP I made a point to ask people about their experiences with the versions of D&D that they have played, and how they interacted with the rules in their games. Talking to people who played before the release of Third Edition (and especially those who played AD&D and those various editions that preceded it or ran parallel to it), a common thread ran throughout their experiences. They admitted happily that they really didn’t know or understand the rules when they first started playing, but that didn’t stop them or their groups from having vast amounts of fun. Even those who did strive for a full understanding of the rules confessed to changing or ignoring large parts of the rules sets. These changes were generally done by consensus between the DM and the players, striving to make the game more appropriate to the wishes of all involved.
This, I realized, is really an exploration. It is an exploration of not just the rules, but more importantly an exploration of the relationship between the DM and players, and a mutual pact to address the goals and desires of each party. At times this exploration leads to the premature end of a game or campaign, and the lack of a well-developed and balanced rules set in those early editions contributed to the problem. But paradoxically, the need to “fix” certain rules encouraged communication, which helped the parties in this game of storytelling form a stronger bond.
Other types of exploration are important to the game. Most campaigns I have run over the years began on a mostly blank map of a home-brewed game world. The characters start in a rather small and isolated part of the world, and the best they have is rumors of other nations, second-hand information on what the capital city is like, a fleeting memory of the one time the princess of their kingdom took a tour of their small town, etc. Their adventures see them exploring not just dark groves and dangerous caves, but the world at large. Like a dungeon map, the world map is expanded only as the PCs move upon it. This is exploration of the game world, and it spurs the characters to succeed in their current location, with the hopes of getting a chance to succeed at the next one. I have never enjoyed much, as a player or a DM, knowing everything about the game world from the start of the campaign. I want the map to expand at the same speed as the story. The exploration of the world becomes part of the game.
I’ve always felt the same way about a different form of exploration: the exploration of the rules. Some knowledge of the rules that are coming is obviously unavoidable and sometimes important. However, even during Third and Fourth Edition, I wanted my character to change and grow with the story. I didn’t want to know the exact path my character would take from level 1 through level 20, pre-selecting each feat or skill or power choice. I understand that some people like this, and I do not begrudge them that desire. In essence, that is their own form of exploration, and while it focuses on a different part of the game, it is still a part of the game for them.
A Game with No Limits
In every edition I have ever played, my favorite phrase as a DM is “don’t look at your sheet, but tell me what you want your character to do.” For players who only took part in later editions, that is sometimes a very difficult concept to wrap one’s mind around. The more detailed and codified the rules become, the greater tunnel-vision one might get on the character sheet or on the battlemat. Clinging to the letter of the rules code is totally understandable, especially if one is punished by a DM (or yelled at by other players) for not doing so. I have had to bite my tongue (not easy for me at times) when a new player wanted to do something cool like have his fighter roll a barrel at oncoming foes, only to be told dismissively by the DM or other players, “Just take a regular attack with your javelin. It’s right there on your sheet.” What a moment of potential exploration lost!
Exploring the interaction with the environment, exploring how the rules cover certain situations, and exploring a fun, imaginative solution to a problem should never be dismissed so easily. Even if the solution is ridiculous or wrong-headed, there is the potential for a good DM and willing players to discuss the situation and form an imaginative and relevant consequence. What separates a good RPG from a board game is the ability to do anything, even things not written in the rules (or on character sheets).
Somewhere between the exploration of rules and the exploration of the game world is a middle ground where, for me, the crux of the game lies. When I play, I try to keep my focus (and my mind’s eye) squarely on the exploration of what my character’s life and experiences are like—put most simply, it is an exploration of an adventurer’s life. This is what each edition seems to have moved further away from, until it is almost hand-waved. I understand that some people do not want to deal with the minutiae of tracking every copper piece and every bolt shot from a crossbow. I respect that. But I also want a game where interaction with the environment is important, whether that environment be a monster-filled dungeon or a town full of merchants. I want to avoid using the term “simulationist,” because I do not want rules that attempt to simulate how every single element of the game world works. But I want the game to simulate how my fantasy character lives her life.
Where From Here?
When asked what my favorite D&D editions were, I answered AD&D (First Edition) and Fourth Edition. I like the way the former encouraged the forms of exploration that entertained and challenged me. And I like the way the latter expanded the utility of the classes, so that none were necessarily pigeon-holed as only effective in combat or only effective in certain situations outside of combat. If the new D&D is going to meet the goals of the designers and the wishes of the players, it is going to have to support both the very freeform game where the game takes place in the players’ minds as much as on the gaming table and the character sheets. It is also going to have to appeal to those who wish only to explore feat trees, power cards, and five-foot squares. I think the design team knows this. I believe they are working in the right direction.
The D&D fans who anxiously wait for the open playtest also have to understand that we are in the first step of a very long and complicated process. To make a judgment on D&D at this point is like saying a cake’s frosting is horrible when there is only eggs and flour in a bowl—and those eggs might not even be eggs. What the design team is currently trying to determine is how to make the flour, the base of the cake. We are all going to get our chance to taste the cake batter, and the flavorings, and the icing, and the toppings. We will get there. Keep it in perspective. Keep talking about what you like in a cake, because in the end we are going to be making the various recipes that the designers must work toward.
Review: “Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions”
In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, there are only cryptic, pseudo-feudal, mostly ineffective systems of law. The entirety of the text of Rogue Trader: Hostile Acquisitions, is based on this premise: as a Rogue Trader, you can undress and run rapturously naked around the house of the divine Emperor of Mankind, and He will be really disappointed in you, you stupid twit, but He won’t do much about it. Until at some point you might be so naked that the neighbors may call the cops. You will reach a new level of streaking debauchery, hitherto unforeseen by anyone. People’s eyes will melt at your glorious nudesensce.
And then a skull-faced maniac with arm-claws will murder you in your sleep.
Hostile Acquisitions is a very useful book for the Rogue Trader line because it helps define the actual power of a rogue trader. With the main book, you knew that the rogue traders were extremely powerful and exorbitantly wealthy individuals given power to conduct business and colonize worlds in the far reaches of space, with the blessings of the Imperium. Though you were essentially above the law, you probably didn’t know much about Imperial law (as a player) other than the pervasive “chaos and xenos are bad, and if I talk to them I’ll get cooties, and then I’ll be killed by a skull-faced maniac.” [Read the rest of this article]
Initial Impressions of the New D&D
30 Second Summary
Though we know little about the final game, the foundations of the new D&D are solid. The focus on ability scores, flatter power progression, and faster gameplay give freedom to both players and dungeon masters. The refined nature of the game puts a focus on the imagination of the players and the story being told by the group. This early it’s hard to see what the final game will look like. Major components like advanced character creation, tactical combat, and high-level play are still deep in development. If groups have as much fun as the five in which I played, however, we have a good system on the horizon.
A Focus On Impressions, Not A Complete Picture
This writeup won’t cover all of the information available on the new D&D. Many write-ups, transcripts, and recordings of the seminars hosted by Wizards of the Coast at the Dungeons and Dragons Experience can be found at Enworld’s D&D Next page. If you want a greater view of the total of D&D, that’s the place to go.
In this article I’m going to talk about the four areas of D&D that left the biggest impression on me. Let’s start with attributes. [Read the rest of this article]
DDXP 2012 Recap: Running the New D&D and Playing Games
This year’s DDXP was a very interesting one, as I suspected. We were actually able to get there, unlike last year, though Fort Wayne’s weather seems persistant in its attempts to keep us out. In order to help finance the trip, and because I was one of the few who had an early look at the new D&D, I volunteered to DM seven four-hour slots of the new game to eager players. While I only ended up running four games of it (mostly because I was too tired to do any more than that), I had a blast and felt good about the games that I ran. Like everyone who played, I signed an NDA (though in my case, several months ago) that prevents me from discussing the exact rules being used. What I can discuss are some general feelings after running the game, some various impressions I heard as someone not involved with the design of the game but from talking to players, and tell you about the other games I played.
Into the Caves of Chaos
As was revealed prior to the show, the adventure that most (if not all) the DMs running the playtest was the Caves of Chaos, a portion of the original Keep on the Borderlands adventure. We used the same exact map of the caves, with the statistics updated for the new system. I mentioned to some of the other DMs how funny it was to be running an adventure released in 1979 on an iPad.
To be honest, I had some hesitation about this. For one, I wasn’t blown away with the game during my one short session as a player. Secondly, sandbox-style games have never much been my thing, either as a DM or a player. Every game I run I try to include a number of elements of the PCs influencing the world, but I prefer to focus on possible storylines rather than let the game work out the stories. Thus, the Caves of Chaos didn’t strike me as an adventure I’d enjoy running. I discussed with ChattyDM and THE Shawn Merwin about some ways to jazz it up a bit, including adding some 5×5 method elements (obviously my favorite implementation of sandbox-style) to it.
Well, I was wrong. Each of the four tables I ran went great, without adding else to the adventure. Part of that is that I feel pretty comfortable as a DM and rolling with the punches, part of it was how the system does a really good job of making me feel empowered as a DM, and most of it had to do with having 100% awesome players in every game (no matter what version of D&D they liked best.) Lemme break those each down a little bit. [Read the rest of this article]
Cure Selfish Wounds
Today’s D&D Next post at the Wizards site by Bruce Cordell is titled Time to Heal and discusses the role of the Cleric class and how it relates to healing through the life span of Dungeons & Dragons. There’s a nice little recap of how healing and the Cleric class have both worked in previous editions, and then there is a poll asking how people prefer the mechanics to be handled. Reading about how healing worked in previous editions brought forward some experiences that I am dying to share with you.
After the announcement of 4th Edition D&D, Dave decided he wanted to run a finale 3rd Edition (3.x in actuality) campaign to send the edition off in style. Gathering a group of players mostly from around where I live, Dave kindly traveled a decent distance to plan and run the game for us. One of the first things that happened amongst the players during character creation is that a friend of ours called playing the cleric. This wasn’t too surprising if you know anything about the cleric class in 3rd edition and how overpowered it can become, but even this early in the process I had a small suspicion that healing would be an issue for this party. As such, and inspired by an excellent character in the Wheel of Time novels I was reading, I decided to give a serious try to playing a Bard character for the first time. This allowed me to play a character type that I wanted to play while still having access to healing spells if the need arose.
Dawn of the Selfish Cleric
Before I get too far into this, let me say that I do not hold any grudges against this player (he is a regular in my current ongoing game) and he was never elusive or deceptive about the type of character he was playing. With that out of the way, I will say that there was quite a bit of tension in this party based on the fact that we were adventuring with a cleric that did not seem to know how to heal. Ever. Having chosen his domains in the direction of war, death, and destruction, this cleric instead become potentially the most powerful and dangerous member of our party through the entire course of the game. [Read the rest of this article]
