Old School Renaissance

 

Next seems to be looking to old school games like LL, OSRIC, BX, AD&D, Swords and Wizadry to revive some of the things that were missing from the 4E experience, at least for me. I noticed something when 4th Core debuted and captured my attention. Player agency was severally lacking in my game. I believe the skill system and skill challenges had turned some of my players into little automatons. They stopped thinking about what their characters wanted and started focusing on getting the next bread crumb to get to the next fight. This was probably my fault as much as theirs. 4E focus on combat encounters and skill challenges, led me into the trap of designing adventures for the characters rather than for the players. Instead of trying to challenge my players I was focusing on challenging the characters. Not just in combat, but in skills and even story.

 

This realization has lead me to wonder what is the use of skills in the game. I find my self agreeing with Courtney on Hackslashmaster.blogspot.com This site is chocked full of great advice. Both On general RPG design and On adventure prep ideas. The DM/GM aids are fantastic and easily plundered. As soon as I get a chance I will pick up his NPC booklet. Also check out his Patreon http://www.patreon.com/hackandslash. This writer deserves the shameless plug after all he has contributed to the web over the years. Spend a few hours reading thru his blog with edition-less eyes and you can see a lot of his points.

Another must read is the Alexandrian.net, though I can't support all his ideas his node based adventure design is brilliant (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach). There is a lot of other great posts here but his commitment to 3.5 isn't my style. Been there done that I suppose, boxes of mags and books in my garage piled beneath the 4E stuff.

My campaign is off and running seven players, a few hirelings and four sessions of the most fun I have had in years. If you burnt out on tactical combat, lame threats and too much rolling instead of thinking, look thru some of these sites and go back to roots of the game, I understand WoTC reasoning now. Next might not be the right design but the their instincts are. The future of D&D is in the past, OSR.

Some more things I have been reading:

• http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/maps/adventures/
• http://wheel-of-samsara.blogspot.com/2010/10/gedankenexperiment-vancian-rarity.html
• http://blessingsofthedicegods.blogspot.com/p/dungeon-dozen-fan-index.html
• http://9and30kingdoms.blogspot.com
• http://dreamsinthelichhouse.blogspot.com
• Dragonfoot.org
• Jrients.blogspot.com
• http://tao-dnd.blogspot.com

 

D&D Next - Breathe It Ain't Done

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

C. S. Lewis

Being a game designer is a tough racket, folks. A crowd of gamers gather around and sink their hard earned money into a product. They have expectations that make pop-star divas and royalty seem easy to fulfill. Yeah, you get paid to try and fit their imagination into solid statistical numbers but statistics simply aren't perfect. The laws of probability and luck itself are fickle mistresses. Never mind that casino's have made billions maybe trillions for doing little more than handing someone a pair of six siders and letting full grown people throw dice down the table with the promise of a big pay out. Polyhedrons don't ever do what their told. Gamblers prove that everyday, but in the long haul they pan out. So everyone cursing mechanics after a single session, take that into your calculations.

Now you got Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell and Rob Schwalb sitting over at WoTC pouring their heart and soul into a game for all of us. Meanwhile, every arm chair quarterback on the internet is playing John Madden doodling on the screen and commenting on how the way they ran the last play ain't even close to what they would have done. Problem is if most of us could do it, and be any good at it, our system would be out their being fronted by a company that makes toys for a living. While we are on the subject let's talk about Hasbro and profits for a minute. All those designers they do get paid. They might even get health and dental care if they are lucky. Hell, who knows maybe they are getting severance packages when Hasbro has to let them go to keep the bottom line solvent. Point is Hasbro has to make money. Last time I checked businesses reported to share holders and all of us lovely stock holders. We buy shares to see a Return on Investment. Oh and we expect to see that investment grow year over year. There is a whole industry that just reports on this kind of thing. If you want to second guess WoTC's business model or speculate on their sales, please, do some research. Provide some data for your arguments and stop making blatant guesses without concrete data to support your theories, please.

Now I can see the hate mail coming already but before you start typing take a deep breath. See what I just did there? This is a blog. The folks you are trying to read into their design strategies, second guess their motives, and condemn with no more than a single play test under your belts. Those folks are blogging too. They are sharing their opinions and ideas with us. Some of those things will pan out in play testing, some will crash and burn. Some may have died twenty minutes after being written.

It ain't over until the first books start rolling on the printing presses over in China somewhere. I have faith that no matter if WoTC's great experiment into D&D Next the One Edition to Rule Them All doesn't pan out that what we will have is a playable game. A game that just might revolutionize the way people play D&D. And if not at least we will have tried. US the generations of loyal D&D customers will have tried. Paizo did good with its open play-test. It took a game a lot of people thought was unplayable and made it fun again. WoTC has set their sights higher only time will tell if they land on the moon, enter low orbit or never get off the launch pad.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

Bruce Lee

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

Lord Chesterfield

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

W. Clement Stone

An Ent by Any Other Name...

Tolkien's Ents are walking and talking tree creatures. They speak the western tongue easily enough but prefer to communicate in Entish. An Ent named Fangorn or Treebeard, if you prefer the western tongue, meets Merry and Pippin. This meeting gives an insight into the Entish mind and the focus of my article to day. According to Fangorn Entish is an extremely slow language to speak. A simple name in Entish is a complete sum of the story of that being's life. This a truly interesting concept. Tolkien never mentions whose perspective the Entish name is told from but for this article it is of little consequence.

From our early days as humans we are labeled. Given an appellation at birth to indicate memories of past loved ones or burdened with our parents expectations. Sometimes just simply tagged with some thing that sounds cool. Humanity does this, we label things. We designate flowers by genius, species and fillum in order to group the world into ordered, digestible bits. This process occurs all throughout are lives. Yet, we expect ourselves never to stereotype nor name call. This contradiction has oft confused me. How can science expect to study with out considering the individual?

The Ents continually tell the hobbits not to be so hasty. Really, they are saying not to judge all things as one thing. Thru this simple statement we are cautioned to take time and analyze the situation before rushing in. Judging an individual solely on a group's past behavior has lasting and irrevocable consequences. However, on the flip side of the argument Tolkien shows that inaction due to over analyzation can be just as bad. All this is communicated via the threat that Saruman and his new orcs pose.

The Orc has represented the basest nature of people in high fantasy. To my point, the Internet is full of orcs. Marauding tree chopping and burning, orcs. They turn there rage and hate on anything they see. Like the Ents I am loathe to label the group of orcs and judge them as one entity. Each Orc is unique, it's causes and base nature are damaging, offensive and mind boggling. I cannot fathom its reasoning or internal justification but I can condemn its acts.

My trouble here is that as society we have no ancient beings to come in and squash the orcs. No one in his right mind wants the governments of the world policing the Internet and handing out citations for inappropriate behavior. So what then is the solution? Should we be outspoken and draw lightning bolts down upon our heads? Begging each Orc to Sally forth and meet us in single combat where words and wits are used to make personal attacks until the battlefield is found barren? Do we cast bark skin and try to ignore those who would seek to drive us into hiding or shame us into silence? Do we rattle sabers in sheathes or speak softly and carry big ban buttons? Shielding ourselves from attacks and possibly much needed criticism? I don't have an answer fair reader. One blog author posts hate mail for all to see. Another only shares comments that agree with him. Others block comments all together. Still others by bars and leave the orcs to their devices. Individual choice must drive your own decisions. For me I suppose I say come orcs, Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!