Linking (http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/324950-13th-Age-discussion-love-letter-best-parts-d-d.html) to post because on phone. Looks worse than expected.
Gaze upon these playtest character sheets and cry! (Warning, they are pdfs)
Human Fighter (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pDeuP9v8LtYnWuqlJ785zF9iEPDvABYUG5DucE6nLic/edit)
Gnome Bard (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G43LhomJtKhClGo2uMok4tdBbuvJIqUKfuMUkMnGXNM/edit)
Elven Ranger (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ar1Nn2RX8UQ49S5jf5W7gIvx0YToOGZ5CHUBtRB05g0/edit)
Dwarfforged Sorcerer (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xvulOua6p07t3t7ihlh0JqzloAkyk-yPspmSLXmh9Is/edit)
Half-orc Cleric (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wwqteOZXbxWvGv36bimEAVBtEShTGy38NhOEDjg5hwk/edit)
Quote from: jadrax;548169Gaze upon these playtest character sheets and cry! (Warning, they are pdfs)
Human Fighter (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pDeuP9v8LtYnWuqlJ785zF9iEPDvABYUG5DucE6nLic/edit)
Gnome Bard (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G43LhomJtKhClGo2uMok4tdBbuvJIqUKfuMUkMnGXNM/edit)
Elven Ranger (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ar1Nn2RX8UQ49S5jf5W7gIvx0YToOGZ5CHUBtRB05g0/edit)
Dwarfforged Sorcerer (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xvulOua6p07t3t7ihlh0JqzloAkyk-yPspmSLXmh9Is/edit)
Half-orc Cleric (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wwqteOZXbxWvGv36bimEAVBtEShTGy38NhOEDjg5hwk/edit)
Jesus. I checked 2 of them out and i overdosed on special-snowflake-itis.
Well, now that WotC has dumped "The D&D the Forge created", someone had to pick up the mantle. This thing sounds even more dissociated then 4e, but lets do it not only with the game mechanics, but lets do it with narrative metagame too. Jesus Wept.
Quote from: One Horse Town;548175Jesus. I checked 2 of them out and i overdosed on special-snowflake-itis.
Quote from: ChalkIn my playtest game, one character had Son of a Lich, which meant he traced his bloodline back to the game's Lich King, and he had special insight into their machinations, magical abilities and organization. Another had Star Born, which meant that his character was an avatar created by a far-off star, acting as a font of divine power.
This game is
for special snowflakes.
The escalation die sounds like:
Well combat is kind of slow and grindy as all hell so lets build in this fast forward button that helps ensure the players win, as is proper for this storywank system.
I hope the people it was designed for have metric tons of fun with it. I also hope the same people shut up about other people enjoying D&D now and forever, AMEN.
So what is this, the 4venger's OSR or is this D&D for people who like Exalted?
That's only a half-joke; really, is this a 4venger OSR?
Bleh, so everyone has a special destiny, divine edict or magical wossname in their backpack? No one's figured out yet how silly that's going to be in play?
"We must go to the Starsword Chapel Perilous to save my great-aunt Marmaduke, through which I trace my ancestry to the primal dragons of Hoot-nanny."
"No it's time for us to go to the Great Greasyboo so that I can merge with my fellow ancient time-timetraveling brethren to form the Twelve-Headed avatar Hastur-Amenbrotep."
"No, my special plot device, no my special plot device!"
You know what? Murder-hobos sound like a step up from that.
Quote from: Melan;548179I hope the people it was designed for have metric tons of fun with it. I also hope the same people shut up about other people enjoying D&D now and forever, AMEN.
Exactly
Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;548187Bleh, so everyone has a special destiny, divine edict or magical wossname in their backpack? No one's figured out yet how silly that's going to be in play?
"We must go to the Starsword Chapel Perilous to save my great-aunt Marmaduke, through which I trace my ancestry to the primal dragons of Hoot-nanny."
"No it's time for us to go to the Great Greasyboo so that I can merge with my fellow ancient time-timetraveling brethren to form the Twelve-Headed avatar Hastur-Amenbrotep."
"No, my special plot device, no my special plot device!"
You know what? Murder-hobos sound like a step up from that.
I FOUND ONE! I'VE GOT MY SPECIAL PURPOSE! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymucqmjJs20)
Quote from: Melan;548179I hope the people it was designed for have metric tons of fun with it. I also hope the same people shut up about other people enjoying D&D now and forever, AMEN.
Are you kidding? This is a paper towel on the toxic spill that is places like SA and rpg.net.
:rotfl:
I'm gonna include Amenbrotep in my next campaign!
Quote from: Exploderwizard;548198:rotfl:
I'm gonna include Amenbrotep in my next campaign!
Like, Greater God
ARMOR CLASS: -HOODIE
MOVE: 12"/#36" (#=IN DODGE CHARGER SRT)
HIT POINTS: FUCK IT, ALL OF 'EM MAN.
NO. OF ATTACKS: LIKE, FOUR OR FIVE ON THE XBOX CONTROLLER OR SOME SHIT, MAN.
DAMAGE/ATTACK: I'LL POP YOU ONE BRAH
SPECIAL ATTACKS: I'LL ICE A BRO!
SPECIAL DEFENSE: AXE BODY SPRAY
MAGICAL RESISTANCE: MAN, FUCK THAT GAY SHIT BUT I GUESS CRISS ANGEL CAN PULL THE BABES SO WHATEVER RIGHT
SIZE: WHOA BRAH, PERSONAL
ALIGNMENT: CHAOTIC DUDE
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: BABES WITH ME, BRAH
SYMBOL: RAM TOUGH
PLANE: GREEK ROW
CLERIC/DRUID: NAW BRAH
FIGHTER: HELL YEAH, HALO3 FTW
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: IS THIS LIKE THAT MYSTERY GUY WHO IS TOTALLY A PUA? I'M DOWN WITH THAT
THIEF/ASSASSIN: NOW WE'RE TALKIN
MONK/BARD: YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN' ME BRAH
PSIONIC ABILITY: VI
And here I was thinking it may be a decent game. Well at least some 4eer's might like it and quit bitching about 5e.
Hmmm ..... AC, PD, MD.
MD = ?
PD = ?
Quote from: thedungeondelver;548207
Like, Greater God
ARMOR CLASS: -HOODIE
MOVE: 12"/#36" (#=IN DODGE CHARGER SRT)
HIT POINTS: FUCK IT, ALL OF 'EM MAN.
NO. OF ATTACKS: LIKE, FOUR OR FIVE ON THE XBOX CONTROLLER OR SOME SHIT, MAN.
DAMAGE/ATTACK: I'LL POP YOU ONE BRAH
SPECIAL ATTACKS: I'LL ICE A BRO!
SPECIAL DEFENSE: AXE BODY SPRAY
MAGICAL RESISTANCE: MAN, FUCK THAT GAY SHIT BUT I GUESS CRISS ANGEL CAN PULL THE BABES SO WHATEVER RIGHT
SIZE: WHOA BRAH, PERSONAL
ALIGNMENT: CHAOTIC DUDE
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: BABES WITH ME, BRAH
SYMBOL: RAM TOUGH
PLANE: GREEK ROWA
CLERIC/DRUID: NAW BRAH
FIGHTER: HELL YEAH, HALO3 FTW
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: IS THIS LIKE THAT MYSTERY GUY WHO IS TOTALLY A PUA? I'M DOWN WITH THAT
THIEF/ASSASSIN: NOW WE'RE TALKIN
MONK/BARD: YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN' ME BRAH
PSIONIC ABILITY: VI
A totally awesome leader to the Brotep pantheon.
Scatch that. Amenbrotep left the pantheon because he was just too fucking special to be a part of anything.
PD looks like something resembling Reflex in 4E D&D, judging from the spells in the dwarfforged sorcerer character sheet.
From the gnome bard character sheet, MD looks like something resembling Will in 4E D&D.
So the 13th Age defenses are basically similar to 4E D&D, but without Fortitude.
Quote from: Melan;548179I hope the people it was designed for have metric tons of fun with it. I also hope the same people shut up about other people enjoying D&D now and forever, AMEN.
The existence of Pathfinder and OSR retroclones didn't really stop people hating on enjoying a D&D different from theirs. Why should this be different, particularly in light of the comments in this thread.
I continue to be amused by this site's complaints against "4vengers" while under the illusion that people behave any better here.
Troll troll troll the thread/watch him as he screams...
Quote from: ggroy;548220Hmmm ..... AC, PD, MD.
MD = ?
PD = ?
Mental and Physical Defence is my guess.
"13th Age is less interested in giving you a version of a game you already own, tweaked slightly, and more interested in pushing the design space of D&D into new territory."
What a fucking word salad. Just say the game is written for people who hate D&D. :D
QuoteSo having gone into what 13th Age isn't, what is 13th Age? Well, as Tweet and Heinsoo described it, it's a love letter to D&D.
It's a love letter in that it recalls all the best parts of the object of affection, while ignoring or forgiving all of its shortcomings and flaws. Included in the letter is the time you clawed your way out of a sure defeat, of the time you undid the diabolical schemes of the King of All Liches, that moment of quiet joy when the imaginary person on the piece of paper did something you never expected them to do.
Not included is that time you argued over whether or not you'd packed enough rope. (13th Age doesn't have a Fantasy Accountant subgame - you're presumed to be equipped for the job if you know it's coming.) It doesn't include that time you rolled poorly on a skill check and the game ground to a halt as the GM slowly realized that now you have no way forward. (13th Age skill checks always "fail forward" - if you flub the roll, you still advance, you'll just have some... complications.) It especially doesn't include that time you all argued what the One True Edition is, which is one of 13th Age's biggest draws for me.
D&D has a long and rich history, but that history has a downside - in that there are certain expectations its players have, and they cry foul when those expectations are not met. It's expected that wizards cast spells this way, or that the game be primarily geared towards the dungeon crawl, that we need to keep alignment around even though the first thing done by everyone I know is to pretend it isn't there. All these things are part of the 'brand,' and deviation from the brand is looked upon with suspicion. But deviation encourages innovation, and therefore, it's tough for D&D to truly innovate and still be D&D.
Hm. Ooo-kay. (http://www.animated-smileys.com/smileys/puking/animated-smileys-puking-07.gif)
My friend signed me up for the playtest without asking me (he planned to run it), but I backed out once I saw the rules. My first instinct is to say that the game's a turd of the highest order, but to be more intellectually honest, I'd have to say it was just antithetical to everything I look for in a game.
Also, the default setting is worse than something a 14-year old would come up with. You basically ally or work against one or more superbeings that have no depth whatsoever. That with all the bits posted in this thread- including lame attempts at modeling D&Disms that weren't open (Dwarfforged, really?) just left a bad taste in my mouth. Who would take this crap seriously, or find it compelling?
I'll stop now, as I'm veering towards a rant.
In playtest, I found it more fun than DnDnext.
Quote from: Sean !;548276In playtest, I found it more fun than DnDnext.
Looking at the character sheets and the discussion over at rpg.net and comparing it to my own 5E playtest experience, I'd play it over 5E for sure at this point.
Quote from: Sean !;548276In playtest, I found it more fun than DnDnext.
Out of curiosity, what did you like about it?
-TGA
Quote from: CRKrueger;548176Well, now that WotC has dumped "The D&D the Forge created"
That'd be awful convenient for the narrative this site's population has constructed, but I still have seen no evidence of this anywhere.
Quote from: jadrax;548169Gaze upon these playtest character sheets and cry! (Warning, they are pdfs)
It looks like someone glued some FATE sprinkles onto a D&D. It doesn't look as terrible as some people here are making out, but it doesn't look like something I want.
I can see what they're going for, but I think the D&D part of it's heritage will be the big problem. D&D fans want D&D, and doorstop fantasy literature fans probably don't.
So, is "13th Age" the name, or the descriptor of the target demographic?
Sorry, I couldn't resist. ;)
Personally I couldn't care less about it. Not my cup of tea, but if people like it, the RPG police isn't going to raid their house or anything.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;548289Looking at the character sheets and the discussion over at rpg.net and comparing it to my own 5E playtest experience, I'd play it over 5E for sure at this point.
Glad that you find the game to your liking. Maybe you'll play it and leave off about 5e then. It's not my cup of tea but that doesn't make it a bad game.
13th Age plays well. In combat its a smooth d20 game, combats lasting no more then 4-5 rounds. The Escalation die helps save the character's bacon as their backs are against the wall, but the fight were still fairly hard fought.
It didn't strike me as like 4e really (apart from the obvious d20-ness), in that it doesn't use battlemats for example, feats and powers are kept within sensible boundaries, there are only 10 levels and so forth.
The Relationships with Icons are good for making up some good back story, if you like some sort of "world burning" aspect, obviously if you want reams of setting info provided in the books then you're not going to be as happy about that.
Some of the "indie" aspects need tightening up - there's general advice, but the system bit feels tacked on and some other bits just need some proper structure. Each character has a unique "thing", but this is often more for interesting story purposes than getting l337 bonuses. One playtest example is that a character cast no shadow, we talked it out and worked out which Icon had taken it, and what would happen if the character died before getting it back.
Its a fun game. Hardcore D&D monkeys may find Pathfinder (and such) more use, and 4e monkeys could find it a bit too airy fairy. If you've not got a d20 style fantasy game though, and want to give one a crack (or want something different), it works well.
Quote from: Marleycat;548208And here I was thinking it may be a decent game. Well at least some 4eer's might like it and quit bitching about 5e.
This particular 4E player is not impressed with 13th Age so far.
I'm reserving judgement on 5E for now.
I'm less concerned about which game I'm playing than who I'm playing it with. No haters.
D&D plus some indie innovations is a no-brainer. Somebody was bound to do it, and they'll make some money at it.
The part I don't get is the "love letter to D&D" line. It seems more like a "love letter to epic heroic fantasy destiny stories". Maybe they mean "love letter to D&D the way we used to try to play it post-Dragonlance after the DM touched us, plus indie-story bits that make us feel pretty hip, plus a core of d20 on which we built our names". Yeah, I guess that's it. And really there's nothing wrong with that, I just don't see it as a love letter to D&D [as I define D&D, I guess].
Lest I come across as a hater, there are probably some cool ideas in 13th Age. "Everyone has a link to one of these major NPCs" could be an intriguing baseline for a particular campaign. For a whole game, I dunno.
Quote from: Peregrin;548293That'd be awful convenient for the narrative this site's population has constructed, but I still have seen no evidence of this anywhere.
Nice try. No going to the mattresses for me this week, feel free to knock yourself out though. ;)
Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;548311I'm less concerned about which game I'm playing than who I'm playing it with. No haters.
Who you play with is a huge factor it can make any game tolerable at least short term.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;548289Looking at the character sheets and the discussion over at rpg.net and comparing it to my own 5E playtest experience, I'd play it over 5E for sure at this point.
Quote from: thecasualoblivion;548230The existence of Pathfinder and OSR retroclones didn't really stop people hating on enjoying a D&D different from theirs. Why should this be different, particularly in light of the comments in this thread.
I continue to be amused by this site's complaints against "4vengers" while under the illusion that people behave any better here.
Shut up, you threadcrapping trollcunt.
Back to the topic at hand:
QuoteHuman Fighter (melee)
Unique Thing: The Chosen One, prophesied to become the greatest wizard in all the land, but dropped out of Wizard School to see the world. Many people in the world will stop at nothing to fulfill the prophecy and see you returned to the study of magic.
QuoteUnique Thing: Hundreds of years old, cursed to live through the end of the 13th Age and watch everything burn to ash for a slight against The Diabolist.
QuoteUnique Thing: A bird of prey transformed to humanoid shape. You don't know why or how, but this is your chance to learn everything about the human world.
QuoteUnique Thing: You are a gargoyle, a synthetic dragon created in an attempt to replace The White.
QuoteUnique Thing: You long ago sold your identity to become a potential Icon, the archetypal adventurer. You must avoid attachments and your past to ascend to the rank of a new Icon.
What is this shit.
Quote- It is not a Fantasy Heartbreaker. The definition of a fantasy heartbreaker is a game clearly written by someone who's never played anything besides D&D, and it shows; the game they come up with is D&D with one or two great ideas, and those great ideas cause the heartbreak because they're in a system that is too much like other systems to get a fair chance.
13th Age is not a heartbreaker. All throughout the system, references to D&D abound - and so do references to FATE, Burning Wheel, 7th Sea, Ars Magica, Over the Edge, Feng Shui and the like. 13th Age draws upon this knowledge and casts an eye towards how D&D might serve its goal through alternate ends. It's so stuffed with great ideas it may as well be called "Every d20 Rule You Didn't Know You Always Wanted."
Don't think so, Tim.
QuoteIt's a love letter in that it recalls all the best parts of the object of affection, while ignoring or forgiving all of its shortcomings and flaws. Included in the letter is the time you clawed your way out of a sure defeat, of the time you undid the diabolical schemes of the King of All Liches, that moment of quiet joy when the imaginary person on the piece of paper did something you never expected them to do.
Not included is that time you argued over whether or not you'd packed enough rope. (13th Age doesn't have a Fantasy Accountant subgame - you're presumed to be equipped for the job if you know it's coming.) It doesn't include that time you rolled poorly on a skill check and the game ground to a halt as the GM slowly realized that now you have no way forward. (13th Age skill checks always "fail forward" - if you flub the roll, you still advance, you'll just have some... complications.) It especially doesn't include that time you all argued what the One True Edition is, which is one of 13th Age's biggest draws for me.
Sounds like strong storygame material.
Quote- The Escalation Die: One thing about D&D is that as fights go on, characters get weaker. They accumulate status conditions or run out of powers and the fight starts to drag. Not so with 13th Age which has an escalation die - essentially, the biggest d6 you can find, laid squat in the center of the table, and each round beyond the first, you increment this die by 1, capping at 6. Player characters get this bonus to their attacks.
This represents characters figuring out the holes in the enemy's defenses, fatigue on the enemy's side, adrenaline, getting into the groove... whatever you wish to call it, this ensures that fights hit a point where monsters start dropping and dropping fast. Several class abilities are unlocked by the die - your fighter, for example, may start cleaving through entire squads of enemies once he's got their number, and clerics have a chance to retain spells when the die is over a certain number, to illustrate their gods giving them strength when it's most needed.
Adventurers must always win no matter what, or else the game isn't fun.
QuoteIn my playtest game, one character had Son of a Lich, which meant he traced his bloodline back to the game's Lich King, and he had special insight into their machinations, magical abilities and organization. Another had Star Born, which meant that his character was an avatar created by a far-off star, acting as a font of divine power. Another had Empathy, which meant that he'd catch emotional states and lies that others would miss.
What.
QuoteOne Unique Thing becomes a catch-all rule that can accomodate things that aren't explicit, and in turn, are a symbol of 13th Age's design ethos, which encourages unique campaigns, unique characters, and for the players and GM to collaborate on the adventure they'll be sharing.
Collaborative storytelling. :rolleyes:
I think it has some neat ideas, but I'm not sure how well it would actually work in play. It's certainly not going to replace my favorite (BFRPG).
Quote from: thedungeondelver;548207
Like, Greater God
ARMOR CLASS: -HOODIE
MOVE: 12"/#36" (#=IN DODGE CHARGER SRT)
HIT POINTS: FUCK IT, ALL OF 'EM MAN.
NO. OF ATTACKS: LIKE, FOUR OR FIVE ON THE XBOX CONTROLLER OR SOME SHIT, MAN.
DAMAGE/ATTACK: I'LL POP YOU ONE BRAH
SPECIAL ATTACKS: I'LL ICE A BRO!
SPECIAL DEFENSE: AXE BODY SPRAY
MAGICAL RESISTANCE: MAN, FUCK THAT GAY SHIT BUT I GUESS CRISS ANGEL CAN PULL THE BABES SO WHATEVER RIGHT
SIZE: WHOA BRAH, PERSONAL
ALIGNMENT: CHAOTIC DUDE
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: BABES WITH ME, BRAH
SYMBOL: RAM TOUGH
PLANE: GREEK ROW
CLERIC/DRUID: NAW BRAH
FIGHTER: HELL YEAH, HALO3 FTW
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: IS THIS LIKE THAT MYSTERY GUY WHO IS TOTALLY A PUA? I'M DOWN WITH THAT
THIEF/ASSASSIN: NOW WE'RE TALKIN
MONK/BARD: YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN' ME BRAH
PSIONIC ABILITY: VI
Cool story, bro.
Quote from: CRKrueger;548325Nice try. No going to the mattresses for me this week, feel free to knock yourself out though. ;)
Someone at The Gaming Den dug this up recently. Completely off-topic for this thread, but oh well.
http://mearls.livejournal.com/80639.html (23/02/2005)
Quote from: mearlsRight - since RPGs are the ultimately morphable game form, they can achieve whatever ends you want from them. In D&D's case, the emphasis is on combat. You could run an investigative or roleplay-intensive game, but if you do that in D&D you are challenging the players, not their characters.
This is where I think the basic model of GNS applies, even if I disagree with the specifics of its implementation. A game should be designed with a specific play experience in mind. In D&D, it's heroic action and adventure. I'd argue that if you want a game without combat, there are better choices out there. For example, I think Dying Earth and Dogs in the Vineyard are both superior games if plot development or roleplay are important to you to the point that you would rather junk tactical combat in their favor.
So, in D&D miniatures give more power to the players, but that doesn't apply to RPGs as a whole. I'd argue that if you're playing D&D with a focus on investigation, stealth, or roleplay, and the players enjoy it, you've already moved outside the typical D&D paradigm as a group. My focus is on the average D&D group. IME, the typical D&D group sees those factors as fun ways to bridge combat, or interesting ways to earn tactical advantages in upcoming encounters, or a good way to lend emotional weight to a battle. Those factors are all very important (they're why D&D is popular and viable despite other game forms), but they are built around heroic action and adventure.
Quote from: B.T.;548364snip:
Here's an idea: Don't fucking play it then and move on.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548370Here's an idea: Don't fucking play it then and move on.
TheRPGSite: A forum for discussing roleplaying games.
Quote from: B.T.;548375TheRPGSite: A forum for discussing roleplaying games.
"What is this shit? This is bullshit worthless crap" isn't exactly conducive to discussion, if that's what you're aiming for.
If you hate the game so much, don't play it, and no point in talking about it. Most people I know don't spend so much emotional investment into something they can't stand. Especially someone's side project of a game that isn't even a mainstream system. Play and talk about a game you like.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548378"What is this shit? This is bullshit worthless crap" isn't exactly conducive to discussion, if that's what you're aiming for.
If you hate the game so much, don't play it, and no point in talking about it. Most people I know don't spend so much emotional investment into something they can't stand. Especially someone's side project of a game that isn't even a mainstream system. Play and talk about a game you like.
How about you post what you want to post and I'll post what I want to post.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548368Someone at The Gaming Den dug this up recently. Completely off-topic for this thread, but oh well.
http://mearls.livejournal.com/80639.html (23/02/2005)
Quote from: mearlsThis is where I think the basic model of GNS applies, even if I disagree with the specifics of its implementation. A game should be designed with a specific play experience in mind.
That's the Forge Kool Aid that sank 4e. I'm not convinced he's learned his lesson and still expect this for D&D Next:
(http://www.pipnet.com/eggs/koolaid-large.jpg)
...though this time, it will be OSR flavored Forge Kool Aid.
From Ryan Dancey's comments on the Pyramid message boards concerning the design goals for 3e in 2000:
Quote from: danceyWe believe that a game that appeals to all four differentiated segments (the people in the middle are pretty happy with a modicum of time spent out of game, and pretty happy with most aspects of RPG play in general and are therefore pretty easy to please) is a game that is likely to have strong overall sales and retain long term interest in the player community.
Games that lack support for one of the four differentiated segments struggle, and games that lack support for more than one are rarely played (though frustratingly for some such a game may be the >perfect< game for one of the subgroups; the problem is finding two or more people of the same inclination to play the game regularly).
[...]
I believe that the empasis on "storyteller" type games and publisher-driven storylines over the past decade skewed the product mix of the RPG category away from support for all four segments, and that is the reason that products sell so poorly today compared to say 15 years ago.
Maybe they need to put Ryan Dancey back on the payroll at WotC because clearly the people that are left forgot (or maybe never understood) what made 3e successful. I imagine Dancey's job, if he were re-hired, as being something like this:
(http://thomashunter.name/batman-comic/gen/20120711183414_4ffe29968b6aa.jpg)
I find the idea of the 'escalation die' intriguing, if not the implementation. As it stands, it is little more than a timer for encounter powers. Perhaps using a larger die (d8, d10 or even a d12) and triggering effects if a character fails to 'save', ie roll equal or higher than the current number. Fatigue or penalties to hit would be reasonable, but perhaps some exhaustion fuelled haymakers or other bonuses could be implemented as well. Nothing as certain as the pseudo-encounter powers here, of course, or the players would just stretch things out until the later rounds to get additional bonuses.
Quote from: John Morrow;548380That's the Forge Kool Aid that sank 4e. I'm not convinced he's learned his lesson and still expect this for D&D Next:
(http://pagels.teamexpansion.org/sqjtaipei/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/kool1.jpg)
...though this time, it will be OSR flavored Forge Kool Aid.
From Ryan Dancey's comments on the Pyramid message boards concerning the design goals for 3e in 2000:
Maybe they need to put Ryan Dancey back on the payroll at WotC because clearly the people that are left forgot (or maybe never understood) what made 3e successful. I imagine Dancey's job, if he were re-hired, as being something like this:
(http://thomashunter.name/batman-comic/gen/20120612222126_4fd8235627fb6.jpg)
Ryan's on record - here, at the RPGsite - as saying that Dogs in the Vinyard is better than D&D.
So.
No, never.
Ryan Dancey drank the Forge Kool Aid afterwards. See "Dogs of Greyhawk" on this forum.
Btw, avoid using the batslap. It's against the Pundit's policy, technically, though your usage to me is not spam. We've just .. abused that meme in the past to the point Pundit decided to ban the pic outright.
Quote from: Benoist;548387Ryan Dancey drank the Forge Kool Aid afterwards. See "Dogs of Greyhawk" on this forum.
Btw, avoid using the batslap. It's against the Pundit's policy, technically, though your usage to me is not spam. We've just .. abused that meme in the past to the point Pundit decided to ban the pic outright.
I'm to blame for that but good god that was a funny thread for a day or so.
Quote from: Benoist;548387Ryan Dancey drank the Forge Kool Aid afterwards. See "Dogs of Greyhawk" on this forum.
Sadly, that may be true.
Quote from: Benoist;548387Btw, avoid using the batslap. It's against the Pundit's policy, technically, though your usage to me is not spam. We've just .. abused that meme in the past to the point Pundit decided to ban the pic outright.
I've seen it used since the thread that got out of hand, and it seems to get a pass here so long as it's appropriate, which I think it was here. Nothing quite captures the sort of supervision that I think the D&D design team needs with respect to Forge theory quite like that picture. I'm not trying to start a trend.
Yeah it's cool with me, I actually miss using the batslap myself to be completely honest about it but well, I got to remind everyone about Pundit's ruling on that score in any case.
Quote from: Benoist;548393Yeah it's cool with me, I actually miss using the batslap myself to be completely honest about it but well, I got to remind everyone about Pundit's ruling on that score in any case.
Oh I understand completely. I mean, we've had some pretty silly thread derails but that's all that thread
was at the "pundit-put-his-foot-down" point.
Quote from: Benoist;548393Yeah it's cool with me, I actually miss using the batslap myself to be completely honest about it but well, I got to remind everyone about Pundit's ruling on that score in any case.
I won't make a habit of it and will pull it if he really wants it pulled.
Quote from: Benoist;548387Ryan Dancey drank the Forge Kool Aid afterwards. See "Dogs of Greyhawk" on this forum.
Btw, avoid using the batslap. It's against the Pundit's policy, technically, though your usage to me is not spam. We've just .. abused that meme in the past to the point Pundit decided to ban the pic outright.
So that's the infamous "batslap" previously mentioned. Had no idea what the heck you were talking about before, have to admit it's hilarious though. ;)
Quote from: Ladybird;548297It looks like someone glued some FATE sprinkles onto a D&D. It doesn't look as terrible as some people here are making out, but it doesn't look like something I want.
Fair enough. Except for the annoying fanbase, that's what this game is. It is antithetical to what I like in my D&D, and I prefer an entirely different brand of heroism, so I would not enjoy playing it, but obviously, there is a market niche that will. Plus Pelgrane's Dying Earth RPG is pretty cool, and I wish them well.
RuneQuest is still better :D
Also, I can't understand any outrage about a guy who creates a game that someone doesn't like.
Looks like 4e D&D + Fate as someone already noted. And it also looks like nothing I am interested in playing. May they have their success and their fans flock to that to leave us alone with our older D&D.
About that "fall forward" idea, where failures really mean delays instead, that really doesn't sound like something for me. I don't want to feel like I'm being hurtled along to watch a story. I want to live the life of a character, warts and all. Failure is sorta liberating; I either use ingenuity to think around it, or accept and walk away from it. Being able to choose where I go is more fun to me than skipping (or fumbling) towards the end of a storied path.
Quote from: StormBringer;548385I find the idea of the 'escalation die' intriguing, if not the implementation. As it stands, it is little more than a timer for encounter powers.
And a big fat bonus for the characters in combat - it does make a difference between hitting and missing more often than you'd think.
I believe the ultimate plan is to have creature powers that activate when the Escalation Die gets to certain levels - as you suggest, there are also other things you could do with the mechanic too. It seemed initially to be a neither-here-no-there rule at first, but having played the game, I can see its uses.
Quote from: The Good Assyrian;548290Out of curiosity, what did you like about it?
-TGA
Icons and Backgrounds - gave the game more scope than 5e's Themes and Skills hodgepodge. Yes it demands that your character is unique from the start rather than a gongfarmer - but there are other games for that (
DCC, High Quality Roleplaying). The indie stuff - 'fail forward' in particular made it a qualitively different play experience than when I've played TSR D&D - which is cool, because I've already got Moldvay and AD&D 1e.
Stripped-down faster 4e combat - after playing
ACKS, Crypt & Things and
DCC over the last year it was different, but not as horrific as I thought it'd be. The Escalation Die you get for pressing the attack is a neat innovation that I'll nick for a duelling game.
My gaming group thought 13th age was cool, fun, not flawless, but decided to stay with LotFP as our go-to game for one-shots, with Age of Heroes as our campaign mainstay.
Quote from: game.monkey;548414And a big fat bonus for the characters in combat - it does make a difference between hitting and missing more often than you'd think.
Definitely would not be using it as a straight bonus for the players.
QuoteI believe the ultimate plan is to have creature powers that activate when the Escalation Die gets to certain levels - as you suggest, there are also other things you could do with the mechanic too. It seemed initially to be a neither-here-no-there rule at first, but having played the game, I can see its uses.
I'm not terribly thrilled with it as a power trigger, monsters or character. I would be more likely to tack on fatigue penalties or something of the like. Bonuses would be quite rare.
Quote from: John Morrow;548396I won't make a habit of it and will pull it if he really wants it pulled.
I'm certainly not suggesting you ought to pull the one you already posted, to be clear.
Quote from: StormBringer;548418I'm not terribly thrilled with it as a power trigger, monsters or character. I would be more likely to tack on fatigue penalties or something of the like. Bonuses would be quite rare.
Odd choice - you're going for penalties rather than bonuses, as the mechanic is intended. But, you know, your game, your rules.
There's also variable stuff like "roll under the current escalation die level and get X" so that it doesn't work out as a straight bonus, but you get the chance of a Brucie Bonus - and the longer you wait, the more chance you have of it coming off -but sometimes its worth the gamble earlier on.
Each to his own though, if you're not sold.
I think one of my largest turnoffs to this game is the implied setting and the fictional entities which are tied so closely to the characters. The system as written pretty much demands that you run the game in a world that includes all these entities whether they fit the campaign or not.
Thats enough of a dealbreaker without the snowflake treatment.
Pathinder was 3e with extra crunch on top.
Stands to reason that 13th Age will be 4e with extra Forge on top.
If they want to go after the 4e audience, I think they're Doing It Right.
Quote from: Melan;548179I hope the people it was designed for have metric tons of fun with it. I also hope the same people shut up about other people enjoying D&D now and forever, AMEN.
Also this. Best post ever.
Dear Lovely TheRPGsite Members,
The 13th Age pre-order is out now (http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=8354).
I must say that it's been a close contest for amusement value between this forum and somethingawful, though therpgsite wins on invective, and somethingawful on useful feedback. Some of the comments on the initial rpgsite thread made Rob and I laugh out loud.
signed
Special Snowflake Simon
Since the NDA has been lifted, I'll post my group's (near) full playtest feedback (with names blotted out to protect the innocent). We played a level 1 to level 3 campaign, and finished our feedback for the 'first round' (end of April 2012).
As you read this, you may or may not want to bear in mind that I'm a huge Rob Heinsoo fanboy, and over at Enworld I wrote him my special heart warming tribute back when he got fired at WotC. The playtest starts with a verdict and then goes into specifics which may or may not have been rectified in the game that you may or may not want to buy when it comes out. Nothing in the preview material released since, however, has encouraged our group to reverse their judgement, and I'll be hugely surprised if Rob Heinsoo manages to make this game into something worthwhile in the short time span he has left.
--------
Our verdict on 13th Age: Initially curious and impressed by at least some parts of the game (which we
outline below), our final verdict is that the game is nowhere near a finished design. It feels
incomplete in many parts, and the math of the game seems very, very off. Most importantly, even if
the game was polished to a much higher degree (which will take robust, lengthy playtesting up to the
highest play levels), the game offers too little new that inclines us to keep playing this game. The
ICONS relationship system is not developed very well, compared to what other RPGs like Pendragon
have to offer. The design of the combat-mechanics and PC powers is vastly inferior to 4th edition:
stripping out tactical manoevering should end up with MUCH faster combats, but does not. Combats
do NOT move fast enough to pay off for the loss in tactically interesting choices. Most of our combats
lasted 80 minutes each, unless the GM threw in some twist (e.g., a goblin shaman who has a figurine
on his neck which can conjure a green dragon – but every round there’s a 20% chance that the
dragon will attack the shaman instead of the PCs… this took down the shaman’s hp really fast PLUS
cancelled the dragon’s whole round of actions, actions which he’d otherwise use to damage the PCs).
Our overall impression is that the playtest document was released MUCH too early. We STRONGLY
advise the designers and the publisher not to release the game prematurely. If the ICONS system is
not worked out much more substantially, and the math polished, we predict the game will get played
very little beyond initial online hype.
On the upside, there are a number of mechanical innovations we are very impressed with and will
port over to our 4th edition games. But this means that, beyond dumpster diving for interesting
tidbits, we give 13A as a system a wide pass. Our group will not buy this game or supplements for it,
and we have no interest to take part in the later stages of the playtest. The game needs to have a
much more robust and complete base before design of (say) higher levels of play can even
commence, and fuller write-ups for magic items and feats and monsters can begin.
Onto specifics. These come in “Early Impressions” and “Final Impressions”. They are importantly
different. We were initially favourable towards the game, but by level 3 we knew that we wanted no
more to do with the game. I hope the comments can explain this to you and are of value to you.
EARLY IMPRESSIONS
[...]3. The cleric class does not work. We had a level 1 cleric with 0 Strength-bonus. He could hit
foes in melee as reliably as the other classes (rogue and barbarian), but he did no damage
worth mentioning (doing 2 damage when even a level 1 minion/mook has 8 hp is basically a
waste of a turn). Also, he was far too limited w.r.t. to his healing output: a daily, and then
two uses of an encounter power (like Healing Word)… where is the at-will with the healing
on-rider? So, since the class failed to deal any damage, or deal any significant output of
healing over 7+ rounds of combat… it’s basically a tank. It can soak damage, because it got
high defense values. This class needs work.
4. A class that does work, however, is the rogue. It’s momentum mechanics works excellently,
in its own right and in synergy with the other classes. Halving incoming damage by giving up
momentum – that’s an excellent defender/tank mechanics. It seems fairly well balanced (the
rogue gives up a lot in return for soaking damage), and it makes sense from an in-game point
of view: the rogue dodges damage (thus avoiding it), but loses his combat edge. Also,
mechanically, this enables the rogue to be a skirmisher on the battle field – he can afford to
move away from the cleric, whose healing requires the cleric to TOUCH the rogue. If the
rogue was more of a fragile striker, he could not afford to move out of touch range of the
cleric.
5. Stuff that really works: is the new skill system (1), and the escalation dice (2). (2) because it
avoids combats dragging out (‘grind’) – it increases PC reliability of hitting. Plus, the dynamics
it introduces at the table make sense story-wise, give a narrative progression to the battle.
We DID introduce the house rule that the escalation dice only increases when at least half of
the PC party hit successfully on their turn that round (2 out of 4 PCs) – otherwise it’d stay
static. We felt this simulates the growing escalation and increase in momentum on the side
of PCs. – (1) is great because it encourages players to come up with reasons how to involve
their background, and even which ability to use. So players will think in which situations and
how exactly to bring in their (e.g.) being a professional minstrel, and they will also use it
differently – with CHA, or with DEX, etc. The guy who was the bounty hunter will interact
socially with the bounty hunters at the tavern, even if he doesn’t have the highest social
ability modifier – gone are the days when the question was ‘so who’s got the highest
Diplomacy score?’. Something ANALOGOUS is missing from the attack maneuvers and spells
– e.g. the cleric’s melee attack (which, see above, caused to little damage): why does not IT
key into the cleric’s main ability?
6. Players disliked rolling recovery dice. At low levels, when it’s important not to get very bad
returns (rolling a 1 or 2 on the dice), the system makes it possible for characters to get
gimped for their choice of a standard action that turn. At higher levels, when the larger dice
pools create more stable average means (distribution around the mean more concentrated)
THEN the designers suddenly suggest ‘you can average the die roll result’ – but THIS
(averaging) is precisely what players would need at level 1, to be able to plan tactically when
a reserve is a good option and when it isn’t (e.g. if your chance is to recover 1d6+1 hp per
round, you aren’t going to your standard action on it but rather fight one of the 2 mooks who
causes you 3 hp loss each per turn).
7. Monster numbers are wayyyy off, and mixing monsters of different levels (as in the opening
‘Tough’ encounter) doesn’t work as easily as in 4E, because the monsters scale so wildly.
Why does a level 1 mook have a ridiculous attack bonus of +6, an AC of 16, and 8 hp? Sure,
4E minions were a laughing stock (1hp is too little, especially when area attacks come
sweeping in), but in 13A the mooks are too powerful: there’s a noticable lack of area powers
(no more minion sweeping), and the damage dealt doesn’t always wipe out more than 1
minion (sometimes not even 1). Their AC is too high – here the game seems to say ‘look, by
round 3, the escalation die is at 3, so we monster designers have to look for a sensible AC
score, and then increase it by 3, because the PCs will be hitting our monsters with +3’.
8. It’s not clear that the icons system works best when the icons (the entities the PCs relate
to)are people instead of factions. Factions seem to work better, when things like favour or
‘having a problem with’ arises: in a large campaign world it makes more sense for PCs to
have good rapport with the mages’ guild, not the archmage. Also, that way, it’s easy to see
how versatile the icons system is, genre-wise. Imagine using it in a Call of Cthulhu game,
where the mob, the police, a group of mythology sages etc. are all factions in a game, and
you can then have relations with these groups, relations which change. Speaking of, these
relationships should be things that change IN GAMEPLAY (new numerical values of strength,
and relationship type changes from e.g. conflicted to negative) – not by leveling up (‘you got
a feat, now burn it to (re)create your extant relationships’). There should be a bit more
mechanical support for relationships in gameplay. It should be something that opens itself up
to players wanting to change their relationships with the icons during the campaign – a goal
like that should translate into clear mechanical possibilities, even if the procedure is largely
story driven (say, by the player’s decisions how his PC socially interacts with the
icons/factions). – Another, completely different alternative is to envisage the icons as
spiritual archetypes, or personality profiles: players gravitate from one icon to another, or
have conflicted relationships with these profiles. Documenting and playing through these
relationship changes would replace the entire alignment system, e.g. E.g. take the crusader –
that’s the type of PC who doesn’t care about the losses, as long as the gains are right. A PC
could start out taking over that profile very strongly, then grow distant from it in the course
of the campaign. – Overall, we felt that the icons system barely touched what it could
possibly be. It’s a cool idea that instantly catches on, but then leaves you out in the cold.
Final Impressions
1. The amount of free easy healing allocated outside combat has been escalated even further
than it was in 4th edition, which makes it even harder for combats to have meaningful
consequences beyond themselves. Our group preference is that, at least inside a campaign
context, encounters should have tangible consequences on player resources.
2. Basic math. It appeared that, as PCs go up, the proportions between: PC damage, monster
hit points, and PC hit points healed per recovery – that these proportions all changed for the
game to become ever more and more swingy. So as PCs go up, any encounter they go in
could be their last, but they could also win it very quickly. And then, once the encounter was
over, the game became very boring and any tension during the encounter evaporated,
because the PCs were drowning in an over abundance of free out-of-combat healing (see
point 1.). Maybe the designers intended this, but the result does not synch with our
preferred game style.
3. Monster design is very restrictive, with all the interesting synergy effects *between*
monsters stripped out. The monsters are so simple that the GM felt bored to run any
monster more than once.
4. Escalation die, positive comments: we stuck to our house rule that the dice only goes up if at
least half of the PCs each hit at least once that round. We added the rule that if NO PC scores
a hit that round, the escalation die goes down by 1 (to a minimum of 1). – It was nice to see
monsters like the dragon use the escalation die on its attack rolls. This triggered interesting
design options, such as giving monsters their own escalation die, and then the monsters’ die
impacting the PCs’ and vice versa. So some monsters should have their own ‘escalation’ (like
the dragon getting angrier). But at no point should this become so complex that EACH
monster on the table has its own escalation mechanic – that would be too clumsy, and drag
the game too much down. – FINAL suggestion: instead of using a die, you could use an
escalation scale, with numbers from 1 to 10. At low levels, the max result is a 6, but it could
go up later (or in very special contexts only). Comparable components are: the party tension
meter in “Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay” 3rd edition, and the momentum meter in “Battles of
Westeros” (two FFG games).
5. Escalation die, negative comments: the mutual impact of monster design and escalation die
become the more noticable the more we played. Because almost all monsters did not benefit
from the (or an) escalation die, they start of (first round of combat) with ridiculously high tohit
bonuses. A level 3 monster will hit a level 3 PC when it rolls a 6 or higher. (We also
noticed that monsters have no mechanical abilities to aid each other hitting better; not that
it was needed, but it means some more tactical complexity is stripped out with has NOTHING
to do with positioning.) By comparison, PCs will score on a 8, some only on a 10, and some
even only at a 12. So the game is programmed such that PCs will only hit reliably once the
escalation die is at least at 3. This did not always deliver good results at the table. We suspect
the to-hit and defense numbers of both PCs and monsters could be much better attuned,
and the role of the escalation die re-assessed. It’s a fun mechanic that should absolutely stay
in the final product, but the mechanic should be much more robustly designed.
6. The lack of tactical positioning hurts character classes that traditionally benefit from
standing in the rear. A traditional party line up has the front line fighters guarding the rear
line glass cannons (strikers, wizards). 13A needs to provide something similar, as e.g. wizards
ARE much more vulnerable than other PC classes: first, they have much weaker recovery
dice. Take level 3. The wizard will get hit (and reliably so – see point 5.) each round by a 3rd
level monster, taking 3d6 damage. To take second wind, the wizard needs to blow his
standard action, and will heal 3d6 damage. IF, on top of that, the wizard takes ongoing
damage (which happened frequently), the wizard is out of the game and has nothing to
prevent it. This meant that our wizard player sought secure positions on the battle field,
knowing full well that if he was even momentarily exposed to melee danger, he’d be dead
meat (even if not instantly, then certainly so a couple of rounds later due to the math). What
is missing are better rules for the front line fighters intercepting incoming monsters. Because
the front liners can only engage 1 monster at a time, and once engaged cannot intercept, this
means that numerically superior groups of monsters will swarm PC rear liners. We first saw
this with the 13A “Introductory Adventure” (where we had 4 PCs against 19 monsters – as a
GM I ruled that only 1d8 of the 10 mooks engaged the PCs each round), and later encounters
made it increasingly more obvious. You don’t need to write up rules which bring back the
grid, or distance measuring, or intricate rules of partial vs. superior cover. But you need some
way of writing one PC ‘meat-shielding’ another PC back into the game.
7. Wizard Spells, positive feedback. Some magic spells work very nicely in a manner
reminiscent of 3rd edition. In one encounter 2 wights and 3 zombie ogres ganged up on the
rogue. The wizard (3rd level) got out his most powerful spell, and blasted off the whole lot (47
damage each, to creatures that averaged on 45 hp), while giving negligible/tolerable
collateral fire on the rogue (one eight, iirc). This was really nice, reminiscent of the days
when wizards didn’t have much to go by, but when they got out their big guns the DM could
basically write off one encounter (or, as here, teach him the lesson ‘never run your monsters
together into a convenient target area’). BUT, our wizard player felt differently about this
spell allocation – see next point.
8. Wizard Spells, negative/critical Why do spells only increase at odd levels? Why not have
spells that increase +1 damage die [D] at EACH level? Or how about giving the wizard spells
that give bonus effect for trading lower damage dice? In the latter case, the wizard player
could choose his spell to have one of these effects (or to have spells which, combined, give
him the following options): [D6]+stun or [D8]+push or [D10] (damage only). Also: noted lack
of area spells. And: at level 1: 2 at-wills and 2 daily’s, no encounter spells – this seemed odd,
because e.g. thunderwave (with its 0 malus) seemed more appropriate for an encounter
spell. – Final point: the spell allocation progression felt off, like mixing the worst elements of
3rd and 4th edition D&D. Either the spell levels increase or the number of spells increases…
this forces an odd choice, and the end result is underwhelming. – The basic idea, that players
could customize their spell allocation by either empowering their low level at wills or giving
that spell slot to higher level spells was appreciated (although it didn’t feel novel to anyone
having played 4th edition psions), but the implementation didn’t feel like it works yet.
9. Out of combat healing, mechanically. We did not know how to factor in the cleric’s spells for
out of combat healing – should we add his +d8 roll to EACH recovery spent outside combat?
The 13A playtest document is very unclear on this point. It needs to clarify (a) how the cleric
spells really work outside combats, (b) whether (as the playtest document suggests) the
spells are to be ‘used as rituals’… which would mean: they are free to cast, but take THREE
HOURS (!) of casting time (so: no option for short rests), and (c) whether the cleric’s spells
are regained for use in the next combat, or whether the roll to regain them only applies
AFTER a(nother) combat.
10. Cleric: his number of healing spells during combat doesn’t go up as he levels up. Healing
during combat is not that much more powerful, it’s rather the out-of-combat healing that
escalates up as PCs gain levels. (Probably a conscious design choice, but we didn’t like the
effect on play at all.)
11. Rituals: standardizing the casting time to 3 hours does not work, and effectively writes a lot
of interesting (and not overly powerful) utility magic out of the game. ‘Comprehend
languages’, ‘Floating disk’… PCs will need and want such things much quicker and not wait 3
hours.
12. Converting and customizing monsters. I ran the second half of our campaign off a monster
cheat sheet I had created, and which I attach in PDF. Having the standardized monsters
ready, apart from monsters with special abilities, simply meant that I could come up with
encounters on the fly. Also, using these numbers/abilities was easy – I could convert 4th
edition adventures on the fly. Together with the summary of the status conditions before me
on the table, and a brief list of the price and effect of the most common magic items (like
healing potions), I felt I had the entire system at my finger tips. (I would feel a 13A DM
screen could profit from containing that information.) I re-themed monsters on the fly.
Green dragon? Just take the black dragon and make it cause poison damage. Zombies? Just
take the ogre, make it non-large (reduce hp by half), and make it permanently slowed.
Speaking of, I added some 4E status conditions to convert 4E monsters: ‘slowed’ means that
it takes a PC or monster two move actions to move from one combat zone to another nearby
combat zone. (I don’t know if dividing a combat area into several combat ZONES was
intended, but that’s what I did if I ran large encounters: areas were either adjacent, or if nonadjacent
were considered ‘far away’ from each other.)
13. Traps/Environmental hazards either followed a template (given in the cheat sheet), give or
take damage type (falling damage, fire damage, …), or were improvised on the fly (‘pool of
death’, containing zombie limbs that are congatious with the black plague – would require
cleansing if not avoided, and the stench causes -2 to hit for all nearby PCs).
Traps ‘worked’, but only because I was experienced with how to handle them in 4th edition
(recall that the original 4E DMG left out the ’10 rules how to create your own traps’). The
book should contain much better advice here, on how to place triggers apart from traps, how
to combine them with monsters, and so on. It’s not D&D without the traps.
14. Campaign world: one of my earliest thoughts as a GM (even before I had read the rules) was
this. Even if the rules are not good enough to replace 4th edition for us, maybe Pelgrane will
create good adventures and campaign supplements, or further add-ons we can port over into
our 4th edition games. Sometimes only a 3PP/OGL product can accomplish what the licenser
cannot (Paizo’s “Kingmaker” campaign would be a case in point: by 2006, WotC had
abandoned making interesting, exploration-oriented and kingdom-building campaigns, so it
was great that at least some other company provided that for groups interested in it).
However, I must say, the description of the world and the intro adventures were not very
promising. The world felt very flat, apart from a handful of cool names like “Santa Cora”. It
felt like a weak rip-off of Forgotten Realms or even Eberron, often. And then there’s the time
honored ‘let’s find some arbitrary entry point for monster category X in our setting’, so we
get again a place which throws demons into the world… Demon Wastes in Eberron,
Worldwound in (Paizo’s) Golarion, etc… yarn. On a charitable assumption, maybe this section
didn’t receive much attention yet and was quickly scribbled together. In any event, IF the
ICONS description is tied to the Dragon Empire setting (or whatever it’s going to be called),
then that setting better be good.
15. Missing stuff: how to create your own ICONS. How to create your own PC mechanics, your
own monsters, your own traps. How one should write adventures for the system. This
created a deja-vus with 4th edition – simplest system ever to create custom content,
published books make a positive effort to hide that fact from you and create such tips.
16. Stuff that we never touched and that never touched us: all the hold over from Burning
Wheel. Like ‘Failing Forward’…. (pleeeeese, let groups decide themselves if they want failure
to figure in their 13A campaigns or not), or stuff like: players inventing story reasons during
the session for why they are involved with the GM’s prepped plot (hey, among us it’s totally
legit to walk away from a ‘plot’), etc etc. Sorry, not our cup of tea. We tried Burning Wheel,
and its narrative mechanics (Artha and the rest) just never did anything for us; nor, for that
matter, did Robin Laws’ attempts to port over such mechanics to 4th edition in the opening
chapter of DMG 2. So we’re just not the right group of playtesters to tell you something
valuable here… except that: thank goodness it was dead easy to strip out all this (type of)
advice on how to run the game. So here’s a suggestion: if there’s a substantial percentage of
playtest groups for whom your narrative advice does little, maybe you could consider to
present that advice in the book as a tad more optional. – The stuff on ‘what Jonathan liked…
what Rob liked…’ rubbed us the wrong way too. It’s like the intrusive authorial voice we get
in indie games. Well, we think Rob’s and Jonathan’s credentials as designers are enormous,
and that the quirks of petty indie designers should really be beneath them.
[EDIT] Cheatsheet added (created by myself for our campaign):
http://postimage.org/image/4f86cw3nn
Quote from: Pelgrane;548463therpgsite wins on invective, and somethingawful on useful feedback.
That isn't an endorsement now is it?
By the way are those files for real or are they a piss-take? I can't tell....
Quote from: Windjammer;548468Lots of good stuff..snip
I'm quite surprised that you view the game overall in the negative.
Windjammer, thank you for the most concrete information on the game that I've read to date. :)
Hey Simon,
When Rob leaves and you're done laughing, you might want to remember that one thing us knuckle-dragging world-immersion types like to do way more then the storywankers - we love to make MAPS. Not just battlemats, but campaign maps of entire worlds. :D
Quote from: Pelgrane;548463Dear Lovely TheRPGsite Members,
The 13th Age pre-order is out now (http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=8354).
I must say that it's been a close contest for amusement value between this forum and somethingawful, though therpgsite wins on invective, and somethingawful on useful feedback. Some of the comments on the initial rpgsite thread made Rob and I laugh out loud.
signed
Special Snowflake Simon
All this game needs is a deer-hoof print on forehead to make it tied as the fruitiest game ever. But thanks the same for the extensive play report, WJ.
Quote from: Marleycat;548479I'm quite surprised that you view the game overall in the negative.
It's broken worse than 4E on release, comes with an uninspired campaign world, and features cringe-worthy 'words of wisdom' to appease Luke Crane fanboys.
I can't even
begin to imagine what people
not already hugely enarmored by 4E will make of this. I mean, I'd play this over 5E, but that's a threshold you don't want to bring in.
Quote from: Windjammer;548498It's broken worse than 4E on release, comes with an uninspired campaign world, and features cringe-worthy 'words of wisdom' to appease Luke Crane fanboys.
I can't even begin to imagine what people not already hugely enarmored by 4E will make of this. I mean, I'd play this over 5E, but that's a threshold you don't want to bring in.
Honestly it doesn't sound like my type of game but to be that unorganized is surprising. 5e I expect to be a mess given it's just at the beginning of the playtest cycle.
Quote from: elfandghost;548476That isn't an endorsement now is it?
By the way are those files for real or are they a piss-take? I can't tell....
I am sorry - what do you mean by "those files"?
Quote from: CRKrueger;548482Hey Simon,
When Rob leaves and you're done laughing, you might want to remember that one thing us knuckle-dragging world-immersion types like to do way more then the storywankers - we love to make MAPS. Not just battlemats, but campaign maps of entire worlds. :D
I can't speak for Rob, but my favourite RPG is AD&D. I've been running what I like to think of as an immersive setting-based game for gamers who are entirely resistant to "storywank" concepts for over 30 years. However, I enjoy a wide variety of games, and my enjoyment isn't informed by a theory or hatred of a theory.
We were laughing at the funny comments (particularly those about my "love letter" idea) rather than mocking anyone.
13th Age has the most beautiful map (we'll add it to the downloads on the pre-order), and I run ProFantasy Software. I think you can say that I'm fond of maps!
Quote from: game.monkey;548433Odd choice - you're going for penalties rather than bonuses, as the mechanic is intended. But, you know, your game, your rules.
Why would anyone get a bonus in combat as they become exhausted with the effort over 10+ minutes? Do people run faster in the last mile of a marathon? Does a boxer hit harder and faster in the last rounds of a match?
Quote from: Pelgrane;548515I can't speak for Rob, but my favourite RPG is AD&D. I've been running what I like to think of as an immersive setting-based game for gamers who are entirely resistant to "storywank" concepts for over 30 years. However, I enjoy a wide variety of games, and my enjoyment isn't informed by a theory or hatred of a theory.
We were laughing at the funny comments (particularly those about my "love letter" idea) rather than mocking anyone.
13th Age has the most beautiful map (we'll add it to the downloads on the pre-order), and I run ProFantasy Software. I think you can say that I'm fond of maps!
Never mind the haters.
Even if this game does not seem to be much of an interest to me, you deserve congratulations for getting it out. More games is always a good thing. Also, you brought us Esoterrorists/Trail of Cthulhu so I'm happy with Pelgrane.
:D
The only thing I find interesting in all this is the idea of the escalation die. Also, Windjammer's suggestion to have specific battlefield conditions leading to the increase of the die seems sensible, to me. It might make it feel more emulative that way.
Quote from: Pelgrane;548502I am sorry - what do you mean by "those files"?
Just a guess, but he might be referring to the playtest character sheets.
They were quite amusing.
'This and that' on the equipment list for the sorcerer really cracked me up.
After reading WJ's assessment, the game is sounding worse. I'm just not into gimmicky mechanics like the escalation die or rogue "momentum." Could you give us some examples of martial powers? I'm curious as to how this stacks up to 4e.
Quote from: StormBringer;548526Why would anyone get a bonus in combat as they become exhausted with the effort over 10+ minutes? Do people run faster in the last mile of a marathon? Does a boxer hit harder and faster in the last rounds of a match?
I was looking at it from the game system point of view and how its supposed to be used (if done as written) - demonstrating increased momentum as the fight gets going.
You could take the example of a Thai Boxing bout - the first couple of rounds are normally quite touchy-feely as the fighters test each other out and guards are quite tight. Later rounds are when you tend to see the good knockouts as people open up and the blood starts flowing from cuts and so on - there tends to be an escalation after a few minutes of getting into it.
If you want a mechanic that grinds the characters down, rather than escalates the conflict (so that it doesn't get flabby at the end and keeps the action flowing), then you can do that too.
Quote from: Benoist;548528The only thing I find interesting in all this is the idea of the escalation die. Also, Windjammer's suggestion to have specific battlefield conditions leading to the increase of the die seems sensible, to me. It might make it feel more emulative that way.
The escalation die is interesting but not enough to save the game from Windjammer's report. As I said, I am surprised his reaction was so negative given what I had heard earlier about the game. I just assumed it wasn't aimed at my preferences and let it go but it sounds disappointing actually.
Quote from: Marleycat;548541The escalation die is interesting but not enough to save the game from Windjammer's report.
I completely agree. I think it might be a mechanic worth stealing to implement in a D&D game with some modifications, like the battlefield conditions talked about: monsters at half their numbers, chieftain getting killed, first hit in the fight, half the PCs hitting enemies in the round, etc might increase the die's value; likewise, reinforments, active efforts to rally might lower the die on occasion, maybe.
Quote from: Benoist;548542I completely agree. I think it might be a mechanic worth stealing to implement in a D&D game with some modifications, like the battlefield conditions talked about: monsters at half their numbers, chieftain getting killed, first hit in the fight, half the PCs hitting enemies in the round, etc might increase the die's value; likewise, reinforments, active efforts to rally might lower the die on occasion, maybe.
Definitely something to consider given it has the hitpoint inflation deal going on. It would speed up battles which one of 4e's big faults. I wonder if it could be adapted to a 3e style game?
Quote from: game.monkey;548540I was looking at it from the game system point of view and how its supposed to be used (if done as written) - demonstrating increased momentum as the fight gets going.
And if you want the game system to feel like actual combat, that is exactly the opposite of what it should be doing. After a certain point, combatants start to wear down, and the one with the best stamina typically comes out on top. Mitigating factors like proper hit placement help, but that is more detail than most games opt for.
Fights start out with a certain amount of effort, if that doesn't work, you increase the effort until it does work. Or, until you are exhausted and the opponent beats you.
QuoteYou could take the example of a Thai Boxing bout - the first couple of rounds are normally quite touchy-feely as the fighters test each other out and guards are quite tight. Later rounds are when you tend to see the good knockouts as people open up and the blood starts flowing from cuts and so on - there tends to be an escalation after a few minutes of getting into it.
And if this game was called
Thai Boxing Age, you would have a point.
QuoteIf you want a mechanic that grinds the characters down, rather than escalates the conflict (so that it doesn't get flabby at the end and keeps the action flowing), then you can do that too.
Giving a +6 to hit and damage after 6 rounds isn't 'escalating the combat', it's escalating the numbers and giving the players a delayed 'I win' button. Escalating the combat is when the characters are running out of steam and need to make some hard decisions about how to continue, or whether they should continue. You know, 'making it interesting'.
Quote from: StormBringer;548550Giving a +6 to hit and damage after 6 rounds isn't 'escalating the combat', it's escalating the numbers and giving the players a delayed 'I win' button.
I think the bonus should apply to enemies facing the PCs
as well, as they find out the weaknesses of the group in live conditions too.
Does it apply to enemies and monsters too in 13th Age? If not, then you're right: that's basically a delayed "I win" button, and it sucks.
Quote from: Pelgrane;548515I can't speak for Rob, but my favourite RPG is AD&D. I've been running what I like to think of as an immersive setting-based game for gamers who are entirely resistant to "storywank" concepts for over 30 years.
Good to hear. :hatsoff:
Quote from: Pelgrane;548515However, I enjoy a wide variety of games, and my enjoyment isn't informed by a theory or hatred of a theory.
Fair enough.
Quote from: Pelgrane;548515We were laughing at the funny comments (particularly those about my "love letter" idea) rather than mocking anyone.
The LL thing was a tad odd, simply because the phrase is usually used by a third party to describe someone else's work, used first person, it sounds a bit, well...pretentious. :p
I'm a customer since CC2 was the brand new thing, and I love all things ProFantasy. For that matter I also think Pelgrane does high quality work, even if I don't like a lot about the systems. For example, I don't play Gumshoe, but I still get all the ToC stuff to use with CoC, it's that good.
BTW, it's ok to mock BT, everyone here does at some point.
Actually the way I saw the Escalation Die was people getting tired. Yes, they are in effect performing better offensively, but that's due to the inability to dodge and block, so it's easier to hit and damage as a result. Moves you wouldn't try in a million years in the opening round of combat, you can pull off once you know your opponent, and his tiring defense allows the opening.
However, the Escalation Die mechanic isn't something I would use only for PCs. I'd use it for both sides, that way it fulfills it's function as a "combat timer" without being a PC-win mechanism.
Quote from: CRKrueger;548559Actually the way I saw the Escalation Die was people getting tired. Yes, they are in effect performing better offensively, but that's due to the inability to dodge and block, so it's easier to hit and damage as a result. Moves you wouldn't try in a million years in the opening round of combat, you can pull off once you know your opponent, and his tiring defense allows the opening.
However, the Escalation Die mechanic isn't something I would use only for PCs. I'd use it for both sides, that way it fulfills it's function as a "combat timer" without being a PC-win mechanism.
Makes sense if you did that. It would give combat more of a swingy feel where anybody COULD win at anytime.
That combined to the DCC RPG die chain could become very interesting.
Quote from: Pelgrane;548515I think you can say that I'm fond of maps!
So am I, having used CC2 since it was also released. In fact, I still have the instruction manuals on my desk because CC3 were digital downloads when I bought them.
But my question is, when are you going to get good modern/sci fi icons? The ones you have look extremely dated, and I can't use them for any professional product. Not when people have gotten used to the higher res ones from other places (like Dunjinni--which is a shitty fucking program IMO, but symbols are sweet) or the various cartography sites out there.
Quote from: Benoist;548561That combined to the DCC RPG die chain could become very interesting.
I was thinking the same thing when I saw your post in the DCC thread to Kaz's proposal.:D
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548562... or the various cartography sites out there.
To be honest I've always found the ProFantasy stuff overpriced for the IMHO poor quality of the maps it produces. For what their suite of tools costs, one can get real commercial digital art tools and spend some time following the tutorials at //www.cartographersguild.com and produce much better stuff. I have the artistic talent of a limbless orangutang and with a few evenings of dedicated effort I was knocking out stuff much better than what ProFantasy shows off as its best examples.
Quote from: Benoist;548552I think the bonus should apply to enemies facing the PCs as well, as they find out the weaknesses of the group in live conditions too.
Does it apply to enemies and monsters too in 13th Age? If not, then you're right: that's basically a delayed "I win" button, and it sucks.
Quote from: CRKrueger;548559However, the Escalation Die mechanic isn't something I would use only for PCs. I'd use it for both sides, that way it fulfills it's function as a "combat timer" without being a PC-win mechanism.
If it applies to both sides, then you have a mini-game of 'always fighting orcs'. I was under the assumption that
13th Age uses a basic d20 mechanic, in which case both sides having escalating numbers means the results don't really change. However, the section on the escalation die in Windjammer's playtest report leads me to believe it might be something like a d12 or 2d6...? In that case, adding the escalation die to combat results would make the scene look like a runaway Cuisinart starting with (approximately) round four and getting worse after that.
Quote from: CRKrueger;548559Actually the way I saw the Escalation Die was people getting tired. Yes, they are in effect performing better offensively, but that's due to the inability to dodge and block, so it's easier to hit and damage as a result. Moves you wouldn't try in a million years in the opening round of combat, you can pull off once you know your opponent, and his tiring defense allows the opening.
I can see this applying to the Fighter-types, as they should be better in combat and would be less fatigued and better able to take advantage of their opponents wearing out. I am not convinced a bonus for them is better than a penalty for their opponents, but it is likely easier to keep track of. "Orc is attacking Dave's Thief, so it gets a -3 to hit... no, wait. That is only when it is attacking Bob's Fighter..." It's probably a wash, really.
I can't see it applying to the other classes, though. A Magic-User is essentially just a hair above a 0-level NPC when it comes to fighting, even at higher levels. If it comes down to personal defence with their dagger or staff, they should be getting tired
tout de suite. Clerics might get some small benefits, and Thieves wouldn't be much better off than Magic-Users.
It is an interesting mechanic, but I don't think simply applying it to combat rolls is very effective on a number of levels. Perhaps a class feature for Fighters, or maybe everyone gets a +4 going into combat (all out beat-down), but subtract the number showing on the escalation die from that as combat wears on and everyone loses energy. So by round 6, everyone is rolling at -2, but the Fighter's natural abilities and class skills should keep them in the positives. Windjammer's suggested changes would also make this a more interesting mechanic overall.
Quote from: daniel_ream;548576To be honest I've always found the ProFantasy stuff overpriced for the IMHO poor quality of the maps it produces. For what their suite of tools costs, one can get real commercial digital art tools and spend some time following the tutorials at www.cartographersguild.com (http://www.cartographersguild.com) and produce much better stuff. I have the artistic talent of a limbless orangutang and with a few evenings of dedicated effort I was knocking out stuff much better than what ProFantasy shows off as its best examples.
Ahem.
The GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)
Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/)
Putting it all together in a nice pdf:
Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus)
or even easier,
LibreOffice (http://www.libreoffice.org/)
and you get a full office suite, which serves quite well as a desktop publishing solution for these kinds of projects.
Much, much less than their tools suite. Entirely free of cost, in fact. :)
Quote from: daniel_ream;548576To be honest I've always found the ProFantasy stuff overpriced for the IMHO poor quality of the maps it produces.
I have pretty much the entire Profantasy line. Version 3 made things a lot more flexible but the main problem for most folks is the CAD paradigm they follow for the user interface. In most Mac and Windows the basic operation for anything is SELECT what you want to work on and then PICK the command you want. For CAD programs it is PICK the command you want, and then SELECT what you want to do. It's CAD heritage also show up in how it prints and exports maps which is unnecessarily painful.
Which is too bad because Campaign Cartographer has several features for mapemaking beats the hell out of using CorelDRAW (my favorite), Inkscape, and the rest. That is the ability to use sheets in conjunction with the traditional layers. What sheet do in CC3 is apply bitmap effects to the object that are group within a particular sheets. The results are amazing if you look at the Profantasy Gallery and far easier to apply and modify than any other high end vector drawing program I worked with.
http://www.profantasy.com/
Also know that I work with CAD systems on a regular basis so it's CAD heritage doesn't bother me as much as it would most computer users.
One of the other changes that came in with version 3 is the ability to use bitmap symbols. So there are a ton of stuff I can use in Corel and Inkscape. It the main reason I keep up my subscription to their Annuals.
In the end I stick with CorelDRAW because when Version 2 was the main Profantasy version I built up a huge library of symbols and template that I use on a regular basis when drawing in Corel.
Quote from: StormBringer;548585Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/)
I use CorelDRAW myself, but keep up with Inkscape as a backup. I could use it as my main mapping tool right now. The only thing missing for me is a symbol manager that supports dragging and dropping.
I don't have anything systematic but there are a lot of tips and mini-tutorials using Inkscape on my blog
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/mapping
Quote from: StormBringer;548550And if you want the game system to feel like actual combat
If you want it to feel like actual combat, I can confirm its not that. But then neither is any iteration of a D&D type game.
Quote from: StormBringer;548526Does a boxer hit harder and faster in the last rounds of a match?
Quote from: StormBringer;548526And if this game was called Thai Boxing Age, you would have a point.
I was just offering you an example based on your example fella ;) The point still stands either way. You might prefer a bell curve, where things warm up at first, and then reach a peak and start to degrade.
Quote from: StormBringer;548526Giving a +6 to hit and damage after 6 rounds isn't 'escalating the combat', it's escalating the numbers
Thereby escalating the fight to big win. Plus, some creature powers kick in after a certain number on the die, so its another escalation in shizzle happening. I never had an escalation die get past +4 during playtest, and even then I got a TPK in one battle - so my AP supports that its a fair mechanic. Your value may differ.
As I say, if you want "realistic" this game isn't that. Its a seld-proclaimed love letter to D&D. Make of that what you will.
Quote from: estar;548589I use CorelDRAW myself, but keep up with Inkscape as a backup. I could use it as my main mapping tool right now. The only thing missing for me is a symbol manager that supports dragging and dropping.
I don't have anything systematic but there are a lot of tips and mini-tutorials using Inkscape on my blog
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/mapping
Awesome! I am bookmarking these as I type.
Quote from: game.monkey;548595Thereby escalating the fight to big win. Plus, some creature powers kick in after a certain number on the die, so its another escalation in shizzle happening.
Did you really just fucking type 'shizzle' or is there some kind of glitch on the server?
Quote from: daniel_ream;548576To be honest I've always found the ProFantasy stuff overpriced for the IMHO poor quality of the maps it produces. For what their suite of tools costs, one can get real commercial digital art tools and spend some time following the tutorials at //www.cartographersguild.com and produce much better stuff. I have the artistic talent of a limbless orangutang and with a few evenings of dedicated effort I was knocking out stuff much better than what ProFantasy shows off as its best examples.
Monsieur orang-outan - how about you post one of your knocked out efforts produced over a few evenings, and I'll post some user-created examples from the last six months, not one of our best in house examples. Perhaps not on this thread, though, eh? By all means kick one off.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548562So am I, having used CC2 since it was also released. In fact, I still have the instruction manuals on my desk because CC3 were digital downloads when I bought them.
But my question is, when are you going to get good modern/sci fi icons? The ones you have look extremely dated, and I can't use them for any professional product. Not when people have gotten used to the higher res ones from other places (like Dunjinni--which is a shitty fucking program IMO, but symbols are sweet) or the various cartography sites out there.
We've just released SS3 v3 Modern, last month in fact, and Cosmographer has been out a while. You know, I might just start a thread with maps if anyone is interested.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;548368Someone at The Gaming Den dug this up recently. Completely off-topic for this thread, but oh well.
http://mearls.livejournal.com/80639.html (23/02/2005)
Mearls wasn't a lead/core designer on 4e, though. When the original team was in place, he struck me as the most "out there" on the WotC team in terms of opinions on how RPGs work.
Quote from: Peregrin;548622Mearls wasn't a lead/core designer on 4e, though.
But he is on this one...
Quote from: Benoist;548623But he is on this one...
Right. Which means if anything 5e would be tainted by "Forge ideas", not 4e.
But that doesn't seem to be the case so far.
Quote from: StormBringer;548579It is an interesting mechanic, but I don't think simply applying it to combat rolls is very effective on a number of levels. Perhaps a class feature for Fighters, or maybe everyone gets a +4 going into combat (all out beat-down), but subtract the number showing on the escalation die from that as combat wears on and everyone loses energy. So by round 6, everyone is rolling at -2, but the Fighter's natural abilities and class skills should keep them in the positives. Windjammer's suggested changes would also make this a more interesting mechanic overall.
It depends on what you want to model, really.
As fights wear on, people get tired and they make mistakes, especially in a tight melee where you have to be paying full attention, all the time, else you're dead. Representing this as an escalating
penalty makes the characters flail around ineffectually; they make mistakes, but it doesn't really come back to punish them, other than the fight dragging on for longer. It gives you a longer period to think "this hasn't worked, time to back off", and that's perfectly fine.
Then there's the average path - combat continues until one side gives up or is dead... which almost every game does, and that works too.
An escalating bonus from everyone in the fight getting tired, though... now it gets deadly. The characters are making mistakes, absolutely daft bits of footwork, poorly-judged swings, and lapses of concentration, and that's what you can represent with a bonus; your opponents are handing you an advantage. Lethality of the fight goes up, because your opponents are making it easier for you to kill them - not so much at a player level, but at the level the character experiences.
Now, you need some sort of mechanic to represent combat training (Which, in a class-based system, could easily be a class feature - say, combat classes get to nudge the "escalation" one step in their favour, while non-scholarly classes have to nudge it one step worse), and it absolutely has to affect PC's. Now you've got a system with even more weight put on the decision of when and where to fight (And if you need to!), because the "shit got real" step comes around even faster, your "safe" period is shorter. And the reason you'd do it this way, rather than just reducing everyone's hit points, is to make combat more dangerous and unpredictable; afaic, melee combat should be a deadly mess, and the absolute last place anyone sensible would want to be.
Quote from: Peregrin;548625Right. Which means if anything 5e would be tainted by "Forge ideas", not 4e.
Well no, that's where the argument you put forth turns against you: if Mearls wasn't involved in the design of 4e at a core level, it does not follow 4e is or isn't a Forge related game, either way. I'd rather think that Mearls being hired to participate to the development of 4e shows that his ideas, as developed on his blog, pleased someone in WotC enough to give him a shot at it, so while the evidence from his blog isn't telling critically, I think it's an element that tends to show there was at least Forge sympathy at the level of the design.
Anyway, the point is moot IMO. The truth is in the pudding: 4e is very much in compliance with some aspects of the Forge's theory, including focusing on the game as a gamist enterprise with a sprinkling of narrativism to round it all up. It's pretty obvious to me that 4e wouldn't have been what it was without professor bat penis spewing bullshit about brain damage and 'coherent' games a few years prior.
Sprinkling of narrativism? There's not an ounce of narrativism in it.
Also, there was a much better post by Mearls on RPGnet years back where he said he believes D&D defies GNS theory by finding a middle-ground between all the proposed modes of play (I believe it was later than that linked blog post).
Quote from: Peregrin;548632Also, there was a much better post by Mearls on RPGnet years back where he said he believes D&D defies GNS theory by finding a middle-ground between all the proposed modes of play (I believe it was later than that linked blog post).
Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that the rethoric Mearls uses to this day tends to show that he actually conceptualizes game plays and separates them accordingly in a way that is consistent with GNS. And that is wrong at a fundamental level IMO, which is how you get stupid polls that make you choose between being an "Actor caring for story" or a "Storyteller who likes to affect plot" without any regard for actual immersion, which itself gets dumped with "simulationism" which at the core of the theory, has always been a dump site for elements that didn't fit the neat gamist and narritivist categories. This is fundamentally how GNS fails, and how Ron chose to manipulate the model to his advantage, pimping his own brand of "role playing" (story gaming) in the process, btw.
Quote from: Peregrin;548632Sprinkling of narrativism? There's not an ounce of narrativism in it.
Of course not. If there was, then the game would be "incoherent" and that's bad, according to Uncle Ron's cult.
(http://pagels.teamexpansion.org/sqjtaipei/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/kool1.jpg)
Quote from: Peregrin;548632Also, there was a much better post by Mearls on RPGnet years back where he said he believes D&D defies GNS theory by finding a middle-ground between all the proposed modes of play (I believe it was later than that linked blog post).
As Ryan Dancey explained, that was intentional with 3e. At some point after that, they apparently decided that success of overrated and they'd rather write a niche game that caters to a smaller audience. It sure is a lot easier to print and sell 5,000 copies like the more successful Forge-influenced games generally do than 50,000 or 500,000, after all.
How many copies do you think 13th Age is going to sell?
Quote from: Peregrin;548622Mearls wasn't a lead/core designer on 4e, though. When the original team was in place, he struck me as the most "out there" on the WotC team in terms of opinions on how RPGs work.
Can you name me one designer on the team of either 4e or 5e that you think understands or "gets" playing by interpreting the setting and events through the eyes of the player's PC?
ADDED: How about a designer on the team who thinks of themselves primarily as a player and not a GM?
I'm a 'my little pony' in human form!
That, or the God of War's bastard child...or a Star Child made of glitterdust, or a Demon's tear made manifest.
Maybe even Ryan Dancy's love child!
Quote from: One Horse Town;548654Maybe even Ryan Dancy's love child!
I can't see many situations where that would be relevant in a game, to be honest.
Quote from: Ladybird;548657I can't see many situations where that would be relevant in a game, to be honest.
OGL, baby, OGL.
An open license to game!
Quote from: Peregrin;548622Mearls wasn't a lead/core designer on 4e, though. When the original team was in place, he struck me as the most "out there" on the WotC team in terms of opinions on how RPGs work.
I'll have to get back to you - I'd have to look up Races & Classes to see who did what when.
IIRC Rules Compenddium had more complaints on simulationism from another late era 3.5 designer (someone complaining about how their thri-kreen suffocated due to realistic suffocation rules) but again, I don't have an exact quote on me.
While the evidence is circumstantial evidence, I personally doubt any serious game designer - particularly professionals working for WOTC - could have been unaware of Forge concepts given how trendy they were at one point. Look at the finished product and you can believe what you like.
Quote from: One Horse Town;548654I'm a 'my little pony' in human form!
That, or the God of War's bastard child...or a Star Child made of glitterdust, or a Demon's tear made manifest.
Maybe even Ryan Dancy's love child!
You must be one of those people who don't play rpgs. At least that's what certain people on certain forums would have you believe. Trying to decipher the vitriol, but it seems a common message is that people who don't want their 1st level characters to be super snowflake special must not be playing the game with anyone because
obviously that's the point of RPGs and that's how everyone plays.
Of course, these are the same people who say, "I never had any PCs die in editions prior to 4e, so I don't know where this "4e is less lethal" stuff comes from." And then they proceed to describe the " games prior to 4e" with 3e references only.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548671You must be one of those people who don't play rpgs. At least that's what certain people on certain forums would have you believe. Trying to decipher the vitriol, but it seems a common message is that people who don't want their 1st level characters to be super snowflake special must not be playing the game with anyone because obviously that's the point of RPGs and that's how everyone plays.
Of course, these are the same people who say, "I never had any PCs die in editions prior to 4e, so I don't know where this "4e is less lethal" stuff comes from." And then they proceed to describe the " games prior to 4e" with 3e references only.
I don't know of these Ar-Pee-Gees you speak of.
I'm here for the knitting.
Quote from: One Horse Town;548674I don't know of these Ar-Pee-Gees you speak of.
I'm here for the knitting.
When I was in 7th grade, my RPGs were
Rape
Preventative
Glasses
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548676When I was in 7th grade, my RPGs were
Rape
Preventative
Glasses
Harsh school.
Quote from: One Horse Town;548679Harsh school.
You've never heard that term before?
It's from the military, regarding the standard issue glasses you had to wear:
(http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000YorrGHaaZ7A/s/750/750/STACY-L-PEARSALL-052.jpg)
Of course, when I was in 7th grade, I had a pair just like them. They're called "rape preventative glasses" because they make you so ugly you don't have to worry about getting raped.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;548685You've never heard that term before?
It's from the military, regarding the standard issue glasses you had to wear:
Of course, when I was in 7th grade, I had a pair just like them. They're called "rape preventative glasses" because they make you so ugly you don't have to worry about getting raped.
Nope. New to me.
I guess the English version is National Health glasses, but that doesn't have the same zip to it.
I think "Birth Control Glasses" may be more common around here; I'd never heard 'em as "RPGs", only "BCGs" til today.
These character sheets are actually looking pretty nice to me.
I prefer to keep explicitly background/narrative based mechanics out of D&D (but of course they exist, ie pick 'Wizard' at first level and you can safely assume you somehow learned that), so it's cool to see them here in a similar, but separate game. The hooks and flexibility of them seem really nice, and subtle compared to a super-special character that's got another Bigby's Wall of Limited Summon IX memorized.
The main thing I'm not feeling is how stuff like the Fighter's powers activate, having to keep track of rolling an even number for +2 to AC or whatever just seems overly fiddly for such a minor benefit. And what is a Fighter's 'ward'?
QuoteOf course, when I was in 7th grade, I had a pair just like them. They're called "rape preventative glasses" because they make you so ugly you don't have to worry about getting raped.
lulz
Quote from: Ladybird;548626It depends on what you want to model, really.
As fights wear on, people get tired and they make mistakes, especially in a tight melee where you have to be paying full attention, all the time, else you're dead. Representing this as an escalating penalty makes the characters flail around ineffectually; they make mistakes, but it doesn't really come back to punish them, other than the fight dragging on for longer. It gives you a longer period to think "this hasn't worked, time to back off", and that's perfectly fine.
If the penalties apply to defences, later rounds should be pretty lethal. Especially if the monsters don't have the same penalties to hit from the escalation.
QuoteAn escalating bonus from everyone in the fight getting tired, though... now it gets deadly. The characters are making mistakes, absolutely daft bits of footwork, poorly-judged swings, and lapses of concentration, and that's what you can represent with a bonus; your opponents are handing you an advantage. Lethality of the fight goes up, because your opponents are making it easier for you to kill them - not so much at a player level, but at the level the character experiences.
I think I see my previous miscalculation; if the bonus applies to the players' attacks, the monsters will tend to go down faster. I am just not sure that simulates 'escalation' so much as 'let the Wookie win'.
QuoteNow, you need some sort of mechanic to represent combat training (Which, in a class-based system, could easily be a class feature - say, combat classes get to nudge the "escalation" one step in their favour, while non-scholarly classes have to nudge it one step worse), and it absolutely has to affect PC's. Now you've got a system with even more weight put on the decision of when and where to fight (And if you need to!), because the "shit got real" step comes around even faster, your "safe" period is shorter. And the reason you'd do it this way, rather than just reducing everyone's hit points, is to make combat more dangerous and unpredictable; afaic, melee combat should be a deadly mess, and the absolute last place anyone sensible would want to be.
Exactly. That is escalation to me, escalating the
stakes. Make it increasingly dangerous/lethal to press the attack unless you
really really know what you are doing. As in, 'playing the Fighter'. For everyone else, it's like you say: the last place they want to be.
Quote from: VectorSigma;548690I think "Birth Control Glasses" may be more common around here; I'd never heard 'em as "RPGs", only "BCGs" til today.
I am aware of the term 'RPG', but 'BCG' was pretty much the only phrase I ever heard used.
Quote from: One Horse Town;548688Nope. New to me.
I guess the English version is National Health glasses, but that doesn't have the same zip to it.
No one can ever accuse the military for being too PC in its terms ;)
Quote from: John Morrow;548651Of course not. If there was, then the game would be "incoherent" and that's bad, according to Uncle Ron's cult.
My point was if Ben is going to actually talk about why GNS is bad he should at least understand it first.
QuoteAs Ryan Dancey explained, that was intentional with 3e. At some point after that, they apparently decided that success of overrated and they'd rather write a niche game that caters to a smaller audience. It sure is a lot easier to print and sell 5,000 copies like the more successful Forge-influenced games generally do than 50,000 or 500,000, after all.
How many copies do you think 13th Age is going to sell?
I don't know, how many copies of non-D&D or D&D-derived games move these days? If you're not Justin Bieber, you're a nobody in this industry. Regardless of actual talent, very few people can challenge D&D's place (even 'failed' 4e dwarfs most things).
But while I don't know how 13th Age is going to do, I do think that sales of everything, even the larger name brands, will continue to go down. 5e might manage better numbers than 4e for a short time if they market it right, but it will never reach 3e numbers -- 3e was a perfect storm of events, a lot of which had nothing to do with the game itself (LotR movies bringing in newbs, long-timers being fed up with 2e, etc.)
Unfortunately that perfect culturally storm was negatively affected by the buyout of WotC by Hasbro, but I think that has more to do with them cutting Adkinson's attempt to sink money in community-building projects (like the WotC stores) than it does with the redesign of D&D.
QuoteCan you name me one designer on the team of either 4e or 5e that you think understands or "gets" playing by interpreting the setting and events through the eyes of the player's PC?
I don't know, all I can tell you is that as someone who came in with early 3e, the rationale behind 4e didn't strike me as too far from what I observed culturally surrounding 3e play, both in Living Greyhawk and at home games.
Quote from: VectorSigma;548690I think "Birth Control Glasses" may be more common around here; I'd never heard 'em as "RPGs", only "BCGs" til today.
Yep.
Quote from: StormBringer;548700I think I see my previous miscalculation; if the bonus applies to the players' attacks, the monsters will tend to go down faster. I am just not sure that simulates 'escalation' so much as 'let the Wookie win'.
Both sides in the fight should be getting the "opponent tired" bonus, though, not just the players; which means it applies to the monster's attacks, so the players go down quicker too.
QuoteExactly. That is escalation to me, escalating the stakes. Make it increasingly dangerous/lethal to press the attack unless you really really know what you are doing. As in, 'playing the Fighter'. For everyone else, it's like you say: the last place they want to be.
The fighter should definitely be the best at exploiting the escalation mechanic, yeah. But they shouldn't be immune to it, and should still be aware that the front lines are deadly - because they'll be going up against people like themselves.
I guess what I'm arguing for is a deadlier variant of WFRP1.
Quote from: Peregrin;548730My point was if Ben is going to actually talk about why GNS is bad he should at least understand it first.
I don't know, how many copies of non-D&D or D&D-derived games move these days? If you're not Justin Bieber, you're a nobody in this industry. Regardless of actual talent, very few people can challenge D&D's place (even 'failed' 4e dwarfs most things).
But while I don't know how 13th Age is going to do, I do think that sales of everything, even the larger name brands, will continue to go down. 5e might manage better numbers than 4e for a short time if they market it right, but it will never reach 3e numbers -- 3e was a perfect storm of events, a lot of which had nothing to do with the game itself (LotR movies bringing in newbs, long-timers being fed up with 2e, etc.)
Unfortunately that perfect culturally storm was negatively affected by the buyout of WotC by Hasbro, but I think that has more to do with them cutting Adkinson's attempt to sink money in community-building projects (like the WotC stores) than it does with the redesign of D&D.
I don't know, all I can tell you is that as someone who came in with early 3e, the rationale behind 4e didn't strike me as too far from what I observed culturally surrounding 3e play, both in Living Greyhawk and at home games.
I hate having any agreement with you but as a 3e person when you're right you've right.:)
I've now added to my previous post a link to the cheat sheet I used for our 13A campaign. For convenience's sake, I repost the link here:
http://postimage.org/image/4f86cw3nn
This will let you see how monster design in 13A looks like, if fed into 4E formatting (which I adore). I bet 13A monster stat blocks will try hard to look less 4E-like, if the playtest document is any indication (e.g. their insistence to put a lot of salient info OUT of the statblock and into the creature's description).
Quote from: Peregrin;548730I don't know, all I can tell you is that as someone who came in with early 3e, the rationale behind 4e didn't strike me as too far from what I observed culturally surrounding 3e play, both in Living Greyhawk and at home games.
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you were getting at here. Could you elaborate?
Quote from: Ladybird;548780Both sides in the fight should be getting the "opponent tired" bonus, though, not just the players; which means it applies to the monster's attacks, so the players go down quicker too.
That would be about the only way I would do it.
QuoteThe fighter should definitely be the best at exploiting the escalation mechanic, yeah. But they shouldn't be immune to it, and should still be aware that the front lines are deadly - because they'll be going up against people like themselves.
The core is quite intriguing, and I might start fiddling about to make it more interesting mechanically. Give the Fighter some additional fun stuff, give certain monsters extra things to do, and so on.
QuoteI guess what I'm arguing for is a deadlier variant of WFRP1.
Well, looks like you have your solution, then. :)
Quote from: daniel_ream;548842I'm sorry, I don't understand what you were getting at here. Could you elaborate?
Not to speak for Peregrin, but my guess is he's saying "the choices made in implementing 4e make sense as an outgrowth of the play-culture I saw in Living Campaigns with 3e".
Which is something I've heard several people say, actually.
Any sort of tournament/public play is cancer, and the game should not be designed to facilitate such. When we play privately, we play with friends, and we have our own set of house rules, and the DM is given trust as an adjudicator, both to make rulings and change rules as necessary. Public gaming relies on uniform game presentation, which is anathema to role-playing games. The RPGA/Living Whatever requires universal rulings that carry across every single game played in order to make the game "fair" to everyone involved. Because of this, the games require highly-specific rules that offer no leeway for interpretation or alteration.
This is idiocy because such an act attempts to replace the DM with a cold logic processor. In such a game style, there is no room for customization. There is no room to tailor the game to your group. Such gaming conventions push RPGs toward something resembling a videogame, where the players offer input and the DM produces a calculated output. Stupidity.
Quote from: Benoist;548528The only thing I find interesting in all this is the idea of the escalation die.
There's a blog post at Roles, Rules, and Rolls (http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2012/03/high-level-d-combat-general-escalation.html) you may find enlightening.
Quote from: VectorSigma;549027Not to speak for Peregrin, but my guess is he's saying "the choices made in implementing 4e make sense as an outgrowth of the play-culture I saw in Living Campaigns with 3e".
Which is something I've heard several people say, actually.
Vector has the right of it.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I've been doing a lot of overtime at work as I've been managing a migration to a new software system and my brain has been completely fried the last few weeks.
But yeah, as I've said before in other threads in the past, I almost didn't get into RPGs at all. I read the 3e books and was completely enamored by the seemingly endless variety of possibilities, and a want to play a cool character in interesting situations, but I was immediately met with conversations about charop, builds, stupid broken rule combos, with very few people talking about the actual adventures and fantasy. This struck me as completely backwards, and I almost walked away because I just wasn't interested in that sort of stuff (and I have another hobby more suited to that type of play). If it wasn't for a home 3e game a high-school friend ran where we largely ignored the rules, I probably wouldn't be playing any RPGs today (unfortunately many other home games I've played in do emulate the Living campaigns).
The reason 4e interested me so much, and the reason I actually like it more than 3e, is because the mechanics were transparent enough that I could create an extremely good character without investing a ton of my time reading mechanical options, more than half of which I would probably never use in actual play. I could focus more on actually playing and less on what some people find to be lonely fun (and there are still large swaths of people spending more time building characters for d20 based games than actually playing).
4e's still not my choice system, and I'm not sure about 13th Age yet, but I'm willing to give the latter a chance because it may be a nice balance between the things I enjoyed about 4e and other games I like better.
Quote from: MarleycatI hate having any agreement with you but as a 3e person when you're right you've right.
Uh...thanks I guess? :P
I could be wrong (there are a lot of gamers out there I've never played with), but I just speak about what I've witnessed personally.
Quote from: Peregrin;549045Sorry if I wasn't clear, I've been doing a lot of overtime at work as I've been managing a migration to a new software system and my brain has been completely fried the last few weeks.
That's quite all right; head office took my lovely EMC2 SAN away and I've spent the last week kit-bashing together an iSCSI target out of FreeNAS, a handful of 1 TB desktop drives and a five year old DL380 chassis.
QuoteI could focus more on actually playing and less on what some people find to be lonely fun (and there are still large swaths of people spending more time building characters for d20 based games than actually playing).
So the problem then was that 3.x as played in the Living campaigns was dominated by charop taken to an extreme? We didn't have a big Living whatever presence around here at the time so I don't quite know what the culture everyone'e referring to was.
Quote4e's still not my choice system, and I'm not sure about 13th Age yet, but I'm willing to give the latter a chance because it may be a nice balance between the things I enjoyed about 4e and other games I like better.
It's interesting. The escalation die mechanic is fascinating - reminds me a bit of MasterBook's MasterDeck - and I see a fair bit of FATE on those character sheets.
Quote from: daniel_ream;549050So the problem then was that 3.x as played in the Living campaigns was dominated by charop taken to an extreme? We didn't have a big Living whatever presence around here at the time so I don't quite know what the culture everyone'e referring to was.
Living Greyhawk was a strange beast. Partly because it was a mix of normal folks who just wanted to take part in organized play, and those who couldn't, for whatever reason, get (or keep) a home game going.
QuoteIt's interesting. The escalation die mechanic is fascinating - reminds me a bit of MasterBook's MasterDeck - and I see a fair bit of FATE on those character sheets.
I'm a tiny bit optimistic that the kit-bashing will work out, but I'm probably going to wait for the full rules to come about before deciding to put down money.
(Also, I had to Google your first sentence :D -- I'm more of an operations manager than a tech specialist -- I'm mostly handling training and minor tech-work as needed, but that's in addition to my normal routine. Mostly communicating with our different partners and seeing how we can integrate the new stuff with our current accounting procedures and whatnot and making sure their reporting software can do what we need, hire devs and come up with specs for reports they don't have built-in, etc.)
If you want to use the escalation die, it needs to be something more than a bonus on attack/damage rolls, and I think that both sides need to have access to it.
Quote from: Halloween JackI don't really care what direction Wizbros goes with 5th Edition. I'll still be playing the real D&D; it's just called 13th Age now.
:rotfl:
Oh my god that's hilarious.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v198/Melan/BWAHAHAHAHA.jpg)
(http://lfg.hu/chat/skin_default/smilies/demon.gif) I, the Tyrant of Fun, hereby officially declare that funny. (http://lfg.hu/chat/skin_default/smilies/demon.gif)
Quote from: Black Vulmea;549062Quote from: Halloween JackI don't really care what direction Wizbros goes with 5th Edition. I'll still be playing the real D&D; it's just called 13th Age now.
:rotfl:
Oh my God. Did he really post that?
Quote from: Benoist;549072Oh my God. Did he really post that?
Yup (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1939#post404640587).
Looks interesting.
The implied setting and your PC's role in the setting feels very inspired by Birthright and emulates modern fantasy novels like Games of Thrones and Sword of Shannara and Harry Potter where characters are major players on the world stage (or destined to be) from the start of the story.
I'd definitely play a demo at a con.
And I am happy for each gamer to find their own "real D&D"
Quote from: B.T.;549031Any sort of tournament/public play is cancer, and the game should not be designed to facilitate such. When we play privately, we play with friends, and we have our own set of house rules, and the DM is given trust as an adjudicator, both to make rulings and change rules as necessary. Public gaming relies on uniform game presentation, which is anathema to role-playing games. The RPGA/Living Whatever requires universal rulings that carry across every single game played in order to make the game "fair" to everyone involved. Because of this, the games require highly-specific rules that offer no leeway for interpretation or alteration.
This is idiocy because such an act attempts to replace the DM with a cold logic processor. In such a game style, there is no room for customization. There is no room to tailor the game to your group. Such gaming conventions push RPGs toward something resembling a videogame, where the players offer input and the DM produces a calculated output. Stupidity.
This coincides with my experience as well. Something is definitely lost in translation from home games to RPGA/Living X games. The latter leaves me exhausted and wishing I just stayed home playing video games.
Quote from: Benoist;549072Oh my God. Did he really post that?
Pretty sure he was just parodying what people say about Pathfinder though.
"Wizbros isn't getting my money; I'll be playing REAL D&D, which is called PATHFINDER!" etc.
Quote from: StormBringer;548579If it applies to both sides, then you have a mini-game of 'always fighting orcs'.
Depends what the bonuses apply to. If they apply to offense and not defense, and both parties can get the bonus, then combat will feel different as attacks become more dangerous over time.
It's the opposite of the death spiral some games have, where fatigue is modeled, but hurts offense as well as defense. This can cause the pace of late combat to crawl.
Additionally, people are suggesting conditional increases in power. So the rate of increase can be asymmetrical and based on decisions and luck in combat.
So the opposite of always fighting orcs really, in that relative numbers actually change conditionally and asymmetrically.
Not a fan of what I've seen of 13A, just sick of people misusing the "always fighting orcs" meme.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;549074Yup (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1939#post404640587).
(http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001485541/4437636213_where_is_your_god_now_raptor_answer_2_xlarge.jpeg)
Yes, it's an old meme but so, so appropriate here.
Quote from: misterguignol;549108Pretty sure he was just parodying what people say about Pathfinder though.
Yup - the "paizo.txt" in a subsequent post is the tell.
Quote from: misterguignol;549108Pretty sure he was just parodying what people say about Pathfinder though.
"Wizbros isn't getting my money; I'll be playing REAL D&D, which is called PATHFINDER!" etc.
OK. That actually makes more sense.
Quote from: Benoist;549136OK. That actually makes more sense.
Ahh...right, IHBT, gotcha :)
Well played, HJ.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;549074Yup (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3098558&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1939#post404640587).
Just a few posts down, we get this gem from Swagger Dagger:
QuoteQuoteTulip posted:
Play Fiasco with a D&D-esque set.
Definitely try this at least once. The playset for the D&D game is really cool, It's about slaying a dragon and what happens when you go back to the bumfuck nowhere fantasy village you saved and try to get your just rewards.
Clearly, grognards.txt is the holding area for gamers who are
complete fucking morons.
Quote from: beejazz;549111Depends what the bonuses apply to. If they apply to offense and not defense, and both parties can get the bonus, then combat will feel different as attacks become more dangerous over time.
It's the opposite of the death spiral some games have, where fatigue is modeled, but hurts offense as well as defense. This can cause the pace of late combat to crawl.
Additionally, people are suggesting conditional increases in power. So the rate of increase can be asymmetrical and based on decisions and luck in combat.
So the opposite of always fighting orcs really, in that relative numbers actually change conditionally and asymmetrically.
Not a fan of what I've seen of 13A, just sick of people misusing the "always fighting orcs" meme.
Even if hit points don't increase, bumping
all the numbers up does little to actually change things. You can get the same effect by lowering hit points by 30-40%. We'll call it "always fighting orcs while you are tired". :)
Boosting only the offence, on the other hand, that will get things done more quickly, especially if both sides enjoy the same bonuses.
Playing Fiasco D&D sounds like a game I'd only tolerate once, at a party, and only after much cajoling and alcohol. I like the beginning setup of Fiasco, but the rest of it... it really isn't for me. To take it into D&D and make it a comedy of errors with people sharing the speaking stick and getting passive aggressive cliquish and competitive would just rub me the wrong way. Especially because I'd rather just play D&D with a few beers instead.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;549043There's a blog post at Roles, Rules, and Rolls (http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2012/03/high-level-d-combat-general-escalation.html) you may find enlightening.
Yeah, some SA goons almost lynched me for "plagiarizing" their closed-playtest idea with X-ray vision. It was an honest case of convergent evolution, though, after I thought about what would work to speed up high level combats. Probably the biggest divergence between my thinking and theirs is that mine wasn't intended to beef up the party alone, or activate even more special twinkrage-power-ups.
Quote from: Roger the GS;549341Yeah, some SA goons almost lynched me for "plagiarizing" their closed-playtest idea with X-ray vision. It was an honest case of convergent evolution, though, after I thought about what would work to speed up high level combats. Probably the biggest divergence between my thinking and theirs is that mine wasn't intended to beef up the party alone, or activate even more special twinkrage-power-ups.
First, welcome to the adult swim.
Second, fuck the SA twits.
Third, there's really nothing new under the sun.
Quote from: Roger the GS;549341Yeah, some SA goons almost lynched me for "plagiarizing" their closed-playtest idea with X-ray vision. It was an honest case of convergent evolution, though, after I thought about what would work to speed up high level combats. Probably the biggest divergence between my thinking and theirs is that mine wasn't intended to beef up the party alone, or activate even more special twinkrage-power-ups.
Welcome to the RPG Site, Roger! Cool blog post. Hope you stick around!
Quote from: StormBringer;549317Even if hit points don't increase, bumping all the numbers up does little to actually change things. You can get the same effect by lowering hit points by 30-40%. We'll call it "always fighting orcs while you are tired". :)
Boosting only the offence, on the other hand, that will get things done more quickly, especially if both sides enjoy the same bonuses.
I thought we were talking about something that would only apply to attack and damage.
Otherwise disregard the previous comment.
Quote from: Roger the GS;549341Yeah, some SA goons almost lynched me for "plagiarizing" their closed-playtest idea with X-ray vision. It was an honest case of convergent evolution, though, after I thought about what would work to speed up high level combats. Probably the biggest divergence between my thinking and theirs is that mine wasn't intended to beef up the party alone, or activate even more special twinkrage-power-ups.
Yours is the better version, and like Black Vulmea said, fuck SA.
Quote from: beejazz;549413I thought we were talking about something that would only apply to attack and damage.
Otherwise disregard the previous comment.
This method is both the simplest and probably one of the most elegant implementations. I may have touched on other results that could be added on without clarifying I was only spitballing. Without some very lucky rolls in the first few rounds, adding the escalation die to the attacks and damage would be devastating quickly, which is an outcome I would be interested in exploring. +6 to attack and +6 to damage on top of other bonuses might be overwhelming to all but the sturdiest of mid- to high-level characters.
Quote from: VectorSigma;549027Not to speak for Peregrin, but my guess is he's saying "the choices made in implementing 4e make sense as an outgrowth of the play-culture I saw in Living Campaigns with 3e".
Which is something I've heard several people say, actually.
I've often thought/expressed that. And just as I've always found LG to be at odds with my playstyle, 4e seems like a bunch of answers to problems I've never had.
EDIT:
And really, the LG problems are themselves just an outgrowth of the "charop" forums, and 4e an answer to that.
The first post playtest download is now ready. Rob summarizes the changes here (http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=8503) and Adam Dray has more here (http://adam.legendary.org/thoughts/?p=84).
What a load of shit.
RPGPundit
Quote from: PelgraneThe first post playtest download is now ready. Rob summarizes the changes here and Adam Dray talks has more here.
Interesting.
I wonder if, for the first time ever, the official D&D edition will be surpassed by its clones both in quality design and even identity. Because, judging by the previews so far, both The 13th Age and Dungeon World seem much better designed and simply more interesting than "D&D Previous".. oops, I mean "Next". :D
Quote from: Pelgrane;554603The first post playtest download is now ready. Rob summarizes the changes here (http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=8503) and Adam Dray has more here (http://adam.legendary.org/thoughts/?p=84).
Thanks for posting this. Although the changes are specified only cursorily, it is encouraging to read what Rob and Jonathan focused their efforts
on when revising the original document.
Best of luck with the final product. My own prediction (at the moment) would be that 13th Age will likely need a polished re-edition in two or three years from now, once even more feedback from actual play has been collected; I hope Pelgrane Press sticks to the product long enough for that to come about.
Quote from: Windjammer;555592Thanks for posting this. Although the changes are specified only cursorily, it is encouraging to read what Rob and Jonathan focused their efforts on when revising the original document.
Best of luck with the final product. My own prediction (at the moment) would be that 13th Age will likely need a polished re-edition in two or three years from now, once even more feedback from actual play has been collected; I hope Pelgrane Press sticks to the product long enough for that to come about.
It's certainly not going out until it's ready - we aren't in a rush. I've no doubt corrections will gather over the years, and no doubt that we'll do a new edition at some stage, but this will be a polished, finished game when we release it.
We are certainly in this for the long term - commercially it's already successful by our modest standards, and we will support it with quality supplements in the vein of Bookhounds of London, Armitage Files and The Book of the Smoke.
Incidentally, we are after suggestions for supplements if anyone has any.
Quote from: RPGPunditWhat a load of shit.
That was my initial reaction as well. It's been tempered somewhat as certain things came to light, but it's pretty much my final assessment as well. Here's the part that
partially changed my mind:
Quote from: Kele the BirdTURBODRACULA was a mean mean. He was building his character to see if he could make a rogue as a vampiric style thing, and was happy with his results! The 13th age chargen is pretty robust that way. He was as serious a character as anyone else, a robot that stalked the nights drinking blood.
Later he killed my character.
I played the bird elf!
None of us were trolling. It's mean to say so! We were all having a good time, although since we were playtest characters we turned our icon relationships all the way up to 11.
Everything about that is full of fail. But all of
that fail is player-generated fail. Apparently, those character sheets were made by a group of SA "Trad Goons" and the complete over-the-top special snowflakism is because they decided to do that on their own. It's one of those moments when you're trying to RP with twelve year olds and they start asking if their character can marry Optimus Prime or some shit.
So the fact that one of the characters has the equivalent of "the most powerful witch in the setting comes to toilet paper my house on a regular basis because she thinks it's funny" and another character
literally has "used to be a bird" as one of their
skills is not actually the fault of the game. The
game just says "write in some backgrounds" and that particular group of playtesters decided to be a bunch of twats.
Now the problem remains that the core combat engine is shit. It's basically 4e, and 4e's biggest problems are that it is way too fiddly and way too grindy. For the fiddliness issue they... have not addressed it at all. You still have one round buffs that might end at the beginning of your turn, or the beginning of the target's turn, or the end of your next turn, or the end of the target's turn, or at some other time. And all those are subtly but importantly distinct and you will
often be under the effects of two or more minor effects that are roughly the equivalent of a one round +2 bonus to AC or something that will end at different phases in the same turn, forcing you to track all those separate accounting phases and redo the math several times in the round for no perceivable benefit. And for the grindiness, they appear to have basically given up and merely handed out a battle timer that shuffles the enemies off the board when the PC's actual damage output is inevitably insufficient to do the job in a reasonable amount of time.
Certainly not a game that appeals to me in the slightest. But the big horrifying crap at the top of the character sheets where the characters look like lame chosen-one parodies written by pathetic man children is not actually part of the game. It's that those particular playtesters were pathetic man children who thought it would be "funny" to write up all their characters as lame tongue-in-cheek Mary Sues.
-Frank
Quote from: FrankTrollman;556716That was my initial reaction as well. It's been tempered somewhat as certain things came to light, but it's pretty much my final assessment as well. Here's the part that partially changed my mind:
Everything about that is full of fail. But all of that fail is player-generated fail. Apparently, those character sheets were made by a group of SA "Trad Goons" and the complete over-the-top special snowflakism is because they decided to do that on their own. It's one of those moments when you're trying to RP with twelve year olds and they start asking if their character can marry Optimus Prime or some shit.
So the fact that one of the characters has the equivalent of "the most powerful witch in the setting comes to toilet paper my house on a regular basis because she thinks it's funny" and another character literally has "used to be a bird" as one of their skills is not actually the fault of the game. The game just says "write in some backgrounds" and that particular group of playtesters decided to be a bunch of twats.
Now the problem remains that the core combat engine is shit. It's basically 4e, and 4e's biggest problems are that it is way too fiddly and way too grindy. For the fiddliness issue they... have not addressed it at all. You still have one round buffs that might end at the beginning of your turn, or the beginning of the target's turn, or the end of your next turn, or the end of the target's turn, or at some other time. And all those are subtly but importantly distinct and you will often be under the effects of two or more minor effects that are roughly the equivalent of a one round +2 bonus to AC or something that will end at different phases in the same turn, forcing you to track all those separate accounting phases and redo the math several times in the round for no perceivable benefit. And for the grindiness, they appear to have basically given up and merely handed out a battle timer that shuffles the enemies off the board when the PC's actual damage output is inevitably insufficient to do the job in a reasonable amount of time.
Certainly not a game that appeals to me in the slightest. But the big horrifying crap at the top of the character sheets where the characters look like lame chosen-one parodies written by pathetic man children is not actually part of the game. It's that those particular playtesters were pathetic man children who thought it would be "funny" to write up all their characters as lame tongue-in-cheek Mary Sues.
-Frank
Thanks for the analysis but Pundie said it better without making me waste time confirming I'm not stupid in arriving to the same conclusion. Nice to see I actually fully agree with you for once though.:)