The game's just like 4E, Feng Shui, and Rule of Cool's Legend in the sense that there's a lot of minutiae for combat and pretty light everywhere else; which is a fine paradigm for fantasy dust ups but, just like those, I would condense the game even further (mostly because the high end/level complexity just isn't worth it).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1086093I don't agree that 13th Age has "narrative" elements because the "one unique thing" and Icon relationships can be vetoed by the GM. In actual play, the players don't demand their Icon relationship to jump on command. It's the GM who weaves the Icon elements into the adventure (or not). Of course, we'd spend 10 pages trying to hash out what everyone means by "narrative elements" and that discussion always goes to good places.

But san dee jota is right that 13th Age is its own thing. It's not 4e even though you can easily see the 4e roots. The other elements of 13th Age really shine in actual play, far more than on the page. There is no reason to use all 12 Icons. You can easily focus on campaign on the interactions of 4-6 and keep things tighter and most importantly, you can (and should) personalize the Icons to your own campaign.




They thought "build it and they will come" is a real thing. It isn't.

Thus condemned to a small niche.




They certainly marketed the game like a vanity project.

Yes, I got that Vanity Game vibe too; but I believe they thought the disgruntled 4E fans would buy into it in droves.

It turns out; the Core book is now pretty inexpensive used, on Amazon.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1086093I don't agree that 13th Age has "narrative" elements because the "one unique thing" and Icon relationships can be vetoed by the GM. In actual play, the players don't demand their Icon relationship to jump on command. It's the GM who weaves the Icon elements into the adventure (or not). Of course, we'd spend 10 pages trying to hash out what everyone means by "narrative elements" and that discussion always goes to good places.

This is true.  But those elements are in the game.  And they're woven into some of the class descriptions and powers.  They're not presented as an optional add on.

Now they can be dumped.  But they really didn't make it that clear.  I've seen a lot of people asking on the net "can I run this game without the icons?" so clearly it's not obvious to everyone how easily they can be excised.

I don't really care whether they're true narrative mechanics or not.  The point is these elements are likely to have scared off some of the potential audience of the game.  And Tweet and Heinsoo must have known that they might.  If their main concern was just maximising the audience they would have held them back for a GMs' supplement or the like

Quote from: Razor 007;1086106Yes, I got that Vanity Game vibe too; but I believe they thought the disgruntled 4E fans would buy into it in droves.

Maybe.  It's missing a lot of key tactical elements of 4E however.  But maybe they confused the 4E audience with the 4e web presence.

Most of 4E's audience only pops up to discuss distributing/setting up/configuring the tools and then they fuck off. The more vocal elements intrude on what could be normal 4E discussions to blab off character optimization to the point where 4E isn't better off than 3.5E in terms of game balance and also kills what could be a compelling discussion (that grows the 4E player base).

13th Age isn't a tactical RPG. I enjoy 4e for the tactical aspect (which is better far done in the 4e Gamma World box set), but 13th Age is aimed at abstract play - either theater of the mind or using minis without grid consideration.

Quote from: TJS;1086113I've seen a lot of people asking on the net "can I run this game without the icons?" so clearly it's not obvious to everyone how easily they can be excised.

You can run 13th Age without Icons. You can also run OD&D without clerics, but you're chopping out a key component of what makes that game work.

At their core, Icons are just Major NPCs, and regardless of the campaign, you will probably have some Major NPCs. What makes Icons work is how easily you can dump the ones in the book for whatever "Icons" you want for your campaign.

I converted my OD&D campaign to 13th Age and the transformation of my NPCs into Icons was almost effortless.

I don't know why you're telling me these things.  They seem pretty obvious and I certainly never made any claims to the contrary.

I agree they're pretty obvious, but I've been in several 13th Age discussions where GMs didn't want to run the default campaign concept with their default Icons and weren't sure if the game was playable if they went beyond the canon. The most common concern was whether the Icons needed to be spread out among all their players or whether they could just use the Icons chosen by their players or whether the GM had any say in Icon choice for their campaign.  

Not much different than threads where people are confused about Traveller campaigns without Jump drives. Plenty of gamers out there aren't comfortable with customization beyond the RAW and need some assistance.

Quote from: Spinachcat;108619113th Age isn't a tactical RPG. I enjoy 4e for the tactical aspect (which is better far done in the 4e Gamma World box set), but 13th Age is aimed at abstract play - either theater of the mind or using minis without grid consideration.

Yeah, I'm not getting much of a 4E vibe from reading the SRD. Maybe I just haven't come to it yet. Instead, 13th Age seems very New School to me. The Icons scream out "GM has a story! How does your character fit in?" rather than the Old School idea of "story is what happened."

Also, the pages on One Individual Thing border on collaborative world-building. There are all sorts of examples with stuff like "My character was the greatest double-mace fighter of the Red Suns guild before it was wiped out" and it goes down the quantum road of "Now there are double maces, when previously they did not exist" and "Now there is a Red Suns guild: who were they, and how were they wiped out?"

Not that any of that is bad, per se, rather I don't see the 4E influence. More like Fate, actually.

Quote from: Aglondir;1086273Yeah, I'm not getting much of a 4E vibe from reading the SRD. Maybe I just haven't come to it yet. Instead, 13th Age seems very New School to me. The Icons scream out "GM has a story! How does your character fit in?" rather than the Old School idea of "story is what happened."

It's really neither of those things.  The whole point of the Icons is to limit the ability of the GM to have a story.  They force the GM to improvise to fit them in.  Or at least they do in at least one of the ways they're written in the book.  In other places they don't really, because they can never make up their mind in the book itself about how much they want to push them.

But if you're using the icons the main way they seem to intend them to be used then any pre-existing plot is going to be vague.  For example I might have an idea that there's a villain in the next session and he's going to do a certain action, but not who the villain is or what his actual motivations are because that will come when the Icon dice are rolled at the start of the session.

The way it's presented is all quite vague and confusing really.  It seems to be empowering the players somewhat by taking some of the powers out of the hands of the GM, but really it's empowering the dice.  It could be seen as empowering the players because they chose their particular relationships with the icons, therefore if the dice roll up an obligation and a benefit from the Great Gold Wyrm then it feels less like a railroad if they give you a mission...maybe.  (This assumes the player was particularly interested in any of the icons and didn't just pick the relationships because the game says you need to have them - there's a bit of "you can have any colour you like here as long as it's black" here.)

On the other hand they do have some of the fun of rolling on a table except on a larger scale.  As a GM being forced to improvise is a lot of fun.

But basically the designers seem to feel that in the Icons they have a killer solution.  It's just that they don't seem to be all that clear about what the problem is.

Quote from: Aglondir;1086273Yeah, I'm not getting much of a 4E vibe from reading the SRD. Maybe I just haven't come to it yet.

For me, the 4e vibe is with the character classes and how their powers work. And I just looked at the SRD and I get why it would be more obvious from the presentation in the book vs. how the SRD is laid out.

Quote from: Aglondir;1086273Instead, 13th Age seems very New School to me. The Icons scream out "GM has a story! How does your character fit in?" rather than the Old School idea of "story is what happened."

I'm an Old Skool GM and the Icons never got in my way. Like TJS said, the Icon rules do cause GMs to improvise on the fly. AKA, the random rolls determine if a particular Icon may intervene in some unspecified manner with a particular character in this adventure. If anything, the Icon random appearance would throw off prepared story.

For instance, I had planned the "innocent merchant attacked on the road by evil bandits" scene, but in reality the merchants had poisoned a village, and the "bandits" were the survivors coming for revenge. After the Icon rolls, I needed to incorporate 2 Icons into the adventure. One of the PCs was a loyal retainer of the Dwarf King, but who was framed for treason and now was on the run seeking to clear his name. The other PC with the Icon roll for the adventure was the Crusader, who is the warlord of evil gods who fights daemons. So I made the merchant a Dwarf flying the banner of the Dwarf King and the angry villagers had sworn themselves to the Crusader and were given the tools of war to take revenge. None of the decisions were made by the players. The dice rolled and I adjudicated.

Quote from: Aglondir;1086273Also, the pages on One Individual Thing border on collaborative world-building. There are all sorts of examples with stuff like "My character was the greatest double-mace fighter of the Red Suns guild before it was wiped out" and it goes down the quantum road of "Now there are double maces, when previously they did not exist" and "Now there is a Red Suns guild: who were they, and how were they wiped out?"

Collaborative world-building was discussed in the Dragon during the TSR days. It's not a new idea, but "New School" games bake it into the rules. We did it all the time back in the 70s in junior high and beyond. "My wizard always wears a sword. It's got his soul in it." or "My dwarf comes from a fortress like Moria where they have to fight demons coming from the dungeon underneath and orcs at the top gates."

But you're right that "One Unique Thing" does often cause cascading ripples throughout a campaign. That's why its important for GM's to use their veto, or better, suggest changes to the concept so it doesn't throw your campaign out of whack. My problem with the concept would be "greatest double mace fighter" which assumes mechanical benefits. I would go with "My character was destined to be...." and then its up to the PC to pursue (or not) becoming the badass double mace dude. I'd attach the Red Suns somehow to the PC's Icon choices and go from there.

Quote from: TJS;1086299But if you're using the icons the main way they seem to intend them to be used then any pre-existing plot is going to be vague.  For example I might have an idea that there's a villain in the next session and he's going to do a certain action, but not who the villain is or what his actual motivations are because that will come when the Icon dice are rolled at the start of the session.

I prefer to have the PCs roll their dice at the END of this session so I can weave their Icon stuff into the next game. Also, it was fun way to "foreshadow" who might be important for next week's episode.

Improvising is fun, but I don't want to start the game, roll dice, stop the game for 15 minutes while I tailor stuff, then begin the game.

Quote from: Aglondir;1086273But basically the designers seem to feel that in the Icons they have a killer solution.  It's just that they don't seem to be all that clear about what the problem is.

Agreed.

I suspect "the problem" they sought to solve was how RPG settings are full of major NPCs, but the PCs often have no relationships to them, especially at chargen. Also, for their published adventures, the Icons add a layer of "personalizing" the events to the PCs at the table. I also suspect its based on complaints from the RPGA and Living Forgotten Realms community about their PC's action not feeling "important" to the overall storyline. The Icons "fix" that somewhat.

Quote from: TJS;1086299...because that will come when the Icon dice are rolled at the start of the session.

I missed the part about rolling dice, which changes a lot. I need to read through a copy of this. Interesting ideas + 4E's mechanical soundness could be a good mix.

Quote from: SpinachcatI prefer to have the PCs roll their dice at the END of this session so I can weave their Icon stuff into the next game.

A much better idea. If I ever run it, I'm going to steal that.

Quote from: Aglondir;1086336A much better idea. If I ever run it, I'm going to steal that.

It's actually buried somewhere in the core book as an option.

I actually prefer not to use it - because I find if I don't know what the Icon rolls are going to be it forces my to make my prep a lot more open with a focus on location and structure rather than plot.

Plus I lose the fun of the unexpected.

One interesting way to approach icons, if homebrewing, is to set up icons that are all potentially ambiguous and then let the players swing them one way or another depending on how they create their characters and choose their relationships.

For example: say one of the icons is the High Inquisitor, I can leave it undetermined exactly what this says about the inquisition.  The inquisition could be a bunch of bloodthirsty fanatics who burn innocents at the merest mention of sorcery.  But they could also me a much mistrusted group of people who really are dedicated in hunting down a genuine demonic threat and generally investigate thoroughly before taking action.

TJS, how did you deal with converting NPCs and even related monsters? That's the part of the improv that didn't work nicely for me and why I preferred to know the Icon rolls the previous week so I could tailor the adventure more specifically to the Icons and character relationships involved. AKA, my NPC choices are different if the Lich King vs. the Elf Queen or the 3 Dragons show up to cause a ruckus.

But I agree there's a certain fun to at-the-table improv when the Icon dice fly.