D&D Next Will Be The Most Expensive Edition Yet

…and it might just save the brand from a slow and ignoble death. 

 

First, before I start editorializing, some quotes from the horse’s mouth, lifted from the ENWorld 5E Info Page.

“The new edition is being conceived of as a modular, flexible system, easily customized to individual preferences. Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset. He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules.”–Mike Mearls

This tells me that while the new edition’s ruleset may START very basic and simple, there will be a lot of rules additions as the years (hopefully more than 4) of D&D Next’s life-cycle progress.

“Now imagine that the game offered you modular, optional add-ons that allow you to create the character you want to play while letting the Dungeon Master create the game he or she wants to run. Like simple rules for your story-driven game? You’re good to go. Like tactical combats and complex encounters? You can have that too. Like ultra-customized character creation? It’s all there.”–Monte Cook

Again– modular rules, MORE rules, and optional additions that can be added to your game with possible ease.

“”Players can pick their own style and complexity within a class. Think of it kind of like having a $10 budget to spend on lunch. Some people will go to a restaurant and buy a $10 lunch special. Someone else might spend that $10 by ordering a few different things off the menu, rather than a special. Someone else might take that $10 and go to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients for a recipe they like. The idea is to put everyone on the same scale, but then allow people to burrow into the level of detail they want. DMs have a similar process they can go through, adding optional rules to flesh out their campaigns. Those options can range from creating a unique list of races or classes for a setting, to adding in special rules for things like managing a kingdom or waging a war.”–Mike Mearls

And again, reinforcing my point that the rules are going to start out simple and focused–likely with a box set or starter package–and then as time goes on, more and more…and MORE rules are going to be added. And how do we get the rules content for D&D?

BOOKS.  Lots, and lots and LOTS of books. 

 

What This Means For Your Game

...now just image all these books being from the same edition...and compatible with each other...

In a very literal way, the core design of 5E seems to be intentionally designed additions to the ruleset. To put it another way, they are putting “rules bloat” in a different package and re-marketing it as a good thing. And by saying in the playtest, design-and-change phase and saying it as loudly and as up-front as possible, they have the marketing of saying “Hey, all these other rulebooks are Modules. They’re completely optional. Don’t buy them, don’t use them if you don’t want to.”

What does this mean? It means that we are going to see a MASSIVE amount of books put out for this edition over a long, LONG period of time. Each discrete addition to the rules– which I’ll call a Module– can be its own book, and have its own place in the release schedule. We joked in 4th Edition about how nobody would buy the “Complete Fighter” anymore, but you know what? If you include more RULES for the fighter in that book, we will, because the player who wants the fighter rules will buy the fighter book–and the GM then wants to keep up with the player of the fighter.

From a marketing and profit standpoint, this is pure freaking genius. By specifically saying that all the Modules are optional and allowing PLAYERS to customize their characters regardless of what the GM’s preferred complexity may be, SUDDENLY PLAYERS ARE BUYING LOTS OF GAME BOOKS. Typically, the vast majority of people buying game books are the guys running the game– a lot of groups only have one or two sets of core books that the GM has been the one to pony up for.

If modular rules means that suddenly a player can pick the rules he wants his character to play by, that puts the onus of responsibility for his “rules happiness” on the player, not the GM who might have the rulebook and allow/disallow stuff in it. As far as sales goes, this is an unbelievably smart idea, because then the GM wants to have that same book to make sure he knows the rules that his player wants to use. That’s TWO copies of the same book, likely in the same gaming group. Profit for sure.

Then multiply that concept and let it get exponential.

Psionics? Module.

Elemental Power? Module.

Complete Fighter (2E title)? Module.

Heroes of Battle (war rules, 3.x title)? Module.

Story-based rules in the Vein of FATE or Mouse Guard? Module.

Adventures? Not a module in the rules-sense, but still a viable profit source. And if they are smart, they’ll produce rules-compatible versions of all the old materials from previous editions, too. Not as books, but as .pdfs.

Heroes of Shadow, Adventurer’s Vault, Complete (Race, Class, Villain, etc), Spell Compendium, Arms & Equipment Guide, Martial Power, Ghostwalk, Magic of Incarnum… the list of Modules for previous editions goes on an on. But instead of just putting out rules and letting the books “float”, I think we’ll see bits and pieces of rules in all these books, thus putting incentive on the player to buy the rules he wants to use for his character, and also on the GM to buy the books to keep up with his players.

In a very real way, it might bring back the days of 3.X when a player buys a splatbook from a 3PP and brought it to his GM saying, “I just bought this book and now I want to use it in your game.”– which was the one thing (other than taking 3hrs and a calculus degree to build high level characters and monsters) that I absolutely, positively, DESPISED about 3.X. Suddenly the GM feels pressured by the player to allow these rules that he may not like or want in his game, just because the player bought the book.

However, by building the game from the ground up as a series of optional, modular rules, the GM can feel vastly less pressure that he MUST use the rules because the player bought them. I like both aspects of that– I can use as much complexity as I want, the players can do so as well with my approval, and I’m not being guilted into doing something I don’t want to for my game because the players have the EXPLICIT declaration that all rules modules are 100% Optional and must be approved by GM before use.

What This Means For Your Wallet

I predict that we're going to need a lot of this to keep up with the rules for D&D Next.

I foresee a LOT of books coming out for D&D Next. I see smaller, individual books for each niche ruleset that they decide they want to support. And people are going to buy them, for lots of reasons… and I will likely buy nearly all of them because I’m a hardcore geek and a collector (like a lot of you reading this right now).

In fact, I can see so many products coming out that WotC devises a Subscription system in emulation of Paizo. That means an ensured, sustainable flow of incoming cash– both from the modules and DDI in whatever format that get implemented as. In addition, I’m sure that Wizards will continue making tiles, maps, miniatures and other sale-able items. They’re profit centers, and the company wants to make money, period.

I also think that this means WotC is setting up D&D Next to be “the” edition for at least the next decade. Think about it– WotC did the same thing with the 4E, with the basic books coming out first and all the expansions after that. THIS IS THE EXACT SAME THING WITH DIFFERENT MARKETING. But this time I think it’s going to work far, far better because it appears that they have learned from their competitors and from the 4E marketing debacle. If they produce a solid, likeable Core ruleset that appeals to lots of people, they can continue to pump out Modules (which we used to call splatbooks) at the rate of one a month ad infinitum, because not everybody will be buying everything, but by making the Modules explicitly optional, it ensures that lots of people will be buying just about everything they put out, because they can tap a different niche market for the rules with every Module put out. And some idiots like me will buy pretty much everything simply because it’s D&D, and I love the game and want to support my hobby.

All in all, my prediction is that D&D Next will hit our wallets harder than previous editions. However, I think that the investment will take place over a long period of time– hopefully a decade or more. If WotC does this right, they will have a cash cow that they can put out Modules for and keep milking that cow for a long, long time. And to me, that means that my favorite hobby and one of the things I love to do most in the world will ALSO be a living, breathing, viable game for a long, long time.

 

New Brittanis Campaign Video!

So… I’ve been stuck here at Camp [REDACTED] for almost seven weeks now. I thought I was going to be here for a few days, teaching Soldiers and then head back to my home base and the Bagram Gaming Community. That obviously hasn’t happened. Because I’ve been stuck out here, I haven’t been able to game at all. Which sucks. A lot. I miss my friends, and I miss running my game.

It has, however, left me with a great deal of free time that I would otherwise have been using to prep for Gold Team (Saturday) and Red Team (Sunday). In that time, I decided to indulge in one of my favorite past-times–mashup video editing. I have done this a couple of times before, with the History of Brittanis video as well as the Tales of Brittanis Teaser Video.

This time, I’ve kicked things up a notch. I decided to do a full Campaign Trailer, including plot elements for the game, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Take a look! In the video you’ll find elements of the Brittanis-spanning Kairn Invasion, the machinations of some sinister hand in the north, maneuvering nations to go to war, and an all-new campaign revelation that not even my players know about yet!! All three videos are uploaded to Vimeo here.

Brittanis Trailer II from Jason Dawson on Vimeo.

Best Blogs: Old Guy Gaming

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I think today is a good time to start this back up again. I’m in the habit of poking through the archives of anyone who comments on my blog. It’s a great way to get new ideas, see what ideas of mine might pop up elsewhere through simultaneous generation, that kind of thing.

Find this picture on Mike's Blog and click it. Really. You wanna.

 

Okay, here’s the truth: I borrow and steal damn near everything for my games, and this is a great way to find new stuff to YOINK for use in my own games. So when Mike Summers of Old Guy Gaming commented on my two posts 5E Wishlist and 5 Things NOT to do in 5E, I decided to poke about his archives and see what there was to steal. And OH MAN is there ever a lot of great information in this guy’s brain to steal. His writing is clean and concise, and he’s WAY more of a math guy than I will ever be, so his posts take a very crunchy, numbers-oriented slant that I find very appealing to me specifically because it’s such a different mindset from my own.

He’s definitely an OSR kinda guy, but early on in his archives it shows that he really did try the 4E system and found it wasn’t his cup o’tea. I have great respect for that, and for the rest of his insights, so I’m posting a list of the stuff I found today that I think is really neat on his blog. Take a look– you will NOT be disappointed, regardless of what edition you play.

• Realistic Coastlines Revisited– this is a revision of Old Guy’s Cartographer Guild Award-Winning Post. If you’re a digital map guy like me, this is great stuff. Has a tutorial for both Photoshop *AND* GIMP.
• Temperature & Climate– a great post on how to craft a quick & easy weather baseline for your fantasy game. Again– WAY more numbers heavy than I would do myself, but I’m more than happy to utilize his work and then tell folks about it.
• Where Do You Put Your Gold? — this is a LONG, detailed post about the various ways that adventurers can keep their hard-earned shinies safe and useful in between adventures. There are also a lot of ideas on how to turn the adventurer’s treasure INTO adventures if you read between the lines in this post.
• Dumb Things We’ve Done– if you’ve played any of the older versions or retroclones, you’ll laugh because you’ve done these things. If you started your gaming career with 3.0 or later, you’ll laugh because folks used to do these things. Either way, it’s funny ‘cuz it’s true.
• Remember that number-crunching I mentioned? Yeah. In Gems, Mike analyzes the little shiny treasure pieces down to identifying how many come in a pound for encumbrance purposes and much more. He does the same for coins in How Big Is A Coin, and statues in How Much Does a Statue Weigh? I’ve never beenbig on encumberance rules, but these might lean me that direction.
• Mike talks about the evolution of coin values in 1E, 2E, 3.x, and 4E in Currency. He also analyzes E. Gary Gygax’s own coinage in the Greyhawk world as well. I’ve been considering changing coinage and item values for a long time. This post will likely be the basis for that.
• Design Considerations For My Starting Area is a great, ground-level post about Mike building his campaign world, or a section of it. Really neat to see the mind at work here.
• Decide What Services Are Available– one of the things that both 3.X and 4E took away–in my opinion– was the “rest stop” in between adventures or mid-adventure as a roleplaying possibility all its own. By putting all the info in the player’s hands, it took a lot of the mystery and wonder and interesting stuff a GM could do with it out of the picture. Mike does a great job of talking about how to make the shopping experience and interaction more interesting here.
• In what is possibly my favorite post on his blog, Mike makes a simple statement: The Character Is Not The Center Of The Universe, and the backs it up with a lot of solid thinking. This is one of the things that I hope the new edition addresses– level-specific encounters all day long, every day just aren’t realistic, even following the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, and they will get boring after a while. Mike addresses this topin in a clear, succinct way. I like it a lot.

 

In case you couldn’t tell, I really like Old Guy Gaming. Mike’s got a great site and a lot of good things to say from DMing experience that goes back to the oldest iterations of our hobby. Check him out. You won’t be disappointed.

5 Issues from 4E to NOT Include in D&D Next

This is my second  (and last) post about D&D Next before we get more information about the playtests, etc. I am by no means a “4E iz teh best D&D EVAR!!” junike– no system is perfect, and the vast majority of GMs out there are rules-tweakers by our very nature. So, to accompany my list of things 4E got right that I think should be kept for the next edition, here are my list of things from 4E D&D that in my opinion need to be changed or gotten rid of entirely.

5) Skill Challenges. I really am of two minds when it comes to skill challenges. I really like the idea that the attempt was made to codify and award XP to the PCs for what would have been “pure roleplaying” encounters– I see that the attempt was made to put rules in effect that give the characters solid, tangible rewards for NOT just killing things and taking their stuff. After all, the players are going to do more of what the system rewards them for–and D&D regardless of edition has always rewarded “kill the monsters and take their stuff” more than anything else. I think, however, that the system was rather ham-handed and needs serious revision. I think a set of GUIDELINES in the D&D5 DMG should read something like, “you should mix encounter types as much as possible, so that combat, NPC interaction and skill-based sequences are all represented.” and then give give guideline to the DM on how to award XP for skill based situations–like a chase sequence, for example. I do NOT think that the “always fail the skill challenge after 3 failures” hard-coding does anybody any good. All it does is stifle the GMs creativity by giving the players a set of expectations they can always see through. Rather like #4 in my past post (monster abilities), the less the players can predict whats going to happen, the more wonder and mystery there is in the game. I like the fact that the rules EXPLICITLY reward other types of encounters than combat– I just think they need to find another way of codifying those rules to give the GM more freedom.

#4) Conditions. I think that the conditions/status effects of 4E are ALMOST there. I like the variety of bad things that can happen to a character. I think that using keywords for all of the effects is a BEAUTIFUL thing, because you can mix and match easily and there is a hierarchy of effects so that GMs can build their own nasties in a simple way. However, I think that action-denying status effects (daze and stun) should be replaced in the way that a multitude of bloggers have already mentioned– heavy penalties instead of total “sit this round out, chump” denial. I actually LIKE the dominated condition, but I think it should be explicit i the rules that the player gets to make the attack rolls and such. I also think that instead of purely negative status, defining powers and abilities could be simplified by creation of POSITIVE status effects. Blessed, fast, defensive, strong, keen, etc could all be codified as positive status effects that abilities can place on a character, monster, or NPC. Just a thought. But the pure action-denial effects gotta go– and PLEASE keep save-or-die effects out. Please. Bringing them back wold be a major step backwards.

#3) Wizards. This is a remarkably specific gripe, but I’m really talking about overall product strategy. Wizards have gotten some kind of nifty bennie in just about every book published for 4E. There has been SOME kind of Wizard feat, or powers they can take, or Implements or something that Wizard classes, powers, subclasses, abilities, and items have dominated the product lines of 4E. I’m not a Wizard player, per se, and neither have most of my players been over the lifespan of 4E. Wizards have gotten so much “love” that could have been spread around to the Invoker, Artificer, Avenger, Shaman… the list goes on. If you’re going to add a major component to the game (like a full class, for instance), for heaven’s sake SUPPORT IT. Support all of your babies, not just Wizards.

#2) Analysis Paralysis. In my wishlist post, I commented that I want melee character to be able to do something more than just “I hit it with my sword”. That is one of the primary things I love most about 4E– everybody at the table gets to DO SOMETHING pretty much every round to contribute, and it’s not the same exact thing every round. I think I’m going to write an entire blog post about that, in fact. However, once you hit about 7th level in 4E,  the number of options begins to become massive–especially when you add in magic item powers. I am ALL for customization–don’t get me wrong– but the number of options a player has to go through before making an action choice in 4E can get astounding. 3E wasn’t any better, when you get right down to it: lots of feats ended up being their own tiny ruleset and giving a character another ability to sort through in order to decide what to do. I think streamlining the character options and what abilities a character can do will go a long way to making the game itself play much faster–on every level.

#1) MAGIC ITEMS. This gripe goes back to 3.X. I’m not just talking about 4E. Simply put, MAGIC ITEMS SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY FOR A CHARACTER TO SUCCEED/SURVIVE. I want a high-level character to be able to have ONE, maybe TWO cool, signature magic items and the rest of their equipment be mundane. In historical and fantasy literature, the hero of the story has only a couple magic items to their name, and those items are powerful, mysterious, and often dangerous– and they are important enough that the items themselves become part of the plot. The most “decked out” character from historical myth I can think of is King Arthur– he had a magic sword (sometimes two, depending on legend), scabbard, and shield. Some stories give him a boat and spear, but the majority of the stories only cover the sword. Basically, I want the core rules to assume a lower magic item threshold than the last two editions; under no circumstances should a character be REQUIRED to have magic items in order to succeed. “Selecting your Magic Items” should not be part of the character creation process. Ever. The “Christmas Tree” effect from 3.X and the “Weapliment, Armor, Neck” effect from 4E NEED TO GO. And don’t even get me started on Player Wish Lists…

So there’s 5 things from 4E that I think really need to change/be modified for the upcoming edition of Dungeons and Dragons. I hope they solve these, and I hope that the community itself can come back together and play the game we all love– together.

The Action Point’s 5E Wishlist

I’m sure the gaming interwebs are ridiculously full of shrieking and howling regarding the announced D&D 5e, but I want put up, for posterity, the things about 4E that I like and the things I hope WotC either goes back to or puts int he upcoming edition.

5) Stay away from “I hit it with my sword. I hit it again. I hit it again.” One of the things I love most about 4E is that it has gotten away from the boringness of melee characters–especially at high level. The AEDU power structure might not be perfect–or even particularly elegant, really– but what it does do very well is give everybody a chance to do something cool and contribute to the fight every round. Even the At-Will powers tend to be something decent besides just dealing damage. As a guy who really likes playing melee characters, this is a godsend. Keep it.

4) Monster Ability Mashup. One of the things that I loved about AD&D but loathed about 3.X is that once an experienced player memorized the monster subtypes and some of the more common spell descriptions, the mystery factor in most monsters just went out the window. If you know that demons have these inherent abilities and those resistances and that they usually come able to use these spells… well a lot of the fear of monsters and/or the “oh, wow– it did WHAT?” factor totally disappears. Each monster in 4E has a discrete, easily-read set of abilities and swapping them from one to another is SUPER easy. The monster building utilities have done the same thing in making monsters easy to build and easy to use. Keep that modularity and that the monsters are UNIQUE, and effectively unknowable. And the unknown is SCARY. Monsters shouldn’t play by the same rules as a PC. They’re onscreen for a microsecond in comparison, and don’t need to be that complex– or that predictable.

3) Keep D&D Encounters and Lair Assault. I think that with the flagging sales of 4E, the Organized Play of 4E is one of the biggest draws for it. Being able to sit down with a known rule set and pick up dice and learn to play in less than an hour is beautiful, and I think ‘its in this arena that 4E really shines. I also think that if they have a “walk in and try it” way of doing things at the beginning of 5E, they might attract a lot more sales for it as well.

2) OGL or Bust. There’s been a lot–and I mean a LOT– of talk about Pathfinder outselling 4E, and I think there’s some merit in that, but I do not think that the ruleset alone is the cause. Simply put, Pathfinder is a clone of a system with some very ugly flaws that does a little bit to correct them, but not really enough. The main selling point of Pathfinder is twofold. First, the adventures and setting material put out for it are utterly top-notch. This, however, is kind of the rub– most people who want to play in Golarion  buy the PF rulebooks because they want to play in Golarion, not because they really like the PF rules. It’s a case of correlation not being the same thing as causation. Golarion and the setting material–especially adventures– put out by Paizo are utterly without peer, and most gamers will buy and play the ruleset because they want to use those materials and don’t want to convert. Second, the OGL means that anybody who wants to play in their own sandbox or make their own game and home publish or use something similar or look around for 3PP items is going to use Pathfinder because it’s the only thing out there. I really truly believe that if 4E had been OGL instead of the crap-and-broken GSL, we wouldn’t be seeing 5E on the horizon for another 5 years or so. If 5E has any semblance of backwards-compatibility, it MUST be under the OGL. Period, end of story. If 5E is not OGL, it will be the last version of D&D that WotC will ever make, mark my words. Without the 3PP and Open Community support, it will do what 4E has done and be good, but not GREAT because all the awesome fan ideas will go elsewhere–like Pathfinder.

1) DMs Got Their Lives Back. When 4E came out, one of the things I IMMEDIATELY noticed was that, along with #4 above, the Encounter building setup made DM prep so much easier than 3.x or AD&D. The first time I built an adventure–not an encounter, mind you, an entire ADVENTURE– in less than the time it took me to create a single monster using monster subtypes, hit dice, templates and class levels in 3.X… I think I literally sat down in my chair and laughed hysterically until I cried a little. The burden of encounter building and adventure creation in 4E is so drastically much less than it has been in previous editions that it’s almost absurd. The time I have saved in preparing encounters for 4E is, quite literally, what allows me to have the time to write this blog. Otherwise I’d be bogged up in the math of previous editions and doing college algebra in order to make monsters with accurate, by-the-rules numbers. Switching to 4E literally gave me a huge chunk of my life back, and because of that, this is my biggest requirement for the new edition. If the GM prep time for 5E goes back to what it was… I don’t think I can justify playing it. I have a fiancee, and a soon-to-be stepson and my biological son who I could better devote that time to. This is my single most important factor in grading the new edition. I hope it lives up.

What things do you want to see in 5E? I know you’ve got an opinion.

Brittanis Iconics: Berek of Mordengaard

[This post is part of a series. I've always loved Paizo's iconic characters-- the "default" pre-generated characters for their Pathfinder world of Golarion. So I'm doing the same for Brittanis. Characters who embody the tone, theme, and feel of the world to be played  to help inspire those building Brittanis characters of their own.]

Berek of Mordengaard

Berek of Mordengaard, played by Ray Winstone

Nothing has ever come easy for the half-dwarf named Berek. Born to a human father and dwarven mother in the border town of Eboracum, Berek learned early on the value of consistent, hard work and dogged determination that he carries with him into his adventuring career.  Berek sees himself like iron in the forge, and is deliberately putting himself in the fire so that he might be transformed into a sharp, steel weapon to strike back at the enemies of his people.

Both of Berek’s parents are metalsmiths, and he was swinging a hammer at the anvil almost as soon as he could hold it. Berek’s father is a human goldsmith and jeweler, and from him Berek learned the pride that comes in paying attention to the smallest detail and accompishing a difficult and time-consuming task. Berek’s mother is a Free Dwarf weaponsmith from the kingdom of Mordengaard; stubborn and prideful, his mother was brought to Eboracum as a refugee after the Iron Dwarves took over the ancient dwarven homeland. She grew up in the Free Dwarf enclave in Eboracum, learning the stories and skills of her ancestors; she passed these stories and skills onto her half-dwarven son, and Berek was raised listening to the epic poems and songs of his long-lost homeland.

As a half-dwarf, Berek took to the hard, physical work of the family business easily, and he particularly excelled at crafting the geometric forms of the ancient dwarven styles of craftsmanship. Berek traded his skill at the forge for weapons training, and it was not long before he was as adept at using the weapons of his ancestors as he was at making them. Then one cold winter morning, a clan elder of the Free Dwarf enclave in Eboracum came to him with a request to forge a very special weapon, and Berek’s life changed forever.

Berek had grown up at his mother’s knee, listening to the hero-poems and ancient sagas of the dwarven empire of Mordengaard, and when the clan elder told Berek that he would be crafting a waraxe in commemoration of one of those very heroes, he jumped at the chance. The clan elder joined Berek for the forging process, singing ancient songs of power and inscribing mighty runes that Berek had never seen on the weapon itself.

Berek lost himself in the creation of the mighty weapon. He felt as if another pair of hands guided every strike of the forge-hammer, and he saw visions in his mind of ancient halls carved from the mountainside and heard the spirits of his dwarven forebears speak into his soul. A voice spoke into his spirit, old as the stones and as powerful as a volcano, and Berek answered the call without the slightest hesitation. When the weapon was finished, Berek laid his hammer down and asked the clan elder to teach him about Ghorn, the god of fire and craftsmanship–and patron of the lost kingdom of Mordengaard.

Berek spent the next three years studying the divine prayers and magics of the people of Mordengaard, and the ways of Ghorn the Godsmith– he became skilled in dwarven magic, dwarven weapons, and dwarven lore. He studied harder and longer than many of his peers, and quickly proved himself to be both both wise and strong in the ways of the Old Fathers of Mordengaard.

Berek had seen his destiny in the forge-fires, and knew that Ghorn had selected him as an emissary of the Free Dwarves to the people of Brittanis. Berek also knew that, like the iron made red-hot in the fires of the forge, he was not yet ready to face his full destiny. His purpose was clear– unite the Free Dwarves and any allies he could muster, and take back Mordengaard from the evil, corrupt Iron Dwarves who had slaughtered the last King of Mordengaard and turned his mother’s people into exiles.

Despite his half-breed heritage, Berek has flung himself into his quest with all the tenacity that half-dwarves are known for. The clan elder who began his training gave him the title “of Mordengaard” when he set out upon his journey, and now Berek seeks able adventurers to join him. He knows that the road is long before him, and that he has to gather allies and grow in strength before he can hope to defeat the Iron Dwarves and their infernal magics. But someday, when Ghorn tells him he is strong enough, Berek of Mordengaard will turn his steps towards the gates of Ironhall… and only the gods will be able to stop him from lighting the forges of Mordengaard once again.

Berek of Mordengaard, level 1 Mul Warpriest
Born of Two Races: Born of Two Races (Dwarf)
Background: Dwarf – Ancestral Home Lost (Perception class skill)

Theme: Ordained Priest

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 14, Con 16, Dex 8, Int 11, Wis 18, Cha 12.

AC: 18 Fort: 14 Reflex: 12 Will: 15

HP: 28 Surges: 11 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +5, Heal +9, Insight +9, Perception +9

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics -4, Arcana, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Dungeoneering +4, Endurance +2, History, Intimidate +1, Nature +4, Stealth -4, Streetwise +3, Thievery -4, Athletics -1

FEATS
Level 1: Dwarven Weapon Training

POWERS

Racial Power: Incredible Toughness

Ordained Priest Starting Feature: Smiting Symbol

Warpriest Feature: Healing Word (Earth Domain Rider: target takes 1/2 dmg from next attack)

Earth Domain Feature: Stone Speak

Earth Domain Channel Divinity: Stone’s Resolve

Warpriest At-Will 1: Earth’s Endurance

Warpriest At-Will 1: Burden of Earth

Warpriest Domain Encounter 1: Earthen Hail

Warpriest daily 1: Nimbus of Holy Shielding

ITEMS
Heavy Shield, Chainmail, Waraxe, Handaxe (4), Backpack (empty), Bedroll, Belt Pouch (empty), Flint and Steel, Hempen Rope (50 ft.), Torch (2), Trail Rations (10), Waterskin

Please Excuse The Dust–Blog Under Construction

Just a couple quick updates:

#1– you can see that the right-hand sidebar on the blog has gotten a major facelift. You can now see a permalink to my sometimes-clothed burlesque honey Sweet Louise’s site, and I’m now advertising my membership in the RPG Blogger’s Network as well as the RPG Blog Alliance.

#2– you can now RSS feed The Action Point into your web reader or inbox! The old site had it, and when that functionality went away (of which I was unaware until this week) I didn’t re-add it to the site. Now you can have Action in your Inbox, or your Reader! Both the RSS and email link are on the right hand sidebar.

 

#3–I have gone back and edited each and every one of my blog posts to be Categorized. You can now use the Category Cloud in the right hand sidebar to search by keyword to find EXACTLY what you’re looking for!  If that’s not your preference, you can also access the Archives and search by timeline.

 

So that’s what’s going on at The Action Point lately. See you soon!

 

Afghanistan D&D– So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday

One of the downsides of being a civilian contractor instead of Active Duty military while deployed is this– everyone leaves, while I stay the same. I’ve learned a whole new appreciation for the Highlander series, and Dr.Who, and some vampire shows, I’ll tell you that.

But because of the constant in-and-out cycles of deployments, learning how to deal with losing players is something I’ve gotten rather good at. Thankfully, all my players thus far have made it home from Iraq and Afghanistan safely–everybody has made it home to their families and friends back in the States. Which puts me, as the GM, in a bit of a paradox– I want them to stay and continue the stories we have begun together and continue to have fun at my gaming table. I also want them to go home, be out of a warzone, and be back with their family and friends. This cycle happens about every six months or so and frankly, it sucks. But I’ve learned to deal with it in two major ways, and that’s what I want to talk to my fellow GMs about.

Go Out With A Bang

If you know you’re going to be losing a player, the first thing to do is give them some additional “spotlight time” over their last couple of sessions. This is basically your way as GM of saying thank you to the player for allowing you to put their PC through the wringer. It’s also your way of sending them off in a positive way that will let them remember the game fondly for years to come. Give them a bit more attention at the end, because that player won’t be around to get the attention once they’re gone. Give their PC’s actions a little more flair in your descriptions, have NPCs pick them to interact with, etc. Just give them a little more love before they have to leave.

Wrap Up Their Subplots

If you’re anything like me, your campaign is filled with the threads of subplots just hanging there, waiting for you to tug on them and make them a part of the game. I deliberately leave my games filled with opportunities to kill the PCs... er, to increase the drama in my stories. When you know you’re going to be losing a player, that’s the time to deliberately pull a couple of the subplot threads for that character into their last few sessions in order to wrap those things up. This point ties into the previous point, but it affects the entire party a bit more directly. It might pay fr you to deliberately tell the other players, “Hey, since Bob is leaving we’re going to be wrapping up a few of his character’s plot threads. Please play nice.” Being so deliberate about this might seem jarring to you as a GM, but I have always found that telling players upfront in this kind of a metagame sense helps them not be annoyed when the focus of the game isn’t on their PC or the party as a whole. It also lets the rest of the team know that if the situation arises when THEY are the ones leaving, they’ll get the same treatment from you.

Keep Them In The Loop

The internet is a beautiful thing. It allows distance gaming via Skype and a whole lot of other options. It also allows things like game forums and Facebook to keep a player who wants to stay involved in the game access to the table, albeit vicariously. A player who wants to stay involved even though they are leaving the table is a GREAT benefit for the players who are still chucking dice with you. I have recently lost 4 players due to them redeploying back to Colorado and I am keen on tapping them to help me fill out parts f the campaign world that are still unfinished. I have one player who is going to be helping me work on the culture of my elves and druids, for example, and I’m really looking forward to that. Use the resources available to keep the players who still want to be part of the team– or at least watch and see what happens after they leave– as plugged-in and active as you can.

One of the things I did with the players I am losing right now is a Farewell Post on the Adventure logs for the game we’re running currently. We had the Whiz-Bang last session, but there were a lot of questions left as to what the future would hold. The game we’re running now has a very Paizo Kingmaker feel to it, so made sense for the PCs to take up positions in the newly-founded kingdom. I wrote a “transition” adventure post for each of them describing how they went from Active PC to Supporting NPC.

Tayle Farewell

Grunthar Farewell

This is an example of how NOT to let a PC exit your game.

Don’t Kill Their Characters… 

I think this should go without saying, but alas, here I am. Just because a PC leaves the party doesn’t mean that they immediately suffer a horrible gory death. In fact, I think that if you do this as a GM, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot. The rest of the players at your table are already emotionally invested, at least a little, in this character. They’ve fought by his/her side, bled with them, and had both successes and failures (if you’re doing your job as a GM) at their side. Turn the PC into an important campaign NPC when the player has to leave.  I have done this on multiple occasions, and it ALWAYS ends up being a good thing. It’s a win-win for everybody. The campaign continuity isn’t spoiled by Ralph the Rogue simply dying horribly for no reason, all of the NPCs that knew Ralph are still attached to the game, and the PCs don’t have to suddenly go on a vengeance quest or mourn the incredibly stupid death of one of their own. Maybe Ralph decides he wants to retire and run an inn– now that inn becomes a central hub for the PCS, and Ralph gets them the juciest rumors.  Or maybe Ralph get elected Guildmaster of Thieves for whatever town your game is based out of– there’s not a GM in the world who wouldn’t run with THAT plotline. A live PC who becomes a dead NPC has fare less usefulness to the campaign than one who can keep generating plotlines.

…Unless  The Player WANTS You To

Of course, all of the above being said, if the player really genuinely wants their PC to stop being a part of the game world, you can always kill them off in a particularly dramatic fashion. If you have a new villain you want to bring in (more than a one-shot bad guy, please. See the above picture as example), now is definitely the time to do it. Nothing gets a party wanting to kill a villain more than putting a PC in the ground for dead-dead. If you have an old bad guy or someone the PCs haven’t dealt with in a while, this is a great way to put a great big spotlight on whatever plot that villain is attached to. There is a great, big caveat to killing a PC in this manner, however– be prepared for the revenge plot to completely derail your game until it is finished, far more so than if a PC had died and the player brought a new one to the table. There’s a psychological trick here– the PC has died, and the characters feel a sense of loss, sure. But because the PLAYER is also gone, the rest of the players at your table are feeling the loss of one of their own as well. This subtle emotional difference usually means that the players themselves will focus on the revenge plot far more than they might otherwise. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; you as GM just need to be prepared for it to happen. If you’re a plot or event-centric GM, make sure that the villain who offs the PC is associated with your main plot arc– you might even bring the Big Bad Evil in for a quick cameo. If you’re a more sandboxy GM, just be aware that whatever clues you put in the world for the characters to find about this villain is likely where they are going to be going, as fast as they can. Your sandbox might turn itself into a player-made set of rails for a few sessions.

When a player has to leave your table, it’s often kinda sad and depressing– you’re losing a part of what makes the gaming group you’ve got right now awesome, and most often it means your contact with that friend might be lessened as well due to the fact that you wont be seeing them as often. Using these few tips, and using the internet to help keep in contact can ease the damage to both your campaign and your friendship.

My PLAYERS are Heroes, No Matter Their Character [Dec Blog Carnival]

This post is my contribution to the December 2011 RPG Blog Carnival, hosted by Casting Shadows, entitled Heroes: Living and Dead. The theme, as the name implies, is about what it means to be a hero.

I have a pretty first-hand viewpoint of heroism for a gamer, considering the fact that I’m an ex-Army combat veteran with two tours in Iraq under my belt. For those of you just joining me, I’m currently stationed in Afghanistan working as a trainer and maintenance consultant for deployed Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Sailors. Yes, that’s right—I got out of the Army and came right back over into the warzone. Guess I’m just stubborn that way. I run two separate 4E D&D games here on the weekends (when time and mission tempo allow), and all of my players are still in uniform.

My PLAYERS are heroes, regardless of the mentality of the characters they play, and I am proud to be able to chuck dice with them and let them burn off stress by killing monsters in their remarkably limited spare time. I really debated writing this post, but what it comes down to is that I feel I have a unique perspective on heroism and what it means in a real-life, in-your-face kinda way. Every single person at my table is a hero—the player, and often the character. The inspiration for this post came when I realized that I take the heroism of the characters in my games for granted; I take that heroism for granted because it’s reflected from the players behind the dice.

Every single person at my table volunteered to be put in harm’s way. Not a single person in the US military today has been conscripted, drafted or forced to serve. Likewise, pretty much anyone in the US military—and by extension the multi-national Coalition Forces here in Afghanistan—knows that when they raised their hand and signed up, they were going to war. Our country has been at war for over a decade now, and the vast majority of those forces joined during a time of war, knowing they were going to be put in harm’s way, no matter what their job. There is no front line in this war—Bagram Airfield where I am stationed has been pounded by rocket fire and insurgent attacks for the last four days straight, and it is filled with support staff—cooks, supply, maintenance and intel personnel. Pilots, mechanics, computer techs and combat meteorologists (Yes, they exist. I was surprised too. Don’t feel bad.); all share the risk of injury, maiming and death along with the trigger-pullers and Special Ops troops.

Everyone shares in the risk in this war; everyone knew that risk when they signed up. That, to me, is the essence of what a hero is—doing the right thing despite the knowledge of personal risk and potential harm. Anyone can stumble into a bad situation and manage to pull off a miracle. That’s just dumb luck. But knowing the risk—or even certainty—of harm or death awaits and STILL making the choice to do the right thing… that’s what makes a hero. The difference is the knowledge beforehand, and the moment of decision, even if instantaneous, when a person chooses to move toward the sound of gunfire instead of running away to potential safety. In the military, the knowledge of that danger is imminent in just about anything you do; that’s why the majority of a Soldier’s time is spent training. Knowing that you have volunteered to be put in harm’s way makes you rather keen on making sure you do anything possible to come home in one piece. The knowledge that you are or will be in the realm where very bad things can happen to you makes for some serious motivation.

Bringing this home to the gaming community, I think it’s important for the GM to make sure of three things when it comes to real, true-to-life heroism:

1)      Make sure both the characters and the players know the stakes. I’m not talking about the mayor of a town begging the PCs for help because the orcs have stolen the princess. Let me be clear—in order for heroism to exist, the hero must have certain knowledge that he is walking into (or is already in) deep doo-doo. The NPCs, environment, or situation must communicate this to the characters in no uncertain terms. If the characters think they’re walking into a cakewalk, there’s no heroism. I’d argue that 20^th level characters walking through an encounter that has no real chance of harming them aren’t being heroes. They’re being exterminators. That’s why I am mostly okay with the Sorting Algorithm of Evil at least as it applies to Big Bad Evil. If there is no real risk of harm, there is no heroism. My players are heroes—every single one of them knows they risk harm or death when they put on the uniform to serve their country.

2)      Give them the chance to walk away. For those in the military, this happens for every single person in the moment they pick up the pen to sign on the dotted line and swear to defend the Constitution (or whatever their country says, in the case of multi-national forces). There is that moment, when the pen is in your hand and the paper is in front of you, when the rational part of your brain says, “Um… hey. Is this really the best idea? We could go to Aruba, get a pina colada…” I guarantee that every single person who joins the military has that moment, even if it’s for a fraction of a second. For just the flickering of a candleflame, the idea of walking away is entertained. At that point, no contracts are signed, no obligations are incurred. You really could just put the pen down, walk away and nothing overtly negative would ever happen between you and the government. Likewise, the adventurers MUST have the chance to just walk away in order for the heroism to be real and true. The GM must set up the moment where the characters have the chance to just…walk…away. Especially a situation in which there is no village begging them to help, nor patron watching them. Put them in the middle of nowhere, with nobody watching but themselves, and give them the chance to just walk away from the danger they are facing. Setting your shoulders and continuing the mission—THAT is heroic. My players signed on the dotted line and are serving honorably when less than 1% of Americans have the courage to do the same; they are heroes.

3)      Give them a real chance at failure. In the military, this can happen any time a person is performing their assigned function. For me, it was possible every time I turned a wrench on a truck or went outside the wire to rescue a downed vehicle. For some, it’s going on a foot patrol in a hostile area. For others, it’s making sure that intelligence gets analyzed right. Others make sure that communications equipment gets maintained and cyberwarfare standards are upheld. For adventurers, it can come in a myriad of ways and it’s up to us as Game Masters to really stick it to them. Don’t let up, don’t go easy on them. If they’re going to fail, I say let them. I guarantee they’ll be more focused on success the next time. This ties into the first point—if you TELL the characters there is a chance of failure, death and harm, don’t then hand them a cakewalk. That’s not heroism either. Hit ‘em hard. Make ‘em feel it, and let themselves get out of the scrapes you put them in with brains, cleverness and skill. If you tell them there is danger, but then no danger presents itself, that’s not a hero. That’s a dude who got lucky and faced an exaggerated challenge. For a hero to BE a hero, the threat he was faced with must be just as real as he was told. The casualty statistics speak for themselves—the chance and consequence of failure is very, VERY real here. 31 of my fellow Chargers from 1-12 Cavalry, 3^rd Brigade, 1^st Cavalry Division went home in bodybags on my first tour to Iraq. Every one of them and every one of the players at my table now are heroes.

1-12 CAV from Ft.Hood, TX return from Iraq. 31 of our brothers came back before us in bodybags.

It takes several things to be a hero—all of them are listed above. If you provide the things I have mentioned, I think your players—and their characters—will justifiably feel like heroes when they make it out of the dragon’s lair or whatever wringer you decide to put them through. But as a GM you have to build the experience with each step or it will be a hollow thing for the PCs when they emerge from their ordeal.

Also—if your country currently has people in harm’s way, take a moment this holiday season and thank them for their sacrifice and service.  Please. They deserve your thanks and praise.

Tales of Brittanis on Obsidian Portal

Well, I finally did it. After years of watching Obsidian Portal and drooling over the campaigns that other folks have made, I finally buckled down and started putting all my campaign information into one place and making it all pretty. I tried once before on a different wiki site with the help of one of my players, but it never got too far off the ground–my fault, not his.

Now, though, I think I finally have the basic formatting set up and got everything arranged the way I want it. Now all I have to do is get everything filled in and get all the pages to match. It’s a LOT of work, but in the end I think this is going to be a FANTASTIC resource for my players and I to use and stay on the same page.

The only page that’s “complete” right now is the Home Page, but you can use that as a guide to see what the rest is going to look like. Its still VERY much a work in Progress. Still, give it a look and tell me what you think and what you want to see on it!