Power to the Power Gamers! - Lair Assault Begins Soon!!

LAIR ASSAULT IS FINALLY HERE!!!... then again, I'm not, so what am I so excited about??   :P

No, but really, I guess I belong to that hated group of gamers who really enjoy power gaming and optimization.  I think a lot of us math nerds get our kicks through stuff like this.  The strategies and tactics of power gaming can be so much fun, are you in?

Today, August 22nd, Wizards released a bit more news talking about their Lair Assault program and exactly what that would entail.  The game sounds like it is going to be a barrel of fun.  I would love to be the DM running that, but at the same time, I think I would love to run through it once as a player first, mainly to see if I am up to the challenge, and can actually get through all those waves of killer monsters in what could be one of the most difficult encounters that WotC has put out.

Needless to say, I will be keeping my eyes out for copies of the DM kit as they show up on Ebay and used book stores/game shops.  I hope people enjoy the encounters and come home wary from the thrill of total party annihilation.

If I have the time, I might post some of my favorite optimized character concepts for your collective perusal. Also, if you happen to be reading this blog and plan on partaking in this event, I encourage you to post links to your optimized character for the full benefit of the world at large.  We would love to see what you have in store for Forge of the Dawn Titan!

Review of "Crime Pays: A Godfather's Grimoire" Up at SGW

I finally bring my spotlight on Crime Pays: A Godfather's Grimoire to a close.  My review is now up on Stargazer's World.  I hope that you all check it out.

XDMC 29 - Design a Haunt!

It's that time again for the next Expert Dungeon Master's Competition! This time around we have #29

EXPERT DUNGEON MASTER COMPETITION #29 - DESIGN A HAUNT

Taken from the Competition Page:

The topic for this competition is Haunt. Fear and terror are staples of the fantasy genre, but it is not easy to create a locale that can terrify the larger-than-life heroes your players control. Creating a truly terrifying location requires the work of an Expert DM! This competition asks you to create an encounter location designed to strike fear into the hearts of heroes.

Required Elements

In order to enter this competition, your entry must fulfill the following required elements:

• Name: Name your haunt.
• Lore: Describe what is commonly known about the haunt. The haunt's reputation must be such that even heroes may believe themselves to be in mortal danger within.
• Lure: Describe one or more ways an adventuring party may be lured to the haunt.
• Lair: Describe what the heroes will find in the haunt. You may, but need not, include stat blocks for any NPCs, items, terrain, or other objects or effects in the haunt.

If you do not include a required element, you will receive a score of zero in Themes. Please note that a significant portion of your score in Creativity and Themes will be based on how scary you make the haunt's reputation and/or location.

Optional Elements

Your story must include at least three of the following optional elements:

• Can Nothing Stop It?: The haunt threatens the world outside its walls (i.e., it begins expanding uncontrollably) unless the heroes accomplish a task described in the entry.
• The Curse is Broken!: The haunt can become a haven to the heroes, or a resident of the haunt can become a companion to the party, if a task described in the entry is completed.
• Guys? Where Are You?: One feature of the haunt is designed to split the party.
• It's Alive!: The haunt's interior physically changes at least twice while the heroes are within it.
• It's Not Human!: The haunt has one or more residents, but none are of the humanoid type.
• It All Started When...: Surpassing one or more obstacles becomes easier if the heroes learn the haunt's history, as described in the entry.
• Looks Fine to Me: To the outside world, the haunt appears completely mundane.
• What Have You Done?!: The haunt rewards characters who interfere with or harm one another.
• We're Trapped!: Once inside the haunt, the characters cannot leave until accomplishing a difficult task described in the entry, and which does not require combat.
• What's That Doing Here?: The haunt has one or more residents, but none are of the aberrant or shadow origin, or of the undead or shapechanger subtype.
• You Startled Me!: The players are asked to roll initiative checks against something that intends their characters no harm.
• You Were Dead... I Saw the Body!: The heroes must defeat some aspect or resident of the haunt twice or more.

Sounds like a lot of fun.  This might be a really good way for me to get back into the blog again now that my schedule has cleared up a bit.  I'll be trying to pull this off, maybe with the help of my wifey who is actually making an effort to get involved in my hobby once again.  I wish you all the best! Good luck!!

XDMC 25: Create a Mount - Kaboomer Dragon

I forget to post this up here, but for the sake of completion, and having all of my XDMC entries up on the blog, I wanted to make sure that this goes up at some point.  My XDMC 25 Entry - The Kaboomer Dragon, didn't go over so well with the judges, but I had a lot of fun with it and it is going to go great in my steampunkish 4e Setting.  So, here you go...

*****

The Kaboomer Dragon

Explosionwerkz Rocket Dragon 5000

Description: Appearance
The Kaboomer Dragon appears to be made out of rusty metal, scraps of broken armor, and tidbits of broken goblin Klockwork machines. The general shape of the dragon is that of a newborn red dragon, however the resemblance is slim at best. Underneath the Kaboomer Dragon’s tail is a small vent, from which fire continuously pours out, also emitting a foul, aroma of sulfur which is totally repulsive to the any individual with a sense of smell. Each of this dragon’s claws are forged using rusted and often broken blades, which albeit don’t look like much, are incredibly sharp. The Kaboomer Dragon is also fairly… talky; sometimes it’s fairly hard to get it to shut up. See below for more.

Description: Personality
Although the Kaboomer Dragon is an animate construct, it is not completely unintelligent; though the amount of intelligence it does possess is left much up for debate. The Goblin artificers who engineered and manufactured all of the Kaboomer Dragon’s were possessed of a very wicked sense of humor. They enchanted all of the Kaboomer Dragon’s with a very “goblin” personality. The Kaboomer Dragon is cruel, and particularly ill willed. It also has a very suicidal train of thought. It requires a very strong, heavy handed master to keep a Kaboomer Dragon under control, verbally at least. The Dragon likes to bad mouth others, even its owner. The Kaboomer Dragon can be a very bad magical mount to keep around out in the open. It has the bad habit of ruining any attempts at Bluffs or Diplomacy with its big mouth. It has also been known to start numerous fights even among comrades. In general, the Kaboomer Dragon is not a very nice companion to have around.

Description: Behavior
The Kaboomer Dragon makes a severely troublesome traveling companion. The dragon does not have the ability to “act” on its own – it was not designed for that purpose. When it is not mounted, the Kaboomer Dragon cannot attack or do anything but talk, which it does to know end. It can be commanded to move somewhere nearby, but refuses to move into any area where it does not have eye contact with its maste. The dragon cannot carry messages (or perhaps simply refuses to out of obstinacy). However, the dragon has a wicked forked tongue. It likes to ode on virtually anybody, trying to convince someone to attack it. If it does so successfully, its unstable nature results in a very large bang.

Riders
Virtually anyone can ride a Kaboomer Dragon; whether or not that individual survives the process is a much different matter. The people, who in the past, have been most likely to buy and delight in the Kaboomer Dragon have all been slightly bent toward either the demented, or the ingenious. Many artificers enjoy these mounts and sometimes keep them as pets. They also serve as cheap flying mounts for many goblin armies; the goblins also sometimes give them away to Orcs (but never teach them how to use the new gift safely). Mad Wizards, dying to fly, have been known to buy a Kaboomer Dragon in that pursuit. Also, some very industrious Rogues have been known to use them for their non-mount related practical points, i.e. the Kaboomer Dragon’s big bang.

Acquiring a Kaboomer Dragon
Kaboomer Dragons can be acquired in one of several ways. “The Manual” which contains the ritual to rebuild and thus summon the Kaboomer Dragon can be bought on several black markets for 1000 GP (or 2000 if the Tome is of a greater magical nature – see “The Manual” section later on). However this method is somewhat hit and miss. Finding one of these tomes is not very easy; they aren’t particularly rare, just very, very mundane in appearance. “The Manual” is more often traded to a player by someone else who has grown completely tired of having the Kaboomer Dragon around. Sometimes this previous owner will explain how the dragon works, but most often, they will try to bluff that the dragon is far more useful and fun to be around than it is. The other, less common, but easier way is to actually get the dragon from one of the original makers. Contacting Explosionwerkz is somewhat difficult, but they have bases for their guilds all around the world; most of these locations have one or two Kaboomer Dragons on hand and the Goblins are more than willing to sell them off (for the same price as listed above). If the players do go this route, the Goblins add in a special bag of holding to the deal; this bag of holding can only contain the Kaboomer Dragon and “The Manual”, but the bag itself does not block sound or odor from the inside; the Dragon continues to babble and reek from inside the bag and does both of these things much better in fact, as if the bag acts as an amplifier for the dragon’s odious nature. While inside the bag, the dragon cannot receive orders and thus refuses completely to be quiet.

The Explosion Encounter Power should target all creatures in the burst not enemies. That was simply a mistake in the actual creation process for this. It has been called to my attention in another post. As it may be too late to make edits on this, please feel free to judge as written, but if you have mercy, please read this as intended not as written above.


Lore
The following information can be discerned through a successful Arcana or History Check (though history checks are made at a -2 penalty). However, if the characters are actually in possession of a copy of “The Manual” they gain several different bonuses to these Lore checks.

The Character gains a +2 Bonus to these checks if they speak Goblin.
The Character gains a +2 Bonus to these checks if they are a Goblin or Hobgoblin.
The Character gains a +2 Bonus to this check if he or she is an Artificer.
The Character gains a +2 Bonus to this check if he or she has the Ritual Caster Feat.
The Character gains a +2 Bonus to this check if they have read “The Manual” and have already discerned anything about it above a DC 20.

DC 15
This mount, the Explosionwerkz Rocket Dragon 5000, more often referred to by its short name, Kaboomer Dragon, or its even shorter (Kaboomerang) is a particularly odious device. The Kaboomer Dragon is a medium sized mechanical construct, manufactured in the form of a baby red dragon. However, the Kaboomer Dragon is not only obviously mechanical, but looks as though it were always on the verge of breaking down… even freshly produced mounts look and feel like they are on the verge of falling apart. Structural integrity was not a priority in their design and enchantment; any individual Kaboomer Dragon’s life expectancy was simply not long enough for that. The official name of the mount is drawn from its makers, what it does, and possibly the total number of units which were initially created (though the 5000 really remains a bit of a mystery).

DC 20
The Kaboomer Dragon is legendary for one thing – they fly, really, really fast and then explode. When a Kaboomer Dragon detonates, they send fire flying in all directions; this has had the very unfortunate side effect of usually killing, or at least seriously injuring, its rider. However, there are individuals who have discovered ways to use that property successfully and to their own personal advantage. These individuals however are much rarer than the number of riders who have perished at the hands of their own Kaboomer Dragon.

DC 25
The Explosionwerkz Rocket Dragon 5000 has been around for a very long time, but very few people like to talk about it. These magical mounts were originally crafted by a Guild of Goblin Artificers known as the Explosionwerkz. These Goblin Tinkerers and Mages were experts in crafting odd, somewhat dangerous, magical constructs, weapons, and trinkets; the one common element through all of these magical clockwork contraptions was their tendency to have highly “explosive” components. Many of these “works of art” were just complex bombs masquerading as something else. However most of these explosive items came with a “life-time guarantee” of some kind; as long as the “owner” of the item lives, the Guild insists on replace any of their devices that happened to blow up with a new one.

DC 30
Originally, these Klockwork mounts were made and sold en-masse. The Explosionwerkz were excellent businessmen; they had a plan and made a lot of money. The Explosionwerkz Rocket Dragon 5000 was marketed at a very cheap price and was sold on a massive scale. Each dragon comes with a specially coded magical tome known as the “Manual”. The “Manual” is written in Goblin and encoded with arcane runes. Deciphering anything from the “Manual” requires significant Arcane skills. Once deciphered, actually understanding what to do with the knowledge gained from the tome is another matter altogether.

“The Manual,” when deciphered, contains everything needed to control, safely use, and even remake the dragon once it explodes. The owner of a Kaboomer Dragon writes his name on the inside cover of “The Manual” which constitutes a contract, certifying his or her ownership of any single Kaboomer Dragon. That user may, at a later point, scratch out his name and write down a new one, passing ownership of the Dragon to the individual named. A Kaboomer Dragon can never be without a master. If the master dies, the Kaboomer Dragon explodes and is lost until a new individual writes his name on the cover; at that point, the new owner can use the rituals contained within the tome to bring back the Dragon. The Dragon can only every truly be destroyed by first burning “The Manual” and then letting the The Kaboomer Dragon blow up.

The Manual
“The Manual” is a magical tome which contains all the essential blueprints and instructions for owning a Kaboomer Dragon. The book is incredibly hard to understand, but to those who understand the ways of Goblins, it can be made much clearer.

As a Magic Item
The Book is a magic item of its own right. It functions as a +1 Magic Tome (see ARCANE POWER, however, at the DM’s discretion, “The Manual” may also function as a “Book of Undeniable Fire”, also see ARCANE POWER). It is functions as an implement for any Artificer, even those who do not possess the proficiency to use it.

The Book also has one additional power, described below:

Power (Encounter): Free Action. Trigger: The Kaboomer Dragon uses its Explosion Power. Effect: The owner of the Kaboomer Dragon is immune to this attack.

Special Ritual of “The Manual”
In addition to functioning as a Magic Tome, the book also contains one important ritual which is found below:

Rebuild Kaboomer Dragon
This ritual functions exactly as the “Raise Dead” Ritual (Found in THE PLAYER’S HANDBOOK) except for the following information. This ritual can only be used on the Kaboomer Dragon associated with “The Manual”. It costs only 250 GP (the Goblins that created the Kaboomer Dragon would have considered this an essential “cost of ownership and expediancy” ). The Ritual can only be cast from “the Manual” itself and on its own has no Market Value. The Ritual is also reduced to level 5. The Ritual takes only 1 hour to cast. Also, when the Kaboomer Dragon is returned to life, it does not suffer any of the penalties associated with the spell.

Accessing the Book’s Powers
Using a successful Arcana check, the book’s power can be fully unlocked (a character not trained in Arcana can make a simple intelligence check). The user gets a +2 to this check if he or she speaks and reads Goblin. All of this can be explained if the user inherits “The Manual” and the Kaboomer Dragon from a living owner who explains it.

DC 10 – The user can use “The Manual” as a magic item, see above.
DC 15 – The user understands that “The Manual” is used to control the Kaboomer Dragon. The user also understand the process used to gain ownership of the Dragon itself.
DC 20 – The user understands how to use the special power associated with the tome which keeps the user free from harm when the Kaboomer Dragon detonates.
DC 25 – The user understands how to use the Rebuild Kaboomer Dragon ritual contained within “The Manual”. (If the DM chose to allow the book to function as “The Book of Undeniable Fire” the powers of that magic item should be unlocked at this level rather than at DC 10).
DC 30 – The user discerns the curse of the Manual as explained below.

The “Curse” of the Kaboomer Dragon
One of the things which is particularly odious about owning a Kaboomer Dragon is that it simply will not stay dead. Whenever the owner of the Manual takes an Extended Rest, the Manual automatically casts the Rebuild Kaboomer Dragon ritual without consuming any GP or any effort from the owner. The Kaboomer Dragon is rebuilt in existence in a square adjacent to the owner (often where they are sleeping). If the Kaboomer Dragon is summoned in this way, it has a nasty habit of bad mouthing the owner and everyone nearby, refusing orders to be quiet, causing anyone in the immediate vicinity to lose the benefit of that particular extended Rest.

In addition to the nasty ability of the Kaboomer Dragon to keep coming back alive, the Kaboomer Dragon also has a very nasty Curse as well. If anyone, other than the owner of the Dragon attempts to ride the Kaboomer Dragon, it immediately uses its Explosion Power. Also, if the owner of the Kaboomer Dragon attempts to ride the Kaboomer Dragon without first reading “The Manual” and achieving a DC 15 on the associated Arcana check with the book, the Kaboomer Dragon immediately uses its Explosion Power as well.

Summary of Optional Elements Used
Headstrong – The Kaboomer Dragon is a blasphemous little cur. It uses its evil little metal tongue to a great and evil purpose – causing as much trouble for its owner as mechanically possible, Goblin style.
Key – The Kaboomer Dragon cannot be ridden or used safely without owning or possessing “The Manual”, but that alone does not guarantee the rider’s safety. He or she must also discern how to use the Power associated with the tome or they may go up in smoke.
Odious – The Kaboomer Dragon is a horrible creature to have around. It looks awful, reeks of horrid filth and sulfur, and has a terrible, terrible mouth which opens for virtually no purpose other than to hurl insults and taunt enemies of the mount’s owner into battle.
Speed – As indicated in the Stat Block, if the Kaboomer Dragon does not move at least 5 squares in any turn it was mounted, it explodes. It may very well also explode in several other circumstances as well. DO NOT TAMPER WITH THE KABOOMER DRAGON!

Marrying D&D 4e with FATE

In a conversation I had yesterday with @digitaldraco on Twitter, I brought up the legal question of whether or not you could unite the FATE system, which has an OGL with the D&D 4e system used under the GSL.  I'll get into the reasons for this in a second or two, but apparently it would seem there is some legal precedent for this.  Although I haven't played the Dresden Files RPG, I have heard a LOT of talk about it around the web; I am informed that the game uses the GSL for D&D right alongside the GSL for FATE.  It seems to me then that there is some precedent for using the open game license for FATE with 4e.  Cool.  Question pretty much answered (if this is wrong let me know).

The reason for this madness of mine is this:  I really love the tactical, miniatures based combat that D&D 4e provides, but I definitely see the problems it has for roleplaying.  I love me some 4e, but the groups that I have had play it usually ignore more roleplay opportunities in favor of hitting monsters with pointed sticks or blunt objects (or both).  I wouldn't say that the system used for D&D 4e discourages roleplaying; I just don't think that it goes out of its way to encourage it.

On the other hand, FATE is driven by roleplaying.  The narative power of Aspects is pretty amazing.  I feel like there is a lot of power behind that system which drives players to roleplay well.  Using FATE points to activate or compel a character's or even a creatures Aspect is an amazing game mechanic. 

I see no reason why these two system should not, or could not be wed into a blissful union that combines the best of both worlds. 

The power creep in 4e is pretty immense.  When you think about the fact that Fortune Cards recently hit the FLGS shelves, you can imagine that your characters will be getting a few new bonuses to their rolls which up until now they weren't getting.  What would happen if instead of giving these +X bonuses to your players based on some random card that they pull out of a deck, you gave them based on activating a character Aspect and thus encouraging roleplaying even during encounters? The answer: nothing bad. 

Aspects in FATE have a nasty double sided nature - they provide your character with a potential strength, but they also give the GM a pretty little weakness that he or she can exploit.  Giving Aspects to characters is a great way to change up the story and perhaps lead to some very, very interesting results. 

I can't say whether or not I really dislike the other elements of the FATE system because in all honesty, I have not really gotten to see stuff like Stunts and Skills in practice during a game.  My experience with FATE is limited to what I have read, or typed in PbP games.  I don't necessarily think the system is lacking in that respect; I just think 4e does it so exceptionally well that I wouldn't really want to move to a different system just to play other tactical fantasy combat.  My jumping ship to a different system is usually spurned by wanting to try something different, not try the same thing in a different way. 

My idea for combining these two would be to allow every character to start the game with 10 points to buy Aspects.  For every Aspect they pick up, they lose 1 point.  You start the game with whatever FATE points are left over and whenever you take an extended rest, you refresh X number of FATE points.  You can then invoke or compel Aspects whenever you want - you can use them to get a +2 to a single d20 roll (skill, save or attack) or gain a +2 bonus to AC (no rerolls allowed because of the difference in die size in the d20 system).  If you like that little houserule, why don't you give it a try and tell me how it works out.  I would love to know.  TTYL

More Amethyst Love to Come

Chris Dias over at Dias Ex Machina has asked if the Dump Stat would liked to be involved in a sort of preview/play-test/review of some new upcoming Amethyst related goodness to come.  And, of course we said that we would.  I have really been enjoying getting into this setting for D&D 4e and I am drooling in anticipation waiting for more Amethyst like the dog in this here video below -



But, I don't have to wait any longer.  We have gotten the preview/play-test materials and they are pretty cool.  This preview pack includes several new builds for each of the classes included in Amethyst Foundations.  Can you say awesome??  It is about 40 pages of "Essentials" goodness *wink wink* get the pun.  So, coming soon, we will be taking a pretty detailed, but at the sime time every secretive look at

Amethyst Essentials

Design & Development: Demon's Souls Pen and Paper Clone - Leveling and Gear P.1



It is going to take a LONG time before you're ready to
take on one of those big fellas- I should know...

 In my continuing quest to build a Demon’s Souls-esq. D&D 4e module (mod) I have been examining more closely the way that Demon’s Souls deals with things like leveling up and equipment. And I think I have come to some interesting conclusions about how I would make it work.

First of all, the leveling system in Demon’s Souls is freeform and is much more like a point-buy system than the traditional D&D style leveling system. There is no level cap in the game (that you are going to reach quickly at least – I spent more than 300 hours playing the game, but I only got to like level 150 or so, the max level cap is around 990). Leveling up consists of spending soul points on a new attribute. The number of times you have done this is called your soul level – so, if I spent 50 points on leveling up my strength, my Soul Level would be 50. There are about 10ish attributes (going off the top of my head right now) which cover things ranging from your ability to dodge, carry more weight, take damage/block, and of course your power in casting spells, using bows, and hitting with big blunt/sharp objects.

In terms of Equipment, Demon’s Souls takes a very, very basic and primordial approach to gear. What you get in your starting package (i.e. the class you pick at character generation which amount merely to your starting stats, spells, and items) is going to be with you for a long, long time. You don’t find magical items of any kind until well into the game. I was often very happy just finding a new piece of better armor in a level. Collecting armor sets becomes one of the main attractions of the playing through various levels, but these armor sets aren’t really magical so much – they are just more efficient types of armor. Finding a set of full plate is a major pain. Finding good sets of leather is also very problematic. Also, finding weapons that have particularly good properties can be very difficult. I remembered that I was super pumped to get a Katana as a rare drop because it’s a fairly fast and high damage sword. The spear, which is one of the better weapons in the game (in my opinion) was also a pain in the butt to get my hands on.

Although you don’t find many magic items in the game, there are some that you get toward the end. You can also pick up a few magical trinkets which add to some of your abilities or do certain special things. The Rings that you pick up possess the most value to your character – they provide a myriad of bonuses to things such as your mana regeneration and your carrying capacity and the like. However, one of the larger elements to the game is in crafting and forging better more powerful versions of the weapons you start with. You can level a weapon up to level 10 (I believe), but that is going to take a LONG time; there are only very limited quantities of every type of material in the game and it takes a lot of skill and timing to get these precious resources. One of the big cruxes of this system though is once your weapon gets a particular type of enhancement, you can’t give it a different one. You are stuck with that one and can only level up the weapon, adding to its damage or efficiency. You could compare this system fairly effectively with 4e D&D’s magic weapon system. You won’t find these weapons anywhere in the world, but you can make them if you put in the time and effort to find what you need to do so.

One of the ways that I want to go about making this module for Demon’s Souls D&D is through experimenting with the Inherent Bonus system that D&D sets up for games in which you have a very low magic level. Instead of letting the players simply gain these bonuses as they level up, I’m going to use a system where they have to buy them individually as they harvest Souls from their fallen demon enemies (think of residuum and its usefulness in crafting magic weapons in 4e). By doing this, you essentially turn the leveling up process into something akin to a point-buy system. Also, by using a method like this, you let your players gain those bonuses through a level, instead of only when they level up. I like that system a whole lot better than simply having to wait until you pick up your next level to get a benefit.

In creating this Demon’s Souls mod, I am also going to be very, very strict with what weapons and gear I allow my characters to either take at character creation or pick up through the game. In all honesty, I very well might do away with all of the Superior weapons all-together in the beginning of the game. When players do actually find a Superior weapon, they won’t need the feat to gain the proficiency bonus with it. They will be able to use it outright, which might give them some incentive to do some hunting.

Also, magic weapons are not going to be something that you can just pick up through adventuring. Players are going to have to explore certain areas and collect the needed resources to put a certain property on a weapon they are carrying. They will be able to do this through either personal crafting or the use of some named, godly forge-master who is their to aid them, given the proper souls and funding.

I’ll have more to talk about again soon in my Design & Development of this Pen and Paper Demon’s Souls clone. Hope you stay tuned to check it out.

The Dungeon Mom - Avoiding the DM Safety Net

In my quest to go “old school” recently, I have been experimenting with the way I design encounters and build game sessions and it got me thinking about the “old school” feel that a lot of people talk about in conjunction with the OSR. Now, there are certainly DM’s that play 4e ruthlessly and enjoy killing their players; I tend not to kill anybody, but I certainly knock someone unconscious about once a game night. That is really enough for me. But one of the things I noticed about my games is that the players aren’t really that afraid when they play, well, the monsters can sometimes be frightening, but the thing that they fear the least is… me. The DM. That is a problem.


I think there comes a point in every game where you need to ask yourself: Have your players fallen into the DM safety net? I think there are a lot of DM’s and a lot more D&D players who don’t believe that the DM will actually go out for blood in their games; unless as a DM you tend to be ruthless, unforgiving, and renowned for killing players without rhyme or reason, this can happen very quickly. I find the DM safety net to be a problem for several reasons.
If the players expect that you will not kill them, they start playing less intelligently. If for example, the players believe that regardless of what they do, you won’t pull the trigger on their characters, than they have very little need to actually think. Stupid players and stupid actions should be rewarded with painful results. D&D may be a game, but it’s a thinking game to some extent. We are playing in the world of the imagination; if your players stop using theirs than you have a problem.

There is a certain amount of reckless or careless behavior when the players believe that they won’t “lose” the game. If you make them believe that their characters are immortal, than damage doesn’t really matter anymore. That just isn’t any fun now is it??

But there is a fine line that has to be drawn between being the DM that is merciless and out for blood and the hen-mother DM who doesn’t want to see any harm come to her precious players. Neither of those two sides are much fun, so you need to be careful how you play things.

In my experience the best way to walk that tightrope and keep from falling off is to create the illusion that you, as a DM, are not actually in control. When the players know that you as a DM have the power of God, things easily go one of the two ways that I talked about above, but if they think that you aren’t in nearly as much control as you actually are, than they begin to become blind to the safety net that you actually have out for them. If they can’t see the net, than they will think and act like there is no net there at all.

I think there are a few easy and fun ways that you can make this work. One of the best ways to keep your players from thinking that you will save them is to roll dice out in the open, at least for combat. I know a lot of DM’s still like rolling behind the screen, because that means you can hide stuff from your players, but honestly, that can easily lead you towards the Tyrant/Mom role that I talked about above. If you roll your dice in the open, your players will know that you aren’t fudging anything; sure, some of them might start doing math out loud at the table…. I say let them. That is even more scary. When your players see you roll a 3, then hit them, and then on a damage roll of a 1 do something like 15 points of DMG, they are going to be hauling their butts out of that encounter as quickly as can be. That is intimidation. Now, you don’t actually have to let the dice matter – you can add imaginary numbers, subtract imaginary numbers and do whatever you want in your head, but rolling in the open gives the illusion of fairness and equality; this is not something that you are necessarily intent on being. You want to be sly and cunning. You want your players to fear you, not because you are out to get them, but because you simply don’t care. If you as a DM are playing god, you are not the smiting god of the old testament, you are an apathetic god who doesn’t care if one of his creations ends up as lunch for a dragon. Trust me, that is far more frightening.

One of the other neat ways that I find to put the fear of god in your players is to bring random encounter tables to the game session and make it OBVIOUS that you intend on using them at some point during the session if the time arises. You might even let your players get a glimpse of said table and point out the fact that some of the encounters on there are quite a bit higher than their average PC level, but don’t actually let them see what is on it. Then, next time your players set up camp… this is when you start to roll some dice behind the screen. Shuffle your papers up, start pulling out minis. Play it like you didn’t know that was coming; maybe you want to make some off hand remark like, “ouch!” or “this is gonna be fun *snicker snicker*”. Play the encounters up like that and your players are going to think that something horrible and random just came out to play – that is when you drop in the premade encounter tailored specifically for the party which is just about the right skill level to make a fun and exciting fight. They will play smart and win and you should make a note and praise them afterwards for working intelligently and cunningly to defeat your bad little minions. You might also get some OSR points for actually using these tables during your session.

I hope you got something out of this advice. I have found these techniques to be remarkably useful in the past and have scared a few players into thinking that I was out for the characters throats, when I actually wasn’t…. of course there were times that I actually was out for my PC’s throats, but those PC’s always end up dead. Very little illusion there.

Organizations - They don't always have to be big

So, in my recent Angel binge, I got to thinking. Why do most NPC Organizations in RPG’s always have such a large scope? Sure, sometimes you run into other adventuring parties when you play stuff like D&D, but you don’t often see organizations in adventures that don’t have a whole bunch of members.

Big organizations are a pain in the butt to engineer and create. I always get hung up, when I’m writing about the Knightly Order of Whatever, or the Wizard’s School of Something-or-Other. There are so many different power structures involved in all levels of a fantasy or even a sci-fi organization that it gets really confusing and difficult to manage. I think if you work with something smaller, you can get just about the same impact, with much less fuss. In a recent post about worldbuilding I talked about the differences between working on the Macro level vs. working on the Micro level when it comes to creating a campaign setting. You can look at organization development in pretty much the same way.

If you start building an organization on the micro level, you can work a lot faster and get things done more quickly.

Start with who the founding members of that organization were. Was there a strong central member of the organization, or was the organization put together as a group effort? Then, ask yourself the very basic question. What is the organization’s purpose? Naming is something that comes really easily once you figure out these core elements to any organization. Take for example the show Angel, which I mentioned above (yea, I really dig that show). Angel Investigations is a group founded by Angel, a vampire with a soul, who fights for justice and is dedicated to helping the helpless. This organization has several key members, or had several key member over the course of the show’s run. You have your founding members – Cordelia and Doyle, but some characters die and some new ones join up. Doyle gets killed off in season 1, but over the other seasons, Wesley Windom Pryce, Charles Gunn, and Winefred Burkle join up. Lorn, a demon, does as well. Some other supporting characters, allies if you will, join up to help the organization in their goals, but they never make it into the full cast of heroes.

Think of building an organization in RPG’s like you would build an organization like this and think of it like you would a TV show. That organization, before it becomes the legendary thing that it might very well someday be, has to develop before it gets told about in the history books of whatever realm or world you are playing in. So, start with the basics and work from there.

I’m working on something similar in my current D&D setting.

In Buzzard’s Berth, the city I’m working on now for my setting, I am developing a bunch of small-large size organization that work in the city; these organizations are factions if you will, which the players might be able to align themselves with if they think they are up to it. For example, one of these organizations, the Sons of Adelbrom is a group of brigands and bandits, but is led by a fiendish overlord. Given my previous advice, with this group, I started small – the founder, Adelbrom is a Tiefling Swordmage and specializes in all kinds of nasty hexes. He has, in his company, his “sons” who are his chief lieutenants, but are also act as his eyes and ears within Buzzard’s Berth. They are the face for the organization and range in specialization from Wizard to Rogue to Cleric. They provide consult with him on a variety of issues. These “sons” also each command groups of bandits and thieves who attack caravans and the steam trains and bring in revenue for the thieves guild.

You don’t need to think big when figuring out the organization. Just think about the core of that organization and everything else comes with it. I started at the micro level and its size just grew with tiem. I’ve got lots more notes about the organization here and I’ll probably let them come out either on the blog or on Obsidian Portal, where I do most of my campaign management as time goes on.

D&D 4e Combat Modes inspired by Shooter Multiplayer

Most feedback about 4e that I read out there in the blogosphere attacks the issue of combat encounters and failure in those encounters from either of two general camps: 1) the DM’s are pretty sure that going into the encounter the players are going to get out of it fine, so making the encounter is simply about making it interesting and 2) Challenges and combat encounters should be designed to challenge the players and should be potentially lethal, the TPK becomes the win condition for a DM vs. Players environment. That is all well and good, but I think a lot of people miss out on a lot when the end result of an encounter is either the death/retreat/surrender of all monsters involved, or the death/retreat/surrender of the players. I hardly ever read about combat encounters which are designed with other purposes, but I honestly think that these “other” style of combat encounters provide the most interesting opportunities for both interesting role-play as well as truly tactical combat by the players. Today, I want to talk about some of the video-game inspired combat encounter styles.

I am a video-gamer. I enjoy my PS3 on a daily basis and other than RPG’s, which you can pretty much figure that I love, I really like RTS games as well as shooters. I haven’t gotten a chance to play Black-ops yet, but I am a big player of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. One of the great things that is offered in that game is a real plethora of game styles. I think a lot of those game styles would be very well suited for a game of D&D around the table rolling dice. Maybe you could think about running combat encounters in some of these shooter game based styles.

FFA/Team Deathmatch/Bloodbath
These are the typical encounters that you see in standard D&D games. The win condition for these type of games is simple – kill everything; the side with the most kills wins. With games like D&D, players aren’t likely to respawn in the middle of combat in order to continue the battle until the end of some imposed time limit, but they are likely to go until one side drops, this side is usually not the players unless your DM is a real jerk who has enough friends that his game can change players every week.

Capture the Flag
This style of combat is one of the easiest I think to run, but I don’t see it used nearly enough. One team has to capture the opposing team’s flag and bring it back to a designated point on the map. How easy would this be to run in a D&D game? C’mon. The flag doesn’t have to be a flag per-se. It could be anything from an enchanted skull, or some kind of magical text/tome. The battlefield itself, in an encounter like this might span an entire city. The players have to get into the enemy base, steal the object of importance, then get it back to the city guards before they are caught and captured by a group of Thieves sent to retrieve their stolen, stolen merchandise. This might be going on while at the same time another group is trying to move into the player’s base of operations and make off with something important of theirs.

Take and Hold/King of the Hill/Global Thermonuclear War
This type of combat forces the players/enemies to take and hold a certain point on the map for a set period of time in order to win the combat. I think this type of combat encounter makes for a great opportunity for some fantastic tactical combat. Each round that the players, and the players alone, occupy a certain zone on the map, they rank up a point. The players need to achieve 3-5 points in order to win the combat, but counter to that, if the enemies do the same thing, the players end up losing. I could see this in a D&D style game, by having the players attempting to defend a crucial ritual casting zone. Presence in the zone for a certain number of round allows direct communication with a player’s/enemies deity. Both sides want the zone, and the ability to talk with a god, but while the players are fighting over the zone, the ritual doesn’t know who to target, so it won’t proceed.


Shoot the Messenger/VIP
I don’t see this in games so much, but essentially this style of combat forces the players to attempt to kill a certain priority individual in a given amount of time, before that individual can either escape, or gain some critical power. I could see this style of combat being GREAT for D&D. The PC’s have been given critical advice that a messenger, carrying an important letter which will band two cults of Orcus together, creating a much larger and more formidable force. However, when the PC’s finally encounter the messenger, the realize that he is in disguise – all the individuals in the messenger’s party look and dress alike. The messengers, and his look-alikes all spit and run when they are confronted and attacked by the PC’s. Now, the players have to figure which one of the messengers is the real one and get him before he has a chance to slip out of their grasp and get away.

Search and Destroy/Sabotage/Bomb-Mode
In this style of combat, one side controls a “bomb” and has to plant it somewhere in the enemies territory, while the other side has to try and disarm the bomb or prevent it from getting planted in the first place. I feel like this style of combat could be very easy to pull off. The players might be on either side; I could see either one being very fun and interesting. Perhaps in one version of this combat style, the players possess a powerful relic which, when planted in the Necropolis somewhere, has the power of bringing down the light of Pelor (or some other random good deity) and destroying said Necropolis. The undead forces of this evil citadel come at the players in endless waves trying to keep them from detonating this relic. On the flip side of things, perhaps a group of cultists is planning to summon in demons somewhere within the PC’s stronghold or home city. The players have to scramble to find where this is taking place and then stop it from happening. You see this type of combat a bit in D&D, but now image if it is all done in initiative and your players have only rounds to stop it from happening. That might get them hopped up in their pants.

Snipes & Knives a.k.a. Limitation modes
This one goes back to CS. I like the idea of having limited power/weapon combats. Though these type of combats may ultimately be decided like the typical Bloodbath type of combat, they are interesting in that certain powers/combos simply don’t work in the combat itself. This one would be easy to implement, but might not be so fun for your players. Think about taking all their weapons/implements away and making them fight a combat or two bare fisted. Or, think about having everything for a day cost more effort. Maybe all of your players at-will powers become encounters, encounters become dailies, etc. This could lead to some interesting happenings. You could also think about magical barriers which prohibit certain types of magic from crossing them – that might get on a player’s nerves if you pick on a single power source. Or, maybe you want to make the entire combat done only with longbows, and have your players trying to snipe people from really, really far away. That could be fun.

What all of these different combat format options provide is a way for you to end combat in a failure, but not by killing all the players involved. You see this thought process in the way skill challenges are developed now. Those challenges provide the players with the pass to success, which, when achieved, grants the players a cleaner path to success in a particular adventure path, but failure does not mean the end of all things for the PC's. If you use these type of combat encounters, rather than the simple Kill or Be Killed Deathmatch style combats, you have the option of making failure much more interesting and having the results of failure mean that you end up with interesting roleplay encounters and more varied encounters to come. I hope that you take these ideas and roll with them in your games. I know I will.

Review: Courts of the Shadow Fey at Stargazer's World

In case you missed it, on Friday, my reivew of Courts of the Shadow Fey, by Wolfgang Baur and published by Open Design, came out on Stargazer's World.  I encourage all my readers to go over there and give it a read.  If you like elves, or, for that matter, want to lay the smack down on a few of them, you might want to think about picking up this adventure.  Find out why by reading: Review: Courts of the Shadow Fey.

I hope you enjoy it and comment up a storm!!

Getting your inFAMOUS in my D&D

I talked a little while ago how I would love to see a version of Demon’s Souls made as a table top RPG that uses dice. Demon’s Souls has got to be one of my favorite games for PS3 period. But, lately, I have been playing some other stuff. One of these “other” games that I am playing right now is Infamous. That came out a couple years ago, but like everything else, I am pretty late to the scene. If you haven’t tried the game yet, but have a PS3, I strongly encourage you to go pick it up for $20. You won’t be disappointed. It isn’t a game that would make me want a PS3 just from playing it, like Demon’s Souls was, but it is a game definitely worth giving a try.

There is one aspect of that game that I think would be really cool to have in my D&D games. In Infamous, there is a collection mechanic which revolves around exploring the world and its tiniest minutia. In order to increase your total health and energy, you must travel around the world, exploring the city and collecting “blast shards”. What these shards are actually from is totally lost on me, but their purpose in the game is clear and two-fold: a) through them you are encourage to explore the sandbox, climbing buildings and exploring tunnels and b) they are there to help you and provide you a statistical, permanent bonus to your character.

This is a mechanic which I can get behind and I would encourage DM’s to do likewise if you have a big sandbox you want your players to actually explore. Looking at this mechanic, I went back to the old days in 3.5 D&D when you had all the tomes, which were crazy expensive, but when used, would permanently give you a bonus to one of your stat bonuses. These books were WAY more pricey than anything else in the game, but the benefit they provided could not be taken from you in any way, nor did it take up a slot on your body.

I am thinking that you could do something similar with these “blast shards” in D&D, Gamma World, or pretty much any other game out there. The key, I think, would be not to give it to the players all at once. In Infamous, you have to collect bucket loads of these shards in order to actually finally get that benefit, not only that, but the number of shards you have to collect goes up exponentially as you gather more. I think I have to get like 30ish more shards before I finally gain another energy bubble.

What I came up with for D&D, which may be stolen from an anime or something… I am sure I have heard about it before somewhere… is to have the players collecting pages of a book. Every time they complete a chapter of that book, i.e. collect a sufficient number of pages, they receive a boon. You could give the boon to everyone in the group and it wouldn’t matter all that much.

The problem that I see with this though is you don’t want to make these boons too powerful, or put too much emphasis on them for the story; if you do over-hype these pages, you risk the players ignoring your story in order to simply travel the world in search of all these pages (that might be a nice way to develop a major campaign, but not some minor quest which is simply a carrot to be waved in front of your adventurers in order to keep them moving and exploring a city or nation).

You could do something very similar with Gamma World. Hell, with Gamma World you could even leave them as blast shards and simply let them build up into gaining some new Omega Tech or some new Alpha Mutation.

TL;DR – provide your players interesting motivations for exploring your world by giving them a quest that offers a mechanical benefit, but don’t give that benefit to them all at once.

News: New Wizards Organized Play Announced, Fortune Cards Mentioned

Ok. It appears that we are now finding out what these much talked about Fortune Cards are going to be required for in terms of Wizards Organized Play of D&D 4e and I am actually moderately excited. Yesterday, Wizards sent out this announcement, detailing the following:

A New D&D In-Store Play Program
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you think you have what it takes to brave the fiercest foes, fight the toughest battles, and conquer the vilest enemies, we have a new D&D play experience for you! Starting in September, gather your master tacticians and rules experts together to kick down the dungeon doors and begin the assault!

The new Wizards Play Network in-store program pits tactically-minded players against a super challenging adventure where the difference between victory and defeat is dependent upon your game knowledge, ability to adapt, and a little bit of luck. You’ll pit your wits against some of the most challenging encounters you’ve ever played. Each adventure plays in just a few hours, but for many players, they’ll need to make more than one run at it in pursuit of victory. A season lasts 2 months, and stores can schedule their sessions at any time during the season.

Bring extra character sheets. Bring Fortune Cards. You’ll need them.

Begin your lair assault this September.

Ok. So. This actually sounds interesting in several ways. It appears that we will actually be having an Organized Play event which is based around power gaming. This event sounds like it will be an opportunity for groups of hard-core power gaming enthusiasts to build an optimized party at home, bring that party to the table, and do your best to WIN the game.

I have always said that Power Gamers are a part of the market for gaming; you might not like them very much and sometimes they might be a pain to have at the table, but you can't deny that a portion of this hobby, especially D&D 4e is populated by the power gaming folks. I have a side of me that loves power gaming as many people know. I started playing D&D through essentially gauntlet style team based player vs. player events.

This event sounds like it might be something like that, but without the pvp side of things.

What this announcement also says to me is that maybe, just maybe, this type of game is going to be somewhat tournament style. It also may in fact have some kind of reward involved, as many tournament style events do. If the cost to play in a D&D tournament is essentially the cost of a pack of fortune cards, I can get on board with it. I would usually pay some kind of entry fee to play in a MtG tournament or a 40k tournament. If I have to pay $5 to play in a D&D tournament, I am on board with that. I don't think I will be collecting a lot of the Fortune cards, but if that is their use, cool. I wouldn't want to use them in encounters, if the game is going to only last an hour, but if the adventure will take perhaps 3-4 hours, which is about standard for the typical tournament that I would attend (or run, which I did for years as an FLGS store manager).

So, I guess I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised. This style of game intrigues me. I hope that I can perhaps get a chance to play in or run a game of this when it comes out in September.

You can find the announcement at Wizards of the Coast 

Beastfolk - Tori (Chicken-folk) Statblock and Fluff

Experimenting with a new way of doing these, so here is the Statblock, with a description of the race included...

Quick and flittery, the Tori are natural healers that prove being scared is often the key to survival.

Tori (Chicken-folk)

Average Height: 3’6’”-4’6”
Average Weight: 100 – 150 lbs
Ability Scores: +2 Wisdom and +2 Dexterity or Charisma
Size: Small
Speed: 6
Vision: Normal
Languages: Common, Tori
Skill Bonuses: +2 Heal, +2 Perception
Chick-Protector: Whenever a Tori uses a healing surge, or uses a power or effect that grants a healing surge to an ally, increase the value of the damage healed by 1.
Fluttering Jump: Tori gain a +5 bonus to any athletics check made to Jump and can make jumps standing still as though they had a running start.
Natural Weapons: Tori can use their talons or their beak as a natural weapon in combat. These weapons have a +2 Weapon Proficiency Bonus and deal 1d6 damage.
Avoiders of Death: Tori have a +2 Bonus to Reflex defense and gain a +1 Bonus to death saves.
Flittering Flight: Tori have the Flittering Flight racial power.



Flittering Flight    Tori Racial Power
The Tori prove that running away is an art form mastered by true chickens and the chicken-hearted.

Encounter
Immediate Interrupt * Shift
Whenever an opponent moves or shifts into a square adjacent to you, you may shift your speed, or fly at half your speed in a direction away from your opponent.

The Tori live by being constantly aware and wary of their surroundings. Tribes of Tori in the wild, build their homes inside of trees or in small underground passages, but always leave numerous escape routes. City Tori, or domestic Tori, are almost an entirely different species all together.



Play a Tori if you want …

to be a small, flightless humanoid bird.

to be a natural healer and protector of your allies.

to be a member of a race that favors the Druid, Avenger, and Cleric classes.



Physical Qualities

Tori stand not much taller than a Halfling and can very exceedingly in weight. They have a standard humanoid figure, though they are always appear to be slightly hunched forward. All Tori have a beaks and wing-like arms which end in a scaly, rough hand, which has three claw like fingers and a thumb. Usually, male Tori have a long tail feathers, and a tall red crest, or comb.

Tori hatch from eggs and grow very quickly. Unlike humans, Tori have a slightly shorter lifespan, but they can reproduce very quickly, often giving birth to 4 or 5 children at a time. After hatching, it is not uncommon for a Tori to reach its full size within 13 years. This speed of growth has often lead to characterizing the Tori as not being particularly mindful of the world, or knowledgeable about it, given that they grow and die so very quickly. The standard life expectancy for a Tori is at the most, about 50-60 years. Most Tori die before they get that far though.

Though they do have skin, like most humans, Tori are covered from head to feet in feathers of various colors. Tori plumage varies by clan, with some possessing pure white feathers and other possessing blacks and browns. Sometimes, mixing of clans will lead to new plumage variations among the Tori, marking those Tori as mixed. Though some clans discriminate against mixed Tori, most are fairly accepting. Only a few pure bloodline Tori clans still exist. These clans have only one primary feather color and have little plumage variance. These tribes value pure-breeding more than others.

Playing a Tori

Tori are highly cautious and ever perceptive. They live their lives, every wary of the many dangers that exist in the world, and they do their best to avoid whatever danger they can. Tori do not relish battle; among the Beast-folk, the Tori are one of the very few who would be considered pacifists by nature. Tori values put the family first, before the clan, or even the Tori race as a whole. To a Tori, there is nothing more important than protecting one’s kin.

There are essentially two different types of Tori in the world, though they do share many similar characteristics. Wild Tori, live in the forests and jungles in small hollows inside the roots of trees. Most Tori “Nests” as they are called, house between one and three families; they live together as a unit in order to protect each other from the many threats that occur naturally in the wilderness. These family units are usually blood bound, but occasionally, an outsider family will be permitted to join in as well. The second type of Tori, the Domestic Tori, is at home in the cities of the world. These Tori enjoy the status that comes with being of a bestial blood. Domestic Tori, as well as the Buta, or Pig-Folk, are considered to be some of the more well-known merchants races in the world. Tori tend to be cautious about business deals, and will usually run small family operations which are passed down through generations. Because Tori live such short lives, it is not uncommon for Tori to be running the same store, in a large city, for 10 generations or more, maintaining the same clientele for many, many years.

Tori enjoy simple pleasures such, such as reading or knitting. They do not take to drinking easily, nor are they very exciting. They do however, very much like being social, which brings them some large degree of power. They are horrible gossipers, and often discover knowledge that wasn’t meant for their ears. Some Tori take advantage of their blood line and exert its power to gain status in social circles, then, after discovering some useful gossip, use that gossip to gain even further power through blackmail or simple exploitation. Because of this, Tori tend to be very close-beaked about personal matters. They know their kind and fear having their own problems get out into the world.

Tori do not readily take to adventuring, but they are not particularly rare either. In the Wilderness, Wild Tori usually send out their first born to go on some sort of a quest to prove that they can defend and support the Tori family unit after the previous generation eventually passes. It is not uncommon for Tori to be found searching for companions on these type of activities, hoping for strength in numbers. It is also very common for Tori families to adventure together, with several generations all joining together in order to conquer some foe or obtain some object of power.

Gamma World Review Pt. 3 - Alpha Mutations and Omega Tech

For my 3rd and final post for Gamma World spotlight week, I want to talk about Alpha Mutations and Omecha Tech, two very important parts to this new edition of Gamma World. If you aren’t familiar, these two mechanics come physically in the form of cards. A touchy subject now, just as it was a couple months ago, especially with the coming of D&D fortune cards, the new CCG element to D&D 4e (I swore I wouldn’t bring that up… oh well, you won’t find a rant here though).


Inside the core GW box, you get a deck with a grip of both Alpha Mutations and Omega tech, as well as a booster pack of random cards as well. Alpha Mutations are random mutations that your character goes through, which grant some really interesting/cool/weird powers to your character. Omega Tech is essentially GW’s way of taking on magic items and special equipment. Inside the player’s book, you really don’t get a lot of equipment past the very mundane and ordinary. There is no guide for buying anything either, essentially, everything that you find in GW is going to be something that you pick up in your adventures around Gamma Terra. One of the first issues with these is balance. Both of these types of cards are meant to be used for all levels of characters, so they are going to cover PC’s from levels 1 to 10. Some of them can be quite a bit more powerful than others, so that might cause balance issues at the table, but as long as you keep the cards coming in and going out, that balance issue shouldn’t last too long (you also always have the option of holding out extremely powerful cards and giving them to players only in certain special situations).


Alpha Mutations have a few interesting mechanics that go along with them which give your characters new mutations, trading out old ones. My favorite mechanic in pretty much all of GW is the idea of Alpha Flux, which essentially equates to a critical failure mechanic. When you roll a natural 1 on any d20 roll, you trade out one of your Alpha Mutations for a new one. This makes rolling a natural 1 something interesting and potentially sad, but not game breaking or a pain. I like the weapon break mechanic that is presented in 4e Dark Sun, but I like this mechanic a lot more. It keeps the game random and active and makes rolling those critical failures a potential upgrade to your character, rather than something that simply gets in their way.


Omega tech on the other hand, seems a bit more bland. I like the idea that you can overcharge certain Omega tech in order to get more than one use out of a particular piece of gear in a turn, but at the same time, I think that temptation will most of the time go unnoticed. I don’t know many people who would risk losing their Omega tech in order to use it more than once in an encounter. I could see myself using a piece of really awesome Omega tech in emergency situations in order to bring a creature down that in one turn might kill my character, but other than those situations, I wouldn’t want to lose my Hypno Ray, just because I want to stun a couple more creatures. Did I forget to mention that some of these cards are pretty broken?


One of the problems I see with these cards is the idea of stacking your deck. You don’t have to have many cards in a single deck of Alpha Mutations or Omega tech, so allowing your players to build their own tiny deck of stuff, then draw from that, will see your characters gaining the same kind of stuff over and over again, if they are so inclined to do so. The reason this is probably suggested is to encourage players to go out and buy more cards for themselves (WotC has to make money off of this after all). I understand the business decisions behind this and the new fortune cards and I don’t really have anything to say about it other than, good luck and I hope it helps you make a profit.


I say all this and I can say that WotC will probably be getting someo f my money for GW cards. One of the ways that these can also be implemented is through the use of a DM deck, which is most likely something I will want to put together for my gaming group. I like that idea a lot better. Having one giant deck of Alpha Mutations and Omega tech, then drawing from that much more randomized deck and giving these cards to your players to use, is much more appealing and balanced in my opinion. Since to run GW you really need the gear to keep it interesting and keep it going, I will probably pick up a fair number of these packs to build a complete deck with all the cards and then use that for my games; I can justify that because I won’t be spending money on stuff like Adventurer’s vault, or other magic item based books, which in terms of GW plays essentially the same role. I might even call on my players for a few dollars to buy some more to enhance the game.


The major critique that I have with these cards is that they all have the same back. If your alpha mutations should happen to get mixed in with your Omega Tech, you are going to have to shuffle through these to find out which is which. I would have loved it if they had used a green Back for one kind of card and a red back for another, since there is really no place in the game where you are going to be getting a random Alpha Mutation or Omega Tech; every situation in the game has you drawing randomly from one of these separate decks. If they had used different back sides to these cards, it would have saved me from spending money on card sleeves for these. There isn’t anything rare about any of these cards, from what I can tell, so I don’t really feel any need to protect them, but being able to keep them apart and not have to sort through them before the beginning of a game is a major pain.


However, one way you can take advantage of putting these cards into sleeves is the DIY side of Alpha Mutations and Omega Tech. Because these are cards, you could easily make your own Alpha Mutation or Omega Tech cards, and throw them into the same colored sleeves and now your DIY cards fit in perfectly with all the other cards that you might have in that deck. I will probably do something when I run GW in order to have a much fattier stack of random goodness to roll with.


One of my final little notes has to do with opening booster packs. I tried to play this game with my wife and what she enjoyed the most was opening the single booster pack that came in the box. I find that a lot of people who aren’t really into gaming at all, still really like the thrill of opening packs and seeing what is inside those packs. However, her joy was quickly stifled by the fact that none of the cards were shiny or had any art. After opening the pack, her first remark was, “I like opening the MtG packs better.” So WotC, if you want to bank on the human emotional surge when opening packs of CCG cards, you might want to put something on those cards that is pretty or fun to look at. These cards are just visually boring. There isn’t any art, there isn’t anything shiny, so if anything, the “I want to open booster packs emotion” is just going to direct people to MtG and not to GW. My wife wanted to play more Magic after I let her handle the cards for a while… then again, maybe that is what you want people to do…. Crafty WotC.

An End to Speciesism: Ability Score Bonuses in 4e

My review of Gamma World this week has put some interesting gears a turning in my head today. I have been working on a host of homebrew races lately, maybe you have read one or two of them, and one of the things that I always hate to do when homebrewing a race is figure out the racial bonuses to ability scores. Figuring out what ability scores go to a race is probably one of the easiest things to do in 4e race homebrew, but at the same time, it hurts me deeply knowing that I am pigeon-holing a race to be used with a certain type of class.

The new edition of Gamma World didn’t do that, which I find to be a major plus. Once you roll to get your origins, you get to put an 18 into your primary origin and a 16 into your secondary, then roll for the rest of the stats. Great. This method of tying what in 4e would be the racial bonus directly into your character’s origin guarantees that no matter how random your character may be, you are going to be on roughly the same playing field as everybody else when it comes to hitting in combat. What an excellent idea.

One of the things that 4e I think does badly, and actually 3e did badly as well, is hinder creativity and thematic openness in character generation by tying ability score bonuses to races rather than to classes. While in 3rd Edition, it made a lot of sense to do that when you have monsters that can be used as player character by taking a level penalty, for races in 4e, I have just not been able to find any reason to cling to this method, especially when you have all the races in the game being all the same starting level.

A lot of people talk about wanting to play a certain character race/class combination, but either don’t do it because they don’t want to be underpowered, or, they do it, and feel a bit out of balance with the rest of the properly matched party. Some of the designers from WotC have even suggested talking with your DM and asking if they would let you shift your bonuses around a bit so that you aren’t as ineffective at the table.

If this thought has ever crossed your mind, then why hasn’t this specisist behavior been put to an end. Ability Bonuses inherently promote the idea that a certain race is physically more capable at doing something than another race. THAT IS SIMPLY WRONG!! I believe that something needs to be done to end this type of prejudiced behavior. I propose a new system for ability score bonuses when creating characters.

My solution to this problem is tying ability score bonuses to your pimary class rather than your race. At level 1, when you make your character and say, “hey, I think I want to play a fighter, but I really want my race to be kenku,” take your ability scores bonuses based on the class and style of character you want to play and ignore the fact that you belong to a race whos ability score bonuses don’t match up with your class.

This method would still even support races that only get a single ability score bonus, like humans, just pick one ability score instead of two and get your feat like normal.

Can we please see a change to this style of race generation in future editions of the game? I know I am not alone on this. I know the players at my table would love this. I know the internet would love this. Please, for the sake of the hobby, help end speciesism and let us pick our stat bonuses unhindered.

Thank you.

RPG Blog Carnival - Going Old School... Help!

There is one thing this year which I would love to change, almost more than anything else, and that is the fact that I have never played an old school RPG.  The closest thing that I have come to playing with an old school game is the series on Classic Traveller Character creation that I did a few weeks ago.  But, I have never played one of the earlier editions of D&D; this fact has haunted me quite a bit since I became a blogger for one important reason: I don't understand my roots.  Take for example this motivational poster that I pulled off the web.  Sure, it is funny, and I get it, but, to some extent, I don't really understand it. 

One of the games that I was happy to have picked up in Canada over my last vacation was the classic red box from 1983.  I had the option of picking that and the blue box up for $10 or getting the new red box for $15 on Amazon.  I went with the classic stuff for a change.  I have been reading this book over the last week and have been marveling at all its classic RPG glory.  I can't but imagine what a fun time it would have been to have played this game while it was still in its youth.  I get the benefit of being a young guy right now; some of the other RPG Bloggers out there have been doing this since before I was alive, but the the downside of this is that I never got to see the hobby in its golden age, though arguably, you could say we are in a different Golden Age now, one dominated by Indie publishers and digital publishing, making it easier than ever ot get your game into the public eye.

I posted earlier this week about the game I am playing over at Hill Cantons which focuses on Domain level play, but one of the other things that it does is use the Labyrinth Lords rules set published by Goblinoid Games.  So, in a way, this Domain Level game is the first chance that I have had to play something that is based off of the OSR.  Character creation was a highly enjoyable experience.  I hope that even if this Domain game goes in an entirely different direction from classic D&D, that I will get a chance to use the Labyrinth Lord rules again, in a session or five of old school gaming goodness. That would be a lot of fun I think.

I think that in addition to this month's RPG Blog Carnival being about trying something new in the new year, it should be about all of us New School gamers giving old school a new look.  I don't think that I am the only new school gamer who would love to give the OSR a try, but I think we could all use someone to guide us.  So, to all you old school gamers out there, maybe this month you should also be, "adopt a new school gamer month."  We could all use somebody to guide us through the OSR.  So, somebody, anybody, HALP!!

Gamma World Review Pt. 2 - Running Gamma World

I must say that I haven't had a chance to run a game of Gamma World yet.  Living in Japan has its perks, but getting a gaming group together is a lot harder.  I tried to set up a session while I was in Canada, with my family on vacation, but we never got past character creation (distractions and what not due to trying to play on New Years Eve).  However, running this edition of GW should not be much harder than running a game of 4e.  The rules are very, very similar, which makes learning this system a whole lot easier.

The book that is included in the first box contains a modest chapter on how to run the game, covering content such as world exploration and adventure building.  The book also dedicates about 30 pages (about 20% of the book) to monsters which range from levels 1-10 (following the same limitation put on characters in GW).  Finally, the book dedicates another 30ish pages to an adventure called Steading of the Iron King; this adventure covers 8 encounters and is designed for level 1 players. 

I gave the adventure a read and the encounters seem to be fairly well balanced, but there aren't a whole lot of adventure hooks to go along with the adventure, so you might have to figure out how you want to implement this yourself.

I have heard a lot of talk about this edition of GW being used only for one-off games; this may very well be true.  I could probably see myself running a campaign of GW, but it definitely would not be as long lasting as a D&D game.  However, I think you could run small campaigns pretty easily.  I don't necessarily think that GW would get stale after only 2 sessions, but I don't think you are going to be doing a session a week in GW either.  Just by looking at the level cap for the game, the number of creatures in the box, and the depth of each origins powers, it is pretty obvious that things are going to get old pretty quickly.  I would recommend that if you are going to attempt to run a game of GW using this edition of the rules that you make leveling up fast and furious and you do not hesitate to try and kill your players.  In fact, character death and bringing new characters into the game might be the very thing that keeps this game new and fresh.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that character death should be an incentive to play the game, but I would say that you might want to give a players a way to change one, or both, of their character origins, or even play using three of them instead of 2.

Combo Attacks Part 2 - D&D 4e

I was delighted by the response to my first post regarding Combo Attacks in 4e; Big Ball of No Fun (http://bigballofnofun.blogspot.com/2011/01/combo-attacks.html ) did a great post outlying one of the ways that he would implement this style of attack in his game. I really like what he managed to homebrew up, but I would like to present the rules below as a different perspective based on a comment by Sully, which uses an already built in mechanic in 4e, the Action point.

The first thing that I present is a new category of Feats, the Combo Feat. Combo Feats are unique in several ways. Each Combo Feat has a specific class as a prerequisite. The benefit that they present is that whenever you use a specific at-will power against an enemy, then follow up by spending an action point,to make a follow up attack with another specific at-will attack power, you are given the option of spending ONE ADDITIONAL action point in order to use a specific encounter power given in the Feat. These Finisher encounter powers are slightly more powerful than another power of the same level, but that power is offset by the fact that you have to ultimately burn 2 Action Points in order to use one. This presents an opportunity for players to bust out their big combo on the boss monster and seriously wreck him up, but prevents the player from doing too much damage by spending 2 Action points, in addition to his or her normal standard action, in order to drop 2 dailies and an Encounter power on the boss all at the same time (potentially burning him down in a single round if all the players bust their combos on round one).

Combo Feats are also divided into three tiers, which provide increasingly better Combo attacks and let you spend increasingly more Action points to execute the maneuver. Heroic Tier works as presented above, allowing you to spend 2 Action points per round. Paragon Tier ultimately presents the ability to spend 3 Action points, and Epic Tier allows the use of 4 Action points. This feat breaks two specific mechanical rules: 1) It breaks the rule for using only 1 Action point in an encounter (or round, I can’t remember) and 2) It will also allow, from time to time, to break the rule of using the same at-will attack power in the same turn. Some Combo Feats will allow you to make the same at-will attack power twice before you make your Finishing Attack.

The final aspect of the Combo Feat is the encounter power included in the Feat itself. The Power has several things that make it important: 1) You can only use it after hitting with at least 2 Previous attacks 2) It requires an Action Point to use 3) It is slightly more powerful than an attack of equivalent level and 4) It has a special critical component. Whenever you roll a critical hit with a Finishing Move, the encounter power that you use it with gains an additional boost or bonus.

As an example one potential Combo feat could work like this:

Storming Shield Fury [Combo]
Prerequisites: Level 1, Fighter
Effect: Whenever you hit with your Tide of Iron At-will Power, you may spend an action point to make this attack again. If you hit with the second use of Tide of Iron, you may immediately spend an additional action point to make the attack below.

Send Flying
You send your opponent flying with a massive blow to the torso.
Encounter*Melee, Weapon
Standard Action
Target: 1 Opponent hit by your previous Tide of Iron Attack
Hit: 1[W]+Strength Modifier damage; push the target a number of turns equal to your strength modifier; the target is then knocked prone.
Critical: Double the damage granted by your strength modifier above and the distance pushed.

Tag Team Powers in 4e

OK. Now think back to the days when you used to watch pro wrestling. Remember the tag team matches. Now, remember what happened about 90% of the time when one wrestler left the ring and tagged in his partner... chances are, for a few seconds, they broke the rules and double teamed their opponent. Most tag teams had some kind of special move that they used as a pair when the tag took place; they had a tag team combo attack. Now... imagine for yourself if you could bring something like that into your game of 4e D&D. I have and I think It would be really, really cool.

Now, in D&D most of the time, there never is much of a tag. You are pretty much double teaming your opponent from the start. But, what if there were powers that party members could use together, rather than individually. I think it would be both mechanically cool and provide an awesome story-based element to have powers like this.

In terms of the story element. Tag team powers would give your players an element which ties the characters together. There are some feats now that provide this kind of story based tie-in between the characters now (so there is already a precedent for mechanical options which are only useful when more than one character takes that character option). These powers would go beyond just working cooperatively, i.e. one character holds the monster while the other person stabs him repeatedly; these powers would be like character trademarks. Two characters in a party have a signature move that they always do as a combo. They never do that combo apart, it is a combat maneuver that is unique to their tag team. That to me seems like a great way to link two characters together in terms of their background.

Mechanically speaking, it would not be hard to implement either. Two character take the same feat. That feat offers these two characters a single encounter power which they can use together. To use one of these powers, the member of the pair highest in the initiative order delays his attack action until his until his partners initiative pass. Then, the pair execute a single encounter power on the same initiative pass. This single uber move, is a little bit more powerful than two different encounter powers separately for the level (making up for the fact that two powers get used and one character has to delay).

I think this would be a pretty good addition to D&D 4e and I invite you to join me in writing up some of these feat granting tag team powers. I will be posting many of these in days to come.