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there is no night without day! for serious

Friday, October 28th, 2011

Billboards depicting smart, well-dressed Indians enjoying soft drinks or cigarettes, or wearing the latest fashion creations, sheltered masses of naked homeless who lay wrapped in rags beneath their cheerful slogans. Roving throngs of orphaned children ran after the buses and wagons and rickshaws, chanting for coins or food or castoff objects. The stench of all this–the cooking, rotting, festering, putrefying–hung over the city like a malodorous cloud, reeking in the hot sun. To Spence it smelled like death. “The City of Dreadful Night,” said Adjani. “Look around you, my friend. You will never forget it.”
—Dream Thief by Stephen Lawhead

Your wretched D&D slum isn’t complete without a conspicuous-consumption foil to set it off. It might be a foppish noble and his retinue, scented handkerchiefs held to their nose, as they pick their way over the starving beggars; immense gates festooned with bronze cornucopias and grain sheafs; or cheerful torchlight and the sounds of music and laughter from the palace over the river as the poor townspeople die of plague or frostbite.

Also “The City of Dreadful Night” is not a bad name for your horrific D&D city. It’s the title of a pretty depressing poem about London as well as a pretty depressing Kipling story about an Indian city.

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search for traps as an encounter power

Monday, October 24th, 2011

If PCs treat an old-school dungeon with any rational amount of caution, they will search every ten feet of floor for traps, listen at every door, and search every wall for secret doors. In other words, they’ll spam their at-will search abilities.

It’s a problem that Gary Gygax railed against in 1e:

Continual listening becomes a great bother to the
DM. While ear seekers will tend to discourage some, most players will
insist on having their characters listen at doors at every pretense.

4e has a general solution for spammed actions: make them encounter powers.

You could just make searching a regular encounter power, so it can only be done every five minutes, but I think it would be more interesting to make searches into a daily resource to be managed, like Fate points from Spirit of the Century-type games. During the day, you can search carefully for traps. Every time you search, and find nothing, you expend one of your searches. If you search and find something, you don’t expend a search. Furthermore, every time you blunder into a trap, you gain a use of your search power.

It makes sense narratively. If you’ve searched 100 consecutive doors for traps and found nothing, no matter how hard you try, you’re going to relax your vigilance. On the other hand, if you’ve been finding tons of traps, or if you see something about this door that makes you suspicious, you’re going to be far more alert.

We’ll leave all the search rules the way they are: we’ll just add to them. At the beginning of every day, every character gets a number of Search tokens equal to their Perception bonus. Rogues get, say, three extra tokens.

Whenever a PC wants, they can risk a Search token to get a +5 bonus to a Perception check. If the check doesn’t turn up anything interesting, they lose the token. If they find a trap, treasure, a secret door, or anything else hidden, they get to keep their token. Every time a PC falls victim to a trap, they get a Search token BACK. This represents their suddenly-increased attention level.

This system would reward players for searching judiciously, based on clues and intuition, not as part of a mindless sweep.

To compensate the PCs for their extra search power, every Perception DC in the game is 5 points harder.

I think this would encourage people to play the way that Gary wanted them to play: to search for traps and listen for monsters judiciously, when they have a reason to be suspicious – and to blunder blindly into the occasional ambush for the DM’s amusement.

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fire has a lineage

Friday, October 21st, 2011

The symbolic passing of the old god would be enacted, and every fire would be extinguished except for a single firepot guarded by the queen and her family at the temple. (Stalking Darkness, Lynn Flewelling)

This isn’t really explored in the novel, but if every fire is relit from the Queen’s fire, in some sort of cascading olympic torch relay, everyone ends up with a royal fire: a descendant of the fire lit by the Queen herself.

There might be some magic power in it too. Perhaps fires lit by certain kings and priests – and all their children fires – have magical powers. Fire has a lineage. In that case, an ordinary torch might become a magic treasure.

The Lineage of Fire actually strikes me as a decent idea for an entire campaign. There are many families of fire in the world, passed from generation to generation through candles and torches. The different fires may have different powers (the blue necrotic fire of the deeps, the golden radiant fire lit aeons ago by the Sun God, etc). The different lineages of fire war for dominance. The PCs may work for a fire instead of a noble house; and PCs’ torches might be among their most valuable weapons.

All of the fires of the world are united against some evils. This world is a circle of firelight, and hungry things prowl, outside, in the Dark, waiting for the flames to fail.

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My simple XP rules: 1 XP per encounter

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

I know I’ll never fully embrace OD&D because I hate using charts. I prefer simple, easily internalized rules, like 3e’s Base Attack Bonus, rather than 1e’s Attack Matrix charts. 4e’s XP system still has a big ol’ level-advancement chart at the center of it, along with XP entries for every creature in the Monster Manual (which I often don’t use).

The 4e XP system has been formalized and math-checked, which means one of D&D’s central problems is more obvious than it has ever been: it suffers from “inflating-numbers-that-don’t-do-a-goddamn-thing-itis.” At level 1, you fight 10 battles in order to collect 1,000 XP. At level 10, you fight 10 battles to collect 20,500 XP. The specific amount of XP per battle changes, but the number of battles doesn’t.

There’s a historical reason for that. In old D&D, your XP was tied to your income. Since high-level characters won richer and richer treasures, XP totals per level had to rise. Now that characters don’t get 1 XP per GP earned, however, there’s no reason that XP needs to stick to that inflationary model.

Besides, calculating XP is kind of a pain: it involves flipping around in various books to add XP from monsters and traps, and dividing by the number of PCs.

I can’t be bothered to calculate XP, but I’m not ready to totally dump the idea of leveling up. Having the DM bestow levels arbitrarily takes away some of the treadmill charm of D&D. So here’s the super-simple XP system I use nowadays.

Every level costs 10 XP.

Most battles provide 1 XP. Boss battles provide 2 XP.

Same with quests and skill challenges: 1 XP, or 2 XP for major quests/challenges.

There are some minor variations here from the standard XP system:

  • XP differences between hard and easy battles are not so granular. Personally, I think this is fine, especially since the difficulty of a battle often has as much to do with circumstances and terrain as with the XP budget.
  • Quest XP is vastly higher in my system. In standard 4e, a minor quest gives about 1/5 the XP of one encounter, and a major quest as much XP as one encounter. This is probably a tiny fraction of the XP gathered from battles along the course of the quest. Video game RPGs, on the other hand, often give huge quest XP bonuses. This is great, because it’s weird when saving the world grants much less of a reward than fighting a random encounter.
  • It’s impossible to forget. You can give XP on the fly without consulting any charts. In fact, the players can track the 1 XP for each battle: all you have to do is grant the extra XP for quests and boss battles.

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    Posted in 4e D&D, advice/tools, game design, RPG Hub | 11 Comments »

    that 5% or 10% XP bonus is pretty irrelevant

    Monday, October 17th, 2011

    Old editions give you a 5% or 10% XP bonus for having a high Primary Attribute. You can argue that it’s realistic – naturally talented people progress faster. You can also argue that it’s overkill – most editions already give you gameplay bonuses for having high primary abilities. In fact, though, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

    In the versions of the game with XP bonuses, the XP per level generally doubled or almost doubled, at least until high levels (8 or 9). That meant that the 10% bonus was irrelevant most of the time. 9 out of 10 game sessions, the guy with the 10% bonus was the same level as the clod with 10 in his primary attribute.

    Is it worth the math busywork of multiplying every single XP bonus by 1.05% or 1.1% in order to level up a session early every 3 months? Maybe. Levelling is pretty awesome.

    In my houserules XP system (every level requires 10 XP, every encounter provides 1 XP) the effects of the 10% XP bonus can be duplicated very easily: characters with 16+ in their primary attribute (or whatever) start the game with 1 XP. Everyone else starts with 0 XP. That 1 bonus XP at character creation will have exactly the same effects as the 10% Primary Attribute bonus – the character is always 10% of a level ahead. Except no multiplication.

    Posted in 4e D&D, game design, legacy D&D, RPG Hub | 5 Comments »

    don’t make me refuse the ice cream

    Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

    When you’re asking me what I want for dinner, don’t offer me a choice between, say, carrots and ice cream. And when I’m choosing a feat, don’t make me choose between, say, improved Diplomacy and +1 to hit in combat. Combat is ice cream, and I’ll choose ice cream every time. And I’ll make myself sick.

    Separate the combat and noncombat abilities into two different courses. Give me a main course, where my dwarf fighter can choose between, say, the ability to detect new construction or slanted passages. Then for dessert I can choose between +1 to hit or +2 to damage with my trusty axe.

    I know a lot of people will say that overindulging on combat abilities is a player problem, not a rules problem. Sure, if you’re disciplined, and you have a strong character concept, you might turn down the cool sword in order to pour money into your barony. And there are always a few people who genuinely prefer the carrots of character flavor to the sundae of combat optimization. But a lot of people are like me: given the choice, we’ll choose the ice cream and then feel disappointed that dinner didn’t feel nourishing at all. The perfect system would save me from my gluttony and force me to eat a balanced diet.

    Given “Don’t Make Me Refuse the Ice Cream” as a design principle, here are some requests for 5th edition D&D.

    You shouldn’t be able to buy combat-boosting magic items. Rory’s excellent magic items article makes a lot of good points, this among them. If it’s possible to buy a sword with a bigger plus, then that’s the ice cream, sitting there ruining the rest of the menu. Versatility items, like wolfsbane, rituals, and flying carpets, and fun story items, like castles and battleships, shouldn’t have to compete with +5 swords.
    (more…)

    Posted in 4e D&D, advice/tools, game design, RPG Hub | 10 Comments »

    More Thoughts on Magic Items!

    Monday, October 10th, 2011

    No more +1 Swords?

    Monte Cook recently talked in a Legends and Lore article about magic items.

    I touched on the idea of going without magic items in a previous article, but I thought it would be worthwhile to consider Monte’s points in more detail.

    What would D&D be like if magic items were a reward for clever or lucky play rather than a necessary part of advancement?:

    Magic items are more special: If magic items aren’t a necessary part of advancement, one of the big benefits is that it can feel more special when you get one. Basically, you didn’t HAVE to get the item, so finding it feels like a real accomplishment either because you took an extra risk or lucked out in a lucky roll on a table. What does this mean for actual game-play?:

    • Fewer Items: It would be difficult for PCs to get the same number of magic items over the course of a campaign and have them still feel like special unique rewards. As it is, by paragon tier most PCs have their 3 major items covered and most other slots filled as well. The “Christmas Tree Effect”, where players feel like there is a list of must-haves items,  is still around even if some of the items aren’t quite as essential any more (an item bonus to damage and bonuses to defenses still feel pretty important to me). With those “requirements” removed from game-play, one could imagine a system where each PC has only 1 or 2 signature magic items that distinguish them from other characters.
    • Different Items for each PC: In keeping with the theme of making magic items feel special, you probably don’t want to end up with a situation where each PC still has copies of the same item (two flaming swords, for example). This is probably not difficult to accomplish, as rolling on a chart or introducing different magic items into the campaign world will easily allow for a lot of item diversity. However, you would probably want to emphasize making the magic items unique but similar in power, as there will be no mechanism for PCs to self-balance by picking up the same magic items if one is noticeably more powerful than the others. Otherwise, you risk a bunch of players who resent the one who managed to pick up the awesome item that no one else can get.
    • Less Treasure (or alternate ways to spend it): As it is, players are given enough treasure to buy about one magic item a level, which has such an inflated cost that pretty early on an adventurer could probably retire and live like a king for the rest of their life for the mere price of one magic items. If that is no longer the assumption, then players probably are going to be finding less treasure in general, since there is a lot less to spend it on. They could always rob a bank or do something else to get them tons of cash, obviously, since that is one of the perks of removing the monetary system from character advancement. However, if they do get those windfalls or the system is still generally designed to shower them in treasure, then there had better be new stuff to spend it on. Rules for buying castles, hiring troops, and maintaining estates are obvious choices, though you could also imagine cool rules for bribery, maintaining a certain quality of life, etc. Basically, something needs to fill the gap for spending treasure or PCs need to be finding a lot less of it.

    Magic Items aren’t necessary for game balance: If magic items aren’t tied in with a character’s advancement, then their acquisition must not be required to keep the game balanced, right? In other words, if I never acquire a magic item during my adventuring career, then I am probably still able to take on level appropriate challenges. (more…)

    Posted in 4e D&D, game design, RPG Hub | 10 Comments »

    how my players rewrote my pantheon without me doing anything

    Friday, October 7th, 2011

    A few weeks ago, I ran a one-shot picaresque game. One of the players decided that her character, a gullible paladin, worshiped “St. Jimmy”, whose tenets were that the world is full of water and every well contains mermaids. She had been tricked into worshiping this nonexistent god by a con man who sold her a snow globe as a holy relic.

    This weekend, at the Arneson Game Day event, I ran another one-shot. I recycled a bunch of pre-used level-1 character sheets, including the paladin with “St. Jimmy” written down as the deity.

    During the course of the game, the players went through a magical gate into a land that time forgot, stocked with cave men and wooly mammoths. A new player, playing the recycled St. Jimmy-worshiping paladin, took the lead in negotiations. Hijinx ensued (as they so often do), involving:

    • an illusory three-headed red dragon, which one of the PCs could puppeteer with a magical red glove
    • a NPC dwarf (“Stout Stoutheart”) riding a cow (“Muscles”)
    • a fermented milk drink brewed by the party cleric/milkmaid

    Between the alcohol, the red dragon and the revelations about animal husbandry, the party successfully proselytized the cave men. They were soon gleefully grunting a pre-verbal approximation of “St. Jimmy” while carrying the PCs around on their shoulders.

    When the cavemen indicated that they wanted to commemorate their new god in cave art, and asked what St. Jimmy looked like, the paladin pointed at Muscles the cow.

    When the PCs were preparing to return home, they speculated about whether the portal had taken them to a forgotten caveman island or whether they had gone back in time, and, Ray Bradbury-like, totally changed the future.

    I had been thinking the portal led to an isolated caveman area, but the time travel option seemed more interesting. When the party returned home, I told them, “You are disappointed to discover that nothing has changed. St. Jimmy is still the dominant deity of the pantheon, worshiped in the form of the Sacred Cow. St. Jimmy’s chief angel is still a three-headed red dragon. And kumiss is still the sacred drink.”

    And that’s how two different groups of players, over the course of two one-shots, created a religion, took it back in time, and gave my campaign world a strange new chief god, without me lifting a finger.

    Here’s a question for linguists: What will the name “St. Jimmy” sound like after it’s been passed down for tens of thousands of years? Apply Grimm’s and other applicable laws.

    Posted in 4e D&D, fluff/inspiration, play, RPG Hub | 8 Comments »

    real-world taboos and their d&d effects

    Monday, October 3rd, 2011

    If, in D&D, superstition is always right, then cultural taboos are to be doubly respected. Many of the magical ills in the D&D universe arose because someone violated a taboo.

    When someone violates a taboo, have them make a saving throw. If they fail, they may contract the curse appropriate to their crime.

    cannibalism: If you eat of your own kind, you’re likely to contract a disease that causes your hair to fall out, your flesh to whiten, and your teeth to hunger for more human flesh. In the disease’s final stage, you become a ghoul, and you will spread your disease to those you kill. Let that be a lesson to you: if you’re stuck in a cave-in, the human should eat the elf corpse and vice versa.

    murder of kin: The curse attendant on brother murdering brother is attested in one of the oldest sword and sorcery tales of all: the story of Kane, by Karl Edward Wagner. Just kidding. But seriously, kin killing should put you magically outside the pale of society. I’d say that someone who contracts the Kin-Killer’s Mark can’t recover healing surges by sleeping in a settlement, and takes damage, instead of healing, from clerical healing from allies. I wouldn’t be surprised if kin-killing were a necessary part of becoming a death knight, as well.

    murder of guests: When you share food with someone, you enter a guest-host relationship in which violence is forbidden. Those who violate this rule are doomed to lose food’s sustaining powers: from now on, they can only sate their hunger with violence and betrayal – in other words, human blood. They become vampires. Consider also vampires’ inability to enter a house without permission: the vampire is constantly forced to enter an explicit guest relationship, and then betray it in a bloody feast, re-enacting the vampires’ initial betrayal of the guest meal.

    bestiality: D&D is a world where every monster is half this and half that (or a third!) and it can’t all be the work of mad wizards. Obviously, in D&D, any mating can produce offspring: furthermore, I think that not only will the children be beast-men, but the guilty parents may take on bestial natures as well. This is especially common near the feywild, where every animal species’s nobility can take human form. However, not every satyr goat-herd has the excuse of living near the feywild.

    incest: This taboo is most commonly violated by royalty, so much so that its visible effects are often called the King’s Curse. It not only enters the bloodline but affect the parents. The King’s Curse manifests as madness and cruelty. It also often causes extreme physical delicacy (a penalty to fortitude defense).

    Posted in 4e D&D, fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 10 Comments »

    the ghost pirates

    Friday, September 30th, 2011

    William Hodgson is kind of an amazing early horror writer, and his 1909 “The Ghost Pirates” makes sea travel scary for the same reason that a haunted house or a dungeon is scary: a ship is an isolated environment. It can be even lonelier than a dungeon, because a ship is frequently months away from the nearest port, instead of just outside of town.

    In “The Ghost Pirates”, the isolation is heightened because the ship seems to be drifting into a twilight zone where they can’t count on contacting the natural world:

    It was thus that I came to see something altogether unthought of–a full-rigged ship, close-hauled on the port tack, a few hundred yards on our starboard quarter. … Away aft, hanging from the gaff-end, was a string of flags. Evidently, she was signalling to us. All this, I saw in a flash, and I just stood and stared, astonished. I was astonished because I had not seen her earlier. In that light breeze, I knew that she must have been in sight for at least a couple of hours. … How had she come there without my seeing her, before? All at once, as I stood, staring, I heard the wheel behind me, spin rapidly. Instinctively, I jumped to get hold of the spokes; for I did not want the steering gear jammed. Then I turned again to have another look at the other ship; but, to my utter bewilderment, there was no sign of her–nothing but the calm ocean, spreading away to the distant horizon.

    The ship is drifting into another plane – possibly the shadowfell. In the shadowfell, there are ghosts. And in a book called “The Ghost Pirates”, those ghosts are possibly pirates.

    “My idea is, that this ship is open to be boarded by those things,” I explained. “What they are, of course I don’t know. They look like men–in lots of ways. But–well, the Lord knows what’s in the sea.”

    And that’s the advantage of the sea as an adventure location: your ship might be skimming above empty sea beds, sea monsters, or a nest of Chthulhus. The Lord knows what’s in the sea.

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